Matthew Gordon Eye Injury: Career Ending?

I saw the puck that hit Matthew Gordon Saturday night. I saw him skate over to the locker room for some stitches. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary for a hockey game. Facial cuts are common ... but the damage that puck did was definitely uncommon. The Anchorage Daily News is reporting that Steve Cobb says the injury could be career threatening. The article doesn't detail the extent of the injury but the commenter who alerted me to this in the previous post mentioned retinal damage. Wow. That's a shock.

Writing about a potentially career ending injury isn't something I have much experience with. Thank god they don't happen very often. Matthew's only outing was evidence to me that he could do well at this level. He played well and looked confident. I guess its only left to hope that the surgery to repair the damage leaves Matthew without any deficits in his permanent sight. Whether he plays hockey again or not. Best wishes to Matthew and his family. This has got to be a difficult time for them.

Seawolves Ink Goal Scorer

Chris Heisenberg has added Cowichan Valley's Mickey Spencer as a 2009 UAA recruit. Spencer is in his rookie season in the BCHL and is currently 3rd on the league goal scoring table and #1 amongst league rookies. 12 of his 22 goals have come on the power play. Mickey is 6'1" 180 pounder from Gibbons, Alberta; his birthday is June 11th, 1989.

Early in the season this kid sure looks to be a top notch goal scorer in a league with lots of kids that put up big numbers. He has a little bit of bulking up to do I'd think but that will surely take care of itself by the time he enrolls at UAA.

And again I'd ask any readers who've seen Mickey play to feel free to add a comment or email me your thoughts. Sometime in January or thereabouts I'll do a complete update on all the future recruits.

"Oh no you don't ... that's my puck!"

No that's not Todd Anderson either. That's a fairly typical looking bulldog and of course by "fairly typical" I mean butt-ugly. And that hyphenated compound word is a good description for the weekend the UMD Bulldog hockey team is coming off. They had the exact same result with Chuck Wepner U as the Seawolves. Only 1 point out of 4. Losing that many points to the SCSU rejects doesn't sit well with any fandom in any WCHA city. UAA on the other hand is coming off a weekend where they proved they could skate with one of the best teams in NCAA and had to gain a lot of defensive confidence through their quality performance all weekend in their own zone. The Bulldogs had a nice start to their season except for the bump in the road last weekend.

So I wouldn't think that UAA's gameplan for this weekend would be much different that what we've seen. Going down to play on the DECC mini-rink isn't going to encourage any coach with a lick of sense to try to "open it up" or get "creative". I think it's probably old-time hockey this weekend in Duluth. It's going to be a muckfest. Lots of hitting eh? Most physical series of the year I'd imagine. The Seawolves emotional play can ofttimes feed off a big hit and it's always something they're looking to accomplish. And we here in Anchorage don't get to see a single lick. Blame some BS with some backassward Duluth broadcaster and/or cable company. The was a time when Duluth was crazy about hockey but recently ... not so much.

The Seawolf scorers are going to have to contend with the best goaltender they've faced so far this year. Stalock is in another universe of talent compared with Frazee or Bachman or Rogers or Welosky or anyone else that UAA has faced. If the Seawolves can apply the same pressure they mustered against CC the difference could very well be that the UMD defense isn't quite as adept as CC's. They don't have the hands or the foot speed of CC and UAA should be able to win many more of those little battles that determine the big things. I rewatched portions of last weekend's series; I came to the conclusion that the Seawolves could very well have scored 7 or 8 goals on Friday night. In those circumstances where chances emerged, the goal didn't come as a result of a fortunate or good defensive play by the opponent. UAA needs to try to use it's quickness and agility in traffic to get to pucks first this weekend. Everyone needs to keep their feet moving. They need to skate through checks and always finish the checks they're dishing. Those are two critical things needed to get to the puck first. Own the puck. Be the puck. Think positive. Visualize World Peas. Become one in a Zen sense with the puck. So .... a Mantra for the series? "Oh no you don't ... that's my puck!"

Heisenberg Lists an 08 for UAA

Wizard of NCAA college hockey recruiting news Chris Heisenberg has listed 6ft 1in 198lb forward Tyler Moir from Drumheller in the AJHL as a new 08 recruit to the Seawolves. Tyler is the second leading scorer on his team and currently sits at #13 on the league scoring table with 12 goals and 27 assists in 29 games.

He was traded to Drumheller 16 games into the season from Drayton Valley Thunder; he spent the two previous seasons (05-06 and 06-07) seasons with them: in 90 games those seasons had 16 goals and 30 assists. In his first 16 games this season with Drayton Valley, Tyler scored 4 goals and added 15 assists. Since his trade to Drumheller he's been running riot; in 13 games he has 8 goals and 12 assists and the Dragons are 9-4 since then. Tyler's birthday is September 17th, 1988.

I'm not a close follower of junior leagues but check the AJHL tables often enough to have seen Tyler's name before. But that doesn't mean I know anything more about him than I've put above. I did read several nice comments from Drumheller fans about him on this message board. If you've seen him play and can describe his strengths and/or weaknesses please feel free to leave a comment.