PCM

My mom doesn't either. She always tells me that the Sioux and their opponents play dirty. So when she complains about the officiating, you know it's legit.

Especially when Gopher fans and Sioux fans appear to be in agreement on this issue.

Especially when they happen to be your mother. Edit: The grandma in question is my mother, not airmail's.

It was nice to see YaneA at the signing event. The doors to Engelstad Arena were going to be locked at 3 p.m. when the event was scheduled to end, but Zach, Brady and Drew asked that they be left open so nobody was turned away. They signed autographs and posed for pictures until the very last person left, which was after 4 p.m. It was great to see so many people turn out for the event. I should have bought stock in the company that makes Sharpie pens.

Here's what a 75-year-old grandma who watched the game on TV in Pierre, SD, thought about the officiating:

I will say that there have been times this season where I thought Sioux fans were too harsh on the officials and criticised them when they didn't really deserve it. I generally try to stay out of those discussions because I know officiating a hockey game is a tough job. But Saturday's game against UAA was clearly horrid. Zach Parise is sporting stitches on his lower jaw from a very blatant, very obvious high-sticking penalty that was never called. It should have been a 5-minute major. There's absolutely no excuse for penalties of that severity to go uncalled. At one point in the game, UAA had six men on the ice. Everyone on the Sioux bench could see it. Everyone in the building could see it. Everyone in the building was yelling about it. The penalty was easy to see. Three forwards in a row and three D-men in a row. 3 + 3 = 6. No call. Why? I lost track of the number of times Sioux players were hooked down or dragged down as they made strong moves toward the net while carrying the puck. It happened several times right in front of Mason. You knew that he saw it and chose not to call it. Why? Now it's entirely possible that as inefficient as UND's power play was Saturday, the Sioux might not have scored on the man advantage. However, just sending the message that certain types of play wouldn't be tolerated would have led to better opportunities at even strength, which has been UND's bread-and-butter all season long. Saturday night's game was far from the WCHA's finest moment.

I don't know what to do. I'm so ashamed.

Stop the presses! I have a major scoop!

Here's the USCHO recap from Saturday's game. Blais was not happy about the officiating.

Me too.

That's just the way it goes. (I'm trying to catch up to CRR.)

If anybody's interested, here's a link to the USCHO recap of the Friday night UND-UAA game.

I wish I could say yes, but I had nothing to do with it. It was cool to see the guys out on the ice with their medals. Too bad there weren't more fans at the game to appreciate it. Murray said after the game that the gold medal line ran out of gas in the third period, which isn't surprising. He said they'd be fresh tonight. On paper, the Money Line is the first line and the Gold Medal Line is the second line. Darn the bad luck of having two lines that could be the first line on any team in the nation.

I like gratuitous commentary.

I don't know if anyone else caught it, but when Tim O'Keefe interviewed the Devils' scout (don't remember his name) between periods at SCSU, he made the comment that Zach will have his degree when he leaves UND. As I recall, the scout said something like, "when Zach leaves UND..." and then corrected himself to say "when Zach graduates from UND..." I thought it was an interesting comment.

If you choose to read his post as a flame, then you will take it that way. But having met the guy and knowing that he came hundreds of miles out of his way to tour the new REA, knowing that he thinks Ralph Engelstad was a great person, knowing where he stands on the Sioux name issue and knowing that he is very impressed with UND's hockey program, I chose to read his post as a legitimate question from a knowledgeable fan. You may not like his view of how Zach is doing this season, but I can understand why he and many others out east might hold the view they do.

The Rangers don't want anyone who's not over 40, weighs at least 225 pounds and walks with a limp. Heck, I think I could make their team.

I have to agree with U2Bad1 on this. I've met the guy who wrote that post and while he is a BC fan, he is no Sioux hater or Zach basher. Heck, even Blais said last night on the UND coaches show that Bochenski has to be considered in the lead for the Hobey Baker because Vanek and Parise aren't having banner years. That isn't to say that Zach won't come out on fire the second half of the season and start putting up points like we all know he can. Until I heard him on WDAZ Wednesday night, I had no idea that his knee had been bothering him. If it's better now, we might very well see more scoring out of him. I hope it starts this weekend. It's always tough for fans of other teams in other leagues to know as much about Sioux players as we do. They never see them play as often as we do, either. The BC fan asked a good question and he got some good answers in response. Now he knows what we know.

Virg Foss has an article in today's Grand Forks Herald about Matt Greene. Apparently Matt has some regrets about some of the comments he made regarding UND to the Hockey's Future Web site.

Here's an article from today's Anchorage Daily News about how the Seawolves are handling their recent troubles. On top of everything else, Coach Hill is making the trip to North Dakota with a very bad back.

You do realize that just because the Murray-Parise-Stafford line starts the game (and I'd be surprised if it doesn't), that it's not necessarily the first line.

So what's not to like?

In that case, I'm no longer concerned.

Thanks, but it really isn't a transcript -- verbatim or otherwise.