The Whistler

Spot on.

I didn't take notes but I'll report on what I recall. There was some discussion on Officiating. Woogie talked that Greg Sheppard has done great work and that things are a lot better than they used to be. He talked about coming up here in 1962 on the train, and how the winters were pretty harsh back then. The train had a snowplow and everything. They'd come here and the person to pick them up would be Frenchy LaCrosse. He said here you are a visiting team and your referee for the game is a local bar owner so things have improved. He also talked about how the choice is do you call it tight or do you call it loose. If you let the boys play then it'll catch up to you when you reach the national tournament. He made this same point on Saturday night during one of the period breaks. (My response is that I think they should call it loosely and get more scoring. But you should call it the same, game to game, official to official, period to period, team to team. That's my complaint.) He said that scoring is at an all time low. He said that the game was set up for the goaltenders as the NHL raided the forwards with the exception of Matt Carle. A caller called in and asked if Ryan Duncan would be considered for the Hobey. Woog said that you have to consider him. McNamarra took Woog to task for taking credit for calling our top line the "DOT" line. Woogie handled that well. Maybe he came up with it independently. Woog said something about how this year most teams have one good line so maybe the DOT line might be enough. That's what I can remember right now.

I think it's somewhat more subtle than that.

He's trying to claim that FSN does a great job with camera angles and replays, what a crock of crap. Also he's claiming the officiating is great.

FYI

The only 24 I can think of is Dane Jackson. He was a good player but wasn't 'special.' I'd liken his game to the current 24, Chris Porter. I nominate Garry Valk for #18. I'm blanking on a 10, wasn't Gord Shervan a 10? He was very good. Otherwise you could go with Perry Naka...Nako....You know that Perry guy that played on the Hrkac's Circus. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe Shervan was an 11 and he wouldn't make it with Taylor (my choice) or Parise.

As did Izzy Marvin, that's a tough call.

I think that's more like sniffing glue.

The Gopher probably was asking Toews if he wanted to watch brokeback mountain with him after the game.

Howard Walker was #3 so I think you're right.

Yeah, they've got us behind Niagra. I sure would hate to meet them in the playoffs, after all the 'experts' have them ranked higher than us. We're tied for 9th in the power ranking right now and that's not bad at all considering how the seasons gone. We need to keep improving every week and we'll be just fine!

Archie was 15. You have to give 11 to Mark Taylor, not Parise or Mel Parks. #6 would be Chorney, no MARK Chorney. Wasn't Craig Ludwig a 2 or 3?

Too funny.

Was that the occasion where the gopher player lowered his shoulder and drilled Lammy (in the chest) into the back of the net?

Well I didn't want to make this about how a referee called games for or against my team because that would more like decline into a bitch session. I found a startling statistic about Campion's officiating the last two years that I think is worth bringing up. Still to answer your question... I've been through every box score for the Sioux for last year. Shep called most of our games pretty even (measured by power play chances). Now I'm not going to stick up for him as a referee, but statistically I don't see anything there.

Okposo is a great player. He should be playing in the NHL as soon as possible.

OK, it's a plan. When we faced St Cloud in GF we were the better team. They've obviously improved since then, but since Xmas so have we. We won the Friday night game and tied the Saturday night game although some of us thought Chris Porter could have had a penalty shot with 1 second left.

If that's the right year then I was also there for Saturday night, but not Friday. There was some alcohol involved which may explain any lapses of memory. Something like 50 saves for Casey jumps out of somewhere for the Friday night game.

Well our games at home are all winnable. Still we finish up the year going on the road to Denver and then St Cloud. A split against either of those teams would be a good weekend.

I fully admit that I see what should and should not be called through my green glasses. That's why I'm trying to focus on Campion's record for ALL games (not just with the Sioux) and going by the numbers rather than talking about what should or should not be a goal. I think that makes my case much more effectively than bitching about a certain call or two. But if I were to discuss certain calls I don't see the difference between Kaips penalty for hitting the goaltender vs what happened Saturday night. I also really have to question WHY Campion called that trip against VV when he never was close to the guy with his stick. (The puck tripped the Gopher). My question would be what does Campion claim to have seen?

Thank you so much. My memory must be faulty.

12 power plays for Minnesota to 5 for the Sioux. They scored on 25% of their Power plays while we scored on 40% of our chances. That means for the weekend the advantage was 23-10 for the Gophs.

My original post was greeted with a bit more skepticism than I expected. Because of that I decided to research Campion's record of officiating the Gophers from last season. To do this I went through every box score for the Minnesota season last year. I counted up the power plays for and against the Gophers. I kept these figures in two categories, one with Campion officiating and one with everyone else. Campion officiated six games that the Gophers played in, Duluth, Denver and the Sioux. In the games Campion called he gave Minnesota forty-four power plays to their opponents 26. In every game Minnesota had an advantage. Minnesota had 70% more power plays then they had penalty kills. That's very similar to the number I found for the Gopher season through Friday and last nights game was only going to grow this discrepancy. During the rest of the season Minnesota had 206 Power plays and 189 Penalty Kills. However in their game against Union they had an advantage of 11-2. Counting that game in they had 9% more power plays. If I throw that one game out of the mix Minnesota only had 4.2% more Power Plays than their opponent which is right in line with the Gophers current season. Another interesting factor is that Minnesota played all three of these teams (Denver, Duluth and the Sioux) twice; and in two of those series' other games the Gophers had a disadvantage in the penalty category. Yes Derek Sheppard gave us the advantage in penalties but IMO he cost us the Friday game because of being out of position in a goal disallowed by TJ and allowed goalie interference by the Gophers. (Am I digressing here?) So does two years make a trend?

On Saturdays Hockey game Mazzocco's trivia question was about which WCHA teams have never shut out the Gophers on their home ice. Two of the teams were pretty obvious, Alaska and Mankato. They also included the Sioux. I thought that Jon Casey had won a 1-0 game down there in I think the 1983-1984 season. Of course I'm going by memory and that's over 20 years ago. Can anyone help me out?

Nobody thinks that was a cross checking, not even Campion.