This morning on my way to work, I was listening to SiriusXM NHL Center Ice. Apparently, there’s going to be six outdoor games, including the Winter Classic next season.
Seriously!
There are going to be a grand total of six outdoor games. Talk about an overkill.
Personally, I think there comes a time when the NHL has overdone the outdoor game, this might be an instance of this. How many outdoor games do we need to have during the course of a season? I also think the outdoor game can be a bit of a crap shoot with the weather, one of these game is almost assured of having disastrous ice conditions. Lastly, I think that the outdoor games are a gimmick as well. Really, the frozen pond in California? Make sure to throw the palm trees in for good measure.
Kevin Cusick, Pioneer Press --- TSN, Canada's version of ESPN, is reporting that the league is planning five outdoor games in addition to the Jan. 1 Winter Classic previously announced for the University of Michigan's Big House."
"They're still ironing out a few of the wrinkles," reporter Darren Dreger said on TSN's "Insider Trading" program. "Contracts haven't been signed. But that's the grand plan."
Here's the schedule that the NHL is proposing for the 2013-14 season.
Wow! There is going to be another college hockey game aka the "Big Chill" that will be played outdoors on Saturday at 3:00 pm Eastern Standard time at the Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Yawn! Boring! I can’t be the only one that is bored with this concept, hockey wasn't made to be played in a football stadium.
I mean seriously folks, I want to watch a game in a massive football stadium, when it’s cold and I can’t see the ice or the puck very well because I am watching the game with 85,000 of my closest friends up in the clouds. I think we have played these outdoor games Ad nauseam. I am actually surprised that no one has suggested the Sioux play a hockey game in Memorial Stadium with its about a bazillion below zero. I wonder if your beer freezes.
If you're interested in watching the game, this farce will be on the Big Ten Network on Saturday at 2:00 pm North Dakota time. Here is the link(s) to the story [click to read]
There is a lot of discussion on the internet about whether Yale is a good team or not and worthy of the number one ranking. Ok, first off Yale has beaten the schedule they have been given, kudos to them; however, let’s look at who the Yale Bulldogs have beaten this season – Brown (24.4990) , Dartmouth (21.9230), Princeton (17.3212), Quinnipiac (12.9341), Colorado College (30.4469), Cornell (11.5612), Colgate (9.4471), Sacred Heart (7.7867), Rensselaer (22.8393), Union (21.3074) and Vermont (28.7114). The Yale Bulldogs lost to a very bad Air Force Academy (13.3756).
So let me get this right the pollsters are impressed with Yale beating up on the weak sisters of the poor and have ranked them number one in all three polls/rankings because of this. Go back and look at the Yale Bulldogs Strength of Schedule of the teams that they have played to date. I would like to see what kind of numbers power house teams like UMD, UND, DU, BU and Boston College could rack up against that line up of cup cakes. I don't know how anyone can say it with a straight face that the aforementioned schedule is a good schedule.
Ken Schott one of the best beat writers in the ECAC; has gone so far to say that he thinks Yale is going to be in the Frozen Four. That's a pretty bold statment to make based on who Yale has played this season.
Yale came close to making the Frozen Four last season. The Bulldogs have an outstanding offense, and they are tough to start. But the one area of the Bulldogs' game that held them back was their defense, and their goaltending, in particular. Yale used four goalies last season, and none of them established themselves as the go-to guy. The lack of a No. 1 goalie hurt the Bulldogs in their Northeast Regional championship game against Boston College. Yale scored seven goals, but three of its goalies couldn't stop the Eagles from getting nine goals and advancing to the Frozen Four, where they won the title.
Yale was a solid pick to win the ECACH regular-season title in the coaches and media polls. But I couldn't help but think if goaltending would be a problem again for the Bulldogs.
Well, after watching Yale's 5-0 dismantling of Union on Sunday at Ingalls Rink, I am not afraid to predict this: The Bulldogs will play in the Frozen Four in April.
Love his work, but I am going to have to respectfully disagree with him. I think Yale will be another ECAC team that will be selected as a number one seed in the NCAA tourney that ends up being a first round one and done bust, like Clarkson was in 2007 NCAA tourney. I really think that until a team from the ECAC "actually" wins an NCAA tourney and starts beating legit big time teams from the WCHA, CCHA and or Hockey East on a regular basis they will never really be looked at as anything but the EZAC. I also think that analogy is fair as well.
I also think that people are basing what happened in last years NCAA tourney as a gauge of what could happen in this years tourney. I don't know if you can do that. It is what it is; when the Sioux played Yale last year in the playoffs, the UND Fighting Sioux had played six games in nine days when they faced the Yale Bulldogs who had lost in their conference homes series and didn't play for two weeks and were well rested. I think if UND has played two less games that game would have had a very different result, the Sioux also started to come back in the third period and just missed on a couple of opportunities to tie the game up. Who knows what happens if that games goes to overtime?
Just for the record here is the Strength of Schedule for the 2010-2011 season so far.
Strength of schedules:
Yale. 31/ 19.7909
UMD 4/ 35.4840
UNH 23/ 23.7116
BC 6/ 32.3048
UND 1/ 50.0000
DU 2/ 40.6433
