Hatten SC Times: Tickets still available for this weekend's games; UND vs SCSU

I am actually surprised that there are still tickets left for this game. Standing room is very good tickets. This will be a great series if you can take in game I would recommend going.

Mick Hatten, Saint Cloud Time -- Tickets for this weekend’s North Dakota at St. Cloud State men’s hockey series are getting difficult to come by, particularly for the Saturday night game at the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center.

Tenth-ranked North Dakota and fifth-ranked St. Cloud State go into the weekend tied for the lead in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference, which is in its inaugural season. There are four games left in the regular season and the teams moved into a tie for the lead last weekend.

“This is always a big series for us and sales are always high,” said Chad Sheetz, St. Cloud State’s assistant director of athletic business & finance operations. “After Christmas, sales really started to pick up.”

As of about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, there were 599 remaining standing-room only tickets remaining for Saturday’s game, which starts at 7:07 p.m.

There are about 450 tickets available for Friday’s game.

Friday’s game has the unusual starting time of 8:07 p.m. because the game will be on a national telecast. Friday’s game will be televised on CBS Sports Network (Charter Channel 412, Direct TV Channel 221 and Dish Network Channel 158).

Mark Osiecki out as Ohio State University Hockey head coach

Another week, and another Division I college hockey coach bites the dust, that makes three high profile coaches in less than three weeks. Last week, hockey coach Tim Whitehead was fired after 12 seasons. The week before, George Gwozdecky was ousted in Denver after 19 seasons.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Gene Smith, Ohio State associate vice president and director of athletics, announced today Mark Osiecki will not return as head coach of the Buckeye men's hockey program.

"We are making a change in our head hockey coaching position," Smith said. "There was a difference of opinion over the management of the program that could not be resolved."

Osiecki recently completed his third season as the head coach of the Buckeyes, leading the squad to a 16-17-7 ledger. The squad was 13-10-5 in Central Collegiate Hockey Association play to tie for fourth place and advanced to the league semifinals. In his Ohio State career, Osiecki had a 46-50-16 record.

In the interim, Steve Rohlik, associate head hockey coach, will be the primary point person for the program, student-athletes and recruits.

I find this news interesting, it’s not almost puzzling. It’s no mystery that OSU has never been a power house in college hockey and the university has been a football first school. OSU is known for packing the football stadium and averaged an eye popping 105,278 fans per game in 2011. The OSU hockey team averaged unimpressive, 4004 fans per game in a 17,500 seat arena. That has to have some in the Ohio State administration worried, going into the inaugural Big Ten Hockey Conference season.