Johnny Five

Take a gander at the girls standings. North is obviously at the top with 25 points. Teams seeded 2 through 7 have 20, 19 or 18 points...all just a puck bounce away from each other in the standings. Davies has 9, Willy has 9 and Dicky has 8 in the battle for the final spot. Jamestown has 3 and DL has 1. This is going to come down to the wire. A lot of surprises to me with the girls this season, but the biggest so far is Minot. The coaching staff has done a fantastic job with this team after losing their first 5 games of the season, they've won 6 straight and it should be 7 with Willy tonight and who knows Friday with North coming to town and Keneigh Fischer being gone with Team USA overseas. Brynn Hanson (on of the best CC runners in Class B state history) has put herself on the map as a top 1-3 forward in the state and should be a D1 hockey player.

The absolute wildest stat in the WDA is that Minot hasn't hoisted the post season trophy since like 2006 - not sure on the exact year but it's somewhere around there. Pretty mind blowing if you ask me. WDA in Minot this year, they're gonna want it bad. But as we see every year....there's a reason the games are played. Sidebar: Red River comes to Legacy in a couple weeks for a rare, second half crossover. Could be an interesting game.

Minot on a mission to run the table in the west. Legacy over Jamestown 6-2. LHS broke a 2-2 tie with 6 seconds left in the 2nd and it went haywire from there. Jamestown controlled plenty of the play and will definitely be a factor come WDA.

He absolutely did. Put it on his horses and his horses delivered.

Vigen blew it at the end of the 1st half. Actually, perhaps the entire first half. Mellott didn't get asked to throw much in the first half, but when he did he looked like he was throwing with the wrong hand. He heated up in the second half, but when they NEEDED to score, the Bison got the one stop of the half they needed and Mellott threw another grenade on that drive. Lance gonna get paid and Polacek's stay in Fargo will be a short one.

Friday the 3rd. BOYS: Grafton at Jamestown Girls: Davies at CHS Girls: Willy at North Girls: Mandan at WFU Girls: GF at Dicky ------------------ Friday the 4th Boys: Mayport at Hazen Boys: DL at Mandan Boys: Bott at Legacy Girls: GF at Legacy Girls: Minot at Jamestown Girls: Willy at WFU Girls: Davies at Dicky

Mandan and Jamestown will also be in the mix and if you catch Dickinson on the wrong day in a one and done format with Kadrmas in the net, watch out. CHS-Legacy was a great game last night. CHS controlled play for the most part, shots were lopsided. Legacy did a good job of limiting high quality chances and hanging around after a terrible 1st period - or a great 1st period for CHS however you wanna say it. CHS 2 goals, oddly enough, came at the end of PK when Legacy had forward as last man, and it ended up in the net both times. Legacy had darn near a full 5x3 in the final half of the 3rd and CHS did a great job keeping them outside and limiting chances. CHS has 3 guys that are tough match-ups and they made the difference. Good crowd/atmosphere for a Bismarck game.

1-0 Davies 4-0 Bott 2-1 CHS. Wins over Jamestown, Mandan and LHS...the 2 seed is CHS in the west from here, 8 Ws in a row, Ole has 'em rolling. 6-0 BHS 10-2 GFC. Ouch. 8-2 WF 2-0 Sheyenne

Busy night. Thursday the 2nd, for the gentlemen: Detroit Lakes at Davies Bott at Willy Century at Legacy BHS at Hazen North at GFC South at WF Sheyenne at Devils Lake Satans

When this Minot High group of Seniors was in Bantams, Morelli moved up to HS as a Freshman. So Minot decided they'd get killed in AA hockey and opted to play Bantam A (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Doesn't look like it really affected their development, does it? Geography and AA hockey in central to western North Dakota is a joke...put the egos away and do it right. I'd rather see 3 A teams and 2 B1 teams at PW and Bantams in Bismarck for example. Minot should easily have 2 teams in PW and Bantams.

They could easily split numbers wise. Issue perhaps is, where do kids go to school? I believe Minot "grandfathered" kids into schools. They've have to take the North/High boundary map and draw it as a hard line. Minot boys, WF girls. Rip the band aid off.

Monday Girls: Mandan 1-0 over Jamestown North 8-0 over DL Minot 4-2 over Legacy. Minot on a 5 game heater after dropping the first 5 of the season.

To round out the 2024 ND HS Hockey Schedule: MONDAY (no boys games) Girls: Minot at Legacy-Bismarck Girls: Mandan at Jamestown Girls: North at Devils Lake TUESDAY (no girls games) Boys: Davies at RR Boys: Sheyenne at GFC

Crazy to see after the loyalty Stig brought to the program....I'm guessing he thought it would be a long term transition. 2 years later, Rodgers cleans house of the program and the staff. What will be interesting is how many players head west with him....including the backup QB, who was getting the keys handed to him. Jacks fans are reacting like Bison fans did when Bohl left. POd...confused...No we are used to it. With winning comes the bag, and the bag trumps all in life.

Lake of the Woods is awful. Roseau is down but still a nice win. Armstrong Cooper ranked right behind Roseau in the 40s for AA hockey in MN. But yes...winning is contagious and Minot is undefeated going into the New Year. They remain clear favorites in the west and should make it back to back years with a Thursday win at the state tournament. That being said...split em up.

"Schmaltz has a 93.6 save percentage and a 0.75 goals-against average, while Bensley has a 92.5 save percentage and a 1.69 goals-against average." Crazy numbers, especially since they've played North twice. Young team, imagine how good they'd be with the girls who left town the last few years. The story brings up a great point though. First game of the year against Fargo North. 3x defending champion, and a GF team full of youngsters. It's ridiculous the state of north dakota doesn't add more games to the boys and girls, but the girls particularly get hosed. Each team only gets one non counter. So you get a bunch of rookies trying to figure out HS hockey, and one mistake on a shift could cost a game and 3 points in the standings. In addition, girls don't get WDA or EDC....3, 4 non counters would do wonders for girls as far as game experience and also playing time for those girls who are lower on the depth chart. Add some games!

In the west it's Minot and then the race to clinch state but not the 4 seed. Perhaps it's the same in the East. ---------- @SiouxperDave I was at the Mandan CHS girls game. Mandan looked like state champ caliber. Halfway through the 2nd and the entire 3rd CHS looked like state champ caliber. Avery Matt scored 2 goals on back to back shifts that not many in ND will score to get them back in in. Mandan is one of just a few teams who have 3 good lines. Only thing they are missing is an Avery Matt...Brynn Hanson...Kenleigh Fischer. I've posted before but I thought the state would drop off after the top 5 teams. I was wrong. DL is struggling this year but after that literally anyone can beat anyone. The teams that don't have the top end talent have some of the best goalies. Depth may come into play the second half of the season, there's not many teams that will consistently roll 3 lines. In fact, I've been shocked how many rely on 2. There's a lot of hockey to be played of course, it looks like it's going to come down to the final weekend of the season to decide the top 8.

Mandan over North in girls hockey 5-3 this weekend. North loses x 2 in same week. They will also be missing Fischer for a stretch in the second half for a few games due to USA Hockey obligations. The battle for top 8 state seedings is going to be tight the second half of the season.

Yeah I'm not a fan. Miller and then Culhane were extremely good. This guys is awful.

Minot over Legacy 4-3, scored with about 30 seconds left. Mandan over Dickinson in OT 4-3. 2 tight games out west. Only girls game Thursday: L-B grinds out a 4-0 win over Dickinson. -------- This weekend: Friday: Hazen at Bottineau Friday: CHS at Jamestown Saturday: Jamestown at Minot Saturday: Grafton at Bottineau Saturday: BHS at Willison Girls: Friday: Jamestown at Minot Friday: DL at WIlliston Friday: CHS at WFU Friday Davies at GF Friday: Mandan at North Saturday: Jamestown at Willison Saturday: L-B at WFU Saturday: DL at Dicky Saturday: CHS at North

Best in the state in my opinion followed by Dickinson's goalie. For whatever reason Grand Forks kicks out brick walls for goaltenders in girls hockey.

Tuesday the 17th: WF over Davies 5-3 (no live score on website so no clue how many Mattern put up) Mayport over WAHP 4-3 GFC over South 10-2 Crookston over Grafton 5-2 Legacy over BHS 11-1 Minot over DL 9-2 (live stats show Forsberg didn't play in this one) CHS over Mandan 6-3 (special teams fest. 5 PPG and 1 shorty out of the 9 ginos) North over Sheyenne 7-4 GIRLS Davies over Devils Lake 6-1 WFU over Jamestown 4-2 (WFU keeps grinding out dubs in the early half of the season) GF over North 1-0 in a shootout (Bensley with a 36 save shootout win over the 3 time defending champs IMO she's the best in the state).

8 boys games tonight. Most interesting matchups to me will be Mandan/CHS and WF/Davies. 3 girls games tonight. Jamestown and WFU should be a good battle. Will see if GF tendy can keep them in the game with North.

SDSU and MSU for the win.

SDSU MSU final. Vigen brings home the title.