yzerman19

Hey Siouxmama, You all made it back safe I'd guess. Enjoyed meeting you and your family and Sioux-CIA. Fun tournament! I'll shoot for the same seats for next year. Are you guys going to Madison? I am considering it pretty strongly now that there isn't going to be TV coverage of the Princeton game. Thanks for tolerating our alcohol induced fun and our new fangled love of the Dynamo!

He was at the Final 5 with street shoes. Having him in the lineup would be huge.

Certainly looks like ESPN360 is the only live production. Unfortuantely for me, Charter high speed doesn't have a deal with ESPN360. Is there the possibility of FSSN paying for it and broadcasting in GF as well as making it available on fightingscioux.com? Historically, it seems that they do a bunch of posturing, so they can make as much money as possible. I don't want to have to drive to Madison, but I will if the games aren't available live on TV.

Best Decisions of the year: Lapoint out, Marto back to D Radke in on the fourth line Sorry, Redwing and others, but Lapoint was awful vs DU, and the team is much better with him out right now. How about Big Tommy May, THE DYNAMO!

I like putting more weight on the conference playoffs. The at large bids are there for the couple teams that might lay an egg at the conference tourney who had great regular seasons. I am not a big router for the WCHA over the others, I could care less. I am always for the Sioux. More dumb for having read it? Well, that is your opinion, but I, for one, look at the F5 as a pointless tourney. Every team at the F5 was already in the NCAAs. I am trying to be creative. You don't need to ridicule my attempt at thinking outside the box. What is your suggestion at improving the selection process? WI getting in with a record under .500 and not even making the conference playoffs is more stupid, than any comment i made. Notre Dame being in position where it benefits them to score on themselves instead of tying... Anyway, the NCAA will look at this wholistically, so I can't suggest that the WCHA and Hockey East get all of the spots, even though they are by far the strongest leagues, with the WCHA the strongest of all. Anyway, I'm all ears for a better idea.

What about this change: NCAA tourney bids determined by conference playoffs. WCHA, CCHA, Hockey East and ECAC all get in if you finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd in the conference tournament. Atlantic Hockey and College Hockey America each get the conference winner, then there are two at large bids determined by the selection committee. The tourney is then set up with 1 west vs 8 east and 1 East vs 8 west. so, you then break it down into East and West In this year's tourney it would be: WCHA: Denver, MN, UND HE: BC, Vermont, CCHA: MI, Miami, Northern MI ECAC: Princeton, Harvard, Cornell Atlantic Hockey: Air Force College Hockey America: Niagara At Large: Well, using either PWR or KRACH, it seems pretty obvious that CC belongs in and so does New Hampshire

By the numbers... MI vs Air Force MI State vs SCSU Miami va Niagara Clarkson vs Denver (the Dynamo) UND vs Princeton MN vs BC UNH vs Notre Dame WI vs CC Of course WI and CC will be in different regionals, so what does the NCAA do? I think they do one switch and that is Wisconsin and MI State In Madison: MI vs Air Force WI vs SCSU In Albany: Miami vs Niagara Clarkson vs Denver (Dynamo) In Worcester: UND vs Princeton BC vs MN In Colorado Springs UNH vs Notre Dame Michigan State vs CC

Lapoint not in uniform, Radke and Davidson dressed. Live from warm ups at the X.

A win today makes us a one seed. There is a lot to play for

Sioux did not deserve to win today. THey are not the championship caliber team we've seen. Bottom line is they lack leadership. Chorne did his part to take control, no one else did. WCHA doesn't mean much, but it would've been nice to win. wake up calls for all. I don't envy any team facing UND or CC in the NCAAs after this weekend. Gophers are not great, wheeler sucks and is a punk. Redwing, you are going to flame me, but Lapoint was God Awful today. Finley also sucked a big one today.

I will once again state that MN is not a bad team. They certainly played us tough all year. They are well coached and solid defensively. They have no horses in the stable to win a run and gun, but they are playing their system well and are an excellent skating team. Playing MN at the X is always a challenge...20,000 M-I-N-N (you get the picture) fans show up and give them the home ice advantage. They are a pretty darn good team with some serious fan support. That being said, I think they have very little chance vs CC. Kangas will ahve to stand on his head. As fat boy even put it tonight, UND and CC separated themselves from the rest of the league. MN, SCSU, WI, MTU, UMD, MSU...they were all about equal. Denver with Trotter was with UND and CC, without Trotter, they are similar to the other 5 teams I just mentioned. Wooger comented that SCSU was feeling good about themselves for "outplaying UND for most of two weekends ago". All well and good. I wouldn't feel too proud of myself for being an NCAA tournament team who tied another NCAA tournament team while they were eithout Oshie, Genoway and Trupp. Anyway, I don't really care who we face, except for the fact that I want to beat CC head to head for PWR reasons. Right now, I am a huge Notre Dame and BC fan!

unfortunately for #7, I don't think the committee will look very highly on the elevator incident. TJ deserves to be considered among the top 10 players in the country for on and off the ice credentials. COngratulations to him for this honor. It was a great season, especially considering all the attention he warrated from opponents. JPL does have a shot at the Hobey. While Porter is the favorite, a strong showing in the F5 and in the NCAAs, say two shutouts and a frozen four bid, could earn the award for him. Best of luck to the Sioux nominees for representing the finest traditions of NCAA hockey and the Fighting Sioux program. These two young men are champions, no matter who wins the award.

I don't think that he uses his teammates poorly by any stretch of the imagination. I am just saying that with his abilities, if he could do it even better, he could be at the ELITE NHL level. I also agree that he is a very good playmaker, and these two statements are not mutually exclusive. He is solid in all elements of the game, and is a GREAT hockey player, as I stated in my earlier post. I am talking about trying to add horse power to a Ferrari.

TJ is certainly a special player and agree that his stick work alone is worth the price of admission. He is also a very good checker. His style of play made him a fan favorite at UND, and will make him a fan favorite at St Louis. He reminds me of a young Jeremy Roenick back in his Chicago days. To put on my NHL coach/GM hat, however, he is not as complete a player as JT was last year. TJ is not as good as JT was in the defensive zone, and my only criticism of his offensive game is that he needs to learn to use his teammates better. I recognize it is difficult when he is better than his teammates, but using one's teammates well, makes a special college player into a special NHL player. Before I get flamed. If you read what I am writing, I am trying to say that TJ is A GREAT hockey player. I could gush on what makes him great for hours. If he can learn to tone down his own desire to play physical, get a little better in the defensive zone, and learn to use his teammates to create space, rather than using his stick and individual puck skils to make space, he will be an elite NHLer. If he doesn't, he will still be a very good NHLer based on his natural ability alone. We have been gifted with great players at UND. TJ is in the class of ZPar, JT, and Troy Murray of being at the NHL skill level as a teenager (realize he is 21 now).

Don't forget Yzerman 19 and fiance in seats 9 and 10 for the DU game. Yzerman 19 and other die hard Sioux Fan for Friday night and all of Saturday! Yzerman 19's rodent friend and his guest for the play in (sorry!) I love speaking in the third person!

Well, I'd love to assist you with your liver destruction. I'm garnering a lot od SS.com beer debt (i already owe Sioux CIA and Sioux mama) but I'll put you on the list too. I've never met a SS.com poster in person. Hope to do it this weekend! section 119 and west 7th street and possibly Alery's.

Thanks Goon! Are you going to the F5?

We want to meet and beat CC in the F5 championship and for BC to beat NH. That alone will flip our PWR with NH, and put us in a tie for fourth. A pair of CC losses will flip that PWR for us too. Just beating CC will not flip that PWR

Just throwing everyone I could think of off-hand who has a ton of hockey coaching experience. I should've just said Dean Blais!

There has to be a reason why Hak is putting Miller on the top line, my belief is that with Trupper out we are looking for another scoring threat on the third line, and that's why we've been using Kozek there. Hak has to be thinking about how to put pressure on other teams latter defensive pairings. If I'm playing the Sioux, I am doing all that I can to match my best d-pair up on the Oshie line. That last line change ability is huge in the NCAAs. Gotta keep the legs fresh while still managing the matchup. CC has a nice advantage in being able to put the big Rau line out against a team's third d-pairing at Owens' discretion. This is also an advantage for SCSU vs MN, although it didn't benefit MSU-M this past weekend.

I am a bigger Sioux Fan than all of you combined Did I mention that I am also rich and exceptionally good looking, and my hockey knowledge and insight is that of Don Cherry, Badger Bob and Red Berenson combined. Silliness

Wow! That blown call Bucky vs DU IS HUGE now. Can you imagine how we'd be taking it on this board if we missed our own Regional because of a blown call! Now DU might've won it in OT anyway, but wowsa!

Meant OT thriller to go to the Frozen 4 in my last post...just have Final 5 on the brain right now

Where's the pairwise predictor?

I hate to predict it, but I am thinking that we lose an overtime thriller to CC for the championship. Much like last year, we then face CC in the Regional in Colorado Springs and beat them in an OT thriller to go to the final 5. Duncan's patented short side top-shelf goal with nothing to shoot at from "his old spot" in Friday's game makes me a little excited. If we can get him going from that spot, we are tough. Chorns stepped it up this past weekend which bodes well for us. If we can get TJ healthy, Duncs hitting from his spot, Chorney playing to his full potential, JPL playing the way he has played all year, then throw in Kaiper doing a Malcolm Parks impression and Vande crashing the net, we can beat anybody. Other good signs: Frattin stepped up, Lapoint played well, Bina stepped up, Genoway leading the rush through the neutral zone. Genoway has done it all year, and Chorns did it this past weekend, but I loved the fact that they skated the puck up when the outlet passes were taken away by the Tech D in transition. Finley, Lapoint and Jones still seem to try and force the outlet when it isn't there. I absolutely hate the "no outlet pass available so let's try the homerun to the deep winger". Short passes, one winger fly up the ice, the other two forwards need to stay low to give the d-men a target. People blast Lapoint (I've done it too as Redwing will comment), but having watched him more closely and watching him last night especially, he has the right idea on the outlet passes, the forwards just aren't helping more times than not. Speed through the neutral zone generated by short crisp passes gives us a chance to enter the zone with at least two, hopefully three forwards. A homerun pass only lets us bring one, which isn't much of a threat unless he has a chance to be free and clear. Number one rule from me to the Sioux: PATIENCE. This team tends to get frustrated. We need to take what they give us and play our game. No forcing the long pass if the short pass isn't available. Wingers come back and restart the breakout.