When asked in a recent interview how he had become such a powerful, quick skater he replied, ” I went to high school in Faribault, Minnesota and college in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Skating was the only thing we could do for fun.” [read the whole article here]
In St. Cloud, Minn., the St. Cloud State Huskies trailed 3-1 and 4-2 on the way to a tie. Anchorage managed just 19 shots on goal but got a goal and two assists from Kevin Clark. Ryan Lasch had two goals for St. Cloud State. On the tying play, St. Cloud State was on a power play and pulled goalie Dan Dunn for a two-man advantage. After Hanowski scored, the goal was reviewed.A conspiracy theorist might ask did Motzko buy his team a break with his end of game tirade last weekend. What do you think? Just think that 0-27-4 streak was in jeopardy of becoming history when the unexpected happened.
"Right away (the referee) signaled 'goal,' so you're thinking — or you're hoping — that he's right," Hanowski told the St. Cloud Times.
"We got to the bench and, you know, I know the horn went off before (the puck) hit the twine in the back of the net. So you're nervous, especially since they're taking awhile to look at it. But it ended up being good and it's a big relief." [Rink and Run]
The Pios got an Anthony Maiani goal 8:59 into the second period to take a 3-0 lead in a truly ho-hum atmosphere at Magness Arena. The play-making Maiani, who was brilliant last weekend at North Dakota, has three points (two helpers). He has nine points (two goals) in his five-game point streak. The shots are 35-17 and DU has yet to be called for a non-coincidental penalty. But the Pios are just 1 of 5 on the power play. They failed to score on a 5-on-3 advantage for more than a minute. After trips to Wisconsin and North Dakota the past two weekends, the Pios are obviously having a tough time adjusting to an inferior foe, and the crowd of around 4,200 has yet to get its their money’s worth. [Denver Post Hockey Blog]
Next Tuesday a group of Sioux Nickname supporters on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation will circulate a petition around the community.
The petition will ask for a reservation-wide vote on the issue.
Nickname supporter Tom Iron says next Tuesday him and 8 others will start the petition to gauge tribal support in the next two weeks.
Iron says he will need 550-signatures to make it valid and that would override a moratorium that previously banned a vote.
He will present it to tribal chair Charlie Murphy and ask the vote to happen before February 18th.
That's the date of a State Board Of higher education meeting where some board members have indicated they might look toward retirement
[WDAZ.COM]
BOUCHERVILLE, Que. -- The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League has suspended Val-d'Or Foreurs defenceman Marco Scandella indefinitely for hitting an opponent in the head.
The incident occurred in a game Wednesday against the Rimouski Oceanic.
"This afternoon, (QMJHL disciplinarian) Raymond Bolduc informed me of his decision to suspend Marco Scandella indefinitely," league commissioner Gilles Courteau said in a statement. "After seeing the hit, I believe it is the right decision while the disciplinary process runs its course.
"Our position is clear: We have a responsibility to protect our players. Their safety is our No. 1 priority."
Scandella was considered to be one of Canada's top defencemen at this year's world junior hockey championship.
Bolduc will gather testimonies from on-ice officials as well as players and members of both organizations, then analyse the facts and review his findings with a committee before deciding what action to take.
No timetable regarding when a decision will be reached has been set.
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The New Jersey Devils have won the Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes, acquiring the superstar winger from the Atlanta Thrashers on Thursday night, a source close to the deal told ESPN.com.
The Devils have struggled of late, especially scoring goals. Veteran Devils GM Lou Lamoriello didn't hesitate, swooping in and acquiring the biggest rental player available on this year's trade market.
Kovalchuk will be an unrestricted free agent July 1 and contracts talks with the Thrashers hit a stalemate recently.
The move comes hours after Thrashers GM Don Waddell released a statement saying that contract negotiations with Kovalchuk had reached an "impasse" and that the team was exploring its options.
"Our goal from the start of this negotiating process was to sign Ilya Kovalchuk to a long-term contract," Waddell said in the statement earlier Thursday. "During the process, Kovy affirmed his desire to be a Thrasher for life. We've spent several months exploring scenarios with Kovy and his agent to reach a mutually beneficial agreement and offered many lucrative packages in an attempt to meet his financial objectives. Unfortunately, we've reached an impasse and at this point he has declined all of our proposals and we can't reasonably go any higher. [ESPN.COM]
Bert (Titletown, ND)
Gladdy you seem to have more confidence in UND than most of the UND faithful. Why?
Joe Gladziszewski (2:39 PM)
Must be because I'm from a different part of the country and not saddled with the lifelong stigma that North Dakota is always under-appreciated when good, and absolutely terrible when not in first place. I like the team's grit and scoring depth primarily. They're a tough team to play against, and even in several losses I think they've outplayed their opponents. The worm's gotta turn. [INCH Chat]
Statement from Thrashers GM Don Waddell:
"Our goal from the start of this negotiating process was to sign Ilya Kovalchuk to a long-term contract. During the process, Kovy affirmed his desire to be a Thrasher for life. We've spent several months exploring scenarios with Kovy and his agent to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, and offered many lucrative packages in an attempt to meet his financial objectives. Unfortunately, we've reached an impasse and at this point he has declined all of our proposals and we can't reasonably go any higher.
Ultimately, we offered Kovy more than $101 million over 12 years, which would have been the highest contract signed by an impending unrestricted free agent in the history of the league. If accepted, this contract would have been the second highest offer ever to any NHL player. We also met his desire to be the highest paid player based on average annual salary with a separate offer of 7 years at $10M per year ($70M). This offer is $0.5M higher per year than any other player. [The Hockey News]
WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod said Wednesday that SCSU coach Bob Motzko's public reprimand for actions after Saturday's 6-4 loss at Colorado College will not include a fine. The league announced the public reprimand in a short news release late Tuesday afternoon. The reprimand stemmed from Motzko's heated confrontation with referee Brett Klozowski regarding a disputed non-goal call late in the game.First we have to correct this inaccuracy. Gwozdecky was suspended by the WCHA after he was kicked out of the game and got caught cheating, after leaving the bench area Gwozdecky went to the press box and was communicating with the DU bench. The league did not suspend him for showing up and berating the officials.
"I don't have anything to add," Motzko said after practice Wednesday. "I've already said everything I wanted to say."
That perhaps was a reference to a telephone conversation with WCHA Supervisor of Officials Greg Shepherd. Motzko also made the following comment to reporters Saturday: "We scored a goal. Everybody in the rink knows we scored a goal. There's nothing else to say."
McLeod said the league's code of conduct required a reprimand for such an incident.
"The reprimand is just that: A reprimand," McLeod said. "There's no further action. There is language in the code of conduct where there can be additional steps taken if there's a repeat offense. Then we could get into other things."
WCHA coaches are subject to a fine of $1,000 for making comments in the media critical of officiating. And, in some cases, schools have taken action against their own coaches for their actions at games. The most recent example came a year ago when Denver University suspended George Gwozdecky for his infamous walk across the ice to protest a call in a game at North Dakota.
This didn't rise to that level. After Aaron Marvin appeared to tie Saturday's game at 5-5 with about 1:30 remaining, Klozowski waved off the goal. The Tigers added an empty-netter, and the two points at stake meant the difference between being tied for first and in third place in the WCHA entering this weekend's home series with Alaska Anchorage. Even had they finished in a tie, the one-point boost would've put the Huskies in a tie for second, one point back of first-place Denver.This statement is funny in so many ways; I am not sure how the head of the WCHA’s officials Greg Shepherd can make that comment with a straight face? Come one Greg well all know your officials aren’t up to par. This is where the member schools have got to step forward and demand change, because Shepherd doesn’t see a problem and their oblivious to the situation. From what I have gleamed this season is that a good part of the WCHA fan base is unhappy with the state of officiating in the WCHA. Nothing has changed; the same buffoons are still out screwing up calls in key parts of games, costing their favorite teams points. The only way the WCHA is going to discipline their officials is when they become to toxic to defend and or when they screw up so bad like Randy Schmidt did that they have to discipline/fire their on ice officials.
Huskies athletic director Morris Kurtz said Wednesday the matter is resolved and there will be no internal discipline of Motzko by SCSU.
McLeod said Shepherd has spoken with Klozowski about the incident, but there will be no discipline for the referee. Klozowski is in his second year working WCHA games. He did not referee any postseason games last spring. Previously, he worked several seasons in the CCHA.
"You can argue whether the call should be made or not made," McLeod said. "If you look at the replay, (Klozowski) is as close to the play as can be. He lost sight of the puck and blew the whistle. That's it. the play is dead. There's even latitude in the rule book where as soon as a referee intends to blow the whistle, the play is over. Let's say, for instance, he's prevented from raising his hand with the whistle. Once he determines to blow it, it's all over."
Shepherd said he had not previously had any complaints about Klozowski, and that his positioning and action during the play was correct.
"He was where he was supposed to be," Shepherd said. "He loses sight of the puck, so he blew the whistle. What he did wrong was he should never have went to replay. You can never overturn a call once you blow the whistle. What he should've done was gone to the (SCSU) bench and told Bob he lost sight of it and gone back out and dropped the puck. His job is to explain the situation and go from there. If he'd done that, we might've avoided what happened after the game."
Shepherd confirmed what McLeod said in that the NCAA adopted an NHL rule two years ago that allows officials to call a play dead even based on the intent of blowing the whistle.
"If you look at the replay, (Klozowski) has brought his whistle to his mouth and the puck isn't in the net yet," Shepherd said. "A CC guy pushed a St. Cloud guy into the net. When that happens and you can't see the puck, we tell our guys 'Bang!' They should hit the whistle right now. You don't want someone crashing into the goalie." [Saint Cloud Times]
