Sunday Potpourri: All Hockey

A couple of changes to let you know about here on the blog.  Google Blogger's new editor now allows the inclusion of jump breaks.  This means to read the full text of a post that you'll have to click on a "read more" link at the end of the 1st section.  It's a bit of a cleaner look and will help ensure that you don't have to read anything you don't want to read.  Not that you didn't always have that choice.  There'll be less scrolling through my long posts to see what I had to say a few days ago with this feature.  I'll debut this feature in the next post.

The 2nd change is that I've adopted the CoverItLive "Chat Room" instead of the less than fully featured Chatroll program I was using.  The CoverItLive software saves the entire "event".  It makes it easier to embed other media, looks better and I think will help ensure a positive environment for UAA Hockey fans.  I don't think I'll use it during home games however.  I could have internet access at the rink if I wanted to take a laptop.  But I don't want to do that.  At the rink I want to watch the game and cheer for the team versus sitting in the media area and moderating a chat room.

There is an "event reminder" on the top right hand column.  If you want to set a reminder you can enter your email address along with when you want to receive the reminder.

_______________

Zebras are an interesting species. None of the other wildlife in their ecosystems seem to like them. The word is well and truly out within wildlife social culture. Zebras are the very definition of the word pariah. You almost never see them with other wildlife.

Wildebeest shun them. Baboons jeer and turn the noses up at them. Lions hate them so much they hunt and then eat them. Elephants have a natural disinclination toward them. Giraffes look down on them. Hyenas laugh at them of course. The graceful Impala won't be seen with Zebras. Even the smelly Kudu go out of their way to avoid them.

Only the sleazy vile untrustworthy Jackals (yes ... you know who you are) can be seen having a beer with Zebra; Jackals always have ulterior motives. But at least the Zebras do seem to like each other quite a bit.

What's wrong with the Zebras? They sure seem inclined to ingest excessively large volumes of air for long periods. Here's the thing. If they're away from their home range they are skittish as can be. None of the comforts of home and herd are available for them. They're lonely and sad. They have to associate with a couple of local zebras who they really don't trust.

So yeah ... they're just generally miserable about being where they are. Does the league really make them stay at Motel 6? The bigwigs at the Zebra home office decided to make them harder to identify this season. No worries. Here's who they are:

Derek Shepherd #3; Todd Anderson #4; Justin Brown #5; Don Adam #7; Tom Sterns #8; C.J. Beaurline #9; Peter Friesema #10; Tim Walsh #11; Butch Mousseaux #12; Brian Thul #14; Marco Hunt #15; Craig Welker #17; Max Battimo #18; Brad Albers #20; Bill Mason #22; Matt Ulwelling #23; Jon Campion #24; 25 Mike McCreary #25; Jonathan Morrison #27; Scott Bokal #29; Brett Klosowski #31; Brad Shepherd #33.

There is little or no truth to the rumor that numbers also reflect SAT scores. You won't see Sarah Palin walking around with a 416 on her back. Just sayin ...

_______________

Yeah! The Seawolves win last night and now WestHam comes back from being down 2 - nil to tie the overrated, overpaid girls from Arsenal? There is some small measure of justice in the world afterall. A well-deserved penalty shot awarded in the 86th minute sealed the deal.

_______________

There were some interesting results this weekend from around the league. Let's have a look, shall we? First and foremost has to be that the Golden Chosen Minnesota High School All-Star Draft Picks are 0-3-1 after being shutout 3-0 on their home ice and on consecutive nights by DU. Mankato copied UAA ... sort of.

After being pummeled 6-0 by Wisconsin on Friday they decided becoming Chuck Wepner University again might be the ticket to victory and it turns out they were right ... 3-2 for them on Saturday.

The Colorado College (inappropriately named) Tigers don't pay a Black Bear's scat worth of attention to preseason WCHA polls. They're now 3-0-1 in WCHA play; 4-1-1 overall and happily atop the league table after sweeping MTU 4-1 and 8-5.

And in the matchup of the two least compellingly named teams in the league ... the Huskies II from St. Nothingelsetodoville picked up three points at home from the visiting Bulldogs (from their home just across the river from Superior, Wisconsin). Lots of panting and drooling dogs in that mix.

Next weekend there are only three WCHA series. The Seawolves of course visit the GCMHSASNHLDP's at corpie sit on your hands arena. It's a Friday - Sunday series since some Big Ten football game is going on next door to the John on Saturday. Not enough parking or some such thing. Don't they know about car-pooling and buses in Minneapolis? Aren't football games in the afternoon and hockey games in the evening? The Sunday game starts at 1PM here in Anchorage? Geez ...

Chuck Wepner University heads down to the mile high city to face the annointed ones. And St. Nothingelsetodoville Community College heads up to beautiful downtown Houghton, Michigan to face the team that they stole their nickname from.

UND has a week off to recover from the big bad airplane ride. And Duluth hosts an upstate New York school called Clarkson for a pair.

_______________

In the don't quit your day job category...

An outside free-lance sports writer called UAA Athletic Director Steve Cobb last week to query him about the support that the WCHA provides to UAA for travel.

Just goes to show you that there actually are people who haven't read my blog. Amazing but true. Still though ... October 2009 is now the record holder for most hits in a month here since I started. I remember being thrilled when 25 people a day read what I wrote once a day. It's nice to know that now 50 people are returning 15 times a day to read what I've written.

I'll happily sell this blog to any UAA fan that wants it. Seriously, if you enabled Google Adsense and or some other ad service ... you could make 22 or 23 dollars a month. That's like 44 cents an hour return from about 50 hours a month writing about hockey and other junk.

_______________

Maybe you've seen this. It's like a dozen years old. I hadn't seen it.