I needed this

The first picture is how I'm getting to the second picture. Mrs. Cheesehead and myself (along with my parents and sister and her husband) are going on a cruise from Saturday until next Thursday. My parents retired recently and this is their way of celebrating. First time for all of us to be on a cruise, so it should be interesting and I'm quite looking forward to it. Given there's about 4 inches of snow on the ground and with temps in the teens here, I think it's the right time to leave. Big thanks to my mother-in-law for watching our kids and getting them to school while we're gone.

Oh, and it will be upper 70's to low 80's while we are there. And sun, lots and lots of warm sun. Yes, I may be rubbing this in, but so would any of you reading this if you were going.

We're #2, or is it #3?

The Badgers B-Ball team is at it's highest ranking, well, ever. The latest polls have them at #2 in the AP and #3 in the coaches poll. Either way, it's a view Bucky rarely looks from.

Tonight, the Badgers get a home win... err game against the Purdue Boilermakers. The Badgers are 40-2 in Big Ten regular season play at home. Somehow I think that Purdue is not going to be the team to add that 3rd loss.

Can't Purdue update their name? I mean it's so 19th century and they need to get with the times. I've got a great one for them. The Purdue Opossums. They share all the same qualities: roll over and play dead when danger comes, they stink and generally get run over a lot. See, it's perfect.

Tigers Split At UMD

The old saying among WCHA fans is "split on the road, sweep at home", and this weekend the Tigers lived up to one half of that, rebounding on Saturday night for a split with the Bulldogs of Minnesota-Duluth. After suffering a comeback loss on Friday night, CC turned the table on Saturday and won a game that the Tigers were trailing in for two periods with four third period goals. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see or listen to the games this weekend so I can't really say much firsthand about how the Tigers looked. Feel free to comment on this post with your opinions if you did get to see the games.

The result moved CC into a three-way tie for second place in the WCHA, along with Denver and St. Cloud State, both of whom the Tigers will face again this season. The Huskies had a disappointing weekend, snapping their long win streak with a loss and a tie to Minnesota State-Mankato. Another team that had an even bigger streak snapped was Minnesota, who lost their first game since the season opener, 2-1 at rival Wisconsin. Denver didn't play any WCHA games but had a nice sweep of Niagara, solidifying their ranking in the Pairwise. Speaking of the Pairwise, the Tigers are still looking okay, although they will need wins over the second half to keep it that way. CC is currently at 9th, and will have plenty of opportunities to pick up additional quality wins during the second half of the season. One such oppurtunity will be the next WCHA series, when CC travels to Houghton for a series with Michigan Tech, who are low in the Pairwise, but still considered a TUC. After that series, the Tigers face a murderer's row of (the seemingly rejuvenated) Wisconsin, (at) St. Cloud State, and Minnesota.

Notes:

* Bill Sweatt is now listed as a "limited viewing" player by the NHL's Central Scouting Bureau. This is presumably due to time missed this season.

* As much as I'm expecting CC to be a top team next year, I'm getting concerned about goaltending. Drew O'Connell apparently did not have a great game this weekend, and Richard Bachman is really struggling in the USHL. I believe that both these guys will eventually be really good goalies, but I still need some convincing. Neither currently have a save percentage above .900.

* Andreas Vlassopoulos is off to a heck of a start so far this season, with six points in nine games. I haven't had a chance to see him play all that much so far this year, but I'm looking forward to it.

* Despite limited action so far, Billy Sweatt is now second on the team in points per game with .87, behind Jimmy Kilpatrick who has 1.05 per game. Scott McCulloch and Chad Rau are both scoring .83 points per game.

* Is USCHO ever going to update their PWR and KRACH rankings? Really fellas, it's getting embarrassing.

* Minnesota, Denver, CC, and St. Cloud State have all emerged as the top of the WCHA so far, and it should be an interesting fight to the finish as all four of these teams will be playing each other again before the season is over. Denver in particular is about to begin a tough stretch of league play, as they travel to Minnesota and then take on SCSU at home in the next few weeks. Minnesota currently has a commanding seven point lead in the standings, but some stumbles down the stretch could certainly open the door for any of these four teams to take the conference regular season title.

It's great to be a Badger fan.

The Badgers B-Ball team beat the Buckeyes 72-69 last night to make it 2 big losses in a row for the vaunted OSU sports programs. While this loss was not as embarassing as the major egg the football team laid playing for the national championship, it wasn't as good of a performance as the score suggests either. The Buckeyes were down by double digits in the 2nd half and had a big rally helped by some poor FT shooting from the Badgers near the end to make the score look closer than it really should have been.

This win undoubtedly cements the Badgers as one of the teams to beat come March/April as this is their 3rd win over a top 15 team. Barring a major tanking or an inexplicable early exit from the Big 10 tourney, they will be a #1 seed in the Midwest Region.

Even though this is THE best Badgers team I have ever seen, or anyone else has for that matter, the Big Ten schedule is not going to be all that easy. Currently there is only 1 team with a losing record (Minnesota, who the Badgers manhandled already this year) while the rest of the Big Ten has a winning % of .725. Wow! Even if the schools are playing cupcakes, that is still a very impressive stat. The rest of the Big Ten is not getting a lot of love given how dominant WI and OSU have been, but this conference could have four 20 game winners easily (WI, OSU, MI and Purdue) and possibly 5 (Indiana). So it's not going to be easy and likely the Badgers will lose 2-3 conference games (on the road, as they simply don't lose at home). It's going to be a fun ride and the Badger faithful should have plenty to be happy about.

It was fun while it lasted

Last night it was determined that the Bucks will be without Michael Redd for 4-6 weeks. The Bucks had started to get things together and were playing quite well after a poor start. This injury totally ruins it. Yes, Redd is this valuable to the team and no, I'm not making too much of this.

As proof, the team knew Redd would be out when playing Denver and they lost by 12. To Denver. Losers of their last 5. Crud.

If it weren't for the fact that the Bucks are in the pathetic Eastern Conference, the season would officially be over. The Bucks are at the #8 playoff spot right now and will in most certainty fall out of that. Redd is going to miss 16-24 games due to this injury and likely will need another week to get his groove back. That's about 1/2 of the remaining games. This was the season that they could have made some serious damage in the playoffs, I was confident of that. Now, it's just another disappointing season.

Tigers Shut Down By "Hostile and Abusive" Sioux Defense

After shutting out North Dakota on Friday night, CC got a taste of its own medicine on Saturday as the Sioux defense held them to just one goal, and only two shots in the second period. Jack Hillen and Scott McCulloch provided the Tigers' only goals on the weekend, and Matt Zaba was stellar in net with 60 saves on 62 shots. North Dakota's win on Saturday moves them into a tie for 5th in the WCHA with Wisconsin, who took Denver to the woodshed on Saturday after losing on Friday. CC has dropped to 4th behind Minnesota, Denver, and St. Cloud State, although each of these teams has two games in hand on Denver. Next week the Tigers travel to Minnesota Duluth to take on the cellar dwelling Bulldogs. UMD is 4-10-2 in the WCHA and is tied for last place with Minnesota State. Nevertheless, UMD typically plays the Tigers tough and a much needed sweep may be hard to come by.

Denver and Michigan Tech are not playing WCHA games next weekend, instead taking on Niagara and Bemidji State respectively. There are some league matchups to keep an eye on however. Minnesota takes on rival Wisconsin in Madison. Could the winning streak come to an end? Not all that likely, but with Elliott in net you never know. Another interesting matchup will be UAA playing at UND. UND has been terrible at home this year and UAA is fighting for home ice in the WCHA playoffs. St. Cloud State will be playing at Minnesota State, and I would expect a Huskies sweep but you never know. The level of play in general should be much higher next weekend in the WCHA with the return of players from the World Junior Championships in Sweden. About half the Team USA roster seemed to come from the Gophers, and a number of other WCHA schools, including CC, sent players as well.

The Tigers split with North Dakota was not particularly helpful in the quest for an NCAA tournament berth. CC has dropped to 9th in the pairwise rankings, and probably won't be able to get any quality wins next weekend. In the next three weeks, the only TUC that CC will be seeing is Wisconsin, and they are just barely on the bubble. This will make CC's later games against St. Cloud State, Minnesota and Denver all the more important. And unlike last year, don't expect OOC bonus points to help CC at the end of the season. With OOC losses to New Hampshire and Bemidji State, the bonus will not do anything but hurt the Tigers' chances.

One last piece of news: CC recently got a commitment from Steve Schultz, who's been putting up some impressive numbers in the USHL.

The Bet is paid - An Analysis

Ahh, there is nothing better in the whole world than starting off a New Year right, isn't there? I know I certainly did. How you may ask? Well my good reader I shall tell you. One may recall several weeks ago, my neighbor Shane made an ill-advised bet with me. To recap, the wager was for the loser to buy the winner a Triple Cheeseburger, fries and a Coke from Fuddruckers and to shovel the winner's driveway. Well, wouldn't you know it, but Shane lost yet again to me as the Packers easily dispatched of the frauds that are the MN Vikings. For those of you keeping track at home, that would be Craig 5, Shane 0 in the bet department.

Ever since the bet was made, there have been literally hundreds of requests to see the pictures from the payout. Well, I am happy to provide these for you.










The first picture would be that of Shane buying me the 1/2 lb, triplecheese cheeseburger, fries and Coke. The second picture would be that myself eating said cheeseburger. MMM MMM good!










Fairly self explanitory here, this would be Shane shovelling my driveway. True, it is not much snow, but I didn't want to put too much stress on the guy, he's kinda fragile.

I got to thinking, why is it that Shane keeps losing bets to me? Simple bad luck? My obvious superior intellect and skill? While the latter is clearly evident, I believe there is more to it. So I did some research and found the following:

The NAACP has come out with a study that WI drivers are actually better than MN drivers.

The National Endowment of the Arts reported that WI men are better lovers than MN men. Well, that's definately true.

The Rotary Club has found that WI is actually safer from terrorist attacks. Good to see that my parents and siblings are safe.

The Humane Society has definatively proven that WI sports are far superior and better attended than MN sports. They also found that MN fans are severely lacking in overall knowledge in regards to their teams and sports in general.

Consumer Reports reported that WI men are heartier, healthier and better suited against the elements than their MN counterparts.

Finally, Greenpeace has stated that people from WI are on average 78% smarter than their MN neighbors.

Simply fascinating. Good to see what has been known for decades to come to light by independent organizations that Cheeseheads are simply superior to the lutefisk-eating Minnesotans. Now, Shane may say that he was born in WI (which he was) and therefore has all of these positive attributes. Sorry Shane, but you renounced your Cheesehead lineage when you decided to foolishly praise all sports that is MN; and therefore all rights, powers and privileges associated with the gloriousness that is reserved for the children of WI.