Sunday, September 20, 2009

Sunday Potpourri: Poetry, Prose and Activism

I received an interesting email yesterday from someone who'd prefer to remain anonymous. It's a sort of an "Ode" to Seawolf hockey. Here it is:
Seawolf Pride
Our hometown team of green and gold call this great north state and city home. Although many great Seawolf skaters have passed our way, the best Seawolf team has yet to play.
Win boys win, and they will com
e; the cheers of UAA! UAA! will continue long after you’ve won.
Beat the badger, the Gopher, the Sioux and fans at the Sully will love you.
The time for winning is now.
Straight into the 2009-10 playoffs we will plow.

It’s a long, tough season in the WCHA.
No lead is ever safe, no easy teams to play.

Give it everything you got - skate, shoot and hit!
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The BYOTCH Project
It's been 8 days since I my challenge to WCHA Athletic Directors to answer my Open Letter calling on them to renounce the travel subsidy that UAA shells out. Only UAA Sports Hall of Fame swimmer and current Colorado College A.D. Ken Ralph had the courtesy to reply. Honestly, I expected no replies. Ken was informative and polite but in no manner came close to renouncing the subsidy. That means only one thing.

Project B.Y.O.T.C.H. is a go. BYOTCH stands for Buy Your Own Tickets College Hockey or Buy Your Own Tickets Cheap Hacks or By Your Own Tickets Charlie Brown if you prefer. I was going to call it the YHABRFYTSWAYSTMFU ... (You Have Already Been Recompensed For Your Travel So Why Are You Still Taking Money From Us) ... but that seemed a little cumbersome. I'm officially looking for one volunteer to make some simple 8x10 posters that look like the picture below. Use it as a template if you want.

(click to enlarge)

If you want to volunteer to do this let me know. I envision passing them out to folks behind the opposition bench and to the student section. Maybe 50 or so on regular paper wouldn't be too expensive? I'll do all the legwork at the games.

The secondary part of the BYOTCH plan is to make some quality paper airplanes (with the message above printed on them) to be thrown by the student section after UAA scores the first goal. As long as it doesn't evolve to throwing the airplanes at any other point then I think we can get away with it.

Referees typically give a warning to a team after such events. A second infraction would result in a penalty against UAA so we have to make sure that doesn't happen. Any good paper airplane engineers out there? Let me know.

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My understanding is that the first official practice may be tomorrow (Monday). If that's indeed the case then I'll try to make it. I'll pick up my media pass stuff and take a couple of pictures and watch the rookies skate. I may not get to it until Tuesday though. I'm still following all of UAA recruits as they get their seasons underway. I'll have a full-blown "recruit update" within a couple of weeks.

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It seems to be exceedingly quiet out there on the college hockey interweb. Collegehockeystats.net posted official rosters a couple of days ago. So if you want to take a peek at exactly who other teams are going to put on the ice, you won't have to visit every schools webpage anymore. All of the three "big" college hockey sites use collegehockeystats.net to build their rosters and stats but none of them have updated rosters as of tonight.

The only news of any sort worth commenting is that Susies fans are all atwitter because one of the two Sioux nations tribal councils which have to give approval reworded an earlier resolution to make it clear that they ...
"... affirmatively approves and supports UND's use of the current nickname and related imagery, and hereby confirms Spirit Lake Tribe's full permission for UND to continue using the Fighting Sioux nickname and logo and the duration of this authorization shall be perpetual commencing Oct. 1, 2009."
If (and it is a really really big if) the other tribal council decides to issue a similar proclamation then UND might actually be able to keep HOSTILE name and ABUSIVE logo of a decapitated Sioux warrior. It's a bit amazing and more than a bit shameful when a people become complicit in their own racial oppression but there is a litany of such throughout human history. Que Sera Sera, I guess. I was so hoping they'd become the Zephyrs with a cool speeding train logo. That would have been something I could have supported. Since I thought of it and all.

I have to imagine that we'll see the WCHA Coaches Preseason Poll sooner than later. Here's my guess as to what it will look like:
1. DU
2. UND
3. Wisconsin
4. Minnesota
5. St. Cloud
6. UMD
7. Mankato
8. CC
9. UAA
10. Michigan Tech
And to remind you of the way I picked back on August 28th:
1. Denver (highest 1st; lowest 1st)
2. Wisconsin (highest 2nd; lowest 4th)
3. UND (highest 3rd; lowest 5th)
4. Minnesota (highest 3rd; lowest 6th)
5. UAA (highest 4th; lowest 7th)
6. UMD (highest 4th; lowest 7th)
7. SCSU (highest 5th; lowest 8th)
8. Mankato (highest 7th; lowest 9th)
9. Colorado College (highest 8th; lowest 9th)
10. Michigan Tech (highest 10th; lowest 10th)
If it is much different than that I'd be surprised. Maybe Mankato and CC will swap and perhaps the 2, 3, and 4 spots could vary. But dollars to donuts it won't be hugely different. Or ... maybe it will?

Remember, in most years at least one team will ikely perform greatly above everybody's expectations and one team will likely perform greatly below everybody's expectations. That makes it likely that both me and the coaches will be wrong in our prognostications to some degree. At least I gave myself wiggle-room with the whole "highest/lowest" dodge.

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Curtis Glencross skated tonight with 41 year old Theo Fleury in a preseason game against the Florida Panthers. Fleury is impressing lots of fans and might find himself a spot in their lineup. Glencross scored a goal and added two assists in the 5-2 win. Here's the highlights:



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And you waited all Sunday for that? The "Ode" was good anyway. Since you're all so patient. Here's another lovely Sunday treat. 15 UAA Fan Blog bonus points for the first correct guess to another actress I enjoy watching that isn't named Gretchen or Milla.


And yes. It has nothing to do with hockey. I'm sorry ... I like movie actresses too.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glencross just parked himself right in front of the goal, don't know how much that will happen come regular season.

Anonymous said...

Amy Adams

Anonymous said...

I really disagree with your suggestion for having anything thrown on the ice for any reason after any goal. Why change the momentum that the Seawolves have going at that time? We have all experienced games where there have been two goals in less than a minute both for and against us. And why would you suggest something that the UAA has said they don't want done specifically for the safety of the players? Things stick to the ice and anything thrown on the ice has a potential for a portion of it to stick to the ice and can cause someone to trip. I would hate to see a Seawolf or any player injury happen because some person jumped on your bandwagon.

Donald Dunlop said...

I suggest it because I believe it makes a statement. I'm well aware of the potential for injury. Nobody ever tripped on a fish and hurt themselves. No reason for them to step on a paper airplane and get hurt.

I do agree with your assessment that such celebratory displays can be momentum robbing. I don't see the act of throwing airplanes as anything more than a couple of games/series at the most to make the point.

Anonymous said...

Great article in the anchorage news. The team looks ready.
Were you at the first practise yesterday.

Fan

Donald Dunlop said...

I did not manage to get there on Monday. I don't think there is anything to keep me from getting there today. So I'll have a post sometime in the early evening.

Anonymous said...

Remember that it was the Universities decision to stop the throwing of the fish. I can see holding the signs, but as for throwing anything on the ice, this better be cleared through them first.

Anonymous said...

http://www.adn.com/3530/story/943815.html

How long will that last?

Was I right about Amy?

Donald Dunlop said...

Nope not Amy Adams.

Dina Meyer -- Starship Troopers, Dragonheart, Star Trek Nemesis, Saw(s) (not that I would watch that crap) ...

Anonymous said...

Really........oh. They sorta look alike

And, the new Alaska Mining & Diving radio ad is hilarious. Suprising I've heard it more on 650the Blowtorch, then 550 the Zone...

Suze said...

I heard Kurt Haiders interview of Tuton this am on 650. The puck can't drop soon enough!

Anonymous said...

What did Tuton have to say

Fan

Anonymous said...

If you saw the piece that channel 2news did last night, he said about the same thing.

That the team has high expectations this year with scoring upperclassmen and talented freshmen. They are working hard, learning something new every day and excited to get the season started.

akhockeyfanatic said...

I'm on the East Coast until next week. Tried to go to ticketmaster.com on 9/21 to buy tickets to the Kendall. Says they aren't on sale until 9/29. Anyone else having problems??

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