Harvard weekend previews

The weekend series preview from UMDBulldogs.com is up now.

I would imagine the games are on KDAL this weekend since the Men's team is in Alaska and won't start until and hour and half after the women are done. Go to WARPRADIO.com and try KDAL and if that one isn't playing the game put in WDSM and it will be there.

Harvard Crimson newspaper article

Since there isn't a UMDBulldogs.com preview for the Harvard series, I went and found an article on Harvard's student newspaper 'The Crimson' online.

The article is HERE and talks some about UMD, and that "December is the cruelest month"

Katey Stone, the Harvard coach is quoted in the article (about UMD):

Duluth will be the only team from the west that the Crimson will face all season.

“I don’t know if [playing the Bulldogs] is any more significant than playing UNH and Dartmouth,” Stone said. “You don’t have a whole lot of option with the scheduling and you take what you can get.”

Duluth boasts the nation’s deepest and most talented goaltending corps with senior Riita Schaublin and freshman Kim Martin, the young hotshot responsible for Sweden’s stunning elimination of the U.S. in the semifinals of the Olympic tournament back in February and the shutout of the Badgers this weekend.

“Duluth has a couple of Olympians and is right up there in the top 10,” said co-captain Julie Chu after Saturday’s game. “We absolutely need to bring our best game.”

Jessica Koizumi WCHA.com offensive player of the week

While they snubbed Martin, WCHA.com did name Jessica Koizumi as the offensive player of the week. I believe they named Koizumi because they didn't the previous weekend when she had 5 goals against Mankato (4 in the Friday tie). UMDBULLDOGS.com Koizumi award blurb.

Harvard weekend preview from umdbulldogs.com I'll post when I get home this evening.. its' not up yet on their website

Kim Martin USCHO.com Defensive Player of the Week

For her efforts against Wisconsin, Kim Martin was named the USCHO.com DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK! WCHA.com snubbed her of the weekly award, giving it to a goaltender at Bemidji State who shut out a team who had been shut out 8 times already this season.

USCHO's text:

Defensive Player of the Week
Kim Martin — Minnesota-Duluth
Kim Martin

Thanksgiving weekend produced more top-notch goaltending performances than any other this season, but one stood out above the rest. Freshman Kim Martin, best known for her role in Sweden's Olympic semifinal upset of the United States, proved she could be just as dominant in the college game with a 25-save shutout of No. 1 Wisconsin. The result snapped a 26-game Badger unbeaten streak and a four-game UMD winless streak. The Stockholm native followed up with 32-saves in a 1-0 loss on Saturday. For the season, Martin now leads the nation with a 1.02 goals against average and a .962 save percentage.

UMD ranked 7th!

With their victory over Wisconsin Friday, UMD has jumped back up to 7th from 10th in the USCHO.com women's hockey poll. They're tied with St. Lawrence University for the 7th spot going into the Harvard series.

WCHA Standings November 27th

Today, I'm going to attempt thanks to collegehockeystats html source (they can come beat me up if they want) code, the WCHA standings table THEY use. I know little about tables without stealing someones code unfortunatley. Maybe some day I'll have a month or two to learn some of that.

WCHA Women - 2006-2007 Standings

                         Conference Only                    Overall
                    Pts  GP  Record  Win%  GF- GA   GP  Record  Win%  GF- GA

 1 Wisconsin         25  14 12- 1- 1 .893  57- 20   16 14- 1- 1 .906  65- 21
 2 Minnesota Duluth  19  14  9- 4- 1 .679  51- 21   14  9- 4- 1 .679  51- 21
 3 Minnesota         15  10  7- 2- 1 .750  33- 18   14 10- 3- 1 .750  50- 30
 4 Ohio State        13  12  6- 5- 1 .542  32- 26   16 10- 5- 1 .656  55- 31
 5 Minnesota State    7  12  3- 8- 1 .292  31- 41   15  5- 9- 1 .367  46- 49
   St. Cloud State    7  12  3- 8- 1 .292  29- 49   16  6- 8- 2 .438  49- 52
 7 Bemidji State      5   8  2- 5- 1 .312  18- 33   14  4- 8- 2 .357  29- 49
 8 North Dakota       1  10  0- 9- 1 .050   8- 51   14  2-11- 1 .179  19- 62

Ok.. it cut off the 'overall' column but I only wanted the WCHA standings anyway :)

News Tribune Saturday Wisconsin Article

Today's News Tribune article. Again it's a phone interview with coach Shannon Miller.

From the article

“It was really more their offense than defense,” UMD coach Shannon Miller said by telephone. “They really controlled the puck and controlled the game. We played really good defense. We were on penalty kill for nine minutes in the second period. We did a fantastic job on PK. After that there was no wind in our sails. Nothing left in the legs.”

It also says Suvi Vacker could be out 6 weeks with her knee injury... yikes, but.. it could have been worse.

UMD loses 1-0

UMD lost the 2nd game to Wisconsin 1-0 today. The game was good, even though UMD got outshot by a bunch. Kim Martin gave them a chance to win the game anyway.

Suvi Vacker went down with a knee injury, they wrapped her knee and then players helped her off the ice, rather than a stretcher or anything like that. Waggoner took a checking from behind penalty also, so UMD played a large part of the game with 4 defensemen.

News Tribune article, Victory over Wisconsin

It's really short, and only a telephone interview with Miller, but it's still something. The article for Friday's UMD victory!

UMD Ends Wisconsin's 26 Game Unbeaten Streak

UMD beat Wisconsin 2-0 today for Wisconsin's first loss in 26 games. Kim Martin got the shutout win, stopping 25 shots for the Dogs.

Jessica Koizumi kept her hot streak going, scoring the game winning goal early in the 2nd period on the powerplay.

UMDBULLDOGS.com game recap

GO DOGS!

News Tribune Koizumi/Marin article

Today's News Tribune article focuses on Marin and Koizumi's relationship as best friends, foosball opponents, and linemates.

On their lack of success in the NCAA tournament:

Both arrived as freshman the season following UMD’s last Frozen Four title. In 2003 the Bulldogs won their third consecutive national title. The past two years UMD has fallen during the regional tournament. The void plagues both players.

“Of course we want to be really good leaders and take things up a notch from last season,” Koizumi said. “We’re trying right now to make it a serious point to our teammates how important it is to win every single game that we’re supposed to win. To be serious and prepare for the games — it doesn’t matter who we play. We both remember freshman year. We want to make it serious. This is our last season and we both want [national championship] rings. We are not leaving this school not having rings.”

No info on Lanzl, Martin, Hough or Jubinville's injuries so we'll have to wait and see (or hear if you're listening to the game on the radio.)

Weekend preview up now

The UMDbulldogs.com preview for the Wisconsin series is up...

BULLDOG NOTES: Minnesota Duluth failed to get back into the win column last weekend as the Bulldogs skated to a 5-5 tie against Minnesota State-Mankato on Friday and lost 5-3 to the Mavericks on Saturday. Friday’s tie was the first time that Minnesota State has taken a conference point at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, with Saturday’s win marking the first time that Minnesota State-Mankato has defeated the Bulldogs at the DECC in the all-time series between the teams. In Friday’s contest, senior forward Jessica Koizumi scored four of the Bulldogs five goals, while sophomore forward Sara O’Toole scored UMD’s other goal. Koizumi also scored a goal in Saturday’s loss and junior forward Karine Demeule and freshman forward Saara Tuominen scored UMD’s other two goals. Freshman forward Elin Holmlov had a total of six assists over the weekend. Senior goaltender Riitta Schaublin took the loss in both games for the Bulldogs, moving her record to 4-2-1 on the season.

WISCONSIN NOTES: The Badgers extended their school-record unbeaten streak to 26 games with a weekend sweep at Bemidji State last weekend. Wisconsin skated past the Beavers 6-2 on Saturday and 4-2 on Sunday to earn its fifth sweep in six conference series this season. In Wisconsin's two wins over BSU, the line of Meghan Duggan, Erika Lawler and Angie Keseley combined for 13 points (five goals, eight assists). Senior Sara Bauer and junior Jinelle Zaugg continue to rank first and second in the nation in points, respectively. Bauer leads the country in points with 26 and assists with 19 while Zaugg is second in both goals (13) and points (21).

UMD Heads to Madison

There isn't a weekend preview up yet from either team, but UMDBulldogs.com women's hockey page usually has it up already so it could be any time now.

There were rumors that Michaela Lanzl might be ready to play for this weekend, and hopefully that's true.... also, UMD needs Samantha Hough as well. Hough didn't play Saturday after making her return from knee surgery Friday, and there weren't any reports as to soreness etc that kept her out Saturday so I guess we're all SOL until someone says something.

Still haven't seen any Kim Martin news either, hopefully she's recovering from whatever injury she suffered at the 4 Nations Cup tournament. If not, I believe in Riitta Schaublin's game enough to say that the series against Mankato was a fluke series for her.

Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson was quoted during his weekly press conference, about the UMD rivalry, in contrast to the Gopher rivalry...

JOHNSON: Yeah. In the four-plus years I’ve been coaching, the games against Duluth, even my first year, when they had several Olympic players and a very good team and defending national champions, they’re always competitive games. They’re fun. It brings both teams’ level of play up.

And when you compete against one of the top clubs in the country, it’s a fun week of preparation because the players get excited about competing against Duluth or Minnesota, maybe just a little bit more than some of the other teams. And obviously some of the games we’ve had over the last three or four years helps the intensity of the rivalry.

The rest of that interview, while not pertaining to UMD is HERE.

USCHO Women's thread

The original UMD women's thread on the USCHO fan forum has been retired with 1001 posts. WOW! The NEW THREAD is up and I've decided to do it by season instead of one long 2+ yr thread.

The old threadlasted exactly 1 week LESS than 2 years!

News Tribune Mankato Saturday story

The NEWS TRIBUNE article from Saturday's game, without any Coach Miller, or player, interviews/comments.

Mankato beats UMD, takes 3 pts on the weekend.

Tonight.. UMD deserved to lose, which they did. The ref (Ludwig) didn't call much of anything on EITHER team. UMD turned the puck over a ton, and the defense was even sloppier than last night. Jessica Hawkins was the only player who seemed to have any step on the Mankato skaters at all.

Riitta had a rough weekend, that I don't remember her having in the past. A lot of times she might bail a sloppy defensive play.

Samantha Hough didn't play tonight, her knee must not have responded the next day.

Britni Kehler covered up all rebounds for Mankato tonight. She was a biggest reason (besides UMD being sloppy) that Mankato got 3 pts this weekend.

This is *not* how you want to be, heading to Wisconsin.

News Tribune Friday game story

Friday's News tribune game article

UMD/Mankato tie 5-5...

Same as my USCHO post, except for the *last* line...

Game ends in a 5-5 tie......

Chris Perrault could have reffed this game better than this Robert(I think that's his name) Ludwig guy. UMD deserved the penalties THEY took, but he missed an obvious checking from behind that happened right in front of him, a couple 2 handed slashes, and had to THINK about making calls when it came to Mankato penalties.

One instance, Riitta Schaublin got slashed after the whistle.. he waits 15 seconds then skates behind the player and decides she should take a slashing penalty. UMD looked rusty coming off the week off, but still if they would have lost, I wouldn't' say Mankato beat them as much as the no-calls against Mankato would have been the reason. This isn't the normal, my team got screwed whining either, he literally didn't get much right tonight.

In another instance, Mankato tried to dump the puck in, it went off Koizumi who was on the bench and down the ice and Mankato got a scoring chance.... guess who was standing right next to the UMD bench? Ludwig, of course.

The game stats aren't up yet but the shots were close to 40 apiece.

Koizumi had skate problems right after her game tying goal with 7 seconds left in the 3rd, and had to miss a shift in the overtime.

Koizumi was huge, scoring 4 goals tonight. Her 2nd goal was the great...Blais had the puck and was on the sideboards, Koizumi was behind the net and they made eye contact and Blais made a perfect pass to Koizumi who moved into a spot wide open for an almost empty netter.

Welcome back #17.

(The one thing not in my USCHO post:)
I think I just flushed a Ludwig.

News Tribune Series Preview

Lots of good stuff in the News Tribune article for the Mankato series. Three big notes, first Samantha Hough should be back tonight, and Kim Martin has an injury from the 4 nations cup that will keep her sidelined this weekend. The other big note is that Julianne Jubinville:

* Jubinville, a senior forward who remains sidelined with a concussion, must be symptom-free for two weeks before she will be allowed to return.

Check out the full ARTICLE

Also, the weekend preview which says Michaela Lanzl is still out with her own injuries from a few weeks ago in St. Cloud.

UMDBulldogs.com Weekend Preview, New Recruit early signings

The UMDBULLDOGS.COM page is up, as well as an article about the Early Signing Period:

UMD announced on Wednesday (Nov. 15) that forwards Haley Irwin (Thunder Bay, ONT), Marie-Andreé Leclerc-Auger (Sherbrooke, QUE) and defenseman Tara Gray (Toronto, ONT) have signed national letters of intent to play for the Bulldogs starting in the 2007-08 season.