NEUGSIE’S AROUND THE RINKS

By: Jamie Neugebauer
Voice of the ND Hounds/DUBNetwork MJ Warriors Beat Writer

Those Pioneers: How about those University of Denver Pioneers! They beat four really, really good teams in the post-season to get to, and win the NCAA Division I men’s hockey championship, and as talented as they are, I’m guessing there were at least a couple of other teams people had on their minds to win it all. One-goal wins in the regions against very solid, veteran UMASS Lowell and Minnesota-Duluth teams were followed up by dramatic victories in Boston at the Frozen Four over heavily favoured Michigan and Minnesota State.
My buddy Cam: To that point, I was excited to have my buddy Cam Wright on my podcast this week. Wrighter scored for Denver in both the Frozen Four games, to hit 23 on the year – a super impressive number in D1 hockey. I’ve known him since he was a tiny, not super-fast 15-year-old with all the Moxy and skill in the world, and now I’m sure he’s a pretty highly-coveted free agent 23-year-old with National Championship pedigree. His offensive instincts, and his shot, are of a very very high calibre, and he’s just a wonderful young man to boot. Please check out the pod here, if you’re interested: https://twitter.com/Neugsie/status/1513997445834940417
Guess not!: About that Frozen Four, I wondered all year if a team like Michigan could buck what we all believe winning hockey championships is about. Almost always the team that wins it all at the highest levels is veteran-led, heavy, defensive, and structured. I wondered if this Michigan team, so young, so, so talented, was SO talented, that they could overcome that conventional wisdom, and snipe their way to the title. Well, Owen Power, Matty Beniers, Kent Johnson, etc. were not enough, as the far more experienced Denver Pioneers shut them down. It did go to OT, and who knows what would have happened if it were Michigan in the finals vs mighty Minnesota State, but in the end, we remain correct!
Girls did their part…: At a much younger, more local level, gotta give kudos to the Notre Dame Hounds U18AAA girls, who found a way, dramatically to take down their rival Regina Rebels in the league finals. How is this for drama? ND forward Kyra Anderson, the younger sister of Hounds Junior A captain and Princeton-bound Kevin Anderson, scored in overtime to win the league championship for her 11th game-winner of the season! Impressive stuff. Can the Hounds boys do the provincial double vs. Warman? They started with a double OT win of their own in Game 1, with the Game coming at Warman’s Legend’s Centre Thursday. The Hounds boys and girls were both the No. 1 seeds heading into the playoffs, and I cannot wait to call Game 3 on the 19th at the Duncan McNeill Arena on the Notre Dame Livestream!
Cody Beach: Huge kudos to former SJHL referee Cody Beach for making his NHL debut Tuesday night in Arizona! He was a former player in the ‘Dub’, and so beloved is he in Moose Jaw that my favourite wings place in Saskatchewan – Deja Vu just down the street from Mosaic Place – has a pretty great flavour named after him! He was fantastic in the SJ, and he’s young with great presence, so I’m not surprised he’s flying high. They gotta get my pal Bob Millette up there! He’s fantastic as well.
Kudos to Rumsey: Shout out to big Estevan Bruins forward Mark Rumsey for his commitment to the University of Saskatchewan next year. A pretty interesting journey for him…years in the QMJHL, then a chance at an SJ championship and a Centennial Cup thousands of kilometres away from home, and he’s a Newfoundlander! I still maintain there isn’t a more beautiful part of the world than Newfoundland, and Rumsey certainly has scored and earned his spot on one of the classiest University clubs in Canada.
Credit where it’s due: Gotta give credit to those Estevan Bruins, Rod’s favourite SJ team. They were expected to bulldoze their way through the league, with as loaded a roster as I’ve ever seen in the league in hopes of really competing while hosting the National Championship; but it’s one thing to be expected to do it, and it’s another thing to come together and do it in reality. As I talked about earlier with the Michigan Wolverines – it’s not just enough to be the most talented team, you have to work hard too, and the Bruins do that. They beat the Hounds in Round 1 in 5, swept away the Yorkton Terriers in Round 2, and are waiting for the winner of Humboldt and Flin Flon right now. I believe it was Game 4 of the series with ND, and the Hounds were on the PP, and Olivier Pouliot, probably the most offensively talented individual player in the league, blocked the shot of a Notre Dame player from point-blank range – and I thought to myself….well, the rest of us are in trouble now, they’ve bought in.
Tarts: The last point about Estevan, and I have enjoyed interacting with their coach/GM Jason Tatarnic this year. I asked him on SJ at Noon about what they’ve been practicing while the other series is still going on, and he laughed and said “nothing, I sent them all home!”. He said he doesn’t plan on having practices during the Centennial Cup either, and as someone who has been there and done that, he knows the value of rest, clearing the head, getting home with family, and a change of scenery, if you can afford it. He also said, “if you need to practice now, there is probably something wrong”. Must be nice!
Kudos to Maier: How about Nolan Maier of the Saskatoon Blades? 121 career WHL wins in the net! That’s pretty remarkable! At 6-foot, 172-pounds, one has to wonder if he would have been given more credit at the next level if he was just a bit bigger, but either way, you have to think he’ll have a pretty solid pro career somewhere. I have a hard time imagining anyone touching a record like that for a while, given most clubs’ impatience with the position, but pretty incredible nonetheless! I’ll have a pretty interested eye on the Yorkton native’s career moving forward, as well as what the Blades do with two young 2004-born goaltenders in the wings in Austin Elliott and Ethan Chadwick. I assume that’ll purely be a competition based on performance!
It’s a start: The Jays open the season 4-2, which is fair enough. Any takes you to have about what you’re seeing – and there are some things I’ve found frustrating for sure – are based on too small a sample size, so take it easy, and just enjoy so far! Better than 2-4, that’s for sure!