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Grand Rapids Hockey Offseason News
-Sam Rendle, Tony Palkki, and John Skrbec have been named captains for the
2008-2009 season.
-J.R. Mackey has been awarded the 2007-2008 Grand Rapids Hobey Baker Award.
-Corey Kosak was named Player's Choice team MVP for the 2007-2008 season.
-Sam Sparen was named Player's Choice team Most Determined Player for the
2007-2008 season.
-Pat Rendle has been named Grand Rapids High School Athletic Director as Wayne
Pender is set to resign at the end of the school year.
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Do you have a question or idea for a blog? If you do, please send an
email to Tim.
11/19/2007-Tim from the Top-"Lightning Quick Start"
The White Bear Lake Bears girl's hockey
team scored just 25 seconds into the Lightning's season opener Friday night.
However, the Lightning rallied back and won the game 4-2. Molly Arola netted two
for the Lightning while Emily Erickson and Dana Gallop added the other two. The
Lightning were tripped up Saturday, 3-1 by Roseville. The Lightning will host
Duluth Tuesday in Grand Rapids.
The Grand Rapids boy's team hit the ice for scrimmages this
weekend. They got pounded by Hill-Murray in the first scrimmage, but came back
to handle Rochester Century twice and Bemidji in their last three games. A lot
of good things came out of the weekend. Kyle Figgins, A.J. Underwood, and Trevor
Tabaka all saw valuable time in goal. Young guys like Kyle Kleinendorst, John
Skrbec, and Dustin Schulte all saw ice time. Grand Rapids will have the IRC
Jamboree and one more weekend of scrimmages before the regular season begins. I
expect this team to be very solid again this season.
11/16/2007-Tim from the Top-"Belanger and Ready to Play"
Eric Belanger helped get the Wild back
on track in a huge way last night. Belanger had four assists, one on each of the
Wild's four goals, as the Wild beat Edmonton 4-2 in Canada. The win for the Wild
is their third of the month. They will need to win four of their last seven this
month to match October's total.
The Grand Rapids Thunderhawks boy's hockey team will take to
the ice for scrimmages this weekend in Grand Rapids. There is a link to the
schedule from the home page. This weekend will be a great opportunity to see how
the younger kids play in a much more game like situation than a regular
practice.
The Grand Rapids/Greenway Lightning will kick off their
season tonight at the IRA Civic Center in Grand Rapids vs. White Bear Lake.
Cloquet/Esko/Carlton, the Lightning's biggest rival will also open the season
this weekend. Cloquet will host (#4) Benilde-St. Margaret's Friday night at the
Cloquet Area Recreational Center in Cloquet. Both teams will hit the ice again
Saturday, and both will play top ranked opponents. It should be a very exciting
opening weekend.
Predictions: Lighting 5, White Bear Lake 2
Lightning 3, Roseville 5
Cloquet/Esko/Carlton 2, Benilde-St. Margaret's 3
Cloquet/Esko/Carlton 1, Stillwater 4
11/15/2007-Tim from the Top-"Ready to Rock"
Pat Rendle's bunch will open their
season at home this weekend in both Grand Rapids and Greenway. The (#9)
Lightning are coming off of their best season ever as they went 18-7 in the
regular season and won the section 7AA championship. Coach Rendle has a new aim
for his girls this year: state title. The Lightning will play their most
difficult schedule thus far and arguably the toughest schedule in the state. The
Lightning will open the season vs. White Bear Lake Saturday night at 7:30 p.m.
in Grand Rapids. They will comeback the following day and play (#5) Roseville at
2:00 p.m. again, in Grand Rapids.
Grand Rapids/Greenway's biggest rival, Cloquet/Esko/Carlton,
also kicks off their season this weekend. Friday night the Lumberjacks will take
on (#4) Benilde-St. Margaret's at 7:30 p.m. in Cloquet. The (#2) Stillwater
Ponies will be in town Saturday and will play the Lumberjacks at 7:30 p.m. in
Cloquet. Stillwater is the AA defending state champions.
Throughout the year, I will be making many predictions right
here in this blog. My first of the year will come today. I believe the Lightning
have the talent and the coaching to win a state championship. I will not go so
far as to predict that right now, but I will make a regular season record
prediction. Check in tomorrow for predictions on this weekend's games. For now:
Prediction: Lightning finish the regular season at
17-8
11/14/2007-Tim from the Top-"Wild Fallout"
The Minnesota Wild have been struggling
quite a bit lately. After a 5-0 start, they have won just four of their last
eleven games. Obviously, injuries have a lot to do with that. Currently, Pavol
Demitra, Marian Gaborik, and Wes Walz are all out. Walz is not with the team due
to a family issue, but that is the entire first line out. With those guys out
the Wild have struggled to score enough goals to win games. Last night, the Wild
took a 2-1 lead late in the third period, only to give it right back about a
minute later. Calgary would score again late in the third to win the game.
Things like that cannot happen when star players are out with injuries.
Bemidji State University Women will face off with Robert
Morris on Saturday, November 17th at 6:07 p.m. at the IRA Civic Center in Grand
Rapids. This is a great chance to go out and see some D1 women's hockey. I think
it is a great opportunity for the current Lightning players to see what it takes
to play hockey at the D1 level. It should be a great game and tickets will be
available at the door.
11/13/2007-Tim from the Top-"Scrimmages Abound"
I got a chance to get up to Hibbing for
the Grand Rapids/Greenway Lightning scrimmages Saturday. To describe what I saw
in one word, it would be, "impressive." The Lightning looked very good in the
exhibitions against St. Francis and Hibbing. Molly Arola and Dana Gallop look
poised to have huge years along side dangerous forward, Emily Erickson. The
defensive side of the puck is very strong also. Kayla Clafton and Heather Horgen
looked much improved from last year. If the Lightning can get solid play from
Molly Dekich, Morgan Illikainen, and Hannah Kohorst, they will be very tough to
score on. The most important thing I saw on Saturday was the play of Jessica
Havel. She made quite a few very good saves and looked even tougher than last
year. The Lightning host White Bear Lake and Roseville this weekend. I will make
my predictions on those games in Friday's blog.
Former Grand Rapids standout Patrick White scored his second
career goal and tallied his first career assist last weekend in the Gopher's
sweep over Mankato. Joe Stejskal, another former Grand Rapids standout has been
outstanding thus far at Dartmouth. Joe had several be hits on Friday night and
he logs a ton of ice team game in and game out.
Boy's practices got underway yesterday around the state.
Grand Rapids will try to defend its section 7AA title yet again this season. A
high number of goalies are trying out this year. It looks as though Trevor
Tabaka, Kyle Figgins, A.J. Underwood, Aaron Foss, Ryan Larson, Tyler Erikson,
and Matt Detjen will battle it out for the starting spot.
10/31/2007-Tim from the Top-"Spooky Start?"
Practices opened up statewide for the girl's teams in
Minnesota this week. The unofficial start to the hockey season is upon us. The
Grand Rapids/Greenway Lightning will attempt to defend their section 7AA
championship starting on November 16th in Greenway vs. White Bear Lake. The
Lightning are staring at one of the toughest schedules the program has ever
competed against. The Lightning return pre-season Ms. Hockey finalist Emily
Erickson to go along with Molly Arola, Dana Gallop, Heather Horgen, Kayla
Clafton, Jessica Havel and others. There is no doubt Erickson will have a great
season, but look out for Clafton and Horgen. Both defensive players have a lot
of experience and I expect monster years out of both of them. Look for Arola and
Gallop to produce as they will likely play with Erickson to start the season.
There is no doubt Havel will have a fabulous season. She had a great year last
year and will only be better this year. The x-factor for this team will be the
play of the second line. Teams will do their best to shutdown the top line game
in and game out. If the second line can produce, the Lightning could win a lot
of hockey game. I look for this team to win 14-17 regular season games with the
tough schedule. However, I would not be surprised if they won as many as 20
games. Look for the Lightning to be in wonderful skating shape by midseason. Pat
Rendle and his staff will have the team in great physical shape and they will
win games in the third period.
10/22/2007-Tim from the Top-"Foggy Friday"
Friday night Boston College hosted #1 ranked University of
North Dakota and the game ended in a tie, in two periods. The game was tied 0-0
at the end of the second period when the game was called due to poor ice
conditions. The ice surface was too foggy to play on. How does that happen in a
college hockey game? Boston College apparently needs to work on their heating
and cooling situation in the arena. North Dakota came back on Saturday and beat
Boston College 3-0. Through three games this year, North Dakota is 2-0-1. They
have not allowed a single goal yet this season in wins over Michigan State (6-0)
and Boston College (3-0) and then that foggy tie with Boston College (0-0). The
University of Minnesota headed to Colorado College this weekend and only scored
twice on the weekend. The Gophers lost 3-1 on Friday and 2-1 in overtime on
Saturday. The UMD Bulldogs proved me wrong this weekend. The Dogs beat St. Cloud
State both nights in improve to 3-0-1 on the season. Hopefully they can continue
to play well all season long. After two weeks of the college hockey season, I
have noticed three things.
1. North Dakota is far and away the best hockey team in the nation.
2. Jean-Philippe Lamoureux has matured greatly over the summer.
3. The Minnesota freshman class is going to have to mature very quickly for them
to contend.
The Minnesota Wild continue to roll. They have a point or more in all eight
games this year (7-0-1). They do have a big week coming up this week, however.
They will go to Calgary, Edmonton, and Colorado this week. They have beaten both
Edmonton and Colorado already this season. Congrats to Steve Wagner (Grand
Rapids) on scoring his first career goal for St. Louis on Saturday night against
the Wild. Wagner is a 2002 graduated of Grand Rapids High School and is featured
in the alumni updates on this website.
10/17/2007-Tim from the Top-"Title IX"
There has been a lot of talk lately about the
ramifications of Title IX. Title IX was a law created in 1972 stating, "No
person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from
participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination
under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance."
Title IX has done a wonderful job of creating equality for men and women, but
has it gone too far? I believe maybe it has. A couple years back some people
made a big fuss about the boy's state tournament being held at the X and the
girl's at Ridder Arena. Last year I attended both the girl's and boy's state
tournaments. Of course, the boy's filled the X in record numbers by jamming over
19,000 people in there on semi-final Friday night. The girls didn't draw nearly
as well. When big schools, like Burnsville, were involved, or co-ops with some
bigger metro schools like North Metro were playing, the lower bowl was maybe 3/4
filled. I did watch the GRG Lightning play Burnsville at Ridder and I thought it
would be a perfect fit for the girls. That place could get full to capacity and
the building would be electric. It would create such a great atmosphere for the
girls players. Come on, MSHSL it's time to realize that Ridder Arena is where
the girls should play.
10/16/2007-Tim from the Top-"Wild Start"
For the second straight season the
Minnesota Wild are off to a terrific start. So far the Wild are 5-0 with wins
over Chicago, Columbus, Edmonton, Phoenix, and Anaheim. The goalie tandem of
Backstrom and Harding have been fabulous thus far. The Wild will look to go 6-0
for the second straight year tonight vs. Los Angeles. The Kings have lost five
straight games. One player I enjoy tracking is Patrick Kane. Kane was the #1
draft pick by the Chicago Blackhawks. Kane has four assists in five games this
season. Chicago has a lot of great young talent. Jonathan Toews has a goal and
an assist in three games for Chicago this year. Toews was a standout at the
University of North Dakota last year. Another set of youngsters I enjoy watching
are Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. Crosby has two goals and two assists
in four games for Pittsburgh this year. Ovechkin has three goals and two assists
in five games this season for the Capitals. I expect both these two to be in the
top five in scoring by the end of the season. Lastly, Steve Wagner, what a
story. Wagner was a great defenseman at Grand Rapids High School and then went
on to play for MSU-Mankato. Wagner is now in his rookie season with the St.
Louis Blues and already has three assists in four games.
10/15/2007-Tim from the Top-"White Ice"
Grand Rapids native and Gopher freshman
Patrick White scored the game winning goal for the Gophers on Saturday night vs.
Michigan. The Gophers recovered from a slow start to the weekend to beat RPI 4-3
and Michigan by the same score. Patrick White looked pretty good in the maroon
and gold. Pat's goal was a beautiful shot into the upper right corner. I
wondered how long it would take the younger players to catch up to the game
speed of NCAA hockey. It may not take long at all. Patrick White, Mike Hoeffel
(Hill-Murray), Cade Fairchild (Duluth East), Stu Bickel (Eden Prairie), Kevin
Wehrs (Wayzata), and Drew Fischer (Moorhead) all looked pretty good this
weekend. Fairchild only played Saturday but played significant minutes and
looked pretty good running the power play. Stu Bickel had many big hits and
played solid defensively. I thought Mike Hoeffel had a great weekend. He played
on the top line Saturday night and made some things happen. Kevin Wehrs looked
good on the point. He is a smaller kid but knows the game. Junior goaltender
Jeff Frazee had a very good weekend. Frazee made 44 stops on Saturday. The
Gophers head to Colorado College next weekend. Look for the Gopher freshmen to
play even better this weekend in their sweep of CC.
The North Dakota Fighting Sioux put their #1 national ranking
to the test at Ralph Engelstad Arena on Saturday night. UND crushed #2 ranked
Michigan State 6-0. The outcome was never really in doubt. UND led 2-0 after one
and cruised to victory. I expect T.J. Oshie (Warroad) to have a monster year. I
would not be at all surprised if he was a Hobey Baker finalist this year.
Jean-Philippe Lamoureux was very good in goal for the Sioux and will no doubt
have a monster season. UND will play Boston College next weekend. I see no
reason why the Sioux wouldn't sweep.
The UMD Bulldogs got off to a good start this weekend also.
UMD tied Lake Superior State 2-2 on Friday and beat Northern Michigan 4-0
Saturday. Reid Ellingson (Cloquet) is the third string goalie at Northern
Michigan. The Bulldogs outlook this year isn't that great. They will have a
stiff test next weekend at home vs. St. Cloud State. I would expect St. Cloud to
sweep UMD.
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