rochsioux

It's not just the ECAC, coaches cannot be publicly critical of officials in any sport at any level. If you are then expect to get suspended and/or fined. As far as officiating in the WCHA getting better in the second half, I couldn't disagree more. The first half they were doing a better job enforcing the rules, the second half they reverted back (for the most part) to calling things the way they have in the past (which means they let lots of hooks, holds, slashes, and obstuctions go uncalled).

A ridiculous statement, not even close. A championship in hockey is a much greater accomplishment than just getting to the "dance" in BB. The Summit conference gets an auto bid to the tourny. In addition to NDSU, the Summit is made up of the following teams: Oral Roberts Oakland IUPUI IPFW Southern Utah South Dakota St. Western Ill. Centenary Mo. Kansas City Not exactly the top of D1 BB. Not even mid-majors. To get a bid to the tourny they needed to win 3 games against these teams which they did. My congrats to the team and coaches, but it is not a monumental task. Had they received an at-large bid that would have been much more impressive. I would compare NDSU's winning the Summit and getting the auto-bid at best to UND making the frozen four. If they make it to the sweet sixteen then I would put it on par with winning an NCAA hockey championship.

If you rank the top 50 or so defenseman in the WCHA by +/-, McBain is #47. The only three below him are from Michigan Tech. I would even cut the Tech guys a break before McBain because Tech is not a good team, their overall +/- is terrible. Their team +/- is by far the worst in the league. There is just no way I would give any award to a defensman that is that far down on the list. He is by far the worst +/- even on his own team and he is the worst in the entire wcha if you throw out Tech. How can that be if he is a good defensive player ? And if he is not good on the defensive side, how can we consider him for an award ?

That's pretty sad. This is a guy with the worst +/- on the team for all players. Wisco has 5 d-men that have played 30 or more games. McBain is a -12 the other 4 are +2, -2, -1, +7. The only d-men in the WCHA that have worse numbers play for Tech, they have 3 (-15, -14, -13). McBain is at the bottom of the league for d-men in +/- and also has lowest rating on his team by a large margin. Before you start promoting a defenseman for Hobey/All-American, shouldn't the player at least be doing a good job on the defensive end?

With a win today we should take two more comparisons (Yale, NH) and move up to #7. With a loss or tie we will stay at #9. CC will move to #13 with a win, #17 with a loss, #14 with a tie.

The current pairwise from SS.com: 1 Boston University 24 0.5967 23-5-4 0.7812 2 Notre Dame 22 0.5830 25-5-3 0.8030 3 Michigan 22 0.5706 24-10-0 0.7059 4 Denver 20 0.5595 19-9-4 0.6562 5 Vermont 20 0.5584 17-8-5 0.6500 6 Princeton 18 0.5545 20-7-0 0.7407 7 Northeastern 17 0.5677 20-8-4 0.6875 8 Cornell 16 0.5508 17-6-4 0.7037 9 New Hampshire 16 0.5506 16-9-5 0.6167 10 Miami 16 0.5477 18-9-5 0.6406 11 North Dakota 15 0.5486 20-11-3 0.6324 12 Yale 14 0.5476 19-6-2 0.7407 13 Minnesota-Duluth 12 0.5424 16-9-7 0.6094 14 St. Lawrence 11 0.5305 17-11-4 0.5938 15 Ohio State 10 0.5386 19-11-4 0.6176 16 Colorado College 9 0.5333 16-9-8 0.6061 17 Wisconsin 8 0.5298 16-13-3 0.5469 18 Air Force 8 0.5297 22-8-2 0.7188 19 Minnesota 6 0.5284 13-11-6 0.5333 20 St Cloud St 6 0.5257 17-13-2 0.5625 21 Mass.-Lowell 4 0.5254 15-13-2 0.5333 22 Boston College 3 0.5257 13-12-5 0.5167 23 Alaska 2 0.5219 15-11-6 0.5625 24 Massachusetts 1 0.5098 14-15-3 0.4844 25 RIT 0 0.5087 20-10-2 0.6562 UMass has entered the top 25 this w/e. Should UMass be in the top 25? I realize that their RPI is in the top 25 but this year the NCAA also added: Selection Requirements. To be considered during the at-large selection process, a team must have an overall won-lost record of .500 or better. UMass is currently 14-15-3 and thus ineligible to be in the tourny. If they can't be in the tourny should they still be a TUC ?

Time for my yearly complaint against the pairwise rankings This system needs to be scrapped or at least modified to fix some of the problems: 1. It is possible that you would be better off losing a game than winning it. Has to do with the TUC cliff. This was Wisconsin's situation a few years ago in the first round of the WCHA playoffs against AA. It should never be beneficial to lose a game. Why should one team get to keep a 4-0 record against team #25 while another team would lose a 4-0 record against team #26. Needs to be some kind of weighting system. 2. TUC criteria. If one team in the comparison has not played 10 games against TUC then there is no point awarded. Look at the UND vs Alaska comparision right now. UND is 9-6-2 against TUC while Alaska is 3-5-1. Since Alaska has only 9 games than there is no point awarded. If Alaska played one more game against a TUC than UND would win the point...doesn't even matter if Alaska wins or loses. They need to modify this. If one team has 10 or more games against TUCs then go ahead and award the other team wins in every game they are short of ten. If the team with 10 or more games still has a better record than they get the point, otherwise there is no point awarded. 3. COP. There needs to be some minimum number of games. Look at UND vs Miami. UND is 0-1-0 while Miami is 3-1-0. Since UND lost the one game then Miami only had to win or tie one out of their four games to get the point. Conversely, if UND had won the game then Miami would have had to win all four games to avoid losing the point. Should be a minimum of two or three games in COP to award anyone a point.

VandeVelde (Duncan, Genoway)

So, do we know if Sensor's in Bloomington will have the games this w/e ?

Consistently inconsistent, the hallmark of the clowns running the WCHA. As far as suspending the player immediately or waiting for the next conference game, I think it would be a fairer suspension if they had to miss the next conference game. I suspect it would be advantageous in the pairwise for UND if other WCHA teams won their non-conf games. By suspending him for the UNO game it may actually hurt UND slightly as this should help UNO beat Mankato. By suspending the player for a conference game you are helping your own conference while also putting the team, in this case Mankato, at a disadvantage in the conference race for home ice in the playoffs. Since the incident occured in a conference game the punishment should also occur in a conference game if possible.

We had 10 this year because there were two exemptions, the Alaska games and the Icebreaker tourny. We only get 6 non-conference games as a standard. The 3 out 4 years we go to Alaska we get 2 more games due to the exemption which makes a total of 8. The only other exemptions that I am aware of are the Icebreaker (we played BU/UMass this year) and the Hall of Fame game (we played Michigan State last year). So the only way we have more than 8 non-conference next year is if we play in the Icebreaker again (not likely) or play in the Hall of Fame game (1 game only).

That should be it. The NCAA allows a total of 34 games unless there are exemptions. Next year we go to Alaska so that will allow us to play 36 games. I don't believe any of the other games are exempt. With 28 conference games that allows us to play 8 non-conference next year.

The Sioux are 2-4 in the last six played at AA (split in 2004-5, split in 2005-6, got swept in 2006-7). The good thing is those games were played during the "pre-surge" part of the seasons but anything less than a full 60 min each night and they will be in trouble. AA, Tech, and Wisconsin play a style that seems to give the Sioux problems. There is too much on the line for any excuses after the game(s). We are the better team, we need to play like it and come away with two wins. Anything less will probably drop us below 14 in the pairwise. There is a resonable chance there will be a least one or two "upset" conference playoff winners that will get in that are not in the top 14 pairwise, therefore we really need to be at #12 or better. Had we not come back to win the Sat. Mankato game we would be at #17, that's how much each game matters right now.

To add a little more info, the last two years under Blais our record was: 2002-3 25-13-5 (started out 18-1-1) 2003-4 30-8-3 (started out 18-2-2) So the prior two years to Hakstol we got off to blazing starts but either faltered down the stretch or got upset in the NCAA regional. Under Hakstol: 2004-5 25-15-5 prior to 02/26/2005 16-13-3, after 9-2-2 2005-6 29-16-1 prior to 01/14/2006 14-10-1, after 15-6-0 2006-7 24-14-5 prior to 12/29/2006 7-10-1, after 17-4-4 2007-8 28-11-4 prior to 01/05/2008 9-8-1, after 19-3-3 2008-9 18-11-3 prior to 01/02/2009 9-10-1, after 9-1-2 So these last 3 seasons we have been around .500 near year-end (23-28-3), then rip it up the rest of the season (45-8-9). The first two seasons we didn't start out quite as bad, but it also took longer to put together a good streak, especially the 2004-5 season. The reason we may think of all 5 seasons as the same pattern has to due with season ending surge regardless of when it really started, although these last 3 seasons have been very similar.

We currently sit #12 in the pairwise. To show how crucial the non-conference games are, our pairwise would be significantly better if we could have won the UMass and/or Mich. State games. Win over UMass only, pairwise would be #8. Win over MSU only, pairwise would be #7. Win both, pairwise we would be #5. With the switch of just two games we would be discussing the chances of a #1 seed instead of fighting to get off the bubble.

That's correct: 2003-2004: BC at REA for 2 2004-2005: UND at BC & NE 2005-2006: NE at REA for 2 2007-2008: UND at BC & NE

The NCAA only allows 34 games. Games played in Alaska are exempt so when UND travels to Alaska they get to play 36 games. Additionally, the Icebreaker tourny is also exempt. Since UND played in it this year they can schedule 38 games. Under your scenario with 30 conference games, teams will only be able to schedule 4 nonconference games in the years they don't go to Alaska. Highly doubt this would fly. Not only would teams have fewer non-conference games, but a 30 game schedule would likely mean an unbalanced number of home vs away games. It would also effectively mean fewer home games some years and the teams with large buildings (UND, MN, Wisc) would not want to go along with this. Some teams (MN) rarely play road games out of conference, now you would be asking them to play two more conference road games every other year, thereby reducing the number of home games. Not going to happen, IMO. If the WCHA does expand, and I expect they will, I don't expect there to be more conference games. If anything I could envision fewer games. With a 12 team league and 28 conference games, that means you play 8 teams twice and 3 teams four times. Sixteen conference games against 8 teams and twelve games against 3 teams. Extremely unbalanced, not even sure what it would mean to win the league anymore. The CCHA has this today and it is a joke. A few years ago Notre Dame won the CCHA. Two of three teams they played four times were the two teams at the bottom of the league. I think the conferences are making a big mistake in expanding to include the CHA. Reducing the number of conferences is not the way to expand college hockey. It almost makes it inevitable that a group of schools will break off from these conferences in the future to form a new conference that is more advantageous to them (Big 10 conf anyone ?). I think the big mistakes were made in the past when the WCHA allowed itself to go from 8 to 10 teams. Eight is a perfect number for a balanced schedule.

I think we need to cut Gwoz some slack here. It is clearly obvious when you watch the video that he was choking on something as he placed his hands around his throat twice (I believe in frames 223-225 you can clearly see Hextall's stick contacting Gwoz's throat causing his head to snap back and to the left ). The lack of oxygen to his brain from this made him unable to find his way to the dressing room and hence he crossed the ice looking for some help. If he can't even find the dressing room without assistance how can we expect him to remember the NCAA rules ? This is NOT George's fault, it has to be the fault of UND !

UND's fault, huh? OK. Let's look at a few items: What would most people say heated up this rivalry in recent years ? IMO, it was the hit by Paukovitch on Bina in the WCHA tourny back in 2005. A blatant, flagrant cheap shot. When Gwoz recruited Paukovitch there was no possible way he could have known the type of character he had...nothing in his background that would raise any red flags, right ? While Robbie Bina had to spend over a year out of hockey, Gwoz's response was to suspend him for one game. Sounds like a fair punishment Two years ago in Denver, Prpich "nuts" Paukovitch during a faceoff, Gwoz goes crazy, jumps on the dasher and gets kicked out of the game. Should Prpich have done that ? No, but it is hard for me to feel sorry for Paukovitch, what goes around...bit of a payback. Gwoz still needs to control his own actions. Last year at the Ralph. Fight breaks out at the end of the period. Why ? Major cause was Denvers constant "dumping" of the bench onto the ice at the end of every period in direct violation of the NCAA rules. A few UND players heading toward their own bench passed thru this "dump" and guess what happens. Bumping and pushing escalates while Denver has a 20-5 man advantage. Radke hears the roar and comes back out to help his teammates. Who's at fault here ? I would blame this on Gwoz for allowing his team to dump on the ice after the period and on the officials for allowing it. Notice this past w/e at the end of every period at least one official would race toward the Denver bench to keep them from doing this. My take is that it is not the officials job to prevent a team from committing a penalty. They should have stayed away, then called a minor penalty on Denver if they came off the bench onto the ice...that would quickly fix the problem. This year in Fridays game, Denver got away with a lot of "stick work" throughout the game. In the third period Testwuide blatently spears Vandevelde along the boards then gives him two hard cross-checks. Scrum breaks out. Looks like UND started another fight . Denver's team is getting spanked on the ice and can't handle it so they resort to cheap stuff. Again, who's fault is that...Gwoz, maybe ? His captain is the one doing a large part of the cheap shots. Lead by example. Saturday night, Gwoz thinks Vandevelde should have been called for a penalty so he goes nuts again. If all coaches went nuts on a missed call or whenever they think the officials have a bad night then games would run 5 hours long. It appears to me that Gwoz can't control himself or his team. The DU admin response is "this was wrong, coach realizes this". Dang that is a harsh response. Not a peep from Gwoz himself. I doubt he is sorry for his actions. The Denver backers of Saint George are delusional if they think it is UND's fault. Mike Chambers might want to look at things objectively (nah, that would ruin a good story) instead of kissing up to Gwoz.

If that is true it is very sad that he would hold a grudge for 25+ years. The coaches, administrators, etc have all changed since he went to UND. I would hope he would allow his son to pick whatever school he felt was the best fit for him. After all, we are talking about what is best for his son's future not trying to "get back" at UND. If his son decided that MN was the best fit then good for him. If he was leaning to UND and his dad got involved only because of his problems 25 years ago then that is a shame for the kid.

Trupp played a game in juniors with a ruptured appendix. Tough kid. http://www.undsportszone.com/articles/?id=72612

If you really believe that there is a greater chance of the games being canceled than a Sioux sweep then no one should ever take anything you say seriously. Records in the past 10 games: Rodents: 5-3-2 Sioux: 7-3 While I don't believe the Sioux are playing very well right now, a 7-3 record is not bad (all three losses were by 2-1 scores). The big disappointment for Sioux fans is that it looked like the team was starting to turn the corner then they slid off the road in the GLI tourney, failing to even put forth an effort against Michigan State. I don't think effort will be any concern for this serious. If the Sioux can't put forth 120 min (or more) of solid effort this weekend then there is no hope for this season. I would rate the games pretty much a tossup, so I give each team a 25% chance of a sweep. A sweep for either team could very likely be a springboard to a top 2 finish in the league.

If Peyton Manning was the quarterback there would still be problems, just not as many. I doubt you would have stuff happen like the Giants game, but the Detroit and possibly the Philly games would still be a problem for Childress. It's not just Childress and TJack, there seem to be a lot of coaches and QBs that have no idea how to manage a clock properly. San Diego did a poor job of managing the last two min of regulation against Indy.

The biggest problem I have with Childress is his complete inability to handle clock management in the last two minutes of each half. This is not a one time occurance. Too many NFL games are decided in the last few minutes so it is critical that the coach and players manage this properly. With the specializaton in the NFL I am surprised a team doesn't have a coach whose only job is clock management. There are at least three examples in the past month of his inability to grasp this concept. Yesterday against the Eagles in the first half. Approx 1:10 left and first down at his own 13. Elects to run on first down which is OK, gains nothing and lets the clock run. Again, this is OK just run out the clock, the Eagles only have one time out left so you can run it out if you wish. Then for some reason he tries a pass on second down ! Even if complete it is unlikely to gain much, if anything. Instead it is incomplete, clock stops. Third down is a run, Philly calls timeout and forces a punt from deep in your own end (of course the Vikings do a great job of covering punts). Now Philly has a chance to get a FG before half when they should never have been given this chance. Against the Giants, don't even need to comment, anyone who saw the last minute of the game understands how badly that was botched. Against Detroit, the Vikings are leading 17-16 with 26 seconds left and facing 4th down from the Detroit 33. Elects to try a 50 yard FG. Detroit has no timeouts. A FG attempt here makes no sense. The only chance Detroit has is if the FG is missed (or blocked), then they get the ball at the 40 and will have 20-22 seconds left. If the Vikings punt it into the endzone Detroit will get the ball at the 20 with around 20 seconds left and no timeouts. The chance of winning the game are better by punting then trying the FG.

Just want to extend my best wishes for a speedy recovery for Don Lucia. Health and family are the much more important than hockey or a hated rival. Hopefully this is nothing serious and he will be back coaching very soon.