Saturday Game Day: Seawolves vs. Badgers

Saturday November 14th, 2009

University of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves vs. University of Wisconsin Badgers

Game Time: 407PM (Alaska Standard Time) - 7:07PM (Central Standard Time)

Kohl Center - Madison, Wisconsin

For those of you unable to see a conventional broadcast of this game you may be able to access a stream by clicking on this link at game time.  No promises.

I've got some personal obligations that necessitate me being away from home during tonights game.  I therefore won't be hosting the "fancy" chat program and instead will just leave the "low rent" one below up through the day and during the game.  I should be here for the start of the game but will have to leave at some point.  At least I'll get to listen to Kurt Haider's awesome call in the car though.  More than likely I'll be back here before the end of the game to participate in the chat.  GO SEAWOLVES.

Dear Seawolf Player,
Use whatever guts and determination that you managed to find within yourselves for the nice wins against UND and DU.  Look across the locker room into your friends and teammates eyes before the game tonight.  Then tell him that you're going to give it everything you've got for him.  Ask him to give it everything he's got for you.  Pat him on the back.  Stand up together and give it the ole Army "Hoo Rah" if that's what it takes.

Depend on him and make him know he can depend on you.  Then look across the locker room and find another friend and teammate and do the exact same thing.  It's time for some goddamn hardcore teammate old style bonding.  Maybe you don't see eye to eye with a guy, so fucking what?  Forget that shit, get with him and let him know you want to win tonight.  Tell him you'll bust your ass for him.  And then go out and bust your ass for him.  If he takes a penalty or blows a play during the game, forget about it.  Give him another "Hoo Rah" and tell him you know he'll make up for it.  Then help him make up for it.

There's no doubt you guys lost as a team on Friday night.  It was EVERYBODY'S fault.  EVERYBODY.  It was just as much your fault as anybody elses.  If you don't believe that then don't fucking dress for tonights game.  Let someone else play.  Tonight there is no option other than giving ONE HUNDRED PERCENT.  Draining every single bit of energy from your body is the ONLY OPTION.  If you don't do that then you sure better not be able to look yourself in the mirror tomorrow.  If you don't give it your all and you can still look in the mirror the next day then you might as well pack it in.  I know I sure as hell don't want to put the effort I put into this blog if there are players that aren't giving it their all on the ice.  Show everyone you're giving it your all.  If everyone does that then you'll win.  I promise you that.  Own your effort and support your teammates effort.  Be there for each other.

Here's the goal highlights from the 7-3 win over DU.  The dorks at GCI have once again archived the Saturday night game twice so I don't have the goal highlights from the Friday game.  I'll check back in a couple of days and see if they've corrected it.



And if you haven't seen the Lafranchise/Wiercioch hit.  Here it is.  No audio and I manually stepped it forward and backward several times to show it clearly.  Someone might say there is knee to knee contact as it appears in ONE frame but all the succeeding frames clearly show the hip to hip contact.  It's too far away to say there was ANY knee to knee contact if you ask me.

Seawolves Top Secret Strategy Revealed

Lose on Friday night as motivation for Saturday.  Tonight the Seawolves executed that strategy perfectly. They wasted no time allowing the Badgers to score just 14 seconds into the game.  And from there the strategy only got more fully utilized.  With each ensuing Badger goal the Seawolves found some emotion which resulted in more and more frequent scrums and confrontations.  I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Flat-footed was my chat room description as the Badgers completely dominated the first period.  After ten minutes had passed the shot count was 8-1 and I couldn't remember where UAA had actually registered a shot.  Then in the second part of the 1st period the Seawolves were skating uphill.  Even with the only 5 on 3 opportunity in the first period, the Seawolves were outshot 13-5. Blown UAA passes, ineffective Seawolf clearing attempts and good Badger hustle spelled doom after the 14 second gift goal.  The Badgers even dominated the first 13 seconds.

The 2nd period was much the same with UAA getting outshot 15-6.  For the game the difference was 37-20.

Lots of players looked disinterested most of the time.  Unmotivated.  Uninspired.  And whatever other Un's you might think of.  Is Untryingveryhard a word?  5-1 doesn't really begin to reflect how badly the Seawolves were outplayed.  Blown coverages lead to a couple of the goals, but other blown coverages luckily didn't.  Jonny O let in a couple of softies.  And the Badgers hit at least 3 pipes.  

It was overall the worst hockey game they've played this season.  The 1st period may have been the worst period I've seen in years.  Easily 80% of it was in the Seawolves end.  Being down only 3-0 at the end of the 1st was just lucky.

I'm all about trying to find something positive and/or say something good about some aspect of a loss.  But tonight that just isn't possible.  Oh wait ... they didn't shutout the Seawolves and there doesn't appear to be any lasting controversy.  On the night they made grunt Aaron Bendickson look like a star letting him score his first 2 goals of the season; his second goal on the night was the 4th shortie UAA has given up this season.

So once again we'll see if losing on Friday results in a highly motivated excellent effort on Saturday night.  It's a bit tiresome as a fan to see things go like this.  What is so difficult about finding one's best effort and using it on Friday?  There's lots of questions in the chat tonight about that.  Is it the players job or the coaches job to get the team motivated to play?  Is it both? 

I'm a rah rah guy ... I tend to think coaches like Herb Brooks and/or Bobby Knight who bring some emotion and fire tend to get the best out of the players in their charge.  I really don't know for sure where anyone on UAA's coaching staff fits as far as inspirational coaching.  But I sure hope that somewhere along the line the coach of the team I support can inspire his players to believe in themselves and that they respond with their best effort. 

Maybe I underestimated the absence of Portwood, Wiles and Lafranchise?  Credit the Badgers.  They weren't unanything.  They wanted to win.  They tried hard. 

It shouldn't be hard for the Seawolves to "get up" for tomorrow nights game.  They've got plenty of reason to do so after tonight.  Will they be motivated next Friday night versus Mankato?  I suppose that's a question for next week. 

I'll be hosting another chat tomorrow for the game.  I've uploaded the Lafranchise/Wiercioch hit to YouTube and I'll put together the highlights from last weekend and upload them after I get drunk eating a couple of cheeseburgers.  Hey ... I gots no booze.

Here's the boxscore.

Friday Game Day: Seawolves vs. Badgers

Friday November 13, 2009

Univeristy of Alaska Anchorage Seawolves vs. University of Wisconsin Badgers

Game Time: 4:07PM (Alaska Standard Time) - 7:07PM (Central Standard Time)

Kohl Center - Madison, Wisconsin

Television/Radio/Steaming

GCI Channel 1 (Alaska GCI Customers Only)

Fox Sports Wisconsin - Direct TV Channel 669

Local Radio KENI 550 AM

KENI Kurt Haider Steaming Audio Link

*No Video Available on B2

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Links to Other Articles/Previews

UAA Weekly Release PDF

UW Weekly Release PDF

WCHA Weekly Release PDF

Wisconsin State Journal: Andy Baggot's Preview

Anchorage Daily News: Doyle Woody's Preview

Seawolves Examiner Preview

USCHO Thingy

The Badger Herald: Sailing? Seawolves

No Alibi's No Regrets Preview

Boring USCHO Weekly Thread With Requisite Dumb Palin Reference

Ridiculous Badger Fan Forum Thread

Vacant Badger Fan Forum

Not as much real press for this series as we sometimes see.  The Badgers don't appear to be overlooking the Seawolves.  I don't note any late breaking news or surprises.  No Sean Wiles (injured) for the weekend.  Kane Lafranchise is out on Friday serving his 1 game suspension but will be back in the lineup on Saturday.  The "fancy" chatroom will be ready to go right around 4pm.  I've got nothing else at this point except to say  G O   S E A W O L V E S !

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CoverItLive Chatroom @ 4PM

Just Another Badger Preview

Another week and another opponent to degrade, insult and/or humiliate at my leisure.  This time it's the Wisconsin Badgers.  There's a multitude of hilarious stuff with which to dog the residents of Wisconsin.  Last year I wrote a paragraph or two touting Ed Gein as my favorite serial killer.  Naturally, I was accused of being degenerately morbid and sick for doing it, so a couple of days later I used the metaphor of a Badger vivesection to closely examine their squad ... Eek ... blood and guts!  I've also posted pics of road-killed badgers, I've described the origin of the name badger (old-timey English gentry teasing i.e ... badgering the poor little buggers and then turning them loose for their dogs to chase).

All of those things have been interesting in one way or another (at least to me) but this season I thought I'd talk briefly about some of the past and present things that I've admired about Wisconsin.  So if you'll allow me to bond with a relatively small portion of it's residents I'll get to the hockey stuff.  Hang in there Ronnie Reagan and George Bush lovers ... I will get to hockey.

Madison is a well known liberal bastion in the heartland of America which generally tends to be very very conservative.  My well-documented extreme Marxist views demand that I give the liberal citizens of Madison props for that.  Good on ya's.  Posting the Monty Python Constitutional Peasant scene above is my little homage.  UW graduates some of the most liberally minded lawyers in the U.S. ... Nice.  I feel better here in quite probably the reddest of red states, knowing someone somewhere is doing something to propagate socio-political views that I share.

There are only two other things I've admired about Wisconsin though.  Barb Zarkis and Jen Lawlor.  Barb was a long ago crush from my days in the USAF before I met my wife.  I was head over for Barb at the time.  I just dug the way she pronounced Wiscawnsin.  And she was a redhead.  That was a crazy long time ago though.  But maybe Barbara Zarkis will google her name and find this post one day and remember what an awesome guy I am and send me an email.  You never can tell ... I get hits every once in a while for posting lgvivy ttnbstu sometimes.  If not her, then maybe Jenny Lawlor will do the same.  I had a crush on Jen while I was involved with my last girlfriend a few years ago.  I lost track of her though.  I don't think she'd ever be romantically interested in me but who knows?  She knows I was (and am)"the shit".  We always had a blast together and she said Wiscawnsin too.

Ok that's it.  Everything else about Wisconsin I pretty much hate.  Unless they beat UND.  Then I like them of course.

The bad news for the Seawolves is that Sean Wiles won't be available to help defeat the Badgers this weekend.  He's from Wiscawnsin ya know?  Word on the news last evening was he'll be out 2-4 weeks.  So it's up to the rest of the team to step it up and replace the production he gave the team versus DU.

The Badgers are a single point ahead of the Seawolves in 7th place.  They have 5, we have four.  Three teams we hate are in 1st with 9.  A four point weekend would likely vault either UAA or UDub into the top tier.  No doubt both teams would like that. So once again, the upcoming series is the most important series of the season so far.  I'd love to tell you all about Wisconsin and give you the comparative stats and all that preview stuff but you know what?  Tyler "Seawolves Examiner" Durrell has already done a much better job of it than I could.  Here's some bits and pieces to encourage you to go over there and read the whole thing, you'll be glad you did; I'm glad he wrote it.

They average 3.4 goals a game and 39.4 shots per game.  Fortunately for the Seawolves their power play is struggling at 14%.  Their penalty kill, however, is an impressive 92%.

Junior defenseman Brendan Smith.  Leads the Badgers with 9 points on the year.  Drafted 27th overall by the Detroit Red Wings in the 2007 NHL draft.

 Junior defenseman Ryan McDonagh.  One of the three captains for the Badgers, Ryan has 6 points in 8 games so far this season.

Junior defenseman Cody Goloubef.  Cody leads the Badgers with a +7 rating this season and scored the game-winning goal in both games against UAA last season.

If you take a look over at my "Some Blogs" section to the right you'll see I've added a link to him.  As I notice good stuff, I'll try to remember to link it in any relevant post but I suspect some of you will make it a regular read.

The Badgers overall aren't a huge team.  They're the 32nd tallest and and 29th heaviest team in D-1.  That's enough of a difference to provide a bit of an advantage to the Seawolves.  The last three WCHA series our boys have been able to physically impose themselves on Saturday night versus UND, Minnesota and DU.  I think a big part of that has been essentially that they've worn down each of those teams.  That may be true again this Saturday but it does nothing for Friday night.  And the last three Friday games have all been pretty ugly.  Of course that fact has perhaps been a factor in the good play we've seen in the 2nd games of each series.

So the obvious key seems to me to find a way to maximize the effort on Friday night.  All those things we've seen in 2nd games need to happen in the 1st game this weekend.  The Seawolves need to first and foremost take care of business in their own end.  They need to block shots, they can't lose track of their man, they need to deny 2nd opportunities.  Defensemen and backchecking forwards all need to keep their feet moving and win the battles for loose pucks.  I think good play going forward has to start there against Bucky.

The Badgers are always known for playing it tight in their own zone.  If the Seawolves can match that defensive play then I think they have the transition resources to counterattack effectively.  I know with the puck in the Badger end that the UAA forwards can get a cycle going and possess the puck and gain scoring chances from that but quick transitions and breakouts could very well be THE key, particularly on Friday.

All of Wisconsin's defensemen are talented.  Three 1st round and two 2nd round NHL draft picks are all you need to know really.  They can skate.  They can check.  And they're good positionally.  But perhaps ... just perhaps, the Seawolves can catch them overcommitting and take advantage of it.  50% of their top 8 scorers are blueliners (Smith, McDonagh, Ramage and Golubef).  They all like to get involved in the offense and most of their goals/points haven't come on the power play.  These guys like to go deep.  I'm hopeful the Seawolves can use that to their advantage.

Not to sing their praises too much here.  I think the three WCHA foes the Seawolves have faced are likely superior teams overall to the Badgers.  Perhaps not by much though.  I'd peg Derek Stepan as the most talented forward on the team but there aren't many guys that can be overlooked.  Jordy Murray is no slouch and senior John Mitchell brings a boatload of size and the experience to know how to use it.  Six other senior forwards give them a wealth of WCHA experience which can't be discounted and all seven of those guys have only lost to UAA once during their careers.  But if the Seawolves can upend DU and UND then the Badgers are certainly beatable.

Predictions:

UAA 4 - UW 2 on Friday

UAA 3 - UW 1 on Saturday

And ok ... I lied.  There two something else's I like about Wisconsin.  I like me some cheese.  'Specially some aged extra-sharp black label cheddar.  It's "the kind" ... like the kind I just gobbled up for breakfast in a delicious omelette.  And I love the video below.  If you can sit through either of the vids I posted today and not laugh then I must express the greatest concern for your mental health.