Linkorama

Mike Eidelbes "Mike Check" column at insidecollegehockey.com has been surprisingly good. His column from last week was so good that I felt it deserved mention. A couple things caught my attention.

First was the discussion about Liberty University possibly adding a Division 1 hockey program to their school. What will be the deciding factor? Let's vice chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr.

"It won't be in the immediate future. I'm not sure how far down the road it will be. One thing that has to be considered is the potential revenue a hockey program can bring."

I believe that's the ecclesiastical equivalent of "laying up" and only going for the Fourth Level of Hell rather than risking going somewhere deeper.

Speaking of creepy, annoying people you wouldn't be caught dead hanging out with, let's talk about Gopher fans.

Ya know all those Gopher fans that keep telling everybody that they wouldn't care if an opposing player taunted them like Phil Kessel did in Madison last weekend?

It's kind of funny reading the emails Mike received after Minnesota's series against North Dakota complaining about Phillippe Lamoreaux being such a bad guy for taunting the Gopher crowd. What's even better is that the intelligent Minnesota fans felt it necessary to throw garbage on the ice when it happened.

In case you missed it, the headline on USCHO.com's mainpage on Monday: "Gopher It" That sound you heard was canonical blogger Big Ten Wonk crying in the corner.

I don't give out a player of the week award, but if I did, that award would have to go to St. Cloud sophomore defenseman Matt Stephenson, who scored the overtime game winner to complete a sweep of North Dakota last weekend. If you had asked me last Thursday who would score a goal in overtime to help clinch a critical series sweep, I may have guessed former President Zachary Taylor before I guessed Stephenson. Well done, Matt.

In other St. Cloud related news, I had previously promised more info on 2007 goalie recruit Jase Weslosky. Here's a link to Weslosky's AJHL press release.

In more bloggish venues, the NMU Hockey Blog had a great story today on a historic brawl between NMU and Ohio State back in 1981. The most interesting thing I got from that article was the Ohio State player that scored both goals in that game was none other than former Providence coach and current Notre Dame assistant Paul Pooley. It's no wonder he went on to coach the Skating Goons of Providence.

The Blog that Yost Built was also bringing it's A game this week with an excellent Michigan/Michigan State recap. And just for fun, we'll throw in a bonus HI-larious story.

Let's Go DU takes a nice look at Denver's NCAA tournament hopes. This is the beautiful thing about the Pairwise Rankings. If the NCAA tournament was decided on a more arbitrary basis, Denver would almost certainly be in based on what they've done in the tournament the past two years, whether they deserved to be there or not. Instead, a more deserving team like Nebraska-Omaha might get to go instead of Denver based on the numbers.

Former Michigan State player Kris Koski has been named assistant coach of the Chicago Steel. Best of luck to him.

In young guy news, Shattuck-St. Mary's faced off against Academy of Holy Angels and Shattuck won easily by a score of 5-1.

The big upset last week was St. Thomas Academy knocking off Hill-Murray. St. Thomas was led by three assists from tiny 9th grade star Jordan Schroeder. Schroeder is definitely a player to keep an eye on in the future as he will be one of the most controversial prospects in college hockey. He's got undeniable talent, but he's also very small, and probably not growing much. Some think he's destined for stardom, and some think he's peaked as a player and isn't going to get any better. I'll take a netural wait and see position and hope for the best for the hard-working kid.

Finally, while North Dakota State fans were bragging about making it on ESPN last week for beating Wisconsin in basketball, rivals North Dakota one-upped them by making it on network TV. On the season premiere of the new series "Love Monkey"(Sex and the City wasn't craptacular enough for you? Now you can watch the male version!)Tom Cavanaugh's character tunes in to watch a hockey game with his buddies, and since NHL right cost money and stuff, they were treated to a tilt between North Dakota and Boston College.