Still Stretching

The Sports Information Department at UAA has posted the weekly release (PDF). In case you're not familiar, they do this every Wednesday during the season. The release always contains tidbits of news and up to date information. One section this week mentions that the UAA Coaches Show will be airing tonight on GCI channel 1 at 8pm. David Tuttle will again host Coach Shyiak in a review of this past weekends games. It says the show each week will be 30 minutes and will also feature a player. I called the JPC office and they told me the player to be featured this week is Josh Lunden.

Coming up with new and unique ways to talk trash about UAF isn't as easy as you might think. I've given them a rash of crap about their new boat a few weeks ago. Last year before the first two games I went all Dickens (at least with my post titles) and did some comparing both fictionally and non-fictionally. This past summer I wrote a letter to UAA's incoming freshman that included the following:

We hate Fairbanks ergo you hate Fairbanks. OK? Seriously, we never want to lose to them again. You don't either. On board with that? The "Governors Cup" is a big deal to UAF fans and denying them it, is why you're here. Following the the general trend now? Seawolf > Nanook. It's just that simple. Ingrain it on your psyche. Burn it in your memory. Never forget. They hate freedom. We love freedom. Fairbanks bad. UAA good. The ticket is free to get on the "Hate-FBX" bus, so jump on it and stay on it. Comprende? Ok then ... the less said about Fairbanks the better.

So the problem here for me is to give readers something fresh while still not letting Fairbanks off the "you guys suck" hook. But the reality is that I don't know much about this years version of the Nanooks. They've got a new coach, Doc Delcastillo and so will likely have a new personality as a team. The one tidbit that has managed to make itself known is that he has the squad focused on taking as few penalties as is possible. The word is that if you get your stick horizontal across a teammate in practice, then you're skating some penalty drills. So perhaps he's a rigid disciplinarian? Perhaps its a bit early to make that call but if any program ever deserved to have a control freak at it's helm I'd have to say it's UAF. Like I said though, it's a bit early to make such characterizations. You can be assured though that the minute he smells like Dean Talafous to me I'll be all over it.

I'll do some more research and have a real preview of the 'nooks tomorrow.