A Fine Game; Less Than Fine Result

Tonight we got most everything you'd expect from a rivalry game. Lots of passion. Good chances thwarted by good goaltending. And a penalty shot game-tying goal from local kid; Alex Jackstadt. Good on Alex for finishing the penalty shot like a pro.

I'm happy as I can be for Alex. He's a walk-on that is getting ice time primarily because other forwards are out injured. I've liked most everything I've seen from him in the games he's played. He's quick and tenacious but maybe needs to learn how to best utilize his size disadvantage. I don't know if there's anyone on the squad quicker than him over 50 or 75 feet.

Unfortunately for UAA nobody else managed to get a puck across the Nanook goal-line. You hate to lose but if you lose a close game to a rival and both teams played well, then you've got to live with it.

And now for something I don't think we have to live with. I know I sure don't want to. There are few truths in the world which cannot be questioned. Stuff like ... Water is wet; Ice is slippery; Nobody gets out of this life alive and MOST IMPORTANTLY ... A radio DJ trying to induce a hockey crowd to cheer is effing bush league. It's embarrassing. It's against the WCHA and NCAA rules regarding arena conduct. And worst of all, it's annoying.

This is Anchorage. It's a hockey town. We don't need some rube with a microphone telling us when to cheer. I used to go to Aces hockey almost as much as Seawolf hockey. Until they brought in Bob Lester from KWHL as their arena announcer. Granted, the ECHL is the epitome of "bush league" and throughout the league various teams do stupid crap to engage their fans and promote themselves. I still won't go to an Aces game ONLY because Bob Lester is their announcer.

NCAA Division I hockey is not bush league. We don't need someone with an overdriven microphone yelling crap into it that we cannot understand at random times. We had a decent crowd tonight and they were well into the game; starting chants and cheers without any prompting from someone who apparently cannot go 10 minutes without hearing his own voice.

Write letters to Keith Hackett. Let's nip this noise in the bud before the rubes in the crowd who like that sort of nonsense get their way. I've got no real beef with the various little segments (or whatever they call them) giving out stuff for answering easy questions etc. That's all good. But this crap about "make some noise" and whatever other mostly unintelligible stuff the guy yells into his mic needs to end. Let them do that stuff in other rinks and other leagues.

Let's have some class and not bow to the desires of the uninitiated mob who think that loudmouth radio DJ's are a cool thing at a hockey game.

Lastly, those refs were an abomination tonight. They missed most of the actual infractions but called a lot of ticky-tack nonsense. Big Shep has some work to do. He needs to dump this idiot Lukkason who came to the WCHA from bush leagues; and it shows.