Thursday Potpourri: Captains, Banquet, Schedule & Tommy Grant

Four Captains have been named for the 2011-2012 season today by Coach Shyiak.  Seniors Brad Gorham, Jade Portwood and juniors Chris Crowell and Scott Warner were selected.  Here is the link to the announcement on the GoSeawolves website.  

Seawolves Sweep Mankato With 4-1 Saturday Win

Tonight's game looked much like last nights in terms of energy and flow.  The Seawolves though overcame a poorly played 2nd period tonight.  Chris Kamal came up big more often tonight than on Friday in my view.  He may have given up a goal tonight but at least there's a nice backstory on that one.  I'm posting this now and will continue to update as the outcome of the DU and SCSU game is still in question and UAA's playoff trip is still in doubt.

Mankato "Dominates" Seawolves And Loses 4 - 0

A good drinking game tonight while watching the game would have been to take a shot everytime the Mankato TV announcing crew referenced how MSU was "dominating" the Seawolves.  If it wasn't for my Dad getting pissed off about such references it would have been funny; and of course we both would have ended up drunk as monkeys.

Seawolves 4 - UAF 1

The Seawolves tonight came out with the fire and emotion that is necessary to win a game against their biggest rival.  For the first 20 minutes of this game they were super sharp.  They executed pinpoint passing and scored three beautiful goals to leave no doubt as to which team would come out with the W.

Senior Tribute: Tommy Grant

This is part one of five tributes which I'm publishing today highlighting the careers of each of the five graduating UAA Seawolves senior class.  The members of the class in alphabetical order are Tommy Grant, Nick Haddad, Craig Parkinson, Luka Vidmar and Sean Wiles.

Seawolves 3 - UNO 2

The Seawolves tonight hit nearly all the targets in their gameplan that were necessary to get an important win over UNO.  They got the scoring they need from Tommy Grant and Sean Wiles who both hadn't been producing at expected rates.  They held UNO to under 25 shots for the game by blocking shitloads (20) of shots.  They got solid goaltending from Rob Gunderson.  They won the face off battle 33-27 led by Craig Parkinson who went 16-11 on the night.  Their penalty kill delivered.  And finally their execution was mostly solid in all areas of the ice.  When you put all those factors together you get success.

WCHA P'sOTW: Grant and Gunderson

Rob Gunderson and Tommy Grant were respectively named WCHA Rookie Of The Week and Offensive Player Of The Week today.  Congratulations to both.

How Sweep It Is ... Seawolves 2 - CC 1

Two important things happened tonight.  The most important is that the squad got an extremely meaningful 2 points that helped solidify themselves above the group of teams below them in the conference standings.  UAA's 14 points also puts them just 2 points below three team currently tied for 5th place (CC, Minnesota, Wisconsin).

Seawolves Beat CC 4-3 in OT

The Seawolves overcame a third period seeming march to the pentaly box tonight to fight back and tie the game on Matt Bailey's six goal of the season with just 6 seconds remaining in regualtion.  The goal was notable as UAA's net was empty and CC was again on the power play.  Short-Handed Extra Attacker goals rule.  It was Bailey's second goal of the night.  

The 2010-2011 UAA Seawolves Senior Class

Tommy Grant, Nick Haddad, Kane Lafranchise, Craig Parkinson, Luka Vidmar  and Sean Wiles are the 6 members of the 2010-2011 Seawolves senior class.  A familiar tag to WCHA fans should be the moniker that pegs the WCHA as an "upperclassmen's league".  What that simply means is that the teams who's junior and senior classes perform most successfully are the teams that will have the most success in the league.  These six UAA skaters will have a lot to say about the success of the 2010-2011 Seawolves.

Regg Simon Departs and Some Other Stuff

I guess it's as good a time as any to make another summer post.  The only real news is (as you're probably already aware) that today Regg Simon has taken the head coaching spot at Des Moines in the USHL. A job which was recently vacated by Mike Guentzel who is off to Omaha to feed on Dean Blais' hind-teat while Dean awaits the demise of Don Lucia as his ticket out of Nebraska.

Best of luck to Regg.  Returning to the Jr. A head coaching ranks is probably a good career move for him.  If he can build success there over a few years then he could start to be considered for next level head coaching jobs at some point.