A serendipitous peek at my email inbox gave me a pleasant little surprise. There was an official practice today at 3:15. I headed over and watched Damon Whitten put the team through it's paces. It was pretty difficult to determine who was who since not all the helmet's had numbers yet and a couple of helmet numbers I saw today aren't even on this years roster. The forwards were dressed in black, gray, teal, and blue jerseys and the defensemen were all in gold. I'd assume those were indicative of some sort of tentative lines but honestly between my less than perfect eyes and the missing helmet numbers I'm not even going to guess. There were the usual skating and passing drills but it was good to see that everything they did included the puck. That tells me that conditioning is pretty much complete and the team can focus on skills. Coach Whitten saved the cool drill for last by bringing both nets to center ice and placing them back to back each facing the side boards. Teams of two forwards vs. two defensemen battled to score. The one thing worth mentioning is that after a 15 minute 2-on-1, 3-on-1, 3-on-2 drill the forwards earned themselves 25 pushups by not putting many pucks in the net. After the final drill the defensemen got their chance to do the extra pushups thanks to the forwards getting more pucks into the net. The players looked to be pretty competitive during those drills and (in my mind) that can only bode well for the team.
On the way home from the practice I heard the first radio commercial for the Nye Frontier tournament. At the tournament Nye will be giving away a Ford GT worth about 150,000 dollars. Nice. To be eligible you must go to Nye for a test drive and they'll sign you up. I'll make a trip to their dealership tomorrow. Merrimack, Nebraska-Omaha and Colorado College will be here and I'll post some info about Merrimack and UNO (UAA's opponents) soon. But since UAA ain't playing the Tigers I'll pretty much ignore them except to mention that this season they are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their last NCAA championship.
Lastly, I got word today that "someone" in the WCHA had questioned whether or not Nils Backstrom was eligible to play. I'm unsure of who initiated the question but suffice to say that I understand all the proper documentation is in place and so any lingering doubts should have therefore now been quashed. The concern arose from initial reports that he'd dressed for a game with the professional level team from his club in Sweden. That initial report was wrong as stated by the University the day after they announced his signing. Apparently, that wasn't good enough for "someone".
On the way home from the practice I heard the first radio commercial for the Nye Frontier tournament. At the tournament Nye will be giving away a Ford GT worth about 150,000 dollars. Nice. To be eligible you must go to Nye for a test drive and they'll sign you up. I'll make a trip to their dealership tomorrow. Merrimack, Nebraska-Omaha and Colorado College will be here and I'll post some info about Merrimack and UNO (UAA's opponents) soon. But since UAA ain't playing the Tigers I'll pretty much ignore them except to mention that this season they are celebrating the 50th anniversary of their last NCAA championship.
Lastly, I got word today that "someone" in the WCHA had questioned whether or not Nils Backstrom was eligible to play. I'm unsure of who initiated the question but suffice to say that I understand all the proper documentation is in place and so any lingering doubts should have therefore now been quashed. The concern arose from initial reports that he'd dressed for a game with the professional level team from his club in Sweden. That initial report was wrong as stated by the University the day after they announced his signing. Apparently, that wasn't good enough for "someone".
16 comments:
Under multiple websites it says that the swedish kid played a game. Isn't that like playing a game of MAJOR JUNIOR hockey. In most cases players have to sit for a certain amount of time. Also how is The UAA Volleball team doing. Losing to St. Martins. And a basketball player is ineligable. Alot of negative energy over at UAA. When will the ruling come out on the Swedish player and his pro game.
I wish this guy would reveal his identity, my guess of who he is? Probably John Hill
Dude
Anon@0820
Under multiple websites? The original website that had him playing a game was wrong. Know how that happens? Some numbnuts running the Club's website fatfingered a field.
When? I just said when or don't you read. It's a done deal. What part of "lingering doubts" and "quashed" did you have a hard time understanding?
OMG a basketball player didn't do his homework during summer school? How could something like that happen?
Dude:
This guy usually posts from home in Anchorage so it ain't John Hill. You don't really think that an ex-UAA coach would be so childish as to turn into a one-trick-pony blog trolling miserable ass? Do you?
Sometime I feel like I'm the Lone Ranger here and this cat is turning into my faithful companion. I guess I could call him Kimo Sabe.
Well this "guy" really hates Cobb and probably hates UAA as well. I was joking about it being Hill. Maybe its a disgruntled former player, who cares, he's an ass anyway. If he had any stones, he'd identify himself. Just start ignoring the a-hole, maybe, eventually he'll dissappear.
dude
If he was a garden variety troll from some backwoods hovel I'd have already never answered him. But he is from Anchorage ... sigh. Which is why I tried to engage him to be constructive in my other comments to him. Heck, he even spurred me to invite articles from people with differing perspectives. But alas neither of those approaches have seemed to dissuade him.
Thanks for the heads up on the practices. I wish I could watch one, but I am free from 8:30 until 3:15, dang it. It was nice to read about the drills the team is doing. I wondered if official practices wouldn't start sooner than Monday - I know that Air Force started their official practices a week ago Friday.
You know, I wish that "someone" in the WCHA would ask how come the Gophers never received any game DQ's for getting free drinks in trade for free tickets. As well as paying no cover fees at Blarneys. All clearly NCAA violations. What's up with that?
Suze,
Don't be too sure there won't still be repercussions.
RWD
Two announcements in the ADN. UAF holding a tournament next year with an outstanding field and Bryant Molle commits to UAF. The Gophers, Pioneers and Blackbears up in Fairbanks.
I saw on Heisenber's site that Molle is playing at UAF next year, with his brother. His stats weren't very impressive ... I don't think UAA was interested in recruiting him.
Didn't want him??? Yeah, who would want an alumni's son who is also a 4.0 student!
Well, with 1 goal and 7 assists in 57 games, I'm surprised UAF wanted him.
Bryant Molle is going to turn out to be a good college player. Is he going to be an All American. Probably not but after Dustin Molle was treated poorly he wasn't coming to UAA. I wonder how the Molle family feels after the treatment of Dustin from Coach Shyiak.
I just love it when the coach gets blamed for everything. Molle did not EARN playing time at UAA. I saw every game he played in, and he simply was not good enough to make the line up. Blame the coach for that if you want, that's the easy way out. No accountability for Dustin.
Suze with all that hockey knowledge you have why don't you go tell Tim MOlle that.
You know, I talked to the dad of a current UAA player and asked him if his son liked the coach. You know what he said? He replied, "if he did, the coach wouldn't be getting the most out of him". Coaches are not there to be a players friend ... most players don't really "like" their coaches.
UAF has had defections of their own. Did you blame that on the coaching staff?
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