All The News That's Fit To Print

The UAA Athletic Department announced today that goalie Bryce Christianson had finally (my word not theirs) made it through the NCAA red-tape hullabaloo screw-with-a-kid's career Clearinghouse and is eligible to play. This is great news and will provide Jonny O with a proven backup. I don't have a good guess as to when we might see Bryce in a game but hopefully it comes in a starting role as opposed to a mop-up role or going in for an injury. With 14 regular season games remaining I'd expect to see Bryce get in between the pipes sometime in the next 4 games so the staff can evaluate him in an actual game. If he does well, he'll see more time I'd think. Having two guys that you know you can depend on is an important thing.

Unfortunately, the other news we received today via the ADN was that Brian Bales had been ruled ineligible to play by the NCAA red-tape hullabaloo screw-with-a-kid's career Clearinghouse. Coach Shyiak indicated in the story that the ruling was due to a "technicality" and commented that it was an injustice. Here's his most important quote from the story:

"It's too bad because he's worked hard. He's a great student, great personality, comes to practice every day with a smile on his face, great in the locker room, wants to be here, loves our guys."

I was hoping Brian would be on the ice this year but I suppose it is some solace to us fans that he'll have his two full years of eligibility left. Hang in there Brian. I'm sure you can contribute to an improved team over the next two years. Two years that look to have the potential to be perhaps the best Seawolf teams to ever hit the ice.

I looked into the meaning of the "technicality" label and while I didn't learn anything earth-shattering I could at least add it appears to me that somewhere along the line there was an "i" left undotted; and my interpretation is that the NCAA is punishing a player for the mistake of a school. Shane Lovdahl was a victim of the same sort of niggling BS last year during the second half when he'd had some niggling issues with some BS technicality about his class standing and number of credits even though he'd passed all his classes and carried a full load. The NCAA decision they reported today was the result of an appeal that UAA had filed. Blargh.

Speaking of "appeals". Unless you've been in a cave you're probably aware of the Instant-Replay fiasco last Friday night involving DU and (UAA's opponent this week) Wisconisn. Short story: Wisconsin scored with less than a second to go. Referee Randy Schmidt blew it. DU won the game. Wisconsin whined. WCHA commish Bruce McLeod officially said "sorry". Wisconsin did an appeal-whine. Today the WCHA said nope. Did they really think that the league would award them a point? Today they're all saying that they didn't have any expectation that their appeal would be granted. So why did they bother?

Anyhow, it'll be nice to see the end of all that. But in honor of it I've got a couple of suggested chants for this weekend. The list was originally longer but I've narrowed it done to the two prime ones that I believe will be the most fun. If you hear us start these (and I can promise you section 213 will start them) please join in.

If Eaves gripes to an official ...
GO CALL BRUCE ... clap clap ... clap clap clap

If in the (unlikely) event that Wisconsin scores ...
INSTANT REPLAY ... clap clap ... clap clap clap

Apparently the games will be on TV in Wisconsin this weekend. Hopefully Kurt Haider's microphone will pick up one or both of those chants up so the cheeseheads back in Whinerville can enjoy them too.

And now to clarify I situation that I was bitching about earlier this week. I'd moaned that someone used my texting widget and had sent a text identifying themselves as "real uaa" in which they called me a shitbag. I made a bad assumption. My "Sherlock-ing" was completely and entirely wrong. I should apologize here to the UAA fanbase for thinking that someone amongst you would be so weak.

I know I was wrong because I got another text from "real uaa" ... Let me first say that I was inaccurate in describing the first event. When I went back into my inbox I see that the message came from "real uaa f" and I neglected to leave that part off my reporting. My bad there. Additionally, (and this is the funny part) the boob that sent the message didn't even bother to replace the "Type your message here" text so the message I got actually read "Type you message here get a life shitbag". I figured all this out last night when I got another message from "real uaa f" that said "Type your message here get a job" at midnight. I happened to be on Halo-multiplayer when the message came in so I bailed from killing virtual representations of Italian noobs to look at my stats counter. Guess where it came from? Fairbanks. Without a doubt. Nailed. I guess in my CC game recap when I mentioned that it looked like UAF players had jumped into UAA sweaters that I hit a nerve up in the craphole on a river. Hey doofus ... next time you send please try at least to erase the "Type your message here" part first eh?