Thanksgiving Hangover
Posted by: ronWe’ve been a little slow over the holidays, but rest assured we’ll be picking up the pace in the weeks before finals hit. Our Puck Rankings will be available tomorrow as our resident statisician, calculation, ranking guru recovers from a bad case of food poisoning. What a way to spend Thanksgiving vacation.. or extend it depending how you look at it.
One thing really popped into my head today, and that was how I’m continually disappointed that I haven’t been able to see Minnesota play at all this year, not in person, not on television. Next game on the dish, it’s time to make sure I go out and see thse guys play, because rumor has it. They’re good.
Hockey East has another intriguing weekday matchup, this week pitting BU who scraped by Yale who appears to be for real, against a UMass team that has done a solid job so far this season. Definitely worth a trip to Agganis if you have the chance.
From the “Where did they come from?!” Department: Look out now, but Vermont has rattled off five consecutive wins (six if you include an exhibition), all against Hockey East teams. Those 10 points were written off by most after that horrible four-game losing streak after winning the Icebreaker.
George Roll made the Golden Knights over at Clarkson practice with wooden sticks, took away their lounge and their music, and they responded with a sweep over Bowling Green and Miami. They also received some help from the first ever Instant Replay using Cheel Arena’s new system that is being tried out by the ECAC. When some message boards mentioned this and INCH noted it as well, I e-mailed Coach Roll and asked him if both were true and simply got a “Yes and Yes.” All business in Potsdam!
The RPI holiday tournament had Niagara come away as the winner this weekend, but the highlight for the fans in Troy had to be the ten round shootout to determine the 3rd place winner between RPI and Ohio State. RPI won it 5-4.
The Alaska Formerly Known As Fairbanks (TAFKAF) has only lost twice this season, both times by a single goal. They also have four ties. Very impressive for the Nanooks, but they have a long road ahead starting with their return match-up at the end of December against UAA, then 8 of 10 games against ranked opponents starting in mid-January.
Last but not least, college Hockey Showcase looks like it had some fantastic hockey. Gregg Paul has an interesting article on its future. While I don’t care so much about the Big Five / Big Ten, whatever talk. I just need to know it’s going to be around next year, so I have an excuse for a road trip.
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:26 am
Just to throw a little more fuel to the burning debate about a possible Big Ten hockey conference. Since the Big Ten is launching their own tv network in 2007, they are going to need additional live programming.
Now while I am sure there will be plenty of coverage of the non mianstream sports such as track, soccer, or volleyball, any tv network is in business to make money. I am fairly confident that men’s hockey has the potential to make more money for a fledgling network than any of the aforementioned sports.
The formation of the network may be the main impetus for all the talk about the “Big Ten”, I mean Big Five hockey conference.
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:34 am
Here’s something to add a little fuel to the flaming topic of the formation of a Big Ten hockey conference. Since the Big Ten is forming their own TV network for the 2007 season, they are going to need to find programming for the network.
Now I am sure they will expand coverage of the non-traditional revenue generating sports such as track, gymnastics, field hockey and the like, but I’m willing to bet that the network executives will be frothing at the mouth to broadcast men’s hockey involving traditional rivalries.
I’d be willing to bet if it weren’t for the new tv network, any talk of a Big Ten, I mean Big Five hockey conference would be quietly swept under the rug.