Sunday, February 24, 2008

Sunday Potpourri: What It Is

Thanks for the kind comments and text messages in reply to yesterday's post. I've been asked to point out that this coming Friday night is another of the "Green and Gold" nights. Any adult wearing "Green and Gold" can get free tickets for those kids under 12 in their party by going to the student desk at the Northwest entrance to the Sully. This being the last home series of the year it sure would be nice to see more butts in the seats. If you're a teacher, bring some students. If you're a parent, bring your kids and their friends. Minnesota's broadcaster is apparently sending their broadcast team to Anchorage for the games. So besides Doug Woog and Frank Mazzacco being in the joint it'd be nice if the place looked somewhat like Anchorage fans gave a shit about their team. Hell, bring Gopher fans; doesn't matter to me. Lets just get some butts in the empty seats. Bring a cardboard cutout if you don't have any friends. There might be one or two Gopher fans who care enough to actually stay awake until 10:30 to watch and I'm sick of hearing of teams fans talk about how empty our arena looks. Grab some homeless drunks off the street on your way to the game if you have to. Do whatever it takes ok?

Eight teams in the WCHA have 4 games remaining. UAA and Wisconsin have 2 games left to play. It doesn't matter what happens this coming weekend against UofM for UAA. 10th place is a lock. Michigan Tech is in 9th with 18 points and UAA has 11. The series does have some meaning for the Gophers and I'll talk about that during the week. My first question about the WCHA this year is; What happened to MTU? I really thought they'd have a better season than last year and early in the season they were 5-2 overall. Well, they've only scored 48 goals so far in WCHA games. That's three less than UAA. The big mystery for most WCHA watchers is; What the heck happened to Minnesota this year? Well, so far this season they've managed only 52 goals. Mystery solved. Duluth? At one point this season they were ranked as highly as 8th in Pairwise and they spent a long time in 3rd place in the league, now they sit solidly in 7th. 50 goals in the league. I suppose there is some consolation for Seawolf fans to see a fair number of other league teams that also had problems finding the net.

Who is going to win the league and host UAA in a first round playoff series? Right now CC is in control of that. They have a 4 point lead over UND with 2 games at a hungry Mankato and then a home and home versus DU. UND has a road series with Duluth and then host St. Cloud to finish the regular season. I'd tend to think that CC has a bit of a tougher task with two games against their primary rival and two on a teams home ice who really really want home ice. UND gets a team that is 3-5-2 in its last 10 league games and then hosts a relatively hot SCSU at the Ralph. Neither team has it easy per se but with the 4 point lead CC has, I'd be expecting that UAA can just about make reservations for Colorado Springs. Stranger things have happened though. If the two teams tie it's hard to say at this point who the tie-breakers would go to. Head to head they are 1-1 and they could end up with the same league records so ... who knows?

This coming weekend will be the last appearances at home in a Seawolf uniform for seniors Peter Cartwright, Merit Waldrop, Blair Tassone, Chris Tarkir and Luke Beaverson. I'll have a "Senior Tribute" post on Wednesday telling what these guys have meant to me as a fan over the last four years. That's another reason to get some butts in the seats this weekend eh? To show these five guys the proper respect that their 4 years of effort deserve.

I don't talk about alumni much (if ever) here but in case you didn't notice Curtis Glencross got traded from the Columbus Blue Jackets to the Edmonton Oilers a couple of weeks ago. Oilers fans were at first wondering who he was. Now they're loving him for the same reasons we loved him. He's playing with huge heart and a chip on his shoulder. He scored his first goal for Edmonton the other night and added his second today against Colorado as well as being named 2nd star of the game (the 2nd time this season he's been a "star"). He has 8g and 9a for the season. Congrats to him.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A Minnesota fan posted this on the USCHO:

I believe that FSN is merely picking up the local TV broadcast, and not sending Woog and the Rug up to Anchorage along with a full crew.

Anyone know for sure?

It seems that Shep refs a lot of the Gopher games. After his terrible job a few weeks ago, I sure don't want to see him up here. I thought he did a fairly good job last year, but his last performance at the Sully was dismal.

Donald Dunlop said...

My assumption was that Frank and Doug would be here. I can't see a network like FSN just rebroadcasting UAA's signal. Good on them if they do but since they've had this scheduled all season long then until I hear otherwise I'd assume they'll be in the building.

Note to Mazzacco:
You'll see my imitation of Dave Hakstol should I run into you in response to your disrespect of my team by calling them the Seapuppies.

Anonymous said...

You may be right, now the fans are saying "the rug" mentioned coming up here after last weekends telecast.

As for the green & gold promo, the kids have to wear the colors, but they are very liberal. Even a green hat or necklace will do it.

Anonymous said...

Ummmm, CC plays HOST to Mankato this weekend, not AT Mankato. I think you said that in 2 spots in the post.

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