Monday Highlights

Thanks to Thomas, over at news 13 for cutting up these highlights for the games this weekend. He got some great shots of several key plays and goals from the game on Friday. He is still putting together highlights from Saturday's contest, but when those get out there, I'll post them here as well.



Also, the Nanooks are now ranked 14th in the USCHO/CBS College Sports Poll, 15th in the Inside College Hockey Power Rankings, tied for 8th in the PairWise rankings, 11th in KRACH, and 13th in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll.

Just to restate the players that are also up for some national awards…

This morning, it was announced that Nanook Senior Forward Dion Knelsen has been named among 6 other finalists (7 total) for the 2010 Hockey Humanitarian award for his excellence in community service.

As I've mentioned here before, but deserves further promotion, Dion is also in the running for the 2010 Lowe's Senior CLASS award, and currently is in 2nd place among the fan votes. Fans can vote up to once a day on their website, or by texting H5 to 74567 from your cell phone.

As I've also mentioned, Dion Knelsen, Andy Taranto, and Joe Sova are all in the running for the annual Hobey Baker Memorial Award, college hockey's highest honor. Fan voting proceeds through the 15th of March, you can vote here.

Also, the CCHA's players of the week have been announced. UA Defensemen Scott Enders and UA rookie forward Andy Taranto named CCHA Defensive and Rookie of the Week respectively. Full release available from CCHA.com Would have been nice to see Dion get another bid in there after having a 6 point weekend, but a huge congratualtions to both Scott and Andy. For Andy, this is his second straight rookie of the week appearance. Monthly award releases expected early this week. I would expect a bid for Dion and Andy for either CCHA or even NCAA nominations...

Update: In response to the events that happened on Saturday with UAA and head coach Dave Shyiak (aka "WaterBottleGate"), Anchorage Athletic Director Dr. Steve Cobb has issued a public statement reprimand of Shyiak for his behavior and his actions. The WCHA still has the ability to make their own response. The deal is, they must wait for the 3 day appeal process to complete before they will say anything. Much like what happened to St. Cloud's Aaron Marvin. Marvin delivered an open-ice check to Wisconsin captain Blake Geoffrion in that game, and Marvin’s shoulder appeared to make direct contact with Geoffrion’s head. After the appeal process completed, the WCHA made a press release today (hit happened February 20th).

There is also a trickling feeling that I have that something may come down the line for UAA Player Brad Gorham for his blatent and intentional hit to the head of Justin Filzen. In the game, he received a 5 minute major, and a 10 minute game disqualification. If you saw Justin after the hit, after the game, he didn't look like that was just a minor hit. I'm glad Filzen is okay, but that crap needs to stop. Including the stats from this last weekend, Gorham is among the top players on the team in terms of penalty minutes per game with 47 minutes in penalties with 11 games played. So he seems kind of notorious for penalty issues. Interesting...

I don't really want to post this, but here is the hit that St. Cloud's Aaron Marvin laid on Wisconsin's Blake Geoffrion...



I don't have a video of the hit that Filzen caught from Gorham, but it looks very much identical in terms of how the hit was delivered. I think Filzen is very lucky the hit wasn't worse than it was. I hope, and not simply because he is from UAA, that Brad Gorham gets a lot more from this than just a game disqualification. Aaron Marvin got a three game suspension, extending into the playoffs for that hit. As it stands now, Gorham will be out of the next game against Minnesota-Duluth due to the Game Disqualification that he received. I would suspect that Gorham will get an additional game off because of the hit, but that's just me.