Brice Alaska Goal Rush Preview

The Seawolves will be off to the Banks of the not-so-Fair for this weekends games.  I used to think Fairbanks got it's name because someone thought the banks of the Chena River were somehow fair.  They most assuredly are not however.  They are muddy and nasty in Fairbanks.  Icky even. 

The town instead took it's name from Indiana Senator Charles W. Fairbanks who was Teddy Roosevelt's 2nd Vice-President.  How lame is that?  I swear if I lived there I'd be leading a movement to change the damn name of that place.

Anyway the Seawolves get play two games in the arena where sound goes to die.  What I mean by that is that the acoustics in the Carlson Center tend toward absorbing sound versus enhancing it.  Anyway, I'll save the Squarebanks bash-fest for later in the season.  This post is all about bashing Friday night's opponent; a fun-filled family card game.  I spent more than a few nights thrashing my wife's family playing Uno.  Good times.

I gotta say something here.  I never wanted Uno in the WCHA.  We already had purple mavericks ... why did we need red ones?  Because they were coached by Dean Blais?  Pfft ... any gap-toothed fool could have had the success at UND that Blais had.  If he was such a genius hockey coach then why didn't he make it in the NHL?  Other than being a good recruiter I can't feature too much coaching credit to that guy; typically folks give him loads for winning the World Jrs with what was probably the best lineup EvAH (okay .. Scott Sandelin had a good lineup and pissed it away ... I guess that means Dean Blais > Scott Sandelin).  And what does it take to be a good recruiter?  Ask any military one ... the better lies you tell the more dudes you sign up.

So um ... you're getting the point here right?  I don't like Dean Blais.  Never did.  And even my fondness for Omaha as a city (I was stationed there in the AF) doesn't mitigate that.  The guy just "ain't right".  And neither is Athletic Director Trev Alberts.  That dude pitched a major fit at ESPN because they weren't sucking his dick as often as they were the other commentators.  So they canned him.

After becoming AD at Nebraska-Omaha Alberts killed the D-II football program and told the wrestling team it was done on the same day they won a national championship.  We're talking douchebag here.  Maybe not quite the same level of douchebaggery as say a Chris Collingsworth but that's a pretty high standard.  I'm happy to say that Creighton was the only Omaha college that ended up with any of my disposable income when I lived there.

The red Mavericks were pretty good last year.  They surprised everyone a bit.  In their series up here against UAA ... the Seawolves won the first game.  Blais didn't like that at all and on Saturday night the red Mavericks busted out their chippy game and despite outshooting and outplaying them the Seawolves ate a tough loss.  I wasn't fucking happy at all.  You won't see the motivational poster I made of Dean Blais on that post as when I originally posted it.  

Why?  Because some Omaha-World Herald photographer/reporter who wasn't concerned (or perhaps smart) enough to watermark his photograph that I found using Google image search filed a DMCA copyright protest against the pic and Google made me take it off.   That was hilarious to me.  World-Herald homeboy didn't really give a copyright shit that someone used his photo ... it was the way I used it that bothered him.

Anyway ... the red Mavericks don't look to have as strong a team this year as last but probably not by very much.  So this Friday afternoon the Seawolves face a pretty tough opponent.  I expect to see a somewhat different lineup from Shyiak this weekend.  I wouldn't begin to guess who'll get the nod and who won't.  And I don't think it should matter that much.  Why?  Because this Seawolves team showed resiliency and character last weekend in addition to their overall very strong performance.  There's no reason to expect anything less from any lineup.

On Saturday the Seawolves face Mercyhurst.  I don't not like anything about them.