There isn't a single UAA Seawolves player on the current roster that has experienced beating the Wisconsin Badgers in a hockey game. The last win against the Badgers came on November 4th, 2006 more than four years ago.
Justin Bourne scored his 3rd goal of 2006-2007 season just 33 seconds into the 3rd period for the game winner. Here was my recap. So why am I bringing up a potentially disheartening point like this? For Sean Wiles sake.
Sean is our lone player from Wisconsin. He isn't the first and he won't likely be the last. But from what I can tell every other player from Wisconsin that played for the Seawolves had at least one victory against Bucky.
It may sound like I'm hoping for just one win this weekend. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I'm hoping for a sweep. I think a sweep is a legitimate hope. The team is clearly playing well over the last few weeks. They seem to have a good understanding of both the level of play and effort necessary for that to happen.
So all I'm here to say with this post is ... let's fucking get a fucking win for Sean Wiles this Friday night for fuck's sake. And then let's get afuckingnother on Saturday. For Sean.
Past experience tells me that Sean "gets up" big time for these games. These two games will be his last regular season chances to play against his home state's biggest school. A school that essentially ignored him during recruiting.
Sean will play hard this weekend. Hopefully, that translates into production that helps the Seawolves deliver the victories. Regardless though, I hope every other player on the team steps it up for Sean.
4 comments:
Wiles was named to the All Wisconsin team over at 60 Minutes...
We have a big Freshman class, and with it, a lot of "freshman" fans, like me, who don't know much about the history of UAA hockey. For example, I had no clue about the history with Wisconsin. Another good example was during a recent game, Suze mentioned that Sullivan used to be packed (now it's pretty empty). When was this? Why--was the team a consistent winner? Maybe you could write a column entitled "UAA hockey history for Dummies"? Please?
Perhaps I can. Not a bad idea FLUAAF ... briefly though the height of attendance for the Seawolves was the early 90s and indeed for several seasons the Seawolves regularly sold-out the Sullivan.
They did so for two reasons. They were the only game in town. And they were winning. They won because they weren't in the WCHA and had opponents like Northern Arizona, Merrimack, UAF, SISU, AF, Alabama-Huntsville and some others that no longer play D1 hockey. It was rare that they could get any big name school to schedule them but when they did get them they'd do well enough. We once had a "Key Bank" sponsored series with UofMaine (their most eastern and most western bank locations) that UAA dominated. Some of those schools I listed we played six times a season.
The NCAA restructured it's playoff system to allow independents a chance to get into the tournament. And in one of the years UAA made it they traveled to Boston College for a two game series (yes the NCAA's used to use a two game series in it's first round). UAA absolutely dominated BC on two straight nights in what is still recognized as the biggest upset in NCAA hockey playoffs history.
These were the years of Dean Larson, Rob Conn, Mike Peluso, Jeff Batters, Paul Krake, Derek Donald, Steve Bogyevac, Brian Kraft etc...
But over the course of a few years the independent schools dropped like flies.
The Badger streak will end this weekend at the Sully.
Go SEAWOLVES!
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