KFXF Fox 7 Announces CCHA Hockey TV Schedule

Always an exiting time. Thanks to the Kendall Auto group to help bring this to the fans of Fairbanks. Pasted below is the full press release, as well as the schedule itself.

Fairbanks, AK- Tanana Valley TV in Fairbanks announces today their 2010-11 college hockey TV schedule. TVTV’s FOX7 station will feature a slate of 10 games involving the University of Alaska Nanooks. Also included is a schedule of 12 CCHA regular season and playoff games, including the Dec 11th Michigan State at Michigan game. Dubbed the ”Big Chill at the Big House”, the game will be played outdoors at the 100,000+ seat Michigan Football stadium.

The entire TV package is dubbed the Kendall Auto CCHA Game of the Week. With the
exception of home contests, most games will air live in Fairbanks. In a working partnership FOX 7 has with GCI Cable, most of the Alaska TV schedule will also air statewide on GCI’s network community billboard channel Ch. 1.

FOX 7 has secured regional and national exposure for the Nanooks this season as FOX Sports Detroit will broadcast the January 21 Alaska @ Michigan road game nationally. The October 22nd game vs Michigan State will also be televised regionally on COMCAST Local out of the Detroit Metropolitan area.

"We're excited about this years' TV schedule," says FOX 7 Broadcast Coordinator, and former Nanook, Scott Roselius. "We’re pleased to be able to continue our efforts to bring Nanook Hockey into Fairbanks’ living rooms and on a statewide basis. I want to thank Kendall Auto Group and General Manager Dave Shuttleworth. for their continued support of this venture.”

“We are honored to be able to take part in offering the Fairbanks community Nanook Hockey on TV,” added, Tanana Valley TV’s General Manager, Chris Fry.

Director of Athletics Forrest Karr is also excited about this year’s broadcast agreement. “We look forward to a sixth consecutive year partnering with Tanana Valley Television. Everyone associated with the program greatly appreciates their effort to bring Nanook hockey to our fans."

 See the full 2010-2011 TV Broadcast Schedule (PDF).

Scouting the Air Force Falcons

The Falcons are lead by senior forward, ex-Hobey Baker finalist, and Northern Michigan departee in Jacques Lamoureux. The senior captain has led the Falcons in scoring in the two years he's been there, amassing 95 points in just two seasons in which he's gotten ice time. Having watched some of the Air Force games from these last few years, you can clearly tell that Jacques will be on the ice for at least half of the game. The key here is to obviously shut him down, which with the improved speed of our defense should reduce his scoring volume to nothing more than a quiet whimper.

The weak spot is their defense. With the Falcons losing their star goalie in Andrew Volkening, they will be relying on a junior goaltender in Stephen Caple, who has seen exactly 63 minutes of game time distributed across three games of his two year collegiate career. Now, in their exhibition game, head coach Frank Serratore elected to cycle all three of his goaltenders against Lethbridge, a Canadian team that just before this contest showed Denver a thing or two about hockey. Granted, Caple didn't start, sophomore David Bosner did, who held his own seeing 9 shots and turning them all aside. Caple stopped 7 of 10 shots, allowing 3 goals in a 14 minute and 42 second span. Even the freshman showed Caple how it was done. Now, coach Serratore may not rely on his more experienced goaltender, but regardless he's going to want to put his best guy (whoever that is) between the pipes.

From my perspective, I always view Air Force as a bit of a wild card. The only real measuring stick I have from last season for them is their final regular season opponent in Sacred Heart. Which Air Force defeated in their final two games, collectively outscoring the Pioneers 14-4. Then three games later, in the AHA semifinal, Air Force loses to Sacred Heart 2-1. They seem to ride a roller coaster, and its a bit tough to judge where they will be week in and week out.

The last time these two teams clashed was a meeting in Fairbanks back in mid-October of 2006, where the Nanooks put up 3-0, and 8-4 wins together for the sweep. Dion Knelsen had a 5 point night on 2 goals and 3 assists in the last contest. Former Nanook captain Adam Naglich put up a pair of goals in the same game as well.

The Nanooks will be taking the ice tomorrow for the first time on a full Olympic sheet this season. The team will travel to Anchorage tomorrow morning, settle in and get a practice or two in before the puck drops Friday. It will certainly be an interesting game. You know Air Force will be conditioned, and the Nanooks look primed to compete with anybody.

Nanooks take the first game of the Kendall Hockey Classic, 6-1. Air Force will move on to beat UAA 3-2 in OT.

2010 Kendall Hockey Classic - Quest for a 3'Peat

The reigning Kendall Hockey Classic champions will defend their title against two formidable opponents this weekend in Air Force, and the #2 ranked North Dakota Fighting Sioux. Previews for both are coming, I just wanted to help get the word out early for those that may plan on being in Anchorage this weekend (it is PFD-weekend after all).

For those that won't be in Anchorage, both games will be broadcast on GCI Channel 1 and KFXF Fox 7 in Fairbanks. While Saturday's game will be live, Friday's game will be tape delayed until 10PM due to programming conflicts. Also, the radio feed from Bruce Cech is on 91.5 KSUA, and streaming online at http://ksua.uaf.edu.

Both games will obviously be at the Sullivan Arena. Friday's game against Air Force will be at 5:07PM AKDT, and Saturday against NoDak will be at 4:07PM.

As far as pre-game activities,

Thursday

7:15 pm the Kendall Hockey Classic banquet will be held at the Anchorage Marriott Downtown.  Cost is $35 and reservations can be made by calling Jane Pallister at 786-1225.

Friday

11:30 am the Kendall Hockey Classic luncheon will take place at the Anchorage Sheraton.  Cost is $30 and reservations can be made by calling Rhea Caldwell at 786-1250.

I've also gotten some questions about hotel deals for the classic. The Hilton Garden Inn is offering a special of $99 per night including their breakfast buffet.  The Hilton has a shuttle service that has in the

past gotten people to/from the Sullivan and their website indicates that they will attempt to accommodate the local shuttle needs of guests.

If you are interested, please call the hotel directly at (907) 729-7000.  In the past, the people at the desk aren't always told of this special, so if they aren't able to find this - the rate was arranged through Kymberly Flores, Sales Manager at the Hilton.

Nanooks Rout the Lancers, 9-0

Pre-game social.

Frustrations running high.

Putting the score aside for a moment, the key point to touch on here is special teams. These Canadian teams hit hard and they keep going. They eventually forced retaliation from the Nanooks and penalty after penalty (15 total for 41 minutes against UA) was called. After UA dug their own hole, they were able to pull themselves out of it. Granted, Windsor had a few chances, but they shut the door quick enough to keep it out of the net. I'm not one to appreciate a hockey game turn to a boxing match, and I'm not gonna put anyone down for it, but the guys responded to Windsor's tough play, and handled themselves. That said, they wound up put a lot of pressure on their special teams to perform, and they did. Windsor wasn't able to really get many quality chances with the man advantage, but they really didn't get any angles, since our guys moved faster than their passes... Our speed and their offensive zone mistakes set up 4 or 5 short handed chances, including a 2 on 1 that came up just short.

Sather gets the first Nanook goal of the season.

That said, Coach Ferguson has put a very well rounded team on the ice this season. Our freshmen look like they will be very productive, and positive contributors to the team in all facets of the game. The guys worked very well together, more conducive to team play than a game of individuals. The guys cycled the puck very well in the offensive zone, held the puck in for what seemed like hours, very fast on the breakout, forechecking was great, backchecking was good (and I think that's what pissed off Windsor, aside from the score). Both Steve Thompson and Scott Greenham were great in net. Granted, they didn't really get tested, but after the 'Nooks went up 5-0 in the second, Thompson got his shot and kept the goose egg going.

Peto roofs one in, 4-0 'Nooks.

One thing I paid attention to tonight was line combinations. The top line of Sather-Yaremchuk-Taranto will be very interesting. Last season, Yaremchuk and Sather traded duties on the top line with Taranto and Dion Knelsen. Now that Dion has gotten his degree, the three remaining unite. With Yaremchuk centering that line, my only concern was faceoffs, and it didn't take long for that concern to settle. For the night, Nik was officially 15-7 on the draw, but he should have gotten the W for a few more of those but control went the other way. Absent from the lineup tonight was Justin Filzen, who lead in faceoff win percentage last season with over 70%. I've been curious where he will fit in the lineup this season, but I didn't get a chance to see that tonight. Anther notable line, which I believe is the second line was Peto centering for Kunyk and Beck. Both of the freshmen wingers were scoring machines in their respective junior leagues last year, and with Peto healthy, I would expect to see both of these top lines score some points. The other two lines that rolled tonight have strong potential too. Ronnie Meyers and Chad Gehon centered by Derek Klassen spells positive things here as well. Gehon and Klassen had some good chemistry towards the end of last season, same with Ronnie Meyers. The two hooked up on that goal in the Governor's cup series against ACC. You all know which goal I'm talking about too... where Gehon embarrased their poor captain, and got the pass to Meyers who buried the 'Nooks 2nd (of 7) goal of the night. Anyway, getting sidetracked, there is some pre-existing chemistry here that produced an even strength goal tonight.

Finucci's Shorthanded Goal. 8-0

Speaking of goals, Alaska got 9 of them tonight. There is no way in hell I can recap them all, but both Yaremchuk and Kunyk officially lit the lamp twice. I thought Yaremchuk's second belonged to Sather (which would have been his second), but was a close call either way. Kunyk's second of the night was a thing of beauty. Beck catching a rebound, and Kunyk getting a shot in, and followed his rebound through for the score, that was a spectacular play. Gehon's goal came on the rush with a very accurate shot through traffic over the blocker side. A goal that makes me wish we had cameras in the nets. Carlo Finucci put up a shorthanded goal towards the end of the third period on a developing play, set up by Beck and Kunyk. It was right at the tail end of their last shorthanded endeavor, so after getting close quite a few times, punching a shorthanded tally on the board on top of everything else is satisfying.

Well with that said, take a look at the box score from tonight's bout. You can definitely see how the penalties shaped out.

The Windsor Lancers will take on UAA on Saturday in my old stomping grounds in Soldotna, which should be an interesting match. Anchorage has historically been a very physical team, so I'm pretty sure Windsor will be up to it. I might actually tune in for it...

Photos by mmf. Check out more awesome photos at mmf's online gallery.