I liked this article by Bruce Ciskie, pointing out the irony of the New York Islanders selected highly-touted Minnesota recruit Aaron Ness in the recent NHL Draft. We pointed that out, too, in our Draft Roundup. Ciskie expands and opines on that, and gets a comment from Snow, where he mentions he’s not concerned about Ness playing for Don Lucia.

There are only two conclusions to reach about that … either a) give credit to Snow for overlooking his past issues with Lucia and take the best player … or b) it points out the folly of Snow ripping Lucia to begin with.

I go with the latter.

Snow said he was only “defending his guy (Kyle Okposo)” last December, in response to Lucia’s initial comments about the Islanders pressuring Okposo. But what Snow doesn’t understand — and never understood — is that Lucia was only taking the heat, i.e. defending, Okposo too. By Lucia publicly stating that the Islanders were pressuring Okposo, he was trying to take the heat off Okposo from Minnesota faithful who were criticizing him. Who knows if Lucia really felt like the Islanders were unfairly pressuring Okposo.

Snow took it as a personal knock, and blew it back up as a personal attack on Lucia.  The whole thing was ridiculous.  And Snow taking Ness now only proves that Snow never really believed the nonsense he was spewing on Lucia to begin with.

We were quite saddened, as were many around the world, at the news today of the unexpected passing of NBC political analyst Tim Russert at the young age of 58 following a sudden heart attack.

It was just two months ago that Russert closed the April 13 edition of Meet the Press by congratulating Boston College on winning the NCAA hockey championship the night before in Denver.

Russert’s son Luke was a student at BC, graduating this year. From all accounts, Russert mentioning BC hockey on such a national stage was truly reflective of how close he was with his family and sharing in the things that were important to them. As terrible as his passing is, it seems even worse that it happened on Father’s Day Weekend. And sadly, Russert suffering a heart attack was the same way we lost a great friend of college hockey, Jon Barkan, just back in December. Barkan was even younger, just 39.

I enjoyed Meet the Press mainly because of Russert’s presence and the way in which he did his job in as unbiased a fashion as I could imagine. He had a way of asking tough questions without displaying any meanness or prejudice towards one side or the other, and he asked them of everyone.

I had a great deal of respect for him as an analyst and looked forward to the show each week. And if I was changing tv stations and came across him talking about something on one channel, I almost always kept it on because I felt I was likely to learn something I didn’t know before. His tireless efforts at bringing the leaders in American politics to the viewers made us all more informed and helped keep attention on some of the most important issues of the day.

Our world will not be the same without him. We will miss him and our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.

Today was a day for one of what might be many changes made to improve the game of college hockey for the 2008-09 season.

The first rule, mandated today, was the two referee, two linesmen system. This here will immediately change the game for a few reasons. Number one, it will allow the two referees to call penalties instead of one. With the one ref system while the two linesmen job(s) will remain the same.

Also a few other rules were proposed. You can read the staff report here on CHN for the exact details, but, here are some thoughts on a few proposed rules.

The “Kicking” Rule: As seen in this year’s national championship game between Notre Dame and Boston College, a call that could have gone either way in the third period hurt Notre Dame’s chances when Irish defenseman Kyle Lawson had the puck deflect off his skate and went in. Now, if passed by the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee, any deflection off a skate, as long as the player is not showing a kicking motion towards the goal, will count as a goal. This would be a good rule if it is passed, speeding the game up a little bit.

The Icing Rule: Like the NHL, the new Icing rule will state that the team that ices the puck will not be able to change lines. Maybe it will be a little too much like the “new” NHL, but it is a better rule than what I am going to discuss next.

The Shootout Rule: Many coaches are discussing how to eliminate ties in college hockey. However, ties have been part of the college game for a long time. Instead of this, maybe another rule that could be considered could be how the “old” NHL used to decide games. If a team goes into overtime, whether they lost or tied, a point was given to both teams. The shootout rule in the NHL does give points to both teams, however, for now, if teams want to decrease ties, maybe they should start with just a 5:00 overtime and guaranteeing a point to both teams for going into overtime.

Faceoff Locations: Finally, all the faceoffs will be done in the nine faceoff circles only. Don’t know how that will impact the game, but we will see if this rule gets passed.

We will wait and see if the four other rule changes go through, but I am already excited about the two ref, two linesmen system in 2008-09. Expect other major changes in the world of college hockey in the coming months.