jk

Here's where I am: Some of the information was new to me. It confirmed my earlier understanding that the Edmonton Oilers really like Matt Greene, at least publicly. I had, and continue to have, no idea whether he will join the Oilers organization next year. I will admit to taking the somewhat pessimistic position that I would be naive to be surprised if he does leave.

PCM, I believe THIS is old:

This is from a review of Edmonton's prospects on Hockey's Future. HF is not itself an authoritative source, but the quotes from members of the Edmonton organization are telling (they are still ringing in my ears). --------------------------------------- 6. (9) Matt Greene (D)

Schedule for the Royal Bank Cup: ROYAL BANK CUP (at Grande Prairie, Alta.) May 8 Kindersley vs. Grande Prairie, 7:30 p.m. May 9 Nepean vs. Nanaimo, 2 p.m. Grande Prairie vs. Aurora, 7:30 p.m. May 10 Nepean vs. Kindersley, 2 p.m. Aurora vs. Nanaimo, 7:30 p.m. May 11 Grande Prairie vs. Nepean, 7:30 p.m. May 12 Kindersley vs. Aurora, 2 p.m. Nanaimo vs. Grande Prairie, 7:30 p.m. May 13 Aurora vs. Nepean, 2 p.m. Nanaimo vs. Kindersley, 7:30 p.m. May 15 Sudden-death semi-finals at 2 and 7:30 p.m. May 16 Sudden-death final

Tri-City managed to survive last night in Game 3 of the USHL finals against Waterloo. Here is how it has gone: Game 1: Waterloo 3-2 (SOG Tri-City 32-18, Spirko 0-0-0) Game 2: Waterloo 4-1 (SOG Tri-City 30-18, Spirko 0-0-0) Game 3: Tri-City 4-3 (SOG Tri-City 37-27, Spirko 2-0-2) I know SOG is an overrated statistic, but it looks like Tri-city might be getting out-goaltended. Not only has Tri-City outshot Waterloo in every game so far, they have outshot them in every single period. Spirko took just one shot in the first two games combined, but had four last night. Bubz, Tri-City seems to be loaded with future Division I players. How does Spirko compare to some of the other leaders on the team, like Dingle and Thomas, in terms of ability and future college impact (just your guess)? Thanks.

Someone on USCHO put up a link to the thread there when Pineault committed. There are some classic Chris!!! posts there. These are the best: "If BC gets that Hennesey kid from Milton Academy, they may as well just give us the National Championship Trophy from 2004-2007. Damn, it's nice to be a BC Eagle these days!!!!!!!!!!!" "Can you picture BC's top 2 lines in 2002: Vanek/Spina/Hennessey Parise/Pat Eaves/Pineault Holy Schnikes!!!!!!!!!!" Ahh, the bad old days.

Thought I would pass on that Mr. Lefebvre committed to UMD over the weekend. Congrats to him and to UMD.

Thank you for the early morning laugh ... this one is just priceless.

GP's Doyle Cup schedule (a funky way to schedule a series): The Doyle Cup championship between the Grande Prairie Storm and Nanaimo Clippers will open in Grande Prairie on Tuesday, April 20. The best-of-seven series will continue in Grande Prairie for Game 2 on Wednesday, April 21. A third game will be played in Grande Prairie on Thursday, April 22 if the first two games are split. After the two, or three, Grande Prairie games the series switches to Nanaimo for all remaining games. All games in the series will be played at 7:30 p.m. The Storm defeated the Fort McMurray Oil Barons in five games to win the Alberta Junior Hockey League championship while the Clippers took out the Salmon Arm Silverbacks in the same amount of games in the British Columbia Junior Hockey League final. Because the Storm is guaranteed a spot in the Royal Bank Cup May 8-16 in Grande Prairie, the Clippers receive a spot in the national tournament no matter what the outcome of the Doyle Cup.

Thanks, Bubz. I'm anxious to see how Spirko adjusts to the size and speed of the WCHA's players. Also, Grande Prairie won the AJHL playoff title last night, scoring three goals in the last ten minutes to win the game 4-2, and the series 4-1. CC recruit McCullough was named playoff MVP. Congrats to Grande Prairie and Kyle Radke and good luck in the Royal Bank Cup.

Really good stuff, The Sicatoka. Thanks. I have just a few comments. Schneider: He did have some rough outings, but I can also say that I saw him have some outstanding games in the second half. In his sophomore season, he generated a lot of offense by stepping up and blasting a hard shot from the point, which was sometimes deflected or generated a juicy rebound. That seemed to be missing this year. Canady: I thought he cut down on the penalties quite a lot this year. It seemed like the message got through to him, and he basically played straight up when he played. Just checked - here are his numbers: 01-02 36 GP, 4-4-8, 49 PIMs 02-03 26 GP, 1-2-3, 42 PIMs 03-04 19 GP, 2-2-4, 12 PIMs I realize I am in the minority, but I think if he could get a regular shift he could have a solid senior season. He has straightened out the penalty situation and has the tools (good speed and decent size and hands) plus the energy to contribute offensively. Massen: Attributes The Sicatoka mentioned were hands, shot, ability and body. To me, the key attribute that seemed missing when I saw him play was intensity. He needs to **Make It Happen**, rather than waiting for the play to come to him. I agree with many Sioux fans that an effective James Massen could have a huge impact on this team's fortunes. Prpich: Seems to step up his play in the postseason, which is nice. Still, in contrast to Canady, Prpich's penalty situation got quite a lot worse this year (55 PIMs in 40 GP in 02-03, growing to 95 PIMs in 37 GP in 03-04. Considering the reputation he brought to college, I was shocked that he was so disciplined (relative to my expectations) as a freshman. I am a big fan of his game and understand that his role necessarily brings penalties with it, but I hope he cuts down on the needless ones. --------------------------- Stepping away from grades, I thought I would float this one by the Panel of Experts. In the fall of 1999, the first-line void was filled with a big returning goal-scorer (Goren), a highly-touted freshman from the BCHL (Bayda), and a centerman who had labored in the shadow of the big class that just graduated and had shown little hint of what was to come offensively (Ulmer). I think that line was intact for most of the year, and its effectiveness is written into Sioux lore. I'm pondering the possibility of those roles being filled this year by: Bochenski, Zajac and ... (drumroll, please) ... McMahon. I know what his role has been in his first three years, and that he has not been flashy. Still, he has been quietly efficient, and as an example I reference one of the last good scoring chances UND had last year, when Denver made a rare mistake and sprung McMahon and Prpich free on a 2-on-1 late in the second period. McMahon had one job, to get the puck to Prpich in a good spot, and he did it. Perhaps that kind of workmanlike puck-distribution would be good for Bochenski. Likewise, having a center who wins a lot of draws couldn't hurt on the top line. I understand that Zajac on a wing would take away one of the team's centers, but maybe Stafford or Murray are ready to take that spot. I also know that McMahon is a key feature on the checking line, but Fylling and Prpich are fixtures there, and Canady and Kaip might ably fill that spot.

OK, not to disrespect any programs, and we don't really know who will be good next year until it rolls around, but I would "grade" the difficulty of the various weekends as follows (A being the toughest). The grades are based on my opinion that the competition for the WCHA title will be between UND, UMD, Wisconsin, MN and CC. I think MTU, UAA and MSUM will be in the second half of the league next year, even though they might be better than they were this year. A - at Maine B - at Minnesota State A - Minnesota A - at Northeastern/BC A - Colorado College A - at Wisconsin B - St. Cloud State B - at Michigan Tech B - Alaska Anchorage A - at Minnesota Duluth B - Canisius B - Minnesota State A - at Colorado College B - Bemidji State B - Denver B - at Alaska Anchorage A - Wisconsin B - at St. Cloud State Anyway, my point in grading out the weekends is to show my opinion that UND's schedule looks very tough early. Oct. 2 Manitoba (Exhibition), 7:05 p.m. Oct. 8 at Maine, 6:05 p.m. Oct. 9 at Maine, 6:05 p.m. Oct. 15 at Minnesota State*, 7:35 p.m. Oct. 16 at Minnesota State*, 7:05 p.m. Oct. 22 Minnesota*, 7:35 p.m. Oct. 23 Minnesota*, 7:05 p.m. Oct. 29 at Northeastern, 6:05 p.m. Oct. 30 at Boston College, 6:05 p.m. Nov. 5 Colorado College*, 7:35 p.m. Nov. 6 Colorado College*, 7:05 p.m. Nov. 12 at Wisconsin*, 7:05 p.m. Nov. 13 at Wisconsin*, 7:05 p.m. Nov. 19 St. Cloud State*, 7:35 p.m. Nov. 20 St. Cloud State*, 7:05 p.m. Nov. 26 at Michigan Tech*, 6:05 p.m. Nov. 27 at Michigan Tech*, 6:05 p.m. Dec. 3 Alaska Anchorage*, 7:35 p.m. Dec. 4 Alaska Anchorage*, 7:05 p.m. Dec. 10 at Minnesota Duluth*, 7:05 p.m. Dec. 11 at Minnesota Duluth*, 7:05 p.m. Dec. 17 Canisius, 7:35 p.m. Dec. 18 Canisius, 7:05 p.m. Dec. 19 USA World Jr. (exhibition), 2:05 p.m. Jan. 7 Minnesota State*, 7:35 p.m. Jan. 8 Minnesota State*, 7:05 p.m. Jan. 14 at Colorado College*, 8:05 p.m. Jan. 15 at Colorado College*, 8:05 p.m. Jan. 28 Bemidji State, 7:35 p.m. Jan. 29 Bemidji State, 7:05 p.m. Feb. 4 Denver*, 7:35 p.m. Feb. 5 Denver*, 7:05 p.m. Feb. 18 at Alaska Anchorage*, 10:05 p.m. Feb. 19 at Alaska Anchorage*, 10:05 p.m. Feb. 26 Wisconsin*, 2:05 p.m. Feb. 27 Wisconsin*, 2:05 p.m. Mar. 4 at St. Cloud State*, 7:05 p.m. Mar. 5 at St. Cloud State*, 7:05 p.m Also of interest is that there are no weekends off until the Christmas and New Year holidays. Then, in the stretch run, UND takes the weekends of January 21 and February 11 off. If the Sioux want to contend for the WCHA title, they will need to have a big lead going into those last few weeks. Also, while there is a risk of losing momentum, those weekends will give the team a chance to heal and rest up going into the playoffs. (Denver lost all of its momentum in the first round of the WCHA playoffs, and they did OK.)

Ruffian, While I agree that ZP could very well end up looking out of place, when NJ is down 3 games to 1 and scored zero goals in its last game, what exactly do they have to lose in giving him a shot?

While listening to the Nanaimo/Salmon Arm series, I kept hearing a Nanaimo player named "LaFabe" feature prominently in the play. It turns out that Blair Lefebvre has a 1/83 birthdate, which makes him nearly three years older than Drew Stafford. Lefebvre's linemate Mulock is also a 1/83. While all junior teams have older players, including Salmon Arm, it is notable that the two key players on Salmon Arm's top line have 5/85 (Zajac) and 3/86 (Chucko) birthdates. All is fair as long as it is within the rules, so congrats to Nanaimo on the BCHL championship. But it helps to explain to me why Salmon Arm had such trouble with Nanaimo. It also is a reminder of just how young Drew Stafford is. He will again be the youngest player on UND's roster next season. The next youngest players will be Zajac and Radke, who share the same birthdate - 5/13/85.

Kyle Radke is having one heck of a postseason with Grande Prairie. His team lost 4-3 in 2 OTs last night to Ft. McMurray, and now leads the series 3-1 in games. Radke had a 1-2-3 line last night, and has contributed regularly to the scoresheet. Also having a strong postseason is his teammate Scott McCullough, a CC recruit.

Thanks for those tidbits. I feel refreshed.

I'm suffering from withdrawal. These off-season discussions of the national anthem and dogs in suites are killing me. I guess I'll just have to live with it, but when you're used to checking in to the boards regularly, and there's nothing there, it takes a little while to adjust. It seems too early to talk about next year, especially since we don't know who will be back, so I guess we wait for some recruiting news to filter out. Maybe this is a good time to thank the folks behind SiouxSports for providing this great forum for us. And thank the Sioux hockey team for a fabulous year - because it was fabulous, with a lot of great moments.

I had not gone back to look at Denver's late-season results, but them getting thumped by CC was fresh in my mind. Taking that out, I can see their momentum to the title. I guess my thoughts are not strictly based on Denver this year, but more an accumulation of recent results. MN proved the last two years that a team can win with average goaltending. MN (2003), Michigan (1998) and UND (1997) proved a team can win while being led by younger players. Denver just proved a team can win when it is severely offensively-challenged. It just seems like there are no key "rules" or team characteristics that indicate a team's inability to win the title.

Whoooops. Salmon Arm's season just ended with a series loss to Nanaimo. And boy were the Nanaimo radio guys excited. (It brings new meaning to the word pathetic that I am listening to the radio broadcast of a game between the Salmon Arm Silverbacks and the Nanaimo Clippers.) So for Sioux recruits it is down to Tri-City in the USHL and Grande Prairie in the AJHL.

As much as I thought the first period was dreadful, I thought the game picked up in the second, with pretty good chances both ways. I don't even like Denver but I was jumping up and down at the end when they cleared the puck late in the 2-man. Way to go WCHA. This was no better than a middle-of-the-pack WCHA team and they skate away with the whole thing. To have to kill 90 seconds of 2-man to close the game is a pretty remarkable accomplishment. Also, Gwoz seemed quite calm and composed whenever they showed him on the bench. Congrats to him. More on this later, but this year tells me that winning the national title has nothing to do with anything. It still is the ultimate prize, IMO. But there is no key to winning it - get killed early, swoon late, have mediocre goaltending, have great goaltending, no offense, great offense, ditto for D - it just doesn't matter. If you qualify for the tournament, you can win four games and the whole thing.

It's disrespectful for me to say this, but this game is an embarrassment to college hockey. Compare this to the up-and-down WCHA Final Five championship game, played by two teams that like to play offense. Much credit to Denver and Maine for winning the games to get here, but I wish this game had more well-rounded teams in it. (Sour grapes.)

Congrats to Junior Lessard on the Hobey. The strangeness of this year's Hobey contest has now been matched by a bizarre national tournament. Of the Hobey's final three, I thought Junior and Parise were a pick-em for the winner. Either would have been a deserving winner. I expected they would give it to Parise because it would have been good exposure for college hockey for the next decade or so on ESPN. Had he indeed won, though, he would have been very deserving, as he simply was college hockey's best player from December on, when he was healthy. What I mean by this year's strange Hobey race is that it was the race that wasn't. Either Panzer or Ryan Miller would have been easy winners this year. Hartigan would have won easily this year, and Haydar, too. Most years, one, or two, or three, players step up and demand the award. Then the voters have a tough choice, as someone is going to get slighted. I think this year was supposed to be Ben Eaves' year, but he ended up missing half the season with injuries. With two months to go, it looked like Bochenski had a chance to lock it up, but an eleven-game stretch with one goal (or something like that) scuttled his runaway bid. So we were left with a lot of guys with solid years who deserved to be in the final ten, but none who seemed destined to win. BTW, Zach's early injury troubles probably cost him the award as much as Eaves' late ones did. Anyway, Zach did not have the kind of year that demanded the award, so IMO complaining about his loss of it seems petty. Congrats to Junior and UMD. As for Panzer and Miller, I thought at the time that they also both would have been deserving winners. With hindsight and some astounding numbers by goaltenders in the last few years, Miller's accomplishments may seem to have lost a little of their luster. At the time, though, they were astounding and called out for the award. Likewise, Panzer had a brilliant year and absolutely deserved to win. Unfortunately, the committee had to choose a winner and had to send someone home disappointed. I still can't find too much fault with their choice, then or this year. The travesty that year was that Gionta was co-runnerup with Panzer. He had no business being in the same building with Panzer that year. In January, I thought UND had a shot at back-to-back Hobeys, as Bochenski was in a very nice spot for this year, and Zach was lined up for next year. In the last few weeks, I thought we might see the reverse back-to-back, with Zach winning this year and Bochenski having a good shot next year. Obviously I was wrong. FWIW, I think Zach was just about a lock to get it next year, had he returned. He was, after all, the nation's best player since Christmas this year, and everything would have been in place for a very big year. But we'll have to move on to other big things.

Players who walk-on to a program are at risk of not returning the next year. A list of names such as that just provided should not include walk-ons like O'Leary and Ranfranz.

This is unfortunate for all involved. Sagard, you did an outstanding job of addressing a sensitive subject on a rival's board. I find that I don't disagree with much that you wrote. Most of all, I think that we don't know all of the facts, and it's hard to know exactly what to think of it in the absence of them. I acknowledge that on its face it doesn't look good, but it's tough to pass judgement without knowing the commitments made by each party. This is just one more example of why I don't like to point fingers when a player splits with a program. The reasons for a departure (or failure to arrive, in this case) vary from player to player and school to school (and include leaving to the pros because you don't like the coach, failing to qualify academically, not putting forth the developmental effort, being choked by the coach, burn out, family illness, not liking the demands of a big-time college program, being forced to be on a four-year academic timetable instead of the five-year plan you were recruited under, being lured to major juniors, getting a million dollar signing bonus, etc.), and those of us on the outside are almost never privy to the whole story. So in these cases I recommend trusting the good faith of the coaching staff, wishing the player well in their future hockey and non-hockey endeavors, and not casting stones as we all are in glass houses.

I am not here to defend Vanek, but if I were a Gopher fan (ack) I would fondly remember Vanek's tenure with MN. He hoisted that team onto his shoulders in 2002-03 and brought them a national title. IMO, he was the single most important reason that team won the title (honorable mention to Potulny, Weber and PMart). Let's see ... two years, one national title, one year where he seemed to play below his sky-high potential. I would take that on my team.