Johnny Five

Jamestown over Davies 3-2 Dickinson over CHS 4-2 L/B over Mandan 3-1 Minot over Williston 3-0. And....North over Devils Lake 18-0. SOG 73-5.

The go hard. They'll pick up more wins.

Tuesday Girls: Jamestown at Davies Devils Lake at North Century at Dickinson Legacy/Bismarck at Mandan Minot at Williston 4/5 of those should be tight.

Kupfer

After 2 weeks it looks like North is the clear cut favorite for Girls hockey. It's gonna take a "best" effort and some luck to beat them. After that, it is quite literally going to be a dogfight to get into the state tournament.

Yeah he's constantly on the move.

Yeah the UC Davis coach went on a mini rant about attendance yesterday too.

It's definitely not the draw it once was.

Didn't have DL beating WF 5-2 on the Bingo Card for the night. Looks like Mattern was kept off the score sheet which helps. Busy weekend again coming up. 8 girls games and 7 boys.

I wonder when the last time someone ran the table in the WDA if ever. I understand Mandan had the flu bug ravage their team, but Minot was also out 2 really good players due to injury as well. It's going to take a fluke for anyone in the WDA to beat Minot. The wildest stat is I don't think they've won the WDA tournament since like 2008 (can't recall year but it's been a LONG time).

I think all 3 Jamestown goals were breakaways as a result of breakdowns/turnovers and they took advantage of it. Girls side: L/B: 1-0 over Minot Mandan: 4-0 over Williston GF: 5-0 over DL Davies: 3-0 over WF CHS: 6-4 over Jamestown

That's going to be an interesting game to follow as is North and Red River. Curious how those turn out after North and WF trips west last weekend. Also curious to see what kind of run Mandan can give Minot out west. 9 games on the boys side on Tuesday, busy night. 5 games on the girls side that night as well.

Couple more good games out west today. Legacy over WF 4-3 in OT. Mattern is definitely explosive. North over Mandan 3-2. Went to both games, both were basically even on game play. Mandan showed they outshot North by a bit but I felt North had a slight edge in possession.

2 entertaining games at the VFW in Bismarck last night. WF over Century 7-5, North over Legacy 3-2. Fun night at the rink, people got their money's worth. There was a nice old school scrum at the end of the North/Legacy with 11 seconds left game too. Veteran move by the officials...took one guy from each side and called it a day.

On the girls side I think my "on paper" thoughts were off. I thought there would be more separation this year than there has been the past few seasons. And then they drop the puck and play some games...I think it's going to be another meatgrinder all the way to the final game again, and that makes for a really fun season.

Thies is a brick sh*thouse to bring down. Super impressive.

Seedings were done to a tee between the 3 teams. Head to head gets tossed out, the D2s were the obvious deciding factor. Like it or not we all knew that going into the season. That being said, I think SDSU will come out of that side of the bracket.

Games of interest coming up this weekend, before the chaos starts... Girls Friday: CHS at EGF - non con, Mandan at L/B, North at GF Knights. Saturday: L/B at EFG - non con Boys South travels to Mandan Friday and BHS on Saturday.

Avery Matt from CHS girls announces D1 commitment to Holy Cross. Matt joins Brenna Curl (CHS to Maine - 24 grad) and Kenleigh Fischer (North and committed to St. Thomas - 26 grad) as girls who stayed home. Hopefully that's another trend that continues for girls hockey as there is a lot of upcoming talent within the borders.

The ultimate connundrum. Send your kid away early and give up having them in the house as teenagers? I mean sometimes I'd love to kick my kids outta the f'ing house...but then you send them to college and you wish they were around more often. I think there's 3-4 families from Bismarck who sent their FR kids away before they even played a single HS game. To me, that's nuts. If a kid comes in and dominates HS hockey, now then you have something to consider for your SR season. We always hear about "playing up" and increasing the competition. But then rewind back to mites, peewees, squirts and we teach kids and families to play where you have the puck on your stick more often. Seems to be contradictory in itself. I'm glad Mattern made it. I think that sends a fantastic message. Play in ND, stay home with your friends and family, take advantage of off season programs and activites. You don't need to leave to make it. Trust me on that one, a good friend of mine from freaking Hallock has 2 boys playing for Augie that stayed start to finish...and their schedule isn't exactly murderer's row. From my personal experience, the kids that "make it" could've made it from home. Harper Bentz left Bismarck for Moorhead. You could tell in Mites that kid was different. Max Vig, you could tell from a young age he had something special. And there's plenty of others. Honestly, there's a right and a wrong for each family and we've seen it work and seen it not work. At the end of the day, everyone has to make a decision they feel is best for their family. It's unfortunate that in this day and age with video and off season opportunities, the label still exists.

He is on the Aviators line charts for games.

Bobcats

Morelli will be a magi. They did lose Haaland to Northstar but Minot will be capable of taking a Thursday night game at State.

Seeger went out east to some AAA program. Defenseman Schultz to the Shattuck 16U team.

2024 regular season starts tomorrow. Who you got in the east? West is Minot. They may run through the WDA undefeated. After them, a lot of question marks. Girls is Fargo North. They have the best player in the state, and until someone knocks them off, that's who it's going to be. I expect both Bismarck teams to be pretty tough - both graduated a couple but both will gain solid FR. Grand Forks probably has the best goalie in the state, however they did lose 2 of their better players to other opportunities. New coach in Mandan and they lost a pile of SRs so there's a lot of change there, DL replacing 2 absolute studs, Minot graduated Ackerman in the pipes, WF graduated Seeley, Jamestown graduated Sorlie....gonna be an interesting season.