Random Stuff

Starting off, the Frozen Tundra Class or whatever they called it between Wisconsin and Ohio State turned out to be a pretty successful. The weather was perfect and the ice looked great. There's a great series of photos from the game here.

Everything about the game was great, except, surprise surprise, the WCHA's incompetent officiating. Ohio State had an obvious goal waved off the first period because one of the officials thought he saw the net get dislodged. It's a shame they didn't have video replay to overturn the poor call. I could break out the conspiracy theory and say it was the WCHA's master plan to help sneak Denver and St. Cloud into the tournament over Ohio State, but I've watched this idiocy up close for the past five months, so I know better. The bottom line with that call is that, like with video replay, the official has to be 100% confident to overturn that call, and he couldn't have been.

Yes, there's the standard disclaimer that officiating is hard and I couldn't do any better, but there continues to be a huge disparity between the quality of play in the WCHA and the level of officiating in the league, and it needs to be seriously looked at this summer.

One of the few WCHA refs that I think has been good this season is referee Todd Anderson, although apparently Anderson drew the ire of St. Cloud coach Bob Motzko on Saturday.

Also of interest from the St. Cloud series was that Brett Sterling is stuck on 99 career goals. He's now gone seven straight games without a goal, which is the longest drought of his career.

Bobby Goepfert and St. Cloud maintained their streak of not winning when Goepfert allows 3 or more goals, after losing on Friday, giving up five, and winning on Saturday after only giving up one.

The Gophers tied against Michigan Tech on Saturday and the GopherBlog says you better like it. Perhaps the Gophers didn't play as hard because the early afternoon start allowed them to catch a quick nap after the game, preparing them for Coach Don Lucia's vaunted 6am day-after skates.

Those of you that are keeping track of the scoring race between Phil Kessel and Lake Superior's freshmen class, the Laker frosh are currently leading 38-34. It's been neck and neck pretty much all season.

The Michigan/Lake Superior series very well could be the most blogged about series in history. The Blog that Yost Built recapped both nights. You can get the Laker perspective here courtesy of LSSU Hockey. And if that wasn't enough for you, Michigan College Hockey also covered the series.


Minnesota State finished their Saturday game against Denver with 5 of their top 12 forwards and 4 of their top 6 defenseman. Ouch.

Finally, the Clarkson Hockey Fan blog proves that a picture is worth a thousand words.