skateshattrick

The NHL has got to start calling checking from behind. It is seldom called, and when it is called, it is a 2 minute boarding penalty. I see at least 2 every game. In fact, Commodore had a pretty bad one on Maltby in the Flames-Red Wings series. I would like to see the NHL adopt the college rule and make it a major with a game DQ.

You are comparing apples and oranges. The Yankees have a payroll of 180 million, and has typically double of the next closest team (at least until this year with the Red Sox starting to close the gap) and 5 times as much as some teams. There is nothing comparable to the Yankees who typically buy all of their pitchers (Mussina, Clemens, Wells, Kevin Brown, etc.) and many position players (Giambi, etc.) The Red Wings have typically not even been the highest payroll team. The Rangers typically are. Plus, the gap between the salaries in the NHL are not nearly as disproportionate as they are in baseball. The Red Wings core of players came out of their system or through trades, including Yzerman, Federov (now gone--purchased by the Ducks), Holmstrom, Lidstrom, Maltby (via trade), Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Draper, Fischer, Dandenault, etc. They traded for Chelios and Lang, and have a few free agents (Cujo, Hatcher, Hull, Shanahan). Virtually every team makes deals before the playoffs, and the Red Wings make no more deals than Colorado, Toronto, Philadelphia and others. Plus, players want to play for the Red Wings because of the tradition and fan support, so typically will take less to play for the Wings. If anything, they are more like the LA Lakers. Quite frankly, the Red Wings, along with the Devils and the Avalanche, are model franchises and the class of the NHL, irrespective of payroll. Finally, whether you agree or disagree with someone on this board, please have some manners. Calling someone a moron is not appropriate, particularly when that person was not flaming or trolling.

Matt Moreland is talented, but he needs a year or two of junior hockey before you can make the determination whether he is good enough to play for the Sioux. Several people on this board last year about this time wanted the Sioux to go after Kasey Moreland, who just completed a perfect EDC and State tournament in which he gave up no goals. The verdict is still out on Kasey. He was 6-15-1 with a 3.54 GAA and .904 save % on a bad Sioux Falls team. Kasey may still turn out to be good enough, but have enough faith in Blais to make the correct decisions. It is great to have local kids, but not at all costs. Tyler Palmiscino is a good example of a kid who would have been better off going elsewhere.

The only "local" kid that the Sioux arguably missed was Grant Potulny. That set in motion a chain reaction in which his younger brother Ryan followed Grant to Minnesota. Danny Irmen, a friend of Ryan Potulny, followed him to Minnesota. I know Danny's dad Don, and he was upset that the Sioux did not recruit Danny. However, Danny was also a Gopher fan and said that he was going to go where his friend Ryan went. The bottom line is that you are not going to get all of the recruits from your own state. If that was the case, we would have never gotten Zach Parise and Brandon Bochenski, who were both recruited by the Gophers and are from the Twin Cities. If you consider that the Sioux have 6 kids from ND, they have done pretty well. Additionally, would you honestly rather have Brady Murray and Drew Stafford or Ryan Potulny and Danny Irmen? No offense to Ryan and Danny, who are great players, but I like Murray and Stafford better.

You are right. Another public school.

Pierre Lamoreaux is Canadian. The reason the kids ended up at Central is that Tarek Howard told Phillipe that he would be able to play right away at Central and he would have been a backup to Ziegelmann at Red River. However, you do make a good point. Some kids know that if they want to get noticed, they should go to the place where they will play and get noticed. Others may not like the coach and feel like they may get get a chance to play at one school. Others have fear of getting cut at the school in their district because of numbers. I do not begrudge those kids, but isn't it interesting that this thread started as a rip to the private parochial schools, particularly Shanley, and now it has been shown that it is primarily the public schools where these incidents have occurred? Red River had Spooner from Williston, Krebsbach from Minot and Irmen from Fargo. Central has south end kids, including the Lamoureauxs, McIntyre (at least since the flood when he was in 7th grade) and Marto, and others. West Fargo has south Fargo kids that have played, including the Kellys and Tanner Anderson before his parents moved to West Fargo. Shanley has a very difficult time competing with the big boys because of numbers and because it is expensive to attend a parochial school. I find it interesting and ironic that when they take the kids that nobody else wanted or were cut, they immediately get accused of "recruiting." For those who do make those accusations, perhaps you should look in the mirror.

Yes, I really do know, and no my posts are not speculation. I think that we have spent enough time on this topic, so if you would like to send me a private email, I would be happy to explain how I know and the actual situation as explained above.

It sounds like you are talking about Krebsbach. I agree, but what other options did he have if he wanted to play high school hockey? The next closest towns are Williston and Devils Lake, not exactly perennial hockey powerhouses. If he was good enough to play in Grand Forks, why not?

Sean Deichert was in the Catholic school network. He actually transferred over to South because his father Tony wanted to coach him (he's the goalie coach at South) and because Shanley holds later practices. Some would say that Dean Wilson actually recruited Sean, who was in the Catholic school network his whole life. Marc Harrie was not recruited, he has been a Burggraf kid since he was a squirt, and is not going back to South. Trevor Anderson came to Shanley on his own because he has been in Burggraf since he was very young. He did return to West Fargo for a variety of reasons that have little to do with Shanley and more to do with missing his friends and girlfriend and academic issues. Elliot Hitt came because they did not have high school hockey in Sioux Falls. Would you care to go on?

When you get out of diapers in a few years, please feel free to post. Until then, please spare us your immature and uninformed comments. This is from the same person who said Pete Fylling "blows", a really mature thing to say about a really good kid who was also good enough to score a goal at the Chicago Showcase.

What an absolute bunch of garbage. Who are you referring to at Shanley that they "recruited?" Pete Fylling came to Fargo because he was not going to get a chance to play at Minot. Since there were very few other options, what would you have him do? Get cut? Kyle Graalum has been in the Fargo Catholic network since he was a boy. However, Shanley did not have a hockey program, so it co-opted with West Fargo. The ONLY reason he was at West Fargo was because of the co-op. He lives in South Fargo. He was not going to South because: 1. he was in the Catholic network and 2. his family had an issue with Dean Wilson because Dean cut his cousin as a senior (who by the way was good enough to play for the Ice Sharks). The South Dakota kids (Hitt and Engdahl) came because SD does not have high school hockey. Butch Blahovsky has always been in the Catholic school network and was only at West Fargo because of the co-op. I challenge you to name one kid that left from South, North, West Fargo, etc. that would have been given a fair chance to play at their schools. I know you cannot, so perhaps you should stick to the facts before you spout off about things that you do not know. Besides, would you prefer that all of the kids stay in the public school districts and risk the chance of getting cut? For whose benefit is that? South, for example, has over 600 kids per class. What does Cory Loos have anything to do with your argument? He actually moved to Moorhead, which is a PUBLIC school. Even if he did move to play hockey, how can you blame him? He went from a team that did not have much of a chance of winning a state title in ND, to a program that had a legitimate chance to win the Minnesota state title, which is a much bigger deal if you want to get noticed and play at the next level. To show how inconsistent and weak your argument is, you actually congratulate Central. Grand Forks has open enrollment, and without South end kids going to play for them (e.g. Lamoureaux's), Red River would probably still be winning state titles and Central would not be as good. It is called numbers. However, I'm sure that fact escaped you since you seem to rely strictly upon emotion without knowing the facts. Minnesota also has open enrollment, and Centennial is made up of kids from a number of towns. Get your facts straight before you rant.

That is a ridiculous position to take. If schools like UND had that attitude, they would not come to UND. If the NCAA took that position, you would not see players of Parise's caliber playing college hockey, but rather, would play Major Juniors or go directly to the pros. Players leaving early is a fact of life--get over it. The fact that UND gets the players who leave early is a testament to its program--kids will go where they have the best chance to make it to the next level.

According to the website, they tied Indiana 6-6. That may not bode well against Minnesota, which beat Indiana 9-0.

I believe that there are at least 6 Fargo kids on that team, including 3 from South (Mauch, Brehmer and Kankelfritz) and 3 from Shanley (Hitt, Graalum and Fylling) with an alternate goalie from Shanley (Engdahl).

Good point! Plus they lose Caldwell, who was by far their best player. However, they still have good defense with Carle, Skinner and Laatsch, and they play the clutch and hold style as well as anyone, except maybe Wisconsin and AAU.

You should be proud. The Dogs should be very good again next year. I was cheering for them against Denver, but it wasn't meant to be. The WCHA is going to be very tough again next year, especially if Minnesota and UND return most of the underclassmen. CC and Wisconsin should also be very good, and you can't count out Denver after this year.

What are you talking about?? Are you even lucid? I don't remember anyone bringing up Minnesota's title in 2002. Go away troll.

I agree that Grant Potulny is not a "traitor." He was not recruited and went where he was wanted. Furthermore, we cannot get all of the ND kids if we are going to have a top flight program. Some will go elsewhere, much like Minnesota kids that attend UND, Wisconsin, and the Colorado schools. I do, however, take issue with your moronic statement that "half of your team has always been from Minnesota and the other half from Canada." If you look at UND's roster (you can find all of the rosters on USCHO), 21 of the 26 kids are from the US, with 6 from ND, 11 from Minnesota, 1 from Colorado, 1 from Michigan, 1 from Alaska and 1 from Illinois. Minnesota has 3 from ND, 1 from Canada, 1 from Colorado, and 1 from Austria, so the makeup is not all that different. Personally, I like the fact that the Sioux have diversity, including Canadian kids. However, your tone makes it sound like the same garbage that Sid has thrown out for years. It is akin to the argument that Sioux players are older (remember DeBus and Woog, the 25 and 26 year old Gophers?) Know your facts before you spout off, particularly on a Sioux message board.

I don't get your prejudice against suburban Minneapolis kids. Parise came from Bloomington Jefferson and went to Shattuck, which costs about $25-30,000 per year. Stafford, Smaby and Murray are also Shattuck kids. Bochenski is from Blaine, Peter Armbrust was from Edina, and Karl Goehring and Brad DeFauw were from Apple Valley, to name only a few. If private schools are your prejudice, SSM is a private school and very expensive. I've said it before--I love the fact that the Sioux recruit from all over, including ND, Minnesota, Western Canada, Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, and yes, even suburban Minneapolis.

I hope that you are right. We need something to lift our spirits after the tough loss to Denver. I assume that you will be satisfied as long as the Dogs win the championship? I sincerely hope that UMD wins it all! Go Dogs!

Please take off your maroon and gold colored glasses for a second. Ballard is not, and has never been, better offensively than Roche. Roche scored 49 points his sophomore year with a team that asks its defenseman to not pinch. Ballard had 36 points his sophomore year. Even this year, Ballard had 41, which is less. Ballard also is not nearly as good defensively. I asked Dave Hakstol last year whether the Sioux were going to get an offensive defenseman like Roche, Leopold or Ballard, and he almost bit my head off, stating "Ballard is not in the same class as Leopold and Roche." Finally, people do not see Ballard as physical because he is not. You cannot equate stick work and cheap play with physical play.

Great post!

That is not even close to a fair analogy. Gino's teams fell off dramatically after his last national championship in 1987. His last 3 years, the Sioux had a losing record and were near the bottom of the league. I had season tickets, and the place was so empty that you could throw a rock in any direction without a great chance of hitting anyone. The Sioux program was going downhill. By contrast, Dean Blais just won the WCHA, were No. 1 most of the year, and still will be a favorite to win the league and compete for a national championship next year. Plus, the building is full to capacity nearly every weekend. What am I missing?