KSSioux

Calder

I would like to shift the discussion to the kids that we have in the fold now and possible line combos to start the season. I think this will be a big "chemistry finding" start to the season so I thought it would be fun to get some discussion going to get some folks thought on the starting groups. I think we have a good stable of centers with Ford entering the group, so here it goes: Calder - Weatherby - Caulfield Gaber - Ford - Budy Hain - Senden - Schmaltz Ness - Jamernik - Kunz Sanderson - Frisch Kleven - Moore Johnson - Jandric The goaltending is easy with Driscoll starting and Hellsten as the backup. I think they will alternate getting in Costantini into the lineup, and I think Budy was a difficult choice for me on the second line between he and Hain. I think Ness will get the initial nod with a couple of freshies or Albrecht getting a few games as well. The extra skater will be interesting with alternating between an extra D and F. I actually also thought about putting a Calder - Ford - Ford - Budy line together and call it the T-Line (Transfer line). Just some thoughts and I think we have some good pieces that can make a great looking puzzle for a run this year.

I wanted to put this here, as I think it effects college hockey in general. Has anyone watched the U18 World Championships this year? I watched a few games, and US losing to Sweden in the quarterfinals. I do not think people can complain about UND not having any recruits on the U18 team. This is about as bad of talent as we have had on that squad in a number of years. We have done very well in the U18's, due a lot to the NTDP being the main source for this team and other countries did not have that sort of program until recently. Just not very impressed with the talent at all. Pastujav (Michigan recruit) is the only one that really showed anything, and that was not too great overall. Not real skill or hockey sense from this team and it really showed. They are still young, and will obviously develop, but they did not show well at all.

I said Nashville area. Lynchburg, VA is within 500 miles of Nashville, and that is about the distance across NE. My problem without being clearer on that. My points still hold, and as I stated I would not mind seeing both get teams. My point was not about facilities, but kids in the area to have an opportunity.

Liberty University will be D1 before Tennessee St. I cannot see two universities in the Nashville area being D1 within a couple of years. Liberty is already FBS in football and really pushes their sports programs for a private christian school. They already have a great club program at Liberty. Would love seeing this as there is a great pool of talent for increasing college hockey programs that can justify additional schools. You can see this by the rosters of schools changing. The talent in hockey hotbeds of MN and MA has not decreased, but the talent level across the country has improved. This is the reason the parity in college hockey has been more evident in the last 5-10 years and will continue. You will see the new addition of Long Island University get competitive fast, and St. Thomas and Lindenwood not be far behind. New York and the St. Louis, MO areas are obviously increasing their hockey talent. The comments about SEC schools getting heavy into hockey I think is still a ways off, but it is great to see kids being able to have these opportunities, and I think is only better for college hockey.

You are correct, he picked against us in 2016 and picked Michigan that year as well. It is a tough challenge to win four in a row and you need a combination of talent and a little "puck luck" along the way.

Kierstad

Dell starting in goal for New Jersey in Travis Zajac's 1000th game. Obviously Oshie is in the lineup for Washington, so a good UND contingent in this matchup.

Based on the end of the game I would sit a couple of players for their safety on Friday in Omaha. Neither team has anything really to play for other than record. Omaha is pretty well cemented into the 4 spot. The slash on Jammer during the faceoff was a trigger and it was a cross check that he did, but the slash by the Omaha player was not even called. A couple of cross checks by Denver in the last home games were not even called while our players were on the ice, and they were worse. I would let Pinto rest and keep Mismash out to make sure he is OK for the home finale. I would start Thome and obviously Reiger for Bast since he will have a DQ. Let Moore be the extra skater. Could switch Moore and Reiger, but they could get pretty equal time. The NCHC needs to look at the slash as the instigation for the late game antics. They obviously will not. Berry did not send those players out to start something, just to give them awarded power play time since the game was in hand. I reference the Saturday in Denver where he did the same thing when the game was in hand. Playing the same team this many times in a row is the only problem I have seen with how the NCHC handled the season. Not much they could have done about it.

This is a huge message game for the boys. Needing 6 points in four games against Omaha, getting 3 points in the first game would take the air out of Omaha for the remaining games. The odds of them winning the next three would not be good, so I hope they come out firing on all cylinders for this game. I know Omaha will want to push the start, so I expect a pretty intense, high octane, first period. Let's get this going to keep the Penna Rosa!!

Austin Poganski playing for the Blues this afternoon. Has seen some good action in the first period. Hopefully he will find a good fit there.

They must have seen something in practice to swap Jammer away from Hain and Senden. That was a great line, and Weatherby has not been where I expected him to be so far this year. He is better on the dot than Jammer, so maybe they wanted to get that line zone time against the big line of Denver. Also, you know we are loaded on D when we sit the Defensemen of the week in the NCHC. I would have thought he would have been the extra skater tonight, but Keane is a great option as well. No worries, let's go boys!!

Cam Johnson penciled in as the backup for Columbus today. Doubt he will make it into the game, but he is dressed for the Blue Jackets.

These are absolutely horrible. I saw them play the Islanders and I doubt that they will wear these very often. The three stars have to have some significance, because they included them on the pants as well. They are so ugly that I do not care to do the research into that question myself.

Gaber

I hope Liberty is the next college team to go to D1 status. For those that have not heard about them, they are a real good club team and I think would love to be part of a D1 conference. They have better facilities than a few D1 teams now. Would not surprise me for them to beat LIU again tonight.

I am putting the NCAA rule book definition for "Charging" into this post for reference. Why they would call this charging when he did not take strides, or traveled a "great distance", or leave his feet is the reason I question the call. It was a two minute goaltender interference penalty. Period. Once again, because he got hurt due to an uncoordinated flop, the NCHC took action that was not fitting the crime. They need to stop the flops, but I do not see this happening. The Pionk hit was far worse as there was no defensemen pushing him into the goalie, and he led with the forearm while skating into the crease. Rule 43 - Charging 43.1 Charging - A player shall not skate more than two strides and jump into or charge an opponent. Charging is the action of a player, who as a result of distance traveled, checks an opponent violently in any manner from the front or side. Note: A legal body check is one in which a player checks an opponent who is in possession of the puck, by using the hip or body from the front or diagonally from the front or straight from the side. PENALTY—Minor or major at the discretion of the referee. A game misconduct or disqualification may be assessed at the discretion of the referee. A player shall not charge or otherwise foul a goalkeeper while the goalkeeper is within the crease or privileged area (see 71.2). PENALTY—Minor or major at the discretion of the referee. A game misconduct or disqualification may be assessed at the discretion of the referee.

How did Midco's coverage of the game not be effected by the "Internet" outage? I do not doubt that you are right, but the Midco service not being effected is a question mark. That you rely on feeding 1000's of customers from one internet source is highly questionable. If this is the case there should be back up plans in place to maintain service.

Take a look at this link when you think that athletics are not important fundraisers for the universities, while most still are not positive on the balance sheet. It is very interesting to see from this article what effect Covid had on the P5 and why they decided to play the games to try to get some money coming in without losing billions. It is also interesting to note that there were NO FCS teams that were profitable, while only a third of the FBS teams were. The NCAA is run by the P5 conferences, make no mistake about that. Do Colleges Make Money From Athletics? | BestColleges

I have not called, but have a string of e-mails that I have sent. I always copy info@nchchockey.com in my e-mails to sidearm. The frustrating part is that it never seems to be their problem when they respond, and all of a sudden they find a problem and things change. Sometimes they never seem to read the e-mails and I have actually sent screen shots to them to show them the problems. Whoever redid the NCHC-TV App for the Apple TV this winter did a very poor job. It was better before their redo of the App. Amazingly I never had any problems with any other of the Apps on Apple TV. I am actually thinking of doing FloHockey for a couple of months to check out their broadcasts of WCHA and the ECHL games. Would be good if some folks have that opportunity to provide feedback on that platform vs. NCHC-TV.

For those that think that NCHC-TV has been good at solving problems, this has not been the case whatsoever. Those of us that have been All-access pass users from the beginning have seen that to be the case. The Apple TV App has been horrendous to use and that has been the case until the last couple of weeks. Moving around the App is bad and previous to this week, if you moved to the "Live" games, it would knock you out of the App almost every day that you tried to watch games. For those that have not had a problem with Roku or other platforms, since the first week of the pod, good for you. The issue is that what we pay for is what they say we should get. Apple TV was one of the first that they said would be a good system to run, and I bought the newest Apple TV to make that happen to replace my old Apple TV which I had to Airplay to from my IPad. Through the whole pod, when the Apple TV App did not work, I tried to Airplay from the NCHC-TV App on my IPad and it did not work. It did work when I airplayed from the NCHC-TV web site. As far as last night, it was another bad situation and if they are not using sat feed and counting on internet to feed them the stream, that is another serious issue. I am not sure if that is the case from every arena. That is obviously the reason Midco worked and Sidearm did not. If Sidearm does not have the capability to use a sat feed, they need to change that situation.

Kierstad

I can Airplay from the website and not from the App on my IPad. Still not working tonight as it kicks me out of the App when I move to the "Live" section. They have fixed the schedule and I can play highlights etc., now. They say they are trying to "pinpoint" the issues. Quite the show they have going on there.

Ness

Did anyone try to watch the games yesterday on an Apple TV? I tried to watch the CC-Miami game last night it showed a SCSU-Omaha press conference. The game schedule does not update very well. I watched Saturday and Sunday on the Apple TV without much problem, although the games do not update on the live stream section and the upcoming schedule is all messed up in the live section as well. When I sent a message to Sidearm they said they were not aware of any problems. This is a pretty usual response, but I am sure there were not a lot of folks trying to watch last night. Also, I tried to Airplay from my IPad when the App did not work and got the gray NCHCTV rectangle in the top right with just audio of the game. This is the same that I got at the start of the pod, but have not tried it since the Apple TV had started working (at least for a while). It is definitely time for the NCHC to move on from this group. Does not seem like they are to focused on satisfying the customer base.