Bless their little hearts but... (RW77 Rant)

Student Organizations should not be allowed to run cameras at fast-paced sporting events.

Seriously, thank goodness for the UAA announcer calling the game very similarly to that of a radio commentator... or maybe he was the radio commentator overlaid with video?

In any case, I cannot tell you how awful it was watching the games this weekend where we'd see closeups of players while the puck is off screen (and the player close up didn't even have the puck!), or when the puck is shot into the zone and the camera focuses in on the ref... or the best? In Saturday's game Aaron Dell makes two great, close in saves.... BOTH of them off camera. Heck, apparently Aaron Dell had a fabulous glove save. I'll take the announcer's word for it.

It was a downright MIRACLE that Kristo's goal was on camera instead of perhaps one of the 50 fans on the bench side of the ice.

Look, everyone learns sometime but it was beyond unbelievable how poorly they were able to track the puck! It's almost as if they were trying to disguise their $10 Gear Head Webcam they bought from a discount online retailer by trying to be creative with zooming in every minute or 2 and on every faceoff. It also seems like they had no idea where the camera was facing at times and while checking on its position, lost track of the puck.

The most important thing on the ice isn't the players... it's the puck! The game cannot be played without a puck!

So, here's what I'd do to help them out: First, lose the zoom button entirely. Forget it exists. If you wish to have zoom capability, buy a second webcam and have that zoomed in all the time. Then, if they capture something while zoomed, go to it on replay. With the camera zoomed out permanently, there will be the best chance of keeping the puck on the screen. Second, run a fundraising campaign to purchase decent equipment. Namely a web-broadcasting capable REAL camera like the ones that almost all other schools use. Look at the webcams UND uses at the Ralph.... or maybe those are web broadcast directly from the TV feed. If that is the case, perhaps they can outfit a real video camera with a similar system. It will improve the quality of the broadcast big time.

There are more drastic suggestions I have, but they defeat the purpose of a student run broadcast.

Best of luck and remember: If the cameraman can't follow the puck, he ain't worth a F***!

It was inevitable (RW77)

We've now played 3 games with Eidsness and Dell sharing the duties and already there are people calling for Dell to play over Eidsness.

Here's why that's ridiculously stupid:

1. Eidsness was on the All WCHA team last year and was among the best goaltenders in the country last year. You don't get that by sucking.

2. I'd like to see Dell do as good as Eidsness did on Friday with just as much (meant as sarcasm) Team D in front of him. Something tells me, UAA would still have tied the game or won.

3. Eidsness is the man according to Hakstol.

It's still unfortunate that people seem to think that the only good goaltender is the one that can steal the game for you. My perspective is this: If you need a goaltender to steal a game for you, even if it is once in a while, then you're only saying that because you don't want to come to the realization that the team in front of the goaltender is prone to sucking. Ok, ok, there is value to a game stealing goaltender (Devils and Brodeur, Canadiens and Halak, etc.) but there are just as many examples of great teams with goaltenders that did what was asked of them but wasn't flashy or stole games (like Leighton/Boucher for the Flyers or Marc-Andre Fleury - who is good, but not flashy).

The point is this: if your dominance depends solely on the play of one player, regardless of position, then your team will eventually fail. That is, unless your sport is focused upon individual performances in a team setting (such as the Olympics, the Ryder Cup in golf, etc.).

Hockey is a sport that requires solid play in all areas of gameplay or your team will struggle, from the obvious loss to squeaking by with the win.

How about a non-hockey point to beat the dead horse? Yesterday, Alabama lost to South Carolina in football. Though this delighted me to no end (as did LSU's win over Florida... suck it ESPN), it displays my point exactly. Alabama should NEVER have lost to USC. But their defense let them down and game over. What we're doing with the Eidsness issue, in this context is, had the middle linebacker played better, Alabama would have won. Ahm... Nope.

Saturday we saw great team defense. Fairbanks tested Dell..... twice according to Brad the entire game. One of those two times, Fairbanks scored. It took a 5 on 3 powerplay to generate that chance. See how important Team Defense is? It took Fairbanks 10 minutes to get their first shot on goal (made while on the powerplay) and another 7 minutes on top of that to get their first even strength shot on goal! I think Tate Maris could have looked better than Eidsness with this kind of Team D in front of him.

So what do we take from this weekend? Two things:

1. If we play good on Team D, it doesn't matter who is in net.

2. We may have what could be a solid tandem in net. Dell just needs to be tested a bit more.

Eidsness is still the #1 goaltender on the Sioux. Sioux fans will just have to come to grips with the fact that Eidsness isn't going to be a game stealer. And as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather he not be expected to be so.

Annnnnnnnnd We're off!

The season is 25 hours and change away when we start the season with the OTHER Bison skating to (hopefully) defeat in the Ralph.

Thus begins the last season as the Fighting Sioux and the following as whatever lame toothless name the idiots on the SBoHE and the UND Administration pigeonhole us into.

But I digress, HOCKEY!

Manitoba boasts a ton of "talent" with again being the team to actually bring a bunch of 25 year old Canadians back to Grand Forks. So, once again, this is the one time a season where Minnesota fans can point at Grand Forks and say that there is a hockey team playing there full of 25 year old Canadians and be right.

Manitoba is a classy program even if the CIAU (or whatever they now call it) is truly a third tier hockey league. To be honest, I'd love to see a USHL team, a DIII team, and a MJ team play a CIAU team and see who would win. I think a USHL team could give them a run for their money and both the DIII and MJ teams have a very good chance at winning.

Anyways, Manitoba brings back 2 former 7th rounders and 2 former 6th round draft picks. A few of their players have actually played pro hockey, in either the AHL or overseas. Their starting goaltender will undoubtedly be Steve Christie, though their backup was, at one time, the Brandon Wheat Kings' rookie of the year before his performance slowly faded into fail.

Once again, Manitoba brings to Grand Forks a washed out ex-NCAA player. The first time it was some former NMU defenseman whose name I don't care too much to remember or even look up. This time it is former Bemidji State University defenseman Joey Moggach.

Just once, I'd like to bring in that team in Alberta that Graeme Harrington transferred to or perhaps U Alberta or U British Columbia to see what they can do. But who cares really. And then there's real news.

We start things off with a little backwards movement: UND Forward and reigning WCHA Rookie of the Year Danny Kristo did something stupid and got caught. Unlike Finley, Kristo wasn't able to do something unique in getting caught doing something stupid, but it was stupid nonetheless. So, he starts the season when UND heads to Alaska.

I'll take flak for this but.... I think Kristo should sit a regular season game in addition to the exhibition. I know that there is some power to sitting him tomorrow because the Sioux start the regular season on the road facing hapless UAA and less hapless UAF and being on the ice when the Sioux skate out with the Broadmoor would be special, but... No.

I think Kristo sitting against UAA would send the message double time without Hakstol hurting the team any more than is absolutely necessary. I think we could bench half our forwards and still win against UAA though.

Speaking of UAA....

They lose Kane LaFranchise for a semester because he actually found something to do other than go to classes last Spring or Summer! Maybe it was the endless sunlight or temps over the freezing point of water that distracted him? I dunno. In any case, UAA goes into the season without much in the way of scoring, nothing in the way of proven goaltending (even MTU has that!) and now, almost nothing in the way of defense.

Looks like my prediction of picking UAA dead last (while Goon and the rest of the media world went with MTU and even MSUM finishing behind UAA!) may become reality. Don't worry, folks, I'll be sure to taunt Goon mercilessly on his blog over this should a Redwing77 Prediction actually come true. Why? Because, to my knowledge, this would be the first time one of my predictions even remotely came true!