Showing posts with label Hockey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hockey. Show all posts

Monday, August 12, 2013

No escape from the anti-fighting cabal

English: Hockey fight between the Sudbury Wolv...
English: Hockey fight between the Sudbury Wolves and the Ottawa 67's, around 2006. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So, there’s an article in the Hockey News about hockey Canada not allowing body checking until their youth players hit the Bantam age, that’s fine. USA Hockey did the same thing. I don’t agree with the move, oh well, we move on and accept it right? However, The Hockey News just can’t help themselves, The Hockey News has to use this as an opportunity to go on an anti-fighting rant. Why?
Ken Campbell, the Hockey News --- The problem is, there’s something about our game that often brings out the worst in us, whether that’s as players or coaches. If all the hits in hockey were clean, hard and done properly and with respect, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now. There would be hitting at all levels of hockey and with the exception of the occasional unfortunate incident, everyone would probably be able to live with that. But the “hit to hurt” mentality has filtered down from the highest levels of hockey to the lowest and, as a result, you have far too many situations where body contact is used as a tactic to intimidate, even at the youth hockey level, and that results in too many hits to the head that are leaving vulnerable brains like Matthew Kostuch’s scrambled for years after they are injured.

It’s kind of like fighting. If all NHL fights were the result of two players, who can actually play the game, settling a score in a highly emotional affair, that would be one thing. But once you condone – and promote – fighting, it leaves it open to be used as a tactic, or at the very least, a sideshow.

That then leads to the evolution of enforcers and goons, who have one purpose. And that purpose is to keep the skilled players safe, often from the goons and enforcers who are supposed to be keeping everyone safe out there. It creates a vicious cycle from which there is no escape.
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Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Oilers Nail Yakupov attempts to contact Edmonton via Twitter



I guess there is nothing unheard of in today's world of social media. No clue, if Nail Yakupov was able to get the Edmonton Oilers attention.
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Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Time for a National College Hockey pay per view television package

English: Logo for DirecTV
English: Logo for DirecTV (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As most of you know, as of right now, home UND Hockey games are not going to be on DirecTV anymore.  As of right now, there will be “no" UND Hockey games shown outside of the regional area unless the games are on CBSSN… So, going forward, you will have to use the webcasts if you want to watch the games live.

Now, here’s what we “could” do, I suggest that we flood the lines at DirecTV 1-800-531-5000 and tell them that we would like to have MidcoSportsnet.com from Midcontinent Communications on DirecTV. I would even suggest that you’re willing to pay extra so you can have those games on your DirecTV programming. 

Also, let's start a campaign to call MidcoSportsnet at (605)-274-7638 and flood their lines as well.


College hockey needs to have a hockey television packed like the NHL does. Recently, I touched on some of these issues at the Hockey Writers. 

Obviously, the Big Ten has the Big Ten Network, which is a financial gold mine. The NCHC has a new television deal with 
CBS Sports Network. In its current form, the WCHA has no current television deal.

Without a current television deal, the WCHA will get little exposure on the national level.

I am not sure, how a web deal is going to do much for national exposure. Hooking up a desktop computer or laptop to your home television can be a bit difficult, if you’re not very tech savvy.

During the 
2012-13 NHL Lockout, college hockey played a major role in filling the gap left by the NHL lockout, especially in the USA. NBC Sports Network and CBS Sports Network allowed college hockey fans to see firsthand that Division I college hockey is a viable game and gave them an option to the NHL. Some hockey fans, decided to stick with the NCAA Hockey after the NHL lockout ended.

If you have DirecTV package – with the sports package – you can watch many regional broadcasts of college hockey. This season, thanks to DirecTV, I watched both Monday’s of the 
Beanpot Tournament, as well as both games of the 2013 Hockey City Classic.

Why not develop a college hockey television package like the NHL and the NBA have? I know many fans that would pay extra money to subscribe to a college hockey television package 



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Thursday, June 13, 2013

Some Sad News (RW77)

Ok, I know this doesn't relate to the NHL or to UND Hockey or, I guess, to NDSU athletics but...

Just graduated CC Forward Scott Winkler was found dead at his parent's home in Norway yesterday (Wednesday, June 12th).  He was 23.

This is definitely not cool.  My thoughts and prayers go out to the Winkler family and friends.

I hope the rest of the UND Hockey family would do the same.
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Saturday, June 01, 2013

Poke The Bear; Part 1 and 2



Some Vancouver Canucks fan that posts videos under the name MAKAVELI posted a couple of these spoofs directed towards the Boston Bruins on YouTube.com this the same guy that came up with the Embellishment City Video as well. His latest video is kind of funny as well, Diver vs. Diver. These videos are semi entertaining.


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Saturday, April 06, 2013

TSN.CA NCAA PLAYER RANKINGS


Over the TSN.CA web site, they have the NCAA Hockey Player rankings. Seven of the top 20 players are WCHA players and two of the top 20 are from UND. It's also interesting, that there are a lot of free agent goalies in the top 20 as well. I would expect Eric Hartzell from QU to get a free agent offer as soon as his team is done with the Frozen Four.
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Monday, March 25, 2013

Badgers defenseman John Ramage destroys Mavericks forward Teddy Blueger




“That’s contact to the head, that’s a no brainer,” FSN television analyst Kevin Gorg said on viewing the hit by  Wisconsin defenseman John Ramage on Minnesota State Maverick Teddy Blueger. The funny thing with Gorg, he’s supposed to know hockey, but every time he opens his mouth he removes all doubt. I haven’t seen many guys that get hit in the head grab their shoulder.

Look at the video, Teddy Blueger is holding his shoulder.

In the press box, we had the luxury of getting a few good looks at this hit, to me this appears to be another legal shoulder-to-shoulder hit that was called a major penalty. For those people that want to call penalties for hard hits, they're going to call foul, but hockey is a physical game. I don't think John Ramage who plays the game straight up should be penalized for being a physical player.


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Sunday, March 17, 2013

College Hockey: On ice officials have to be better

Match penalty
Match penalty (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some college hockey officials incorrectly assume that if a college hockey player is a heavy hitter and dishes out “legal” heavy hits, he is somehow a dirty player and worthy of a major penalty even when it was a legal hit.
Hence, said player is incorrectly called for a major penalty.
It’s almost like the onus is on the player instead of the referee. I don’t understand this flawed line of thinking.
If anything the on ice officials need to do a better job calling the game of hockey.
Hockey like football is a physical sport – this is not up for debate – physicality is part of the game. This is a fact, there’s going to be injuries as a result of legal checks.
If I am not mistaken, one NHL player hurt himself eating a stack of pancakes last season.
If you could develop a light set of pads that was 100% able to prevent injuries you could make millions of dollars. There is no such thing.
Unfortunately, with college hockey, they’re forced to use part time officials; the product on the ice is suffering because of this. In the WCHA, the officiating has gotten worse the last couple of years and the league has shown no interest in improving the quality of their on ice officials. In my opinion, transparency is at an all-time low.
Often times, the wrong call is being made on the ice, under the guise of not wanting to be that ref that made a wrong call, when it comes to hard and often legal hits. This problem would be easy to fix, with the aid of video review.  s/t Bruce Ciskie 
If the referee on the ice is calling a major penalty, why not allow that referee to step into scorer’s table to allow him to take a quick look to confirm that he’s not making an incorrect call.
In NCAA hockey, penalties can be increased but never decreased. That rules is one that never seemed to make much sense to me.  If anything that rule is incoherent and the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee should take a look at changing it, next time they meet.  Even the NHL can rescind a match penalty.
The game of hockey like football is fast and sometimes the officials get the calls on the ice wrong, the refs are human and will make mistakes. Some refs in some leagues seems to make more mistakes than others.
Lately, legal shoulder-to-shoulder hits have been called hits to the head resulting in major penalties and a game misconduct to the player dishing legal checks. This is unacceptable in my opinion and could be easily fixed if the ref was allowed to step into the scorer table to review the hit.
The on ice officials already review numerous legit goals to confirm that they were legal. One must ask, can they really slow down the game anymore?
I mean think about it, it’s not like they couldn’t review the few major penalties that college hockey has already. So why not review a questionable hit before the ref incorrectly throws a player out of a game for legal hit? Does that not seem fair? Wouldn’t that be better than taking legal hits out of the game of hockey? Why not change the refs behavior instead of expecting a player to change the way he plays the game of hockey.
UND senior defenseman Andrew MacWilliam is 6’2” 230 pounds and he plays a physical game and he is UND’s best penalty killer and he plays against all of the opposition’s best players.  MacWilliam is a hard checker, but not a dirty player and he has been incorrectly thrown out of two games this season for legal hits, one against BU’s Ahti Oksanen and one against MTU for hitting David Johnstone last Friday Night.
Both hits were legal shoulder-to-shoulder hits and shouldn’t have resulted in a penalty at all. In both instances, the same referee Marco Hunt made the wrong call and MacWilliam was given a five minute Major and a game misconduct, next time MacWilliam is given a game misconduct, he will also have to sit out a game due to a suspension for three game misconducts.
Last season, MacWIlliam was also given a five minute major and a game misconduct in game against theDenver Pioneers freshman forward Matt Tabrum as well, for this hit.
Do you see a pattern here? The officials need to learn the difference between a legal hit and an illegal hit. Hockey is a physical game and the players and the fans deserve better. The level of officiating does not match the level of play on the ice and it hasn’t for some time now.

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Thursday, March 07, 2013

B1G Hockey Conference Trophy



There it is, the new Big 10 hockey conference trophy, what do you think? I think it looks like something you put on the end of an arrow...
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Wednesday, March 06, 2013

(Video) Embellishment City



What's laughable is a Canucks fans would come up with this spoof video on another team in the NHL diving. The Vancouver Canucks are the poster boys for diving and embellishment, if needed we can do a review of the offenders. This remotely amusing video, calls out the Brad Marchand for what a play during the 2012 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. Whatever. You would probably circle the earth twice with video tape, of all of the instances of the Canucks diving and embellishing calls.


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Saturday, March 02, 2013

UND Women’s Hockey; Lamoureux sisters Lasso Mavericks 8-1

Western Collegiate Hockey Association logo
Western Collegiate Hockey Association logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Grand Forks, ND – All good things must come to an end.

Last night, I came home after the men’s game between UND and BSU and told my wife that I couldn’t miss today’s game between the UND women and Minnesota State Mavericks.
The reason I wanted to go to the game today – this was going to be a historic event – this was going to be an end of an era, sort of.

It was the last chance for me and 1259 in attendance to watch Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux play hockey at Ralph Engelstad Arena, ever, barring an unforeseen meltdown and the UND hockey team would send their fans home with something to cheer about.

That meltdown did not happen, as the UND women ran around and through the Minnesota State Mavericks out of the Ralph Engelstad Arena 8-1.

During their time in the green and white the Lamoureux twins have racked up a lot of goals and gave goalies around the WCHA fits.

The twins paced UND with 10 points among them, leaving the sister tandem ranked 1-2 all-time in the WCHA for points Jocelyne Lamoureux (125g-158a—284pts) and Monique Lamoureux (112g-152a—264Pts).  Today, with her (2g-4a—6pts) Monique also passed former Wisconsin Badgers forward Hillary Knight (143g-119a—262pts).  That’s no small accomplishment since Monique is a defenseman and Hillary Knight is a forward.

If you haven’t watched them play, the twins are worth the price of admission. They’re electric, dynamic and they’re world class players that are part of an exciting line-up that comes to work every day and gives their best effort.

Like yesterday, the UND women came out with a bit of an edge and it appeared as if they had something to prove and pushed the lead to 5-1 after one period of hockey outshooting the Minnesota State Mavericks 23-10.

And of course, UND chased Mavericks goalie Erin Krichiver at the 15:40 mark of the first period, after putting four goals past her, Deanielle Butters replaced her in the Maverick net  and she received roughly the same treatment from a UND hockey team as well, as she let in four goals as well.

After the game, Jocelyne Lamoureux came out to the postgame press conference still wearing her game jersey, and you could tell that the senior forward was taken back by the moment.

“It’s pretty sad you know,” Jocelyne said. “We took the last lap as seniors together. It’s sad that it’s over, we found our parents in the crowd, gave them a wave.  It’s hard to believe that it’s over, here, at the Ralph. I haven’t taken my white jersey off yet, we’re going blacks (jerseys) the rest of the way, were going to be away for the rest of the season. Hopefully we can make some good things happen, but right now we’re going to take it all in and appreciate everything that I got here, while I’ve got it.”
Jocelyne’s sister Monique came to the press conference after and she was also affected by the moment as well.

“You can probably see that I was crying 10 minutes ago,” Monique said. “I am usually the first one out of the locker room. There were three or four of us that just sat there in our equipment for a little bit. It’s sad that it’s over here, but hopefully we have five more games left [NCAA Playoffs].”

The irony is, UND is known for taking penalties and at times playing undisciplined hockey and having a parade to the penalty box. Today, UND had one minor penalty called against them, after the game, UND head coach Brian Idalski was asked if he ever thought that he would see his team only get called for one minor penalty.

“No, honestly, what do we average 14 minutes a game,” Idalski said. “You talk about Jocelyn and Monique and I think they get a bad rap, but they’ve been great and very disciplined here down the stretch and penalty free. A solid effort, that discipline goes a long way.

UND will now travel to the Minneapolis to play in the Final Face-Off next weekend at Ridder Arena.  With the win, UND remains in the eighth position of the pairwise ranking of the pairwise rankings


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Saturday, February 23, 2013

(Video) DU downs UND 5-4



I don't think anyone is very happy with tonight's results, but it's also not time to panic either. UND has lost 4 games in the last 18 so, I don't think it's time to pull the pin yet. After the game, UND head coach Dave Hakstol didn't seem all that pleased with his team's effort. Basically he said they played a sloppy game.

" I thought we were a very sloppy hockey team tonight. It cost us an opportunity at points," said Hakstol. "You have to be able to sustain that push. You can't just come out with a one or two shift burst. We didn't sustain a whole lot through the entire night."

If there is a positive note with tonight's loss, UND remained 6th in the Pairwise rankings.
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Sunday, February 17, 2013

T.J. Oshie goal against the Vancouver Canucks



Former Fighting Sioux and current Saint Louis Blues forward T.J. Oshie scores his fifth goal of the year against the Vancouver Canucks.

The box score should read T. OSHIE (5) WRIST - ASST: D. BACKES (9) AND D. PERRON (7)...
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Mike Voran hit from behind on Taylor Richart



Watch this hit by Notre Dame forward Mike Voran as he hits Miami defensman Taylor Richart from behind.  This hit is unacceptable and you have to applaud the on ice official for giving Voran a five minute major and a game disqualification.

It would also be disappointing, to be thrown out of such an awesome, high profile event such as the Hockey City Classic for a needless, unnecessary and illegal hit from behind.

There is no way that you can defend this hit. If you watch the video you will see that Richart hit Voran earlier in the shift, but still, there is no reason for Voran to hit Richart while his back is turned to the play.

These are these are the types of hits that the powers that be are trying to eliminate from college hockey. I would be happy if we eliminated them from all levels of hockey.
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Tuesday, January 29, 2013

(Video) Tucker Tucker Poolman



This is UND Hockey recruit  and Omaha Lancers defenseman Tucker Poolman and his thoughts on the USHL/NHL Top Prospects game interview. I thought it was interesting that Poolman has 10 goals on the season, and all 10 are on the power play.
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Friday, January 25, 2013

Saint Cloud takes a bite out of UND.

Seal of the University of North Dakota
Seal of the University of North Dakota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Grand Forks, ND – Fresh off getting only a single point in their weekend series against the Minnesota Gophers last weekend, you would’ve thought that the University of North Dakota Hockey team would come out of the gates with a lot of fire and playing with a purpose.

Tonight, that was not the case. In fact, nothing went right for the University of North Dakota hockey team.

Tonight’s opponents, the Saint Cloud State Huskies were the ones that looked like they were the fifth ranked team in the nation, as they came out of the gates with a purpose, and raced to a 2-0 lead with goals from forwards Johnny Brodzinski and Ben Hanowski.  Not only was UND outplayed, but UND was also out shoot 7-3 in the first period as well.

Coming into tonight’s game, UND had a record of 5-3-3 when the opposition scores the first goal. Make that 5-4-3 with the 3-1 loss to the Saint Cloud State Huskies tonight.

The Second period didn’t start out well for North Dakota either, as they continued to stand around and watch the Huskies make plays. It’s not a stretch to say that UND was beaten to the puck for two and half periods of hockey. The Huskies would out shoot UND 11-5 during the second period.

The game just didn’t get much better in the third period as they would watch the Huskies extend the lead to 3-0 with another goal from the talented freshman Johnny Brodzinski’s.

After the game, Saint Cloud State Husky head coach Bob Moztko was impressed with the play of his freshman forward Brodzinski.

“I am not sure how many shots that he had tonight,” Motzko said. “I didn’t see, but he had eight or nine shots on goal. When he [Brodzinski] shoots the puck people are going to start see that it’s a big league shot, and it’s just deadly – he’s a big strong kid – he gets open, he reminds me of a kid [Matt Frattin] they had here a couple of years ago – a kid that shot every time he had the puck.”

North Dakota would break Husky goalie Ryan Faragher’s shutout bid at the 13:49 mark of the third period with a power play goal from freshman forward Rocco Grimaldi. That was all of the closer UND would get as the Huskies would hang on for the win with UND pressing in the waning minutes of the third, but they were unable to get anything past Faragher.

While Rocco Grimaldi was the only UND hockey player to get a puck past the rangy Husky goalie Faragher, Grimaldi didn’t spend much time relishing his ninth goal of the season.

“It just wasn’t our game,” Grimaldi said. “I can’t even put a finger on it what we did wrong. Just no one starting with myself, no one was inspired to play the game. That can’t happen; we just have to forget now that it’s over and done with and move on tomorrow we need those two points tomorrow.”

The game was rather clean as both team combined for a grand total of five minor penalties for 10 minutes in penalties.  UND was 1/1 on the power play and the Huskies were unable to cash in on their two power play opportunities.

After the game, Saint Cloud State Husky coach Bob Motzko seemed rather pleased with his team’s effort.
“Our guys blocked a lot of shots tonight,” Motzko said. “You’ve got to give yourself a chance here to play good defense,” “Ryan [Faragher] made a few key saves when he had to.”

Tonight, Corban Knight’s 19 game point streak came to an end. This was only the third game in the last 24 that Knight didn’t at least have a point. Breaking it down further, this was also the first time all season long that Knight and Kristo didn’t have a single point.

There really is no way to sugar coat tonight’s game. It was not a good effort at all for the North Dakota Hockey team, and the head coach Dave Hakstol was not pleased with his team’s effort. “We didn’t play very well tonight,” Hakstol said. “ We got our tails kicked in our own building.”

North Dakota is known for it's second half surges, currently has a 3-3-1 record in it's last seven games.

Cross Posted at the Hockey Writers - Combine.
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Thursday, January 03, 2013

Interesting tweets - NCAA vs. Major Juniors



It's World Junior Championship time again and the college vs. Major Junior debate is again hitting the twitter world. Today all five USA goals were scored by NCAA Division I Hockey players.





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Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Make this happen NHL and NHLPA



This is something that I have seen tweeted and written print a few times in the last week, the is that the NHL owners have told the Commissioner Gary Bettman that cancelling the season is not an option.





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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Game winning goal Russia versus Slovakia



With the NHL currently locked out, it's nice to see some hockey finally on television again... I have been watching hockey most of the evening and this was the best game from day one of the the 2013 IIHF WJC. Russia's Albert Yarullin scored at 4:50 of overtime to give team Russia a 3-2 victory against Slovakia. Slovakia actually tied the game with a goal from Slovakia's Richard Mraz with about 14.7 second left to force an overtime period.
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Thursday, December 20, 2012

Video: KHL player attempts check, ends up in bench



Another day and another day of no NHL Hockey... Check out this swing and a miss, Atlant's Artyom Dorofeyev attempts to check Mats Zuccarello of Magnitogorsk Metallurg and ends up in the players bench area.
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