Sunday Potpourri: Recruits, WCHA Reviews, Bad Humans and Good Humans

I'm imagining that lots of good will come from this past weekends experience for the Seawolves.  That's the great thing about sports and being a fan.  Tomorrow.  The future.  The next game.  The next season.  I know our guys will learn from past games and apply those lessons in the next; they're students ya know ... they're all about learning.

So in the spirit of looking ahead here's a brief look at the latest results for our future Seawolves.  Let's start down in the USHL.  After 4 games in Lincoln, Eric Scheid has 1 goal and 3 assists.  In Lincoln's opener, Eric was the first player to take a shootout turn and the only amongst the 10 to score; giving the Stars the win.  Eric picked up Lincoln's first goal in their 2nd game and an assist in each of the two subsequent games.

Dubuque has two future Seawolves on it's roster; defensemen Tony Larson and Derek Docken.  Tony has 3 assists in 5 games.  Derek has 1 assist over 5 games.  Tony is tied for the team points lead from the blueline.  Tri-City has future Seawolf Zack Rall on the blueline and in 3 games so far this season Zach has one assist.

Up in the AJHL, Scott Allen with the Spruce Grove Saints now has 8 games under his belt after returning home from Des Moines.  His 1.3 points per game leads the Saints.  He now has 3 goals and 8 assists.  Over the weekend, he was named "Away Star" in wins against Okotoks and Canmore.

Down in the BCHL, it's still the Sam Mellor show.  Mellor's 17 goals leads the league.  His 30 points in 16 games (that's right ... 1.9 points per game and better than goal per game pace) is 2nd overall.  Trail is 9-6-0-1 (gawd shootouts are dumb) for 3rd place in the Interior Conference.  Andrew Pettitt with Powell River has 6 goals and 3 assists in 14 games.  He started slow but has been a regular contributor for the 2nd place Coastal Conference squad.

In terms of overall potential, I'm really really liking next years incoming class.  Mellor alone has the potential to be a team changing kind of player if his goal scoring prowess translates well at the college level.  And there's no reason to think it won't.  He's going to get a bit overlooked by NHL scouts because of his height but don't left draft status affect your view.  He'll be one of the top players coming into Division 1 hockey next season ... anywhere.

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It was a pretty interesting weekend around the WCHA.  Michigan Tech took 3 points from Mankato down in Houghton with a 5-2 win on Friday and a 5-5 tie on Saturday.  Tech was badly outshot in both games.  Combine that with their 2 wins over NMU and single win against LSSU and you've got a .800 winning percentage and an unbeaten team.  Tech is definitely the feel good WCHA early season story.

The Gophers hosted WCHA noobs UNO for a series at The John and dropped both games to the visitors.  A comeback Friday night didn't quite come off as they lost 5-4 (they were down 4-0 at one point).  On Saturday, UNO outshot the Gophs 48-31(an impressive 83 shots on the weekend for UNO) and jumped out to a 3-0 lead en route to a 4-2 win.  I saw bits and pieces of both games (not enough to speak authoritatively) but it looked to me that the Gopher D was a mess.

UND beat the other noob WCHA squad up in their new rink by identical 5-2 scores both nights.  Yawn.

Wisconsin hosted Alabama-Huntsville for a Friday/Sunday series.  Friday they pasted them 7-0 and today they finished the sweep 5-2.  Yawn again.

Miami went to St. Cloud for 2 games and after pummeling the Bluffskies in the first game winning 6-3, they could only manage a tie (1-1) the next night.  Must have been a good night on Saturday for SCSU netminder Dan Dunn who stopped 38 shots after Mike Lee sieved out on Friday.

The overhyped series of the weekend was DU hosting defending national champions BC for a pair.  Friday night they smacked the young Pio's around 6-2 and Saturday they shut out DU 3-0.  The only player to score for DU all weekend was Luke Salazar.  Think the smack talk here gets out of hand?  Here's a funny (paraphrased) anonymous (Edit: Our friend BBEF takes credit in comments) comment from the DU Blog after Friday's game that is no longer there:

Tommy Cross...one word - STUD.  He used to fuck me in prison.  It looks like he's back at it - fucking DU this time.

LOL.  Yeah .. that didn't make the grade and was deleted.  And no, it wasn't me that made it (I don't comment anywhere anonymously).  But I laughed hard.  That's right .. I thought that shit was funny.  So sue me.

Next weekend's opponent Duluth hosted Providence for a pair at their "first last game" at the old DECC.  The Bulldogs scored 12 goals.  Providence didn't score nearly enough before limping back to the smallest state in the U.S.  Yes, 12 goals.  Um ... I hope UAA staff and players note that number.  Just to repeat it.   T W E L V E .  Ok?  Only 5 of those 12 came from Fontaine or someone named Connolly.  The good news for Prov?  They scored first both nights!

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I already know that you guys don't want me to keep going on about what a stupid bitch Sarah Palin is and all.  Frankly, I don't do it much anymore not only for your sake but for my own tranquility.  I mute the TV and/or don't read anything about the lazy quitting trollop.  

But can all you please apply the same measure of vigilance to other media outlets and please get them to stop covering anything that comes out of that shrill festering gob of hers.  Please get on that.  Write some damn letters to the media moguls and make it stop.  Please.  Someone out there reading this must know Todd.  Call the dude up and implore him to punch her ... or something huh?

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Here is a great example of what a politician should aspire to be.  If this Fort Worth, Texas city councilman (Joel Burns) doesn't eventually rise to some position where he can bring his views and very human ideals to bear for the betterment of all then there is no real justice in the world.  This city council meetting was this past week.  Three cheers for this most excellent human being.  He is a billion times more worthy of our respect than the miserable bitch I mentioned above.

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We're really easing into winter up here.  I think there's been maybe only one or two days where the high temperature hasn't risen well above the freezing mark.  It's 40 today and for the next few days it's forecast to reach the mid 40s.  How fucking awesome is that?  I can remember mid-October's aplenty where the temps were in the teens or even lower and we've got mid 40's?  Suck on that Maine, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota!  I'm sticking my tongue out at you right now.  

And if you're living somewhere that it's still warm and toasty.  Shaddup ... we don't want to hear it; are you listening Justin Bourne?

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A relatively slow September has turned into a fairly busy October here on the blog.  Some of you may have noticed me whining about how few hits I got last month compared to last year.  Well, October so far has been a boon compared to that bust.  With just over half the month gone there's been 6224 hits so far this month.  Phew, that's at least as many as last October.  

I posed this question in Saturday nights game chat.  Would anyone be interested in attending a game watching event at some local establishment hosted by me (and hopefully JJ too).  If I could get a venue to show the game and set aside a spot, would you turn up?  I'd host a live chat from there during the game, have some drinks, maybe some food and watch a road game together?

I'm honestly probably not very good at organizing shit like that.  But if the interest were there, I'd certainly consider doing it.  I know the blueliners sometimes host watch parties and I wouldn't want it to take away from any event that they had planned.  But it occurs to me that a UAA Hockey Fan Live Blogging Social thingy could be a good time.  So I've added a poll to the sidebar from which I can gauge interest in such an event.  Don't frigging answer "Yes" unless you really mean it eh?  I'll also add a thread on the Fan Forum tab for discussion.

I think that's it for today.  I'll be back probably late Monday with some analysis from the weekend focused on each of the players.  Tuesday/Wednesday will be the first preview for the upcoming Duluth series.  I probably should have organized a blog swap with Bulldog blogger extraordinaire Donna for this week.  It occurred to me to ask her but as I said above; I'm shit when it comes to organizing shit.