SJHovey

Could probably hire Jay Pandolfo. He seems to bring in a lot of blue chippers. I see they got swept this weekend so I assume he’ll be looking.

We got shut out in the 2011 FF semi’s, too, but I wouldn’t say it was because we played bad. It happens, even to the best of teams. I was at both games and I thought from a control of the game standpoint, we played better Saturday. I give Mankato credit. They are an old, experienced team (avg age 23), and they played very sound defensively, and when we broke them down, they got a big save. They’re still figuring some things out, but it was game 3. I didn’t leave the arena concerned for the team or season. My two cents.

You can’t get to a “Fire Hak VIII” thread if you don’t start early.

I think it's going to be interesting to see what will happen when (assuming) college hockey is opened up to kids from the major junior ranks. I listened to Mike McMahon's podcast interview of Shane Malloy of Fractal Hockey the other day. Fractal Hockey does analytics on the CHL kids. Like others, Malloy predicts that the NCAA will become the top of the pyramid for hockey development in Canada and the US. You'll have high schools and leagues like the NAHL at the bottom, then the USHL and CHL leagues, with college hockey being the finishing league prior to the NHL. Malloy predicts that the talent level in college hockey is going to jump dramatically, with many/most of the top end kids playing in the CHL to likely make at least an appearance in college hockey. The CHL teams are 100% in favor of it. Malloy says that their scholarship programs are a significant cost to the teams, and it's something they are going to do away with as soon as those kids can go to US colleges. Another interesting point he raised is that from a broadcasting/streaming standpoint, we should see significant upgrades. He predicts huge demands out of Canada for college hockey broadcasts/streams. An interesting listen, and I still wonder to what extent that is influencing recruiting right now in the US.

Jeebus, are you sitting in a psychiatrist's lobby right now, staring at the wall art?

Some additional perspective on the idea that since the '16 championship, we are descending into an average program. Blue blood (and a couple of additional NCHC teams) winning percentage from the 2016-17 season through this past season. And keep in mind, that the NCHC has won 5 of the 7 national championships since the '16 championship, so we're playing in a pretty good conference. Denver - .700 Minnesota - .628 UND - .624 BU - .615 BC - .604 SCSU - .601 UMD - .595 Mich - .584 Wisconsin - .483

I was reading Brad's article about the Central Scouting rankings, and the potential for a few of UND's future recruits to be drafted this year. Has anyone studied the issue to figure out whether college programs are being hurt in those situations? It's sort of like the Blake situation. He was drafted, then played a year of juniors, which meant that after his junior year of college he could become a free agent. That sucked, because normally you only expect first rounders, or maybe second rounders to bail after two years. But I'm sure Carolina made the push because they didn't want to give Blake leverage. Seems like the coaches might want to think about bringing these guys in the fall after they are drafted to maybe insure ourselves of at least three seasons.

Wasn’t Broz a transfer from Minnesota?

I think Carle is a good coach. But what I’m reading here is virtually identical to what I read here about 5-6 years ago about Sandelin, who apparently became stupid and bad again.

Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin, BC, BU. Every blue blood except Denver. Teams with an embarrassment of talent, riches and advantages. And all with a longer period of natty futility than UND, an apparent washed up has been. Shut them down. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Starman is doing radio on XM channel 84, College Sports

It’s hard to call a good game when you are fellating one team.

My fear is that if DU and Michigan win today, Bucci, Cohen and the ESPN crew will just pack up and go home. We’ll be watching the championship game on closed caption tv.

Maybe he’s a cat person.

If he goes, he goes, and I'll wish him well. I never fault any of these kids for making decisions about what they think will be best for them.