Brian's Corner Of Cyberspace

Bemidji State University goaltender Matt Dalton (So., Clinton, Ontario) has been named Defensive Player of the Week by College Hockey America. League officials made the announcement Monday for Dalton's role in the Beavers' weekend series sweep at Niagara University, Feb. 19-20.

Thursday
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Bemidji 3
Niagara 1

Niagara scored their goal in the first, but Bemidji scored the next three, winning the opener of the series. Both teams scored one power play goal

Friday
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Robert Morris 3
Alabama Huntsville 1

Robert Morris stays unbeaten in three as the Colonials scored the games first three goals. Both teams went 1-for-6 on the power play.

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Bemidji 4
Niagara 1

Bemidji swept at Dwyer Arena for the first time in five years, coming up just four minutes short of the shutout. Bemidji State scored twice on the PP

Saturday
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Robert Morris 6
Alabama Huntsville 3

Robert Morris finished off the sweep, dropping UAH despite the fact that the shots were tied at 25 apiece. RMU also scored shorthanded. The two teams combined for 74 minutes of penalties.

I should say, what a LONG trip home. We had a 5am (eastern time) wake up call in Niagara Falls this morning, and a 9am flight out of Rochester, NY. Rochester is about an hour and a half from the Falls by bus.

We got to the airport about 7:15am...to find NOBODY at the counter for Northwest Airlines. The counter personnel didn't know we were coming! By 8:00am, NOBODY had made their way through the ticketing counter. When they finally got us moving through the ticketing counter, they put whichever bag tags on the bags they could find (this is an important fact...store that away for future reference!).

When we got to the gate, they announced that they needed 4 people to volunteer to fly on a later flight. Turns out the plane was not only too heavy, but also too full!

Nobody volunteered, and they put us all on the flight. Needless to say, we knew we weren't going to get all our bags on that flight. Our flight to Detroit was supposed to leave at 9:05am. We backed away from the gate at 9:45am, and then had to get de-iced. We left the ground about 10am.

We landed in Detroit about a half an hour before our flight to Minneapolis was to take off. If you've never been to the Detroit airport, a half an hour to make your way from one side of the airport to the next isn't much time. We got to the gate about ten minutes before we were supposed to take off. THEY WEREN'T EVEN BOARDING THE PLANE YET!

It was snowing in Detroit, they were missing 28 people from a flight (us!) and they were missing nearly 60 bags, so they weren't in much of a hurry.

We boarded the plane (a much larger plane than our first flight) only to find out that the second plane was also too heavy!

We were supposed to leave at noon eastern, and didn't get off the ground until almost 1pm. When we landed in Minneapolis, we made our way to the baggage claim area, only to find A BUNCH of bags weren't there!

How many is a bunch? NINE! The biggest problem (if you remember the first part of this story) was that we didn't know which baggage claim ticket was on which bag. So, we all went through each bag that did arrive and compared that number to the baggage claim numbers we had. Once we had the nine baggage claim numbers that didn't arrive, we could go to the Northwest lost baggage desk to try to find out where the bags were. Turns out, the bags will be in Bemidji late tonight, on the last flight into Bemidji from Minneapolis.

We should have left the Minneapolis airport around 1pm central. We finally left at 3pm. We got back to Bemidji around 7pm.

So, a 4am central wake up call, turns into a 15 hour travel day.

All I can say, is by the time we got back to Bemidji, it was a good thing that 4 points were gained on the weekend!

Bemidji State put themselves in a FABULOUS position to win the CHA regular season title tonight, winning 4-1. BSU needs just one win, or one Niagara loss, to win the title outright. With the season series win, BSU would win the #1 seed if the two teams finished tied atop the standings.

Here are the game recaps:
Bemidji Pioneer
BSU Sports Information

BSU Lines (*=starter)

NU Lines (*=starter)

1st Period Scoring
BSU 14:11 Brandon Marino (Brad Hunt, Kyle Hardwick) 5x3 1-0

2nd Period Scoring
BSU 8:46 Tyler Lehrke (Shea Walters) 5x5 2-0
BSU 9:19 Ian Lowe (Brandon Marino, Chris McKelvie 5x5 3-0

3rd Period Scoring
BSU 0:56 Tyler Scofield (Shea Walters, Brad Hunt) pp 4-0
NU 16:31 Egor Mironov (Dan Baco, Chris Moran) 5x5 4-1

Shots
BSU 11- 14- 14= 39
NU 8- 11- 11= 30

Power Play
BSU 2- for - 4
NU 0 - for - 5

Brian's Three Stars
1- Brandon Marino
2- Tyler Scofield
3- Matt Dalton

I found out from Tom today that Ryan Cramer is out with a knee injury. He said it was a MCL injury. No surgery is needed, and also not sure how long he'll be out.

Well, we certainly know who the better team was tonight...Bemidji State dominated the game from the 5 minute mark of the first on to the end.

Here are the recaps...
Bemidji Pioneer Game Story
BSU Game Story
Niagara Gazette Game Story

Ryan Cramer was hurt in the game...he'll be evaluated again tomorrow. I'll post updates when I know more.

BSU Lines (*=starter)

NU Lines (*=starter)

1st Period Scoring
NU 4:27 Vince Rocco (Egor Mironov, Ted Cook) pp 1-0

2nd Period Scoring
BSU 9:32 Brandon Marino (Chris McKelvie, Ian Lowe) 5x5 1-1
BSU 12:00 Tyler Scofield (Matt Read) 5x5 2-1

3rd Period Scoring
BSU 11:12 Tyler Lehrke (Graham McManamin) pp 3-1

Shots
BSU 10-13-5=28
NU 6-11-11=28

Power Play
BSU 1-for-6
NU 1-for-4

Brian's Three Stars
1-Tyler Scofield (GWG)
2-Shea Walters
3-Matt Dalton

Well, we made the 3 1/2 hour drive to Niagara Falls today. Pretty darn un-eventful. It rained most of the way, which is quite rare. We're lucky it was warm enough to not be snow. Coming up on the east side of the lake, it could have gotten pretty snowy.

Everyone is healthy for the weekend...and the coaching staff said that they had two good days of practice in Pittsburgh before we left, so we'll see what happens Thursday night.

It's hard to believe that this is the final road trip of the year (barring a trip to the NCAA's)! The year certainly went by quickly.

Enjoy the game tomorrow night!

You have no idea how many times I've been asked that question in the last two weeks. So, since the RMU series was a Saturday - Sunday series, I'll start with yesterday (Monday).

The team didn't practice yesterday, but went to downtown Pittsburgh for the afternoon. The bus dropped us off at the Heinz History Museum. There was an exhibit in there about the Underground Railroad, and also a few floors of the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum. The guys didn't seem real interested in it, so most of them wandered around downtown in the Strip District for a few hours. One of the restaurants down there is called Primanti Brothers. They serve a sandwich called a Pittsburgh Cheesesteak. I LOVE THAT SANDWICH! I had one last year on a trip to RMU...so I had to have another one. Actually, I had TWO of them yesterday. Not the smartest thing I've ever done, but it sure tasted good.

The guys then went to a mall and movie theater to kill some time. I, on the other hand, needed a nap after eating that much!

Today, the team is practicing, and I'm doing some laundry. Life sure is fun on the road!

In a greedy world, BSU would want an extra point tonight, but RMU was MUCH better than they were two weeks ago. BSU is 2 points up on Niagara with 2 games in hand. So, they need a win next week at NU and then need some help from RMU and UAH the last two weeks of the season.

Whatever happens, it should be a fun series in Niagara Falls next week!
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BSU Lines (*=starter)

RMU Lines (*=starter)

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3:23 BSU Ryan Cramer (Ben Kinne, Ryan Adams) 5x5 1-0
15:51 BSU Travis Winter (Cody Bostock, Brandon Marino) PP 2-0
18:05 RMU Chris Margott (Trevor Lewis, Denny Urban) 4x4 2-1
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6:10 BSU Chris McKelvie (Brandon Marino, Brad Hunt) 5x5 3-1
14:03 RMU Chris Kushneriuk (Jason Towsley, Scott Kobialko) 5x5 3-2
14:41 RMU Nathan Longpre (Chris Margott) 5x5 3-3
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No scoring in the third
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No scoring in overtime

Shots- BSU 14-8-9-4=35 RMU 7-23-6-2=38
PP - BSU 1-for-4 RMU 0-for-3
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Well, BSU let one slip away tonight as they lost 3-0 to Robert Morris. Huntsville beat Niagara tonight 3-1, so BSU COULD have put themselves in the proverbial drivers seat with a win tonight, but I guess that's why they play the game.

BSU went 0-5 on the PP tonight, snapping a streak of games where they scored on the PP.

RMU's goaltending was good tonight. Two weeks ago, BSU would have won by 2 or 3...tonight (with good goaltending) RMU wins by 3. That's the way the game goes sometimes.

Game 2 of the series is at 4:05pm Central Time on Sunday....

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*=starter

RMU
*Lewis Longpre Margott
Kobialko Kushneriuk Towsley
Cramer Burton Blandina
Chiavetta Lachapelle South

*Meadows Obermeyer
Urban Jones
Lyle Cowan

*Ostergard
Patterson

BSU
*Scofield Read Francis
McQueen Winter Lehrke
Kinne Walters Cramer
Marino McKelvie Lowe

*Bostock Hunt
Peluso Adams
Hardwick Jundt

*Dalton
Alamano

Jundt in for McManamin, only change for BSU

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1-0 RMU end of one Margott from Longpre and Urban at 12:26 on the PP.

Shots in the 1st
RMU-14
BSU-6
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1-0 RMU end of two About 30 seconds of PP carries over for BSU

Shots in the 2nd
RMU-6 (20)
BSU-12 (18)

PP RMU 1-3, BSU 0-5
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3-0 RMU FINAL...Towsely and Ron Cramer for RMU in the third...Cramer was ENG.

Final shots...
BSU-32
RMU-28