This is what we look forward to.

 Although the weather feels like it's still August and the fact that the Weather Channel tells me that it's supposed to be 79 degrees today and tomorrow; this puzzles and causes me to ask the question, "where the hell was this weather in June, July and August?" I want a refund on the summer. Weather or not I am going on record and announcing that summer is officially over and College and NHL hockey seasons are upon us.

Vacation Time

I am off to the hunting shack for some decompression and duck hunting. Sioux7 is coming up to the shack on Sunday and we are going to do some duck hunting on Monday and Tuesday. Don't tell anyone from Minnesota but this is going to be a banner duck hunting season, probably one of the best since about 2004. No I will not be giving out any GPS coordinates. My partner in crime and Gandalf the Red's favorite blogger Sioux7 will be posting a top ten in the next week and my WCHA preseason prediction will go up tomorrow afternoon about 1500 hours at the Illegal Curve, here and at MVN.COM. If you click on the link on Gandalf the Red's name it will bring you to his prediction where he predicts the Sioux to finish fourth in the WCHA behind the SCSU Huskies. I think the Huskies will be better a team this season but they won't be very physical and you can defeat them by pounding on them in the corners.  I am going to leave you with a clip from one of my favorite all time movies, City Slickers.

Gandalf The Red hammers CHN Poll.

I have to link this blog post because it is awesome, it hits the ball out of the park, it's an ensemble that hit all the right notes. This blog is also one of my personal favorites and I love the banter back and forth between Badger fans and Gopher fans.

I like Gandalf the Red was kind of taken back by the CHN poll because the College Hockey News has been known in the past as being the counter balance for INCH, usually have been pretty good, "emphasis mine." I don't get the logic and I can't imagine that CHN is hurting for hits. None the less, Gandalf the Red really hammers home a point that I have and a few others been making for years, beating crappy EZAC teams and racking up wins against the weak sisters of the poor proves nothing other than you can beat crappy teams. Your stats mean nothing. That is the flaw with the current RPI/PWR ranking system, your better off stacking up wins against crappy teams because you're rewarded for it in the end.

None of this really matters, its just fun for discussion's sake. Reading the comments over at CHN and on Goon's blog, no one really sees the ECAC worthy of three teams in the top 10. I'd have to agree, simply because the PWR favors three good teams from the same bad conference doesn't mean they belong in the top 10 of any poll or in the NCAA tourney. Does an ECAC fan really want to debate that Cornell, Yale and Princeton all belonged in the NCAA tourney last year over Wisconsin and minnesota? See when you play a panzy ass schedule like the ECAC (or the CCHA) the PWR favors you because you can rack up wins against bad teams, only facing tough competition on occasion. In the WCHA, where are the bad teams? Oh sure Tech and UAA and Mankato are regularly at the bottom, but while they are bad by WCHA standards they are still better than any team outside of the top 3 in the ECAC, and probably just as good as those. Last season Wisconsin had something like 30+ games against TUC's in the PWR, I think Yale or Princeton had just enough (10) to use the criteria in the ranking. So they skate in w/ just enough TUC's, meaning that 2/3 of their games were against teams not in the PWR top 25, and that is suppose to be impressive?

This doesn't even bring in the KRACH rankings from last season. Yale ranks 10th, Cornell 17th and Princton 20th. Wisconsin was 11th, BC was 12th, the gophers 13th and UMASS Lowell 14th. So you really want to tell me that these ECAC teams are better than those four teams and Cornell and Princeton deserved spots in the tourney over them?

I wasn't even planning on going on that tangent until I started in and realized once again the facts are there, and the ECAC has no business getting the respect it does, playing the weak ass schedules they do.

Also the analysis on the Gophers being ranked 6th Gandalf is also spot on. The Gophers lose almost 50 points from their line up with Ryan Stoa (24g-22a-46pts)signing a professional contract and apparently that has no bearing what so ever on the pre-season rankings? Give me a break. This is almost as silly as suggesting that UAA is going to finish in the top five of the WCHA standings. Granted the Gophers get a few recruits that have blue chip numbers, that could make an immediate impact but they aren't seasoned veterans. I still don't think their defense is going to be that great either, it will be improved.

6. minnesota: A usual NCAA postseason staple, the gophers fell short of expectations last season, but if their late-season run showed anything, it was that they'd be back with a vengeance in 2009-10. They lose top scorer Ryan Stoa to the pro ranks, but return Jordan Schroeder, who excelled as a freshman, and Jay Bariball on a deep offense that will be complemented by a defense led by Cade Fairchild and Aaron Ness, both of whom matured nicely as the roller coaster season continued. The biggest piece of the puzzle will be seeing which Alex Kangas shows up in net -- the one who gave up 42 goals in a 12 game mid-season stretch, or the one who allowed just 19 over the final nine matches of the season.

I was unaware that INCH fired all their idiots and CHN gave them jobs. Late season run? You mean the three games in a row they won before losing to Duluth at the Final Five play-in game? I guess they forgot about them going 2-7-2 in the 11 games before that; quite the late season surge. They almost blew home ice by losing to Tech on the last friday of the regular season and they were making a run? That was Tech's second win in WCHA play.

I don't really care who is in any top 10, the only rankings that matters is first the WCHA standings, and second the PWR after the last buzzer sounds to end conference tourneys, but I expect a little more out of CHN, since someone is paying this writer to put this together, they at least should qualify an absurd statement like "late season run," especially when one didn't happen. They are spot on about Kangas though, like poison in a well.