A "Unique" Interview With Tom Serratore

Back on opening day of the Kendall Classic I was privileged to receive an invitation via the kindness of super-booster Kathy Klos to attend tournament's Coaches Luncheon at the Sheraton.  While meeting Kathy and discovering a political affinity was one highlight; I'd be lying if I didn't say that Air Force Frank Serratore stole the show.  

Let's Talk About My Needs

Self-Actualization RuLEz ...

Shall we?  If I may be so bold as to assume the mantle for select college hockey fans around the nation to examine what it is that we (me) need out of our team this season.  When I say select what I mean is that any and all fans of teams that have won something significant can piss off now.  That's right gtfo.  I ain't talking to, about or for you.  Bye ... 

Sunday Potpourri: Recruits, Blog Upgrades, Money and Marcel

Let's start of today with a short but timely review of where all the current future Seawolves are playing junior hockey this season.  There's a couple of changes from last season.  I've updated the links on each of the recuits in the "Future Seawolves" column on the right hand side.  So I won't be linking them in this post.

Tidbits & Trivia: By The Numbers

Playing Halo on "Heroic" level is ridiculously tough, so to pass a bit of time not getting blown to smithereens I came up with some various unrelated (and not necessarily significant of anything in particular) tidbits and trivia. First, I put up a new poll a couple of weeks ago asking everyone where they thought the Seawolves would finish in the league this season. Here's the results:

If I had some sort of statistical education or otherwise useful math skills then I guess I could come up with a meaningful way to summarize and/or give an "average". So I'll just eyeball it and say it looks like collectively everyone thinks the Seawolves will finish somewhere around 6th place? I'll make a new poll sometime soon (i.e. as soon as I think of something).

Last year the Seawolf team was the 6th "tallest" team in Division I at 6ft 0.70in. This years team is slightly shorter at 6ft 0.69in. In 2006 the Seawolves averaged 195.0 pounds per player for the 7th "heaviest" team in Division I and this year it is down slightly at 194.6 pounds.

Where is everyone from? 7 from British Columbia, 6 from Alaska, 4 from Alberta, 2 from Manitoba, 2 from Europe, and 1 each from the Yukon, California, Oregon, Wisconsin and Minnesota. There are 3 surnames each beginning with B, C, L and T. 2 surnames each beginning with G, H, M and W. There's 10 freshman, 8 sophomores, 3 juniors, and 5 seniors. Some possible line-combo nicknames are:

CLS line - (Close or Clothes) - Clark, Lunden, Selby
DMC line (as in Run) - DayChief, McCabe, Clark/Crowder/Cartwright
MPG line - McCabe, Parkinson, Grant
TPS line (Lumbergh from Office Space) - Tarkir/Tuton/Tassone, Parkinson, Selby
MSG line (as in Chinese cooking additive) - McCabe, Selby, Grant
DTP line (as in my former alias) - DayChief, Tarkir/Tuton/Tassone, Parkinson
SWiM line - Selby, Waldrop/Wiles, McCabe
T3 line (as in Terminator) - Tuton, Tassone, Tarkir
C-cubed - (as in Algebra) - Crowder, Clark, Cartwright

I could have missed better ones. If you thought of one post it in the comments section. And the potentially coolest sounding scoring line that ever passed Sully Arena announcer Lyle Woods' lips ... "Goal scored by DayChief with assists to Lafranchise and Mayo".

Lastly, I'll be mentioning the following regularly during the upcoming season. I'm trying to raise funds through the kind donations of my readers so that I can attend and report on this season's WCHA Final Five in St. Paul. I'm not likely to have the disposable personal income that would allow me to spend $800 of my own money to attend. I'm of course hopeful that the Seawolves will be there but it's impossible to predict. As you can see in the right hand column, the total for the effort so far is $101.26 (the goal being $800). The initial donations were spurred by an effort on USCHO from LetsGoDU blogger Damien Goddard. Please read my initial post (and the comment section) for the further details about my intentions and the personal pledges I'm making to those kind enough to contribute. So if you like what you get here and think it has value ... well you know what I'm sayin.

Send Me To Hell

Well not exactly to Hell; how about St. Paul, Minnesota. So what's this all about? In a College Hockey Blog first I've placed a PayPal Donation button in my sidebar. Specifically, I've created a fund to gather the necessary financing for a trip to Minnapolis/St. Paul from on or about Mar 19th to Mar 23rd, 2008 for the WCHA Final Five. I'm asking for donations in the hope it can fully fund (airfaire, lodging, tickets and food) this trip; frankly my personal budget in no way could include such a trip. In return all my fine readers will get to read extensively about the trip. As a potential donor you should be assured that your funds won't go to waste. In furtherence of that effort here is a list of my pledges:

I will provide status of any donation to it's contributor immediately upon request.
I will provide an overview of the fundraising regularly.
Funds donated will be used for all activities normally associated with such a trip.
A full post-Final Five accounting will be posted on the blog.
Donations with strings (i.e... meet me at section 100 seat #2) are happily accepted.
I will post game reports and observations from the road as internet connections allow.
The donated funds will not be used for anything other than the trip as defined.
If (for any reason) the trip does not happen then all funds will be immediately returned to the donor(s).

If you've read this and decided to fall prey to my begging then there is nothing left for me to do but give my deeply felt thanks and appreciation (kiss your incredibly kind ass for perpetuity). Some brief calculating suggests that an initial goal of raising about $800 by February 20th, 2008 is reasonable and so I'll make the go/nogo call on that date.