Apparently Coach Jacques Lemaire is not all that happy with Avalanche uber hack Cody McCormick for his vicious cross check on Cal Clutterbuck in the last game against the Av's. You have got to love this quote by Jacques that I bolded. Mike Russo is spot on that former MTU Husky John Scott rocked McCormick's ass in a very good fight. Of course the horse collar tackle at the end by McCormick was a bush league move.
Seriously, I am sick and tired of seeing these punks/agitators skate around the ice and take liberties with people and then watching the refs not make the proper call. The league doesn't look very good when they have to go back and review game tape, then have to go back and suspend the player ex-post facto. In my opinion I thought it was a major penalty at the time. NHL ref Don VanMassenhoven is probably one of the worst refs in the National Hockey League.
Colorado’s Cody McCormick got suspended two games for cross-checking Cal Clutterbuck in the head last night. I was sitting with Doug Risebrough when I got the email, showed it to him and he said, “Is that all? That’s my quote.”
Coach Jacques Lemaire said the referees last night weren’t going to call any penalties on it because Don VanMassenhoven didn’t see it. So Lemaire told VanMassenhoven, “You better tell your partner to call something because [McCormick’s] going to get suspended.” In other words, Lemaire was telling referee Ian Walsh there better be a penalty or it would be embarrassing for the men in stripes. Lemaire, by the way, used me as the dummy to demonstrate what McCormick did. Luckily, Lemaire avoided my face with his stick by I’d say a good, I don’t know, HALF INCH!
Walsh assessed a double minor. Later, Clutterbuck got cross-checked in the face again, this time by John-Michael Liles. VanMassenhoven nailed Clutterbuck for diving, too, probably because the ref felt he was miraculously back way too soon after being on the ice so long from the previous incident.
Lemaire said, “Trust me, he was shook up. What’s he got to get 50 stitches or a broken jaw?”
McCormick, who by the way got his clock cleaned by John Scott in Scott’s first NHL bout, is eligible to return against the Wild on Tuesday during another rare visit in St. Paul for Minnesota. (read the whole story here)
***Apparently Wild General Manager Doug Risebrough is not happy with the way his team practiced yesterday and is tired of listening to excuses from them about being tired. I am not sure how people can even take this clown seriously anymore? Doug Risebrough has run this team into the ground should start taking some ownership for this and maybe his team's play is so poor is because they are playing to their abilities. Ever think the reason the Wild couldn't score for 6 minutes of power play time was that you have 4-5 people on this team that can score a team full of third and fourth liners. Holy Cow Risebrough you're killing me here.
Risebrough said he's also tired of hearing how the Wild's arduous late-season road schedule is exhausting the team.
"They played yesterday [in Denver], they got up at 8 a.m. to catch a 9 a.m. bus to be on a 10 o'clock plane, where they flew first class with some really good food," Risebrough said. "They got here at 12:30 and they're on the ice now. What will they do now when they're finished at 3? Go to the hotel and sleep.
"At home, they'd go for a new car or their wife will say, 'I haven't been out for dinner in a while,' or, 'You haven't seen Johnny play hockey in a month.' The road is nothing. I know I'm making light of it. But come on. This is not a tough life.
"It's all in here," Risebrough said, pointing to his head.
"We can't have any excuse grabbers. Those are the ones who are going to fail because it's just easier to fail. It's hard work to succeed, but it's easy to fail."
(Click here for the whole article)
Moron of the Week
Here is our candidate for the moron of the Week. Maybe this Skippy should have sobered up before he wrote this gem. I would be willing to bet he is probably a doctoral candidate in rocket science from the University of Minnesota. First off the Sioux are tied for 5th in the power ranking while DU is ranked 3rd, not a very big separation. Second UND beat DU 8-3 and tied them the following night. Also lets not forget that the Sioux, swept the Gophers 6-3 and 6-1 exposing the Gophers and showing the rest of the league that the Gophers are a very weak hockey team. I would have to say you failed miserably in your attempt Skippy.
Get a life Flickertail fans
Why do we constantly see posts from jealous UND Flickertail fans on Gopher articles in the MINNEAPOLIS paper's web site? Doesn't Grand Forks offer anything for Flickertail fans to spew out lame comments? Hey, UND, we don't care about you, your precious hockey team, or the fact that you finished near the top in a down league this season. As far as being the best team in the WCHA, according to an earlier post, how do you explain being behind Denver in the Pairwise, and tied for 7th in the country in the those same rankings? That would indicate to me, that your squad is far from being "The best". Heck, Minnesota is only a few slots behind UND in the Pairwise, and they have had a terrible second half of the season. Maybe you should start thinking about sand bagging for the big flood and stop wasting your time making senseless posts on a Minneapolis paper's web site?!
posted by maxwell812 on Mar 14, 09 at 9:12 am
For some reason, the only place I can hear the Sioux-MTU game is through an ISP in Upper Michigan, Pasty.net.
ReplyDeleteHas anybody ever thought about the truly ridiculous scheduling in the WCHA. Like other sports administered by nincompoops, the WCHA teams don't play home and home against everybody in the conference, do play non-conference games, and then go through this feeble-minded WCHA tournament format. The Sioux, for instance, played only two regular season conference games against rivals Tech, Gophers, Denver, and UMD, but still played ten non-conference contests. That's lame. So then we go to this bizarre play-off format. A two out of three play-off to get into the tournament, then single elimination. Of course, what the conference is trying to do is maximize income while limiting travel expense, but it still doesn't make any sense from a competitive standpoint. Why should MTU even be in the tournament? The last two teams in the final standings should be all done. They shouldn't even have a chance to pull an upset, win the tournament and get an automatic bid to the NCAA. Let the top 8 teams play and then that's it.
Actually, it should be structured like English football. The conferences should be ranked, and the last two teams in the highest level conference should be demoted the following season to the next lower level, while the two highest teams from that lower level move up to the first level. Regular season games mean a lot when that's the case.
i do see some advantages to eliminating the bottom two teams in the wcha come playoff time. number one the bottom three or four teams will have to continue to fight up until the end in order to make the playoffs rather than getting in automatically. second, like pulverized concepts said, those teams won't have the chance to upset their way to the national tournament.
ReplyDeleteon the other hand, it seems that wcha teams play hard every week no matter what so i'm not sure the motivation to stay alive even needs to exist. also, since no bottom five team has ever won the tournament (although umn came close last year as a seven seed), a sneak in really isn't an issue.
i think the current format makes for more excitment since the chance for a big upset always exists. besides, a nine or ten seed beating a one or two seed in a two of three series on the one or two seed's home ice is very rare so it's not a concern.
as for the scheduling, i like the current format. yeah, it sucks when you lose a couple close ones on another team's home ice and you don't have the chance to redeem yourself on your ice. at the same time, though, whenever you only play a team on the road, that means you get a home series and a road series with that team the following year, then a home series only the year after that.
in the long run it's fair and i wouldn't want to eliminate any non-conference games because those games are the ones that have the most potential to get you a higher seed come ncaa playoff time, provided you consistently schedule tough non-conference competition.