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08-05-2005, 04:31 PM
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#1 | ||
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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It's a long way to the top : Hockey player's diary (NHL:EHM 2005)
This is a NHL:EHM 2005 dynasty report which will follow, as voted on another message board, the career of two players on their road to the NHL. Initially, there was a poll held to decide which one of a list of 6 scenarios would be followed in the dynasty and the one voted was to follow the road of two american players, Marshall and Garrett Safwat who are twins from Buffalo, NY.
It's been started for two weeks, and altough I've already writen 6 chapters, I decided to post chapters only once a week; every Wednesday. I hope you'll like it, I'm no professional writer so this might not be very good but I'll do my best to report the player's story well. There will be two chapters posted today and starting next wednesday there will only be weekly updates. |
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08-05-2005, 04:34 PM
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#2 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 1: A new home
My name is Garrett Safwat and I’m a hockey player. Since the age of 4, I’ve played every games of hockey with my younger brother Marshall, actually I say younger but he’s only three minutes younger as we’re twins, identical twins. Today, we’re both fifteen years old and we’ve been selected to play in the U.S. National Development Program. It is 8:15am on August 28th 2004, after getting up and eating breakfast, we’re now ready to leave. Today’s the big day! After 6 hours of car from Buffalo to Ann Arbor, we’re going to meet some of the USNDP staff before moving in to our new home, which will be the house of one of my mother’s friend, Diana, who offered to rent us her basement. Marshall’s already ready to leave. I kiss my mother, hug my little sister, take my bags and get in the car. My dad, Gordon Safwat, is going to drive us to the Ann Arbor Ice Cube where a team representative should take care of us before returning to Buffalo. I must have fallen asleep because time really passed quickly. We’re now ten minutes away from arriving at the Ann Arbor Ice Cube. “Guys, like I said earlier, you’re still young men and you might have a lot of pressure to perform on a team like this so whenever you’ve got a problem, feel free to call me” “Yeah, no problems” said Marshall. “And please don’t do anything stupid, and go to school everyday, and respect curfews…” “It’s ok dad, we know that and you don’t have to worry.” I answered. The car stopped in front of a building, the Ann Arbor Ice Cube. Both Marshall and I had visited it earlier in the year, and I was still impressed to see such a great hockey arena. It contained everything: 3 skating surfaces, great locker rooms, offices and an unbelievable weight room. We got out of the car and took our hockey bags out of the car’s trunk. “Good luck guys, I’m going to bring the rest of your luggage to Diana’s house. No need to remind you how to behave.” “Bye dad” we both said as we shook his hand before hugging him. We turned around as the sound of the car faded away. While we approached the facility, a man in a suit came to see us. “I’m not mistaking if I’m asking if you’re the Safwat twins, am I? My name’s Darrin Madeley and I’ll be Coach Hynes’ assistant this year. You can follow me; I’ll lead you to coach Hynes’ office, he’ll be glad to meet you guys.” A look at Marshall’s face showed that we both agreed that he looked like a great guy. As we walked one his side, he turned back and asked “So who’s who? You guys really are identical!” We were used to that question, ever since we were born people had difficulty knowing which one of us was who. At this very moment though, I didn’t really know what to say. “I’m Garret” was the only answer I could give.“Well you can expect me to mix you guys up every time I see you!” he answered while laughing. A few minutes later, we arrived in front of a door where we could read: U-17 Head Coach
John Hynes Mr. Madeley knocked at the door and entered immediately. In the room, a blonde guy who seemed extremely strict, Mr. Hynes, was discussing with another guy. I had already met him; it was Ken Martel, the Director of Player Personnel who had talked to Marshall and I about coming to the National Development Program a few months ago. After noticing us, Martel got up all smiling. “Hi guys, glad to see you!” “Hey Mr. Martel, great to be here.” Said Marshall “Yeah, I still can’t believe how nice a place it is.” I added “Well you can take a seat” said Mr. Madeley before sitting down behind the office’s desk with Mr. Martel and the blonde guy. After talking a bit with coach Hynes about how he expects us to develop our skills this year on the U17 team before making it to the U18 team next season with coach Rolston, he told us the rules and gave us the training camp and season’s schedule. “Training camp will start with a fitness test September 1st at eight in the morning. There will then be a camp introduction and a team meeting. A few practices and scrimmages will then take place in the next twelve days before the camp conclusion on September 13th. The first game will be Friday the 18th of September against the Toledo Ice Diggers of the NAHL.” After the meeting, Marshall and I went for a little skate and then walked to Miss Diana’s house to meet her and see what will likely be our home for the next two years. Her house was only a few roads away from the arena so it will be convenient when we want to go train. We had already met her and visited the house so the meeting went very well and by the end of the week, we were ready for training camp. --- Chapter 2: The first test We went to skate and lift weights every day before the opening day of the Training Camp without meeting many team mates: We had met Ryan Stoa once while training and we had talked for a few minutes; he was a very big guy, probably about 6’3 and 200. He gave us a few tips, train hard, respect the rules, listen to the coaches; and even if we’re not going to play on the same team in the USNDP, his tips were really appreciated. As we walked towards the arena for the fitness tests, both Marshall and I were pretty anxious. “Man, I hate fitness tests. What’s the need for this? We’re hockey players, it’s on the ice they should judge our skills, not off it!” “True, but they want to know how you’re doing physically, just work as hard as possible and they’ll be fine with the results.” I answered. The tests didn’t go that well for me, but every staff members seemed pleased with the results so I didn’t comment. Marshall’s were a bit better, but still not unbelievable. Following the tests, every members of the Under-17 team were re-united for the camp introduction. Head coach John Hynes’ assistant Darrin Madeley gave us a speech about similar to the one we had a few days ago with the coach. We then met every player. Among those on the team, only one guy was younger than us and only by about a month, a forward named James O’Brien. Michael Ratchuk, who was also from Buffalo, was one of our team mates last year with the Buffalo Saints Selects. We hadn’t met him for a long time, and the reunion was pretty good as we were good friends. We had also had played against goaltender Brett Bennett a few times, a pretty good goalie but a odd guy. The first scrimmage was at in the mourning on the next day. The coaches had formed two teams for 5-on-5 play, the red and the blue one. Red
Kane-O’Brien-Geoffrion Flynn-Spardig-Sperry Montgomery-Palm Summers-McBain Bennett Blue M.Safwat-Carman-G.Safwat Sweat-Popko-Atkinson Marcou Johnson-Ratchuk Strait-Morin Palmer We were going to play with Michael Carman, an all-around center from Minnesota. He won the first face-off to Johnson who passed the puck to Marshall who was immediately destroyed by an open-ice hit by Trent Palm. Marshall immediately got up but there was a brawl going on as this was an unacceptable behavior to hit like this in practice. To tell the truth, this was only the start of training camp. There were 4 scrimmages played in training camp, all with these lines. We won one, lost one and shared games in shootout. Marshall, Michael and I looked pretty good, and we were pretty sure we were going to be the 2nd line of the team, next only to the KGB line, as Blake Geoffrion had named his line, which was likely the best line of the team. --- Chapter 3: A great start should be posted on Wednesday August 10th. Last edited by duff88 : 08-05-2005 at 04:35 PM. |
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08-05-2005, 04:42 PM
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#3 |
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Pro Starter
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Troy, NY
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Are these players in the EHM database or did you create them yourself?
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Quis custodiets ipsos custodes? |
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08-05-2005, 04:53 PM
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#4 | |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Quote:
Safwat twins are created. I forgot to mention the other players who were created for the other scenarios but weren't taken for the story; those might still meet with the story because they are in the game to. Nicolas Bruneau, a goaltender playing in Jonquière and who will be available for the QMJHL draft in 2005 and the 2007 NHL draft. Doug Norcross, a big center who, even if he's not greatly skilled, is know for his great determination and defensive skills. He's available for the 2005 OHL draft but still hasn't decided wether he'd go to the O or to US colleges. He's also eligible for the NHL draft in 2007. Ron Greenwald, a big defenseman known for his great hitting abilities and his off-ice attitude. He's eligible for the NHL draft in 2008. Jaroslav Hmrksy, a czech forward with great offensive skills but who has had, at his young age, a big history of injuries. He hasn't decided wether he'd come over to play major junior (he's eligible for the 2005 CHL Import Draft) or stay in Czech Republic. He'll be eligible for the NHL draft in 2006. Toivo Karjatse, an offensive defenseman, who will try to overcome the fact that he's an unknown prospect from a non-hockey country : Estonia. He's a free agent and still hasn't decided what he'll do in his future but he don't expect to come over to play major junior. He's eligible for the 2007 NHL draft. The Safwat twins are eligble for the 2007 draft too. |
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08-05-2005, 05:03 PM
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#5 |
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Pro Rookie
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: VA
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You should do at least 2 updates a week, don't know if I'll be able to handle waiting a full week per update.
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Chicago Eagles 2 time ZFL champions We're "rebuilding" |
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08-05-2005, 05:18 PM
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#6 | |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Quote:
The reason I want to make only an update a week is that I want to make sure this is always for fun. This way, I'll always be a few weeks in front so I won't have to worry about finishing fast. Like right now only two chapters are posted but chapter 6 is already finished. |
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08-05-2005, 08:18 PM
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#7 |
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n00b
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Great story so far, I love it. A question though can you become the GM of the National Development team?
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08-05-2005, 09:34 PM
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#8 | |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Quote:
No you can't... and the U17 team isn'T included so in the first year of the game the Safwat twins won't play, but I found a way to pass this in the story and let them play games anyway. I don't want to get further into details, but I think I'll be able to do the story as if it was included. |
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08-10-2005, 12:24 PM
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#9 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 3: A great start
It’s now September 14th, we have a day off and we’re at Michael’s brother’s apartment to watch the World Cup finals. Along with Carman, Marshall and I, there are also Chris Atkinson, Michael Ratchuk, Erik Johnson, Jamie McBain & Ryan Flynn. It’s great because we’ve become friends with these guys pretty quickly. Michael’s the funny one, always joking, but he’s also an hockey expert. Chris & Ryan are rather silent but guys you can count on. Erik might have a big head but he’s a good guy, a great team-mate on the ice too. “Chuk” & McBain were also great guys, always talking; they were never seen without the other. It all pointed towards being a great year with these guys on the team. So the game is about to start, Canada who eliminated team USA in OT during the semi-finals, will face Czech Republic. It’s pretty mixed up as to who cheers for Canada and who cheers for the Czechs in the room as some of us are a bit bitter at Canada for eliminating the Americans. Canada took a 2-1 lead after twenty minutes with goals by Nash and Sakic, with Kuba scoring for the Czechs. Then, in the second period, following a goal to tie the game by Prospal, Joe Thornton scored to give Canada a 3-2 lead. Heatley and Iginla scored soon in the third period to give Canada a 5-2 lead. Jagr scored to cut the lead to two goals, but Adrian Aucoin scored another goal for Canada who was now leading 6-3. Martin Havlat scored with less than four minutes to go to cut the lead, but it wasn’t enough as Canada was on their way to win the World Cup by a score of 6-4. “Wow, I can’t believe how dominant Canada has been through this tournament…” I said “What’s that piece of $**t Sakic just got handed over?” asked Chris. “That’s the World Cup!” said Michael laughing. Marshall was still bitter at Canada for just sweeping through everyone during the world cup the following day as we were given our jersey numbers. We were quite surprised that with that many players on the U.S. National Development Program, both our favorite numbers were available. Marshall chose his #24 and I chose my #48. Among others: Chris chose #57, Michael chose #91, Ryan chose #39, Erik chose #42, Jamie chose #4 & Chuk chose #44. The lines for the first game against Toledo were displayed too, they were as everyone expected: Kane-O’Brien-Geoffrion
M.Safwat-Carman-G.Safwat Flynn-Popko-Atkinson Sweat-Fardig-Sperry Marcou Johnson-Montgommery Ratchuk-McBain Strait-Palm Summers-Morin Bennett Palmer We didn’t have much stress approaching the game against the Ice Diggers in Toledo, coach Hynes had told us we had a better team and if we put out a good effort we should beat them. I forgot to mention to you guys that Coach Hynes had given out the captaincy following training camp: “You guys are a great group of kids and if you work hard you should have a successful season. McBain, you’ve been named captain. Kane & Ratchuk, you’re going to be his assistants.” The Ice Diggers had a rough start in the first period, after 10 minutes shots were 12-1 for our team. Marshall had three of those shots, but it had all been blocked by their goaltender Bobby Parks. Marshall and I really played hard and we were quite aggressive, our line was really going well. We scored the first goal 12 minutes in this period. Michael was working behind the net when he noticed Marshall free in the slot, he passed him the puck and after a nifty little move the score was 1-0 for the U17 team! That goal gave them a wake up call though as they came back quickly with a goal by Joe Young on a shot in the five hole misjudged by Bennett. Chris scored a goal in the second period with a shot in the top left corner, that goal giving us a 2-1 lead. Erik Johnson scored in the third period with a bullet on the power play as we finally won the game 3-1! Everyone was happy with the dominance we showed in this first game, Marshall finished the night with a goal and we both had a good game. This was only the start; we enjoyed the same success in the next few games: A 1-0 home win over Soo, another 1-0 home win this time against Toledo, 4-3 in overtime at Toledo, a 2-1 away win against Cleveland and a 3-2 home win against Soo. We had won our first 6 games; I had 2 goals and 2 assists while Marshall had 3 goals and 2 assists, but as the coach said: “It’s a great start, but we have to make sure to improve our play because we’ve had some luck to start with no losses in the first 6 games.” Following 8 days off, we were now going to leave for Blaine, Minnesota for a 4 days tournament (The NAHL Showcase) where we would play 4 games in front of tens of scouts. --- Chapter 4: A filled week in Blaine should be posted on Wednesday August 17th. |
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08-10-2005, 06:40 PM
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#10 |
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n00b
Join Date: Jul 2005
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How are you running this...did you just create the twins place them on the team and watch all the games??
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08-10-2005, 08:26 PM
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#11 | |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Quote:
I created the twins and placed them on the team. I don't know if I've mentionned it already, but right now the games are played by a system I've created of my own because the game (NHL:EHM 2005) only plays the USNDT-U18 games, so the players one the USNDT-U17 don't actually play so I took the real life schedule and used my own system to do the games. The first season is already finished writing (Took 9 chapters). I don't expect to write faster soon though. |
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08-17-2005, 11:17 AM
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#12 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 4: A filled week in Blaine
That was the most boring bus trip ever: We got up at five in the mourning, left at six and arrived in Blaine at eight PM. The NAHL showcase in Blaine, Minnesota was a tournament where all NAHL & EJHL teams played each other; we were going to play four games in as many nights against Santa Fe from the NAHL and Walpole, Boston and Valley from the EJHL. The coach had told us every NHL teams had at least a scout there and more than a hundred college recruiters were going to be present at the games. Our first game was on October 20th, two days after our arrival, against Santa Fe, which could very well be the easiest of all those games. Bennett wasn’t the starter as he had flu so Palmer would be in net, it wasn’t even certain if Bennett was going to start any of the four games. Well I don’t know what’s wrong, but we’re losing 5-0 after two periods. McBain’s trying to do his role as team leader and tell us to continue working hard because there are tons of scouts and we’re looking awful, just work for the logo in front of our jersey. Well his speech worked pretty well, but the damage was already done as we finally lost 5-3 following a natural hat-trick by Blake Geoffrion. Both Marshall and I had our chances in this game but nothing seemed to work; we’ll just have to work three times harder in the next game against Walpole. The game against Walpole went better although they were not the strongest team in the tournament; we beat them 2-1. Flynn had both our goals, Palmer got back from his bad performance of yesterday and both Marshall and I were had 3 shots, I hit the post once on the breakaway. We just lost another game… 5-1 against Boston who is considered by some as the strongest team in the EJHL. Blake was the only scorer again, and as it has been the case for this tournament, both Marshall and I had a good game without being able to finish. Palmer was good again but we simply didn’t give him any chance to win. Bennett says he’s going to be OK to play tomorrow, which is great news. In our final game, against the Valley Jr. Warriors, we won 5-4. Marshall and I finally had a great game as I scored two goals and had an assist while Marshall scored a goal and assisted each of my two goals. Blake Geoffrion and James O’Brien also had goals in the game. Following the tournament and five days off, we had two games in a row to end October before the U17 Four Nations tournament in Rochester, New York from November 7th to November 15th. These two games were on Friday October 29th and Saturday October 30th, both times in Sault Ste. Marie. Coach Hynes had decided to give both goaltenders a start, so Bennett had the first game while Palmer would stat the second game. We won 3-2 in Overtime the first night (Flynn, Sweatt & Geoffrion [GW] had the goals) and lost 4-3, again in Overtime, the following night (Kane, Montgomery & I had the goals). It looked more and more evident that Bennett was the better of our goaltenders as we just weren’t the same team with Joe in nets. During the free week before the tournament, coach Hynes really wanted us to improve our defensive game because we were pretty bad in pressure situation. Our PK was extremely good, but we were giving way too many goals on even strength. He really told us that we had to get better defensively if we wanted to win the Four Nations tournament against Russia, Slovakia & Switzerland. As we were walking out of the arena following a practice the day before leaving for Rochester, Michael, Marshall and I were discussing our chances against each team. “You think we’ve got a chance to beat these teams?” Marshall asked Michael “Well team Switzerland and Slovakia should not be unbeatable, but Russia’s got quite the team with guys like Varlamov in net and Vasyunov up front who are considered top ten in the 2006 draft. I think when it’s all said and done, the final should be a USA-Russia game, and we’ll just have to work our ass off to beat these guys.” “How do you know all this stuff?” I asked him “I try to get information on other teams and players, I just love hockey that much. I think I can tell you pretty much anything about any team or player. I’d love to become a staff member in hockey following my playing career. I’m not like you guys, you could play in the NHL, I’m probably going to retire following college but I want to stay in hockey.” After 12 games this season, I wanted to give you a quick look at our team’s stats: Code:
--- Chapter 5: International tournament in Rochester should be posted on Wednesday August 24th |
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08-24-2005, 10:10 AM
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#13 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 5: International tournament in Rochester
We decided to take the night off before leaving in a bus trip for Rochester the next day. The phone rang and we heard Diane shout: “Marshall, pick up the phone!” “Yes. Hey, how are you? Unbelievable, I’m tied for second in team scoring and Garret’s tied for third. Yes, will you come? Great I can’t wait to see you. Yeah wait a minute. Garret, mom wants to talk to you.” She wanted to say that they took the week off and were going to come see us play in the Four Nations tournament in Rochester, which is about an hour and a half away from home. We left the next day and when we arrived in Rochester, there was a team introduction planned at The Blue Cross at the Rochester War Memorial before the American Hockey League game between the Rochester Americans and the Hamilton Bulldogs. We had a lot of fun during the two days we spent there before the first game against the strong Russians, but we did our best to keep focused. Let’s just say that Michael wasn’t joking when he said that the Russians were a great team. These guys were fast and skilled and we had a tough time doing anything other than run around trying to catch them up. To make it worse, the Russian coach matched his first line of Vasyunov, Gratchev and Zharkov against our line. We were just dominated in the game and finally lost 6-2, Vasyunov had four goals for the Russians and our line was -2. Blake and I had our goals in the second period as we tied the game at 2-2 but Varlamov, their goalie, kept the Russians in the game and was able to shut every chance we had down following our second goal. Slovakia beat Switzerland 4-0 in the other game. The next day, our opponent was Switzerland and coach Hynes decided to give Joe the start. We didn’t even dominate and got out with a 4-3 win after they got back in the game with two goals in the third period. Joe didn’t perform very well though, giving up 3 goals on 14 shots. Patrick, James and I had the goals; I scored two including one on a penalty shot after being tripped by Swiss defenseman Jeremie Kamerzin. I was the first star in the game and Marshall was the second star, we could see our parents just going insane in the stands, pretty exciting moment. After a day off, we had our final and most important round-robin game against Slovakia, the winner was going to face the Russians in the finals the day after. Bennett was back in goal following Palmer’s poor performance against the Swiss. We scored the first goal twelve minutes into the game; and who else than myself to score it! Slovaks were a great team though and their goaltender Miroslav Bonk was just unbeatable. We were still holding on to that 1-0 lead with less than five minutes to go in the game and the Slovaks were now attacking from everywhere. Even if time passed by slowly, we were able to hold on and claim a 1-0 victory which would bring us to the finals against team Russia! In the other game, which had no real meaning, Russia still showed no pity against the poor Swiss beating them 10-0. “Take it easy guys, I know you can win!” said my father before the big game. We really wanted this one because our parents couldn’t see us often and we wanted them to have fun and see us succeed. The KGB line was on the ice when the puck dropped and the excitement of the finals was really there, we wanted to destroy that Russian team to get revenge for that bad game we had against them a few days ago. 13 minutes into the first period, as Kane was in the penalty box for one of his rare penalties, Vladimir Zharkov released a rocket that made the mark 1-0 for team Russia; the score remained the same for the end of the first period. We were still pumped up to start the second period; we dominated out there playing the North-American style and hitting these Russians. Of course, hitting wasn’t our lines job but we still were able to land a few hits. Marshall even knocked a Russian defenseman with a great shoulder hit along the boards after Michael had dumped the puck into the Russian zone. Varlamov was solid though and we still weren’t able to beat him as the period ended as we still were trailing by one. Coach Hynes told us to just shot from every angle and the puck would get past this damn goalie. He also said to aim low and always have a guy ready to take the rebound. The third period started and the crowd cheered pretty loudly and we were even more pumped up than before: We wanted this win! The puck dropped and O’Brien won the draw, we applied a lot of pressure, we already had 5 shots not even two minutes into the period. After our shift, the KGB line was back on the ice and following an unbelievable pass by Johnson who used the no-red-line rule perfectly, Geoffrion had the puck in a two-on-one with Kane. Geoffrion shot the puck, aiming five-hole, Varlamov blocked it but the rebound went directly to Kane who shoved the puck into the net tying the game at 1! Less than a minute later, with Popko’s line on the ice going high-forecheck, Flynn, who was fighting for the puck with two Russian players along the board, saw our defenseman Montgomery coming forward asking for the puck as he was alone. Flynn sent the puck with his skate to Popko who was able to pass it to Montgomery who buried it past the Russian goaltender with a one-timer in the five-hole. We now had a 2-1 lead. A bit less than ten minutes later, Geoffrion and Kane went in another two-on-one against the same defenseman, but this time Geoffrion decided to deke the goaltender and was able to put the puck past him! We were now leading 3-1 with less than ten minutes to go in the game. Marshall scored with 3 minutes to go as we were on our way to a 4-1 win to be named champions! After celebrating a little, we went and shook hands with the Russian players and got our team photo taken with the trophy, it was really a great night and we showed that we had character and pride, we represented team USA and that’s what gave us this great win! This might not be the most important tournament, but I think that it was a memorable moment nonetheless. Here are the top scorers of the tournament if you’re interested. NAME GP G A PTS 1 Maxim Gratchev 4 2 5 7 Vladimir Zharkov 4 2 5 7 2 Alexander Vasyunov 4 5 1 6 Garret Safwat 4 4 2 6 3 Patrick Kane 4 2 3 5 Marshall Safwat 4 1 4 5 Alexander Ryabev 4 3 2 5 Following the game, we slept in Rochester before leaving the next mourning to go back in Ann Arbor. We then had five days off before the next hockey game in Youngstown. Chapter 6: Christmas in family! should be posted on Wednesday August 31st. Last edited by duff88 : 08-24-2005 at 10:11 AM. |
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08-31-2005, 04:41 PM
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#14 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 6: Christmas in family
We didn’t have much time to celebrate our victory as were already back on the ice for games in the NAHL. In the following weeks, we were going to play in Youngstown three times, against Cleveland two times and three times against Sault Ste. Marie, we were going to play at home only two times during these next 8 games before the U17 challenge in Canada which was scheduled to take place from December 27th to January 5th. The first game following our championship, it looked like we still had our head in Rochester as we lost 4-2 to Youngstown who were leading by four after forty minutes. Coach Hynes was out of himself following this game, telling us that it was simply unbelievable that we could simply let this little success make us think we don’t need an effort to beat NAHL teams. His comments worked as we beat Cleveland 4-0 in the next game before going back to Ann Arbor for two home games before going for four games on the road. We won the first one 5-3 against Cleveland and the second one 6-1 against Sault Ste. Marie. Then our six games on the road went as well: 9-2 and 6-1 wins against Youngstown and 6-2 and 4-0 wins against Sault Ste. Marie. Following the game, we went at Michael’s brother’s apartment to have a little fun with the guys before leaving for home during the Christmas break from December 14th to December 25th. As usually, Michael, Marshall and I were accompanied by Chris, Chuk, Erik, McBain and Ryan. It was a great night as we remembered how great the season was going so far, with Michael telling us our stats. Code:
Code:
We then finally had our Christmas holidays, we were gonna miss playing hockey but we could finally get back home for the first time since leaving in August. We both really missed our family and those days at home were great. There’s not really much to report in this family time, we had a lot of gifts as usually as our birthday is on the 24th, but I thought this conversation I had with dad while Marshall was already asleep might interest you: “Have you finally decided what you’re going to do following the two seasons at the USNDP?” he said “You know you’ve got three routes. You can play in the OHL as you’d be available for the draft this year and I want you guys to tell these teams your final decision what league you’re gonna play in before they waste a pick on you. You can also play in College; the NCAA is great for students/athlete, especially those who perform in both like you. Or you can also stop hockey to focus on your studies.” “You really think we’d do that?” “No but it’s still one of the route you can take.” “And what should we do?” “I think you should play in College, you’ve realistically got a chance to play professional hockey but you’ve got to cover yourself in case you suffer an injury or you’re unable to make it.” “That’s what I was thinking, but Marshall thinks he’d prefer playing in the OHL… I’m definitely going to college; I just hope he’ll come with me, it’d be odd to play without him.” “Let him take his own decision, and anyway it’s still soon to decide this, but at least you’ve made up your mind.” Chapter 7: Oh Canada! should be posted on Sunday September 3rd. Note that from now on, updates will be posted on Wednesdays and Sundays making it two updates a week. |
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09-02-2005, 01:40 AM
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#15 |
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n00b
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Great read keep it up
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09-05-2005, 09:36 AM
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#16 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 7: Oh Canada!
We left for Alberta on December 26th. People in Canada were really great to us, it’s a beautiful country and people love hockey! If we had a lot of problem winning the Four Nations tournament, this is going to be ten times more difficult. This is arguably the most important tournament this year. We’re in Pool A with team West, Ontario, Slovakia & Germany. In Pool B, there are Pacific, Quebec, Atlantic, Finland & Czech Republic. We are going to play against Slovakia on the 29th, Germany on the 30th, Ontario on the 1st and West on the 2nd. Depending on the position we finish in the standings, we’re going to play another game on the 3rd, and if we’re in the top 4 of the tournament we’ll play again on the 4th. We need to win the first game against Slovakia if we want to have any success in the tournament. According to Michael, they don’t have a really strong squad so we should be able to beat them. Well he was wrong, they had a very good team, and even if we played an excellent game, we left the arena with a 3-3 tie. Chris Atkinson scored the first two goals of the game but team Slovakia came back with three straight goals. Patrick Kane had the game tying goal with a few minutes left in the second period. In other games, the Czechs beat Finland 5-0, Ontario beat Germany 2-0 and Pacific beat Quebec 2-0. The following day was the game everyone expected to be the easiest in the tournament, the game against Germany and Palmer was the starter. We didn’t destroy them, but they didn’t get much chance during the whole game as we beat them 4-1. Chuk, Geoffrion, McBain & Flynn had the goals. Marshall and I, for the second straight games, had our chance but could not get the puck pas the keeper. In other games, Atlantic tied 3-3 with Czech Republic, West beat Slovakia 4-1 and Pacific beat Finland 7-6. The next day was our day off. Quebec beat Atlantic 5-2, West tied 5-5 with Ontario, Slovakia beat Germany 4-2 and Pacific beat Czech Republic 4-2. Our next game, on January 1st, was against Ontario. It was one of the most important challenge and we definitely had to beat them as they were, along with the West, the strongest team in the Pool and only two teams in each division could make it to the semi-finals round. Well we were up to the challenge as we started the game strongly leading by three goals after forty minutes on our way to a 4-2 win. Johnson, Kane, Popko and I had the goals. Mine was the game winner in the second period. In other games, Pacific beat Atlantic 3-2, West beat Germany 4-0 and Quebec beat Finland 4-2. Our final game of the round robin was going to be a determining one because if we lost to team West, the goal differential was going to be the determining factor as to whom of us and the winner of the Ontario-Slovakia game was going to advance to the semi-finals. Well we played awfully and when the final second ticked off, the score indicated 6-2 for team West. O’Brien and I had the goals. Our game was a late-afternoon one and following the game, we decided to stay and watch the Ontario-Slovakia game which was going to be played at the same arena. Ontario needed to beat Slovakia by at least two points to finish second in the pool while Slovakia had to beat Ontario by three. Following the first period, Ontario was leading 2-1 and the stress was at the maximum for our team, simply playing in the 5th place game wasn’t enough. Ontario extended their lead to 3-1 in the second and with twenty minutes to go. In the third period, everything looked like Slovakia was going to make it, they had scored three straight goals and were now leading 4-3 when everything simply stumbled over… Ontario scored twice and with less than a minute to go they pulled their goaltender for a 6 on 4, trying to get the goal that would make them advance to the semi-finals. And it happened, with twenty-three seconds to play Jordan Staal released a wrister top shelf and Ontario won 6-4, pulling us over to finish second in Pool A. I can’t describe how it felt right there… during a moment we thought we were going to make it, but we had no control and this goal just destroyed everything. We had so much success this year and it was difficult to take that first failure. Anyway, I’ll try to describe the rest of the tournament. In other games that day, Atlantic beat Finland 3-2 and Quebec beat Czech Republic 5-4. Code:
The round-robin results were now available; West was going to face Quebec while Ontario was going to face Pacific in the all-Canadian U-17 semi-finals. In the fifth place game, we were going to face Czech Republic. Slovakia would face Atlantic in the seventh place game while Germany and Finland would face to try to save their honor as both team still had no wins in the tournament. Before the game against Czech Republic, McBain stepped up in the locker-room, it still looked like everyone was broke down by the preceding day’s failure and nobody seemed pumped up for the game. “Guys, it was tough to see that happen yesterday, but we’re here to represent USA and we have to come out strong simply because this is for our country’s honor. I don’t think anyone here wants to finish 6th out of ten teams, so we’re gonna go out there and beat the ass out of these Czechs.” The speech pumped us up, although we weren’t going to play with the same emotions as in a semi-final game, we still were going out there to win. We won 6-3, and didn’t celebrate much, we were just glad to save our honor. O’Brien, Carman, Marshall (2), Kane and I had the goals. Finland got their first win by beating Germany 6-1 and Slovakia beat Atlantic 3-2 in the other “meaningless” games. In the semi-finals, West beat Quebec 4-3 in OT while Pacific beat Ontario 2-0. The next day, West was named World Under-17 Champions as they beat Ontario 2-1. Quebec beat Ontario 4-3 to finish third. 1. West 2. Pacific 3. Quebec 4. Ontario 5. USA 6. Czech Republic 7. Slovakia 8. Atlantic 9. Finland 10. Germany If we forget about the way it turned out, the tournament was great. People in Canada love hockey so much and we played against such great players. So finally, here are the top 5 scorers in the tournament and on our team. Code:
Code:
Chapter 8: Ending the season should be posted on Wednesday September 6th. Sorry to have been late for this chapter, I completely forgot we were Sunday yesterday. |
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09-07-2005, 08:49 AM
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#17 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 8: Ending the season
We had to forget about the tough tournament result pretty quickly as we had a game against Toledo on January 7th, two days after returning from Canada. We had an above-average game and won 3-2. We will play seven games before leaving for Slovakia on February 7th for the Vlado Dzurilla Four Nations Classic, an eight days tournament in the city of Piestany. Following this tournament, we will end the season with twelve other games in the NAHL, and if we’re qualified will join the NAHL playoffs. Looking back at it on February 7th in the plane to Slovakia, it looked like we were the only team who wasn’t improving our play for the playoff run. The results for our seven last games showed it: 6-4 loss in Cleveland, 4-2 win in Toledo, 3-2 loss against Youngstown, 5-2 loss against Cleveland, 6-2 and 4-3 losses in Youngstown and finally a 5-2 loss in Toledo. We were 1-6 in the last 7 games! Coach Hynes was starting to get angry with us: “You guys are having a great season, not only statistically but also skill wise as you’re all improving your game. The problem is as your skills improve, it seems like your damn mental game decrease! You guys just don’t put on an effort anymore.” was the kind of speech we got daily. The tournament in Pietsany was going to include USA, Germany, Slovakia and Switzerland. On the 10th we’d play Germany, on the 11th Slovakia and on the 12th Switzerland. Normally, even if players were mostly from the USNDP, some players from other teams joined the team. This year, USA hockey took the decision to keep the USNDP U18 and U17 teams as they are without adding any players for the Five Nations Cup (U18) and the Four Nations Cup (U17). The first game, against Germany, was tougher than expected but a great effort from us permitted a 4-3 win. The second game, against Slovakia, was also as expected: very difficult and their home advantage led them to a 3-2 win. In the last game, against Switzerland, we completely dominated as Joe Palmer saved 26 pucks leading us to a 5-0 win. Pretty quick tournament review, but this is what is needed as really nothing big happened in Slovakia. We flight back to Ann Arbor on February 14th for our first game on the 22nd. It was going to be a pretty fun end of season as we were going to play ten of the last twelve games at home. For the last games of the season, we somewhat got back into our game but the results still weren’t as good as we could have expected. Anyway, here are the results: 4-3 and 1-0 wins against Toledo, 6-5 and 4-3OT wins against Youngstown, 3-2OT loss against Cleveland, 4-0 loss against Toledo, 1-0OT loss against Youngstown, 4-2 loss followed by a 4-3 win in home-away games against Cleveland, 1-0 loss followed by 5-3 win against Sault Ste. Marie and finally a 3-2 loss in Cleveland to end the season. So after going six wins (including one in OT) and six losses (Including two in OT) in the last twelve games, our final regular season record was 24-13-3. Combined with the sixteen NAHL games played by the U18 team, we were 37-15-4. That record, which was good for 78 points, put us in the first place of the NAHL North Division in front of Sault Ste. Marie, Youngstown and Cleveland. Fairbanks and Toledo were respectively the lasts of the division and didn’t make the playoffs. We didn’t get the league title though as the Texas Tornado of the south division had 85 points. Something to note is that we will play in the North Division playoffs but if we win it, we won’t play in the NAHL championship so in case we get to the finals and win, the other team will be in the NAHL championship. The first series will be a best-of-5 against Cleveland. Sault Ste. Marie will face Youngstown in the other series and the winner of those will face in the division finals in a best-of-7. We lost the first game 5-4 in OT while Sault Ste. Marie took a 1-0 lead with a 5-2 victory against Youngstown. It didn’t get better in the second game as we lost 3-2 and we were now facing elimination, Youngstown as in the same situation following their 4-3OT loss. We won the third game 4-3, but were still facing elimination, which happened to Youngstown following another 4-3OT loss against Sault Ste. Marie who advanced to the division finals. In the fourth game, an OT goal on a breakaway by Marshall tied the series at 2 as we notched a 2-1 win. “Come on guys, we can’t lose like this following a great season, let’s get out there and just show how great a team we are!” said McBain in the locker-room before we went on the ice for the opening face-off. It seemed like his words pumped us up as goals by Geoffrion, O’Brien and Marshall in the first period gave us a 3-1 lead after twenty minutes. Kane, Strait and Johnson scored in the second period as we extended our lead to 6-3. Marshall and I finally scored in the third period to provide us an 8-3 win which made us advance to the division finals. This win also gave Sault Ste. Marie a pass to the championship tournament in North Dakota no matter what was going to happen in the division finals. In the South Division, Texas and Texarkana were going to face-off while Billings was going to play against Fargo-Moorhead in the West Division finals. It started pretty poorly again… we lost the first game 2-0 and the second game 5-1 to Sault Ste. Marie as they took an early 2-0 lead. The third game was better though as we came back with a 5-3 win. In the fourth game, we lost a game we dominated; 2-1 in OT as we were again facing elimination, this time 3-1 against Sault Ste. Marie. A 4-2 win in the fifth game and a 6-3 win in the sixth game were enough to give bring this series to a 7th game. “Well this is the last game of the season, so before all the emotions of this game, I want to say that I can’t wait to play with you again next year. Now let’s win this game!” was McBain’s pre-game comment. After a scoreless first period, we opened the score with a goal by Carman in the second period. After forty minutes, we had a 2-0 lead following my goal which happened with seventeen seconds left in the period. Marshall added another goal in the third and Bennett got a shootout as we won the game 3-0! We were champions of the North Division. Texas and Fargo-Moorhead won the other series. Following the NAHL tournament, Texas were named NAHL champions with the MVP being goaltender Ben Bishop. So this was the end, it was April 24th following our 7th game win and this long season was finished. On the 27th we were going to go back to Buffalo for the off-season. Before the leaving for Buffalo, I might as well give us our total stats (Including the regular season, playoffs and international games): Code:
Code:
Hockey World Update #1 should be posted on Sunday September 11th. Last edited by duff88 : 09-07-2005 at 08:54 AM. |
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09-11-2005, 11:05 AM
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#18 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Hockey World Update #1
Hey, it’s Marshall! Since Garret’s doing our entire career updates, we decided that I’ll be the one who’ll update you guy on what happens beside us in the hockey world. It was a tough season as a Sabres fan as the team was just awful, they finished 29th in the league after trading all of their players: Satan to Toronto, Biron and Paillé to Carolina, Noronen to Pittsburgh, Afinogenov to Washington, Dumont to Colorado, Drury to Florida, Hecht to Ottawa… At least we got a few good players from these trades: Jeff Glass, Joni Pitkanen and Scottie Upshall could be important players in the team’s future. After finishing first in the league with 56 wins and 118 points, the Devils respectively beat Toronto, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals were they were gonna face the Detroit Red Wings who had eliminated, following a 102 points season good for 2nd place in the west, San Jose, Dallas and Colorado, the last series being quite spectacular as it finished in a close 7th game in which Brian Holzinger scored the OT Game winner for the Wings. In the Finals, each team separated every game, as the first six games went D-N-D-N-D-N before the 7th game rolled on June 6th. May I note that we had decided to reunite in Ann Arbor with our friends of the USNDP, Atkinson being a huge Red Wings fan. And it was amazing for him as the Red Wings, with Chris Osgood getting the first star, won the game 3-0 on their way to win a Stanley Cup which was lifted by Steve Yzerman! Robert Lang won the Conn Smythe with 19 points in 24 games. The NHL awards ceremony went like this: Joe Thornton (BOS) won the Art Ross trophy after getting 37 goals and 71 assists for 108 points as leading scorer of the league. He also received the Hart as MVP as he lead the Bruins to a 4th place in the East along with his linemate Jaromir Jagr (BOS) with whom he formed one of the most dangerous duos in the league, Jagr won the Pearson as MVP chosed by the players. Martin St. Louis (TB) won the Rocket Richard trophy after getting 54 goals in 82 games; he also finished with 102 points. Dan Boyle (TB) had an impressive season, getting 16 goals and 42 assists for 58 points on his way to win the Norris trophy for best defenseman. Arguably the best goaltender in the league with the best team, Martin Brodeur (NJ) won the Vezina trophy for best goaltender following a 50 wins season where he had a 2,02GAA and a ,932SAV% with 6SO. Former 1st overall pick Alexander Ovechkin (WAS) won the Calder trophy as Rookie of the year following a 67 points season, winning it in front of former 2nd overall pick Evgeny Malkin (PIT) who had 65 points. Among other awards, Kirk Maltby (DET) won the Selke trophy, Mike Comrie (PHO) won the Masterton trophy, Coach John Tortorella (TB) won the Adams trophy, Jiri Hudler (WAS) won the King Clancy trophy and Alex Tanguay (COL) won the Lady Byng trophy. The First All-Star team, Second All-Star team and All-Rookie team consisted of: Näslund (VAN) – Thornton (BOS) – St. Louis (TB)
Boyle (TB) – Redden (OTT) Brodeur (NJ) Palffy (OTT) – Sundin (TOR) – Sakic (COL) Blake (COL) – Kubina (TB) Luongo (FLA) Ovechkin (WAS) – Malkin (PIT) – Salmelainen (EDM) Whitney (PIT) – Dallman (BOS) Fleury (PIT) In other leagues, Chicoutimi were the QMJHL champions, Sudbury were the OHL champions and Kootenay the WHL champions as they were going to face each other as well as hosts the London Knights in the Memorial Cup. London won it against Sudbury in an all-OHL final. The Rochester Americans beat the Portland Pirates to be named AHL champions, at least this is something good for us Sabres fans. In the WJC, Canada won the finals 6-1 against Czech Republic to finally claim a long awaited gold medal in the U20 tournament. USA won the bronze medal. And now the greatest non-related to us news of the year, the Buffalo Sabres won the draft lottery and are going to get the 1st overall pick in the 2005 entry draft and the chance to draft phenom Sidney Crosby! Marshall and I decided to watch the draft at home with our dad. Here’s how the first round and the Sabres’ entire draft went: 1- Buffalo Sabres – Sidney Crosby – C 2- Anaheim Mighty Ducks – Kenndal McArdle – LW/RW 3- New York Rangers – Gilbert Brulé – C/RW 4- Minnesota Wild – Bobby Ryan – RW 5- Carolina Hurricanes – Luc Bourdon – LD 6- Chicago Blackhawks – Carey Price – G 7- Los Angeles Kings – Michael Blunden – RW/C 8- Washington Capitals – Alex Bourret – C 9- Nashville Predators – Benoit Pouliot – LW/C 10- Atlanta Thrashers – Martin Hanzal – LW/C 11- Edmonton Oilers – Jakub Vojta – RD 12- Columbus Blue Jackets – Matt Lashoff – LD 13- New York Islanders – Anze Kopitar – C/RW 14- Philadelphia Flyers – Wacey Rabbit – C 15- Phoenix Coyotes – Nicklas Bergfors – RW 16- San Jose Sharks – Jack Johnson – RD/LD 17- St. Louis Blues – Tomas Kudelka – LD 18- Colorado Avalanche – Lukas Vantuch – C 19- Toronto Maple Leafs – Devin Setoguchi – RW/C 20- Montreal Canadiens – Perttu Lindgren – C 21- Calgary Flames – Radek Smonelak – RW 22- Florida Panthers – Tomas Pospisil – C/LW 23- Pittsburgh Penguins – Ryan Stoa – LW/RW 24- Boston Bruins – Ryan O’Marra – C 25- Dallas Stars – Vladimir Karpov – RW 26- Tampa Bay Lightning – Marek Zagrapan – C 27- Chicago Blackhawks – Vladimir Sobotka – C 28- Vancouver Canucks – Jussi Peltomaa – LW 29- New Jersey Devils – Tuukka Rask – G 30- Detroit Red Wings – Jack Skille – RW/C 32- Buffalo Sabres – Chris Moran – C 82- Buffalo Sabres – Alexander Täng – LD 90- Buffalo Sabres – Adam Hobson – C 132- Buffalo Sabres – Denis Pakhomov – RD 152- Buffalo Sabres – Timo Välimäki – G 154- Buffalo Sabres – Matt D’Agostini – RW 182- Buffalo Sabres – Pat Cullity – LD/RD 212- Buffalo Sabres – Petr Horava – RD 242- Buffalo Sabres – Igor Cvetek – LD/RD In the QMJHL, the PEI Rockets drafted Michael Biega first overall. Kevin Guérette-Charland was the second overall pick by Drummondville and Nicolas Bruneau was drafted third overall by Baie-Comeau. In the OHL, the Guelph Storm drafted Sam Gagner first overall. Anthony Geldart was the second overall pick by Windsor and Blake Parlett was drafted third overall by St. Michael’s. In the WHL, the Seattle Thunderbirds drafted Dale Hunt first overall. Travis Bobbee was the second overall pick by Swift Current and David Toews was drafted third overall by Moose-Jaw. After getting drafted first overall in the CHL Import draft by Seattle, Lukas Vantuch said that he wanted to play in the WHL but he changed his mind following the NHL Draft and will likely stay in Czech Republic. Tuukka Rask, who was drafted second overall by Guelph, said that although he will likely stay in Czech Republic for another season, he might come to the OHL in 2006-2007. The same thing will likely happen to the third overall pick by PEI, Tomas Pospisil. Richard Lelkes will likely come over immediately to Swift Current after being drafted 4th overall. So that’s what happened in the 2004-2005 Hockey World. I’m going to steal a bit of Garrett’s spotlight to tell you we’ve been training very hard this summer to be in the best shape for the U18 team next season, and it seems to work as we both put up a few pounds. Garrett seems a bit bigger though, but that’s not going to matter on the ice. Chapter 9: NCAA commitment and USNDP Season 2 should be posted on Wednesday September 14th. |
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09-11-2005, 01:35 PM
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#19 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Michigan
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Amazing. Keep it up
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09-14-2005, 09:27 AM
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#20 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 9: NCAA commitment and USNDP Season 2
The trip to Michigan was great, we couldn’t wait to be back and see guys like Chris and Michael. Unfortunately, a lot of players left during the summer: Ryan Flynn, Billy Blasé, Trent Palm and Stephen Sperry decided to continue their career elsewhere in American Junior Hockey. Others left for the NCAA, even if they were all from the U18 team, were Nathan Gerbe, Jack Johnson, David Inman, Andreas Vlassopoulos, Brandon Gentille, Jack Skille, Ryan Stoa, Dan Fardig, Zach Jones, Zac Macvoy, Phil Kessell, Mark Mitera, Jason Lawrence, Jimmy Fraser, Jason Bailey, Justin Mercier and Jeff Frazee. We were now used to it and training camp went by pretty quickly. With Flynn gone, he was one of our best friends on the team, we befriended with extremely skilled forward Peter Mueller. During camp, Mueller was our center as the coach thought Michael Carman would fit better as the team’s third line center. We did pretty well at camp, enough to be considered the first line on the team. Here’s a look at what the team will look like for the opening night as we’re going to play Mahoney Valley: M.Safwat-Mueller-G.Safwat
Kane-O’Brien-Geoffrion Popko-Carman-Atkinson Sweatt-Squires-Schnell Johnson-Cole Ratchuk-McBain Strait-Montgomery Morin-Summers Palmer Bennett Schnell and Cole were new players who were immediately promoted to the U18 teams due to great talent and lack of depth. Schnell was a big two-way forward who excelled defensively. He was a monster at 6’4 at the young age of 16. Cole was an unbelievably talented defenseman with all the tools to become a great NHLer; he was touted as a future top 10 pick in the 2007 entry draft. Bennett had suffered a pretty serious mental issue in the summer following the death of his parents in a car accident and he lost his starter spot to Joe Palmer as he was completely lost on the ice and asked the coach to become the backup because he didn’t feel in shape enough to play every night, but that he could do an excellent job if he only played a game every two weeks. As I said earlier, the camp went well and the season was already ready to start. I would be lying if I said that the season was something interesting to tell as it was pretty much similar to last year, except we were more dominant against NAHL team but we also play first division NCAA teams, which were more difficult to beat. I don’t know if you guys will hate me for this, but I’m not going to describe the entire season like I did last year. We developed pretty well, we played great hockey, but there’s nothing to rave about so I’m just going to tell you some stats, results and stories. First, we really noticed that we were becoming quite touted and NHL teams started to follow us. Marshall and I were even considered top 15 talents for the 2007 draft and the time of our NCAA commitment approached. Three colleges were front runners: Minnesota was a great college and we would love to play with all the great players there, including Peter, Erik and Michael who had already committed to the Gophers. Michigan was another option, just to play in Ann Arbor again would be an unbelievable experience, to play for the Wolverines would just be awesome. North Dakota was also in the race as they offered everything we looked for, and they seemed the most interested in us. I won’t let you in any suspense for this as we signed our National Letter of Intent in November; we were going to attend North Dakota! They even sent us jerseys: #24 M.Safwat and #48 G.Safwat; that looked awesome! In late December, I suffered a Groin Strain which had me sidelined for more than a month. This was the first time in my career that I had such a long healing injury, and it was pretty painful to watch everyone play but not be able to help. I came back just in time, although not at 100%, for the 5 Nations Cup. We won the 4 nations tournament in November in Finland and the 5 nations tournament in Russia in February, but our biggest objective this season was to win the IIHF U-18 World Championships which were going to be held in Halmstad, Sweden from April 7th to April 22nd. So, excluding all the tournaments, here were our top scorer’s stats for the regular games against the NAHL, EJHL and NCAA teams: Code:
We were 25-17-2 in those games and Bennett, even with his personal problems, was able to be 7-2-0 as backup to Joe Palmer who really excelled as the starter. So we were now on our way to the last few games of the season, the last games with this great group of players. We were in a plane to Sweden and were going to play in the most important tournament so far in our career, the World U18 championships. Chapter 10: Framgang i Sverige? should be posted on Sunday September 18th. |
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09-18-2005, 02:31 PM
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#21 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 10: Framgang i Sverige?
I don’t know if I’m right, but this is how a Swedish fan told me to say: “Success in Sweden?” as I thought it was a good idea for the name of a chapter, even before I even knew if we were going to finish first or last. We wanted to win this one as the last US U18 team did; they won that tournament last year with a 5-1 final win against Canada. The World U18 tournament will feature two groups of five teams which will fight for gold medal and try to avoid relegation. USA, Czech Republic, Russia, Germany and Belarus will form Group A. Canada, Sweden, Slovakia, Finland and Norway will from Group B. The tournament will start on Monday April 10th as we’re going to face Germany at 15:00. We have a few non-USNDP program players on our team: Bobby Sanguineti, a defenseman who plays for the Belleville Bulls and who is projected as a late first round pick in 2006, Kyle Okposo, a forward who plays for Shattuck St. Mary’s and who should be a first day pick in 2006 and finally Nick Petrecki, a defenseman who plays in the EJHL and who should be a first round pick in 2007. Our lines are going to be like this: M.Safwat-Mueller-G.Safwat
Kane-O’Brien-Geoffrion Popko-Carman-Atkinson Squires-Sweat-Okposo Johnson-Cole Sanguineti-Petrecki Ratchuk-McBain Strait-Montgomery Palmer Bennett Germany didn’t offer much opposition as we beat them 4-1, with goals being scored by Carman, Popko, Okposo and I while forward André Huebscher was the only scorer for the Germans. In other games that day, Canada beat Slovakia 5-3, Russia beat Czech-Republic 2-1 and Sweden beat Norway 6-2. We had a day off on Tuesday, but in other games Belarus beat Germany 4-2 and Finland beat Norway 6-4. On Wednesday, we faced the Czechs in what promised to be a tough game against players like forward Michael Frolik, a possible first overall pick for 2006, winger Jan Krupka who’s considered a front runner for top 5 in 2007 and Martin Herman who could also be a top 5 pick in 2007. They also had excellent goaltender Martin Vlasak who could very well be a top 50 pick in the 2006 draft. They showed they were the better team as they beat us 4-2, Frolik with two goals in his team’s win. Geoffrion and Kane had our goals in this loss. In other games, Slovakia beat Sweden 4-3, Belarus surprised Russia to come out with a 4-4 tie and Canada beat Sweden 6-3. We had another day off on Thursday, in other games Russia beat Germany 4-2 and Canada beat Norway 6-1. On Friday was what promised to be the easiest game of the tournament, at least before it began. Belarus really looked good so far in the tourney as they were undefeated so far. It looks like we really didn’t want to lose that one as we came out strong beating them 8-2 with Bennett as our goaltender. Popko, Johnson, Kane (2), Geoffrion (2), O’Brien and Mueller scored our goals. Marshall and I both had two assists. In other games that day, Slovakia beat Norway 9-3, Czech Republic beat Germany 2-1 and Finland beat Sweden 4-3. On Saturday, as the last preliminary matchup, we were going to play Russia. Russia, like the Czechs, was an extremely talented team with guys like winger Andrei Kuznetsov who could very well be the first overall pick in 2007, defenseman Sergei Frolov, winger Denis Kuznetsov (No link to Andrei) and center Aleksei Mikov who should be all be top 15 picks in 2007. There are also defensemen Ivan Vishnevsky who could be a top 10 pick in 2006 and Sergei Smirnov who should be a 1st round pick as well as forward Alexander Vasyunov who should also be a 1st round pick. Well their team really played well and, with the help of goaltender Semyon Varlamov, who was a year ago considered as a possible first round pick and since he moved over to play with Kootenay he dropped miserably because he played as a backup and should now be a late round pick in 2006, they beat us 3-1. I scored our only goals while Kuznetsov scored two goals for Russia with Vasyunov getting the other one. In other games that day, Finland beat Slovakia 5-1, Czech Republic beat Belarus 4-0 and Sweden surprised Canada 4-3. The preliminary round standings were done and future matchups were now set. Code:
So this will go on like this: We will play Finland in the Quarter-Finals while Czech-Republic would play Sweden. Canada and Russia will have a bye to the semi-finals. Belarus, Germany, Slovakia and Norway will have to fight in the relegation round; two of those will be relegated. After a day off on Sunday, we were now playing Finland in the Quarter-Finals in what could be our last game before heading to North Dakota to play in the NCAA. We wanted to win this one because we wanted to finish our USNDP career with a U18 Championship gold medal win, and so far we had been pretty poor in this tournament. They didn’t have that strong of a squad, they were lead by big power forward Joonas Kemppainen who, even with his dismal skating, should be a top 50 pick in 2006, huge goaltender Niko Hovinen who has a lot of talent but who has been bugged by injuries so far in his career, but he could be a top 50 pick in 2006 too and defenseman Jesse Jyrkkiö who should be a first day pick in 2007. Michael Carman scored the only goal with a high shot in the middle of the first period. In the second, goals by Joonas Kemppainen and Max Wärn gave Finland a 2-1 lead with twenty minutes left to play. We knew what we had to do in the third period to win, and we were pumped up coming back on the ice for the third period. Four minutes into the period, Matti Nykänen deflected a shot by Jyrkkiö past Palmer to give Finland a 3-1 lead. That pumped us even more and two minutes later, following a great pass by Marshall, I released a wrister top shelf to give cut the lead. Then, ten minutes into the period, Peter Mueller broke away and deked the goaltender to tie the game at 3. The game was still tied with less than two minutes to go when finnish winger Matti Ahonen scored with a wrist shot from the face-off circle. With 1:32 to go, we were trailing by one goal. Palmer was pulled and with Marshall, Peter, Erik, Ian, Patrick and I on the ice, we were gonna do everything to tie the game. The time passed by so quickly… we had our final chance with 3 seconds to go, Peter passed the puck to Marshall who, from the face-off circle, released what was going to be the final shot of the period. Hovinen blocked it easily with his left pad… we were eliminated and finished 5th. This was the last game with these guys, and we were just not good enough to win. Canada came out as the winner of tournament with a 5-2 win over Russia. The all-star team of the tournament and scoring leaders were like this: McGinn (CAN) – Maxwell (CAN) – Frolik (CZE)
Vishnevsky (RUS) – Shutron (CAN) Bruneau (CAN) Code:
Hockey World: Update #2 should be posted on Wednesday September 21st. |
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09-21-2005, 10:21 AM
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#22 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Hockey World: Update #2
Hey guys, it’s Marshall. Great to talk to you again with this second update of the hockey world! I’m going to talk to you about what happened in 2005-2006 in hockey! I hope you guys don’t mind, but to make my job easier I’m going to use the same format as last year with the new infos. It was another tough season as a Sabres fan as the team was just slightly better than last year, finishing 14th in the conference with 27 wins and 65 points. The team’s performance was not what people looked at though, as the team’s biggest attraction was new star Sidney Crosby. And man, he was impressive! He scored 27 goals and added 36 assists for 63 points in 73 games, playing with Thomas Vanek and Ales Kotalik. The Devils were again the best team in the regular season, but the Boston Bruins, who had finished 8th in the eastern conference with 34 wins and 85 points, eliminated them in the first round in 5 games. It was only the start of a great playoff run for Boston who then beat Ottawa, Philadelphia and Calgary, each of them in 5 games, to win their first Stanley Cup since 1972! The Bruins’ Captain Joe Thornton, who won his first cup, was also named MVP for the playoffs and won the Conn Smythe trophy. The NHL awards ceremony went like this: Markus Näslund (VAN) won the Art Ross trophy after getting 47 goals and 56 assists for 103 points as leading scorer of the league. Ilya Kovalchuk (ATL) passed him though for the Hart trophy as MVP, as his 50 goals and 99 points were enough to lead the Thrashers to their first playoffs in the team’s history, he also won the Rocket Richard trophy. Joe Thornton (BOS) won the Lester B. Pearson trophy as MVP as voted by the players. Chris Pronger (STL) won the Norris trophy for best defenseman following one of the most impressive seasons for a defenseman in the NHL’s new era, getting 8 goals and 79 assists for 87 points. Playing on one of the best teams in the NHL gave Patrick Lalime (STL) a great chance at the Vezina trophy for best goaltender, which he won following a season of 48 wins with a 2.21GAA, a .926SAV% and 7SO. As expected, Sidney Crosby (BUF) won the Calder trophy for best rookie in the league with his 63 points season. Among other awards, Michael Peca (ANA) won the Selke trophy, Robyn Regehr (CGY) won the Masterton trophy, Coach Ken Hitchcock (PHI) won the Adams trophy, Robbie Schremp (EDM) won the King Clancy trophy and Ilya Kovalchuk (ATL) won the Lady Byng trophy. The First All-Star team, Second All-Star team and All-Rookie team consisted of: Morrison (VAN) – Lecavalier (TB) – Näslund (VAN)
Pronger (STL) – Rafalski (NJ) Lalime (STL) Kovalchuk (ATL) – Comrie (PHO) – O’Neill (DET) Ohlund (VAN) – Niedermayer (DET) Khabibulin (LA) Jokinen (CBJ) – Crosby (BUF) – Balastik (CBJ) Phaneuf (CAR) – Coburn (ANA) Lundqvist (NYR) In other leagues, Lewiston were the QMJHL champions, Brampton were the OHL champions and Calgary the WHL champions as they were going to face each other as well as hosts the Moncton Wildcats in the Memorial Cup. Brampton won it against Calgary as both QMJHL teams were eliminated before the finals. The Rochester Americans beat the Portland Pirates for a second year in a row to be named AHL champions. Canada won another Olympics gold medal by beating Czech Republic 4-3 in the finals. Sweden beat the USA 3-1 to win the bronze medals. In the oddest WJC ever, Kazakhstan and Slovenia were both part of the semi-finals! Slovenia even beat Russia to win the gold medal while Canada had no problems to win the bronze medal against Kazakhstan. As usually, we watched the draft with our dad. This year, a few of our teammates who were rated as players who had a chance to be drafted: Brian Strait might have a chance to be a late-round pick, Michael Ratchuk was rated as a soon-second-day pick, Joe Palmer was another player with a chance to be a late-round pick, Kyle Okposo, with whom we played in the U18 Championship, could be a first day pick, Bobby Sanguinetti, another of our U18 teammates, could be a late-first round pick or soon-second round pick, our linemate Peter Mueller had a chance to be a top 10 pick, James Marcou could be a soon-second-day pick, Erik Johnson was considered as a possible mid-to-late first round pick, Blake Geoffrion could be a late-first or second round pick, Michael Carman could be a late-round pick and finally Chris Atkinson should be a soon-second-day pick. Anyway, here’s the list of first round picks, Buffalo Sabres’ pick and those I listed earlier who were drafted. 1- Nashville Predators – Michael Frolik – RW 2- Chicago Blackhawks – Phil Kessel – C/RW 3- San Jose Sharks – Bryan Little – C 4- Minnesota Wild – Jamie McGinn – LW 5- Toronto Maple Leafs – Peter Mueller – C/LW 6- Buffalo Sabres – Ben Maxwell – C 7- Washington Capitals – Jesse Joensuu – LW 8- Edmonton Oilers – Jonas Endlund – LW 9- Carolina Hurricanes – Rastislav Dej – RW 10- Columbus Blue Jackets – Ivan Vishnevsky – RD/LD 11- Anaheim Mighty Ducks – Ben Shutron – RD 12- New York Islanders – Nick Foligno – C/LW 13- New York Rangers – Riley Holzapfel – C 14- Florida Panthers – James Sheppard – LW 15- Dallas Stars – Cory Emmerton – LW/C 16- Los Angeles Kings – Sergei Smirnov – RD 17- Atlanta Thrashers – Logan Pyett – RD 18- Philadelphia Flyers – Kael Mouillierat – LW/RD 19- Montreal Canadiens – John Armstrong – C/RW 20- Calgary Flames – Nathan Martine – LD 21- Colorado Avalanche – Erik Johnson – RD/LD 22- Pittsburgh Penguins – Jordan Staal – C/LW 23- Detroit Red Wings – Steve Spade – LD/RD 24- Phoenix Coyotes – Bobby Sanguinetti – RD 25- Vancouver Canucks – Aleksandr Vasyunov – RW 26- Tampa Bay Lightning – Brady Calla – RW/LW 27- Ottawa Senators – Andrei Popov – RW 28- New Jersey Devils – Keegan Dansereau – RW 29- St. Louis Blues – Niklas Bäckström – C 30- Boston Bruins – Anton Prigaro – RD/LD 32- Columbus Blue Jackets – Blake Geoffrion – LW/RW 35- Buffalo Sabres – Dustin Jeffrey – C 51- Buffalo Sabres – David Kveton – RW/C 68- Ottawa Senators – Kyle Okposo – RW/C 71- Buffalo Sabres – Ian Duval – C 76- Buffalo Sabres - Matt Beleskey – LW 92- Buffalo Sabres – Jaroslav Hmrsky – LW/RW 94- Toronto Maple Leafs – James Marcou – LW/RW 95- Buffalo Sabres – Tom Pyatt – C 106- Los Angeles Kings – Michael Ratchuk – LD//RD 111- Vancouver Canucks – Chris Atkinson – RW/C 118- Buffalo Sabres – Tomas Magusin – LD 125- Buffalo Sabres – Anssi Tieranta – RD 155- Buffalo Sabres – Peter Freiberg – RW 174- Phoenix Coyotes – Joe Palmer – G 185- Buffalo Sabres – Trevor Glass - RD 189- Boston Bruins – Brian Strait – LD 215- Buffalo Sabres – Tim Filangieri – LD/RD 245- Buffalo Sabres – Aleksei Petushkov – LD/RD UND- Michael Carman In the QMJHL, the Drummondville Voltigeurs drafted Christophe Trottier first overall. Damien Currie was the second overall pick by Gatineau and Sean Olson was drafted third overall by Baie-Comeau. In the OHL, the Belleville Bulls drafted goaltender Andrew Hayward first overall. Bill Paris was the second overall pick by Guelph and John Tavares was drafted third overall by Erie. In the WHL, the Swift Current Broncos drafted Craig Morgan first overall. Josh Crawford was the second overall pick by Seattle and Bryan Ramsay was drafted third overall by Moose-Jaw. Projected first overall pick in the 2007 NHL entry draft Andrei Kuznetsov was drafted first in the CHL import draft and is expected to come over to play for the Belleville Bulls. Drafted second overall by Gatineau, Denis Kuznetsov will probably rather play for Western Michigan in the NCAA. Aleksei Kozhevnikov was drafted third overall by Swift Current. And that’s it for 2005-2006. We’re moving in to North-Dakota soon enough and we’re going to be available for the 2007 NHL entry draft so this should be a great season! I'm already waiting for your predictions as to when and by whom we'll be drafted. Chapter 11: Moving in to Grand-Forks should be posted on Sunday September 25th. |
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09-25-2005, 03:23 PM
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#23 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 11: Moving in to Grand Forks
The first things we wanted to do when we moved in to North Dakota was see the Ralph Engelstad Arena, which we hadn’t visited yet. We had heard it was, despite only having 11,500 seated places, one of the most impressive hockey facilities in the world. When we arrived at the arena, we met with Coach Dave Hakstol. He was great to us and made us a quick visit of the place. He explained that the organisation will be fighting for the championship as soon as this year and they expect us to contribute even if we’re only freshmen. “We have an excellent team this year, and that’s why you guys will have to play a role as, I won’t hide it, you’ve got tons of talents and if we want to go far, you’re gonna have to produce. Now I know it puts a lot of pressure on you guys to hear this the first time we meet and before the season has even started, but following Denver’s three consecutive championships, I think we deserve entirely our chance and that’s why both of you are gonna be key parts on our team.” “Don’t worry coach; you can expect us to give everything we can on every shift.” “Great to hear! I recommend you to meet Jared Nessland immediately, he’s the strength and conditioning coach and I think you’re gonna have to work with him a lot this year as you’re both pretty small and skinny; you’re gonna have to work hard in the gym.” “We'll do that; but it’s on the ice that we’re going to help you.” said Marshall. “We’re gonna work hard in the gym, but we’re not the kind of players who’s going to be a physical force out there.” “That’s true, but I want you guys to get stronger cause it’s different at every level, you’re gonna be in big trouble if you don’t get stronger.” Coach Hakstol was right. If we didn’t get stronger, we were going to get beat up at every level we play. I was now 5’9/167 while Marshall was 5’8/163. Training camp started on September 12th, we had three weeks before the only exhibition game on October 2nd against Alberta. On October 1st, the preliminary CSS rankings were released. Like usually, their preliminary rankings were separated by leagues (top 5 players and top goalie for North-America, top 3 and top goalie for Europe). Since it’s our draft year, I thought I might as well give it to you: Code:
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Players on the team were really talented. The lines for the first exhibition games looked as follows: Kozek-Toews-Vandevelde M.Safwat-Oshie-G.Safwat Cohen-Longo-Sprague Watkins-Green-Miller Chorney-Lee Jones-Termisi Mitchell-Murray Patterson Boomer We played with TJ Oshie, another freshman whom, at 19 years old, was undrafted. Kozek was the captain of the team with Jones and Vandevelde as his assistants. We won this exhibition game 3-1 with goals from Sprague, Kozek and Oshie. I got an assist in the win; Patterson blocked 10 of the 11 shots against him while Boomer (who replaced him midway through the game) blocked all 8 shots against. It was now October 6th and we were in Colorado Springs to play Colorado College. This was our first NCAA game, representing the North Dakota Fighting Sioux! During camp, we had befriended with Oshie and Patterson and, as the only one who had already played an NCAA game before, Patterson told us not to worry and just play hard. The puck dropped and the season had started. Chapter 12: World Junior Championships! should be posted on Wednesday September 28th. |
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09-28-2005, 10:36 AM
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#24 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 12: World Junior Championships!
The game wasn’t as tough as we expected it to be. We played a great game on our way to a 3-2 win, Marshall scored a goal and I scored two; pretty good for our NCAA debuts! It was the start we wanted, the ice was now broken. We lost 4-1 the next day against the same team. We then beat Michigan Tech twice, 3-2 and 4-1. Following a 3-1 loss to Northeastern, we came back strong with an 8-3 win including a 3 goals and 2 assists performance by Marshall. I had 4 assists in that game. We then separated games against Michigan Tech, they beat us 4-1 before we beat them 4-2. Harvard did the same thing, beating us 3-1 before we beat them 5-1. We then lost to Minnesota 3-2 before tying 2-2. We then beat Bemidji State and Minnesota State twice each by scores of 4-1, 4-1, 3-1 and 4-0. We then lost 4-1 to Wisconsin before tying 3-3. In games against Alaska-Anchorage, we beat them twice 4-0 and 5-1. I decided not to talk about it earlier, but both Marshall and I were named to the US U20 team who was going to play in the World Junior Championships in Norway. We are going to be a part of Group A with Canada, Russia, Slovenia and Hungary; a pretty strong group with only three teams advancing. The lines for the tournament were as follows: Stoa-Gerbe-Geoffrion
M.Safwat-Mueller-G.Safwat Turek-Foligno-Collins Lynes-O’Connor-Mannino Spade-J.Johnson Jones-Lee Cullity-E.Johnson Kunes-Sauer Frazee Conway We were reunited with Peter Mueller, and we could really dream of a great tournament. It was going to start pretty tough; the first game was going to be played on December 27th against team Canada. We played pretty well as Marshall and I both scored a goal, as well as Collins, Lee, Foligno and Geoffrion in a 6-3 win. We also won the second game against team Russia. Marshall, Collins, Stoa, O’Connor and Turek scored in this 5-3 win. We continued our great tournament in the next game with a 4-3 win over Slovenia as Foligno, Lee, Cullity and Mannino scored. We then completed the preliminary round with a 5-1 win over a weak Hungary team. Collins had a hat-trick and both Erik and Jack Johnson scored in the game. Group Preliminary A R Team GP W L T PTS 1 SWE 4 3 0 1 7 2 SVK 4 3 0 1 7 3 KAZ 4 2 2 0 4 4 GER 4 1 3 0 2 5 CZE 4 0 4 0 0 Group Preliminary B R Team GP W L T PTS 1 USA 4 4 0 0 8 2 CAN 4 3 1 0 6 3 RUS 4 2 2 0 4 4 SVN 4 0 3 1 1 5 HUN 4 0 3 1 1 So we finished first in the group and had a bye for the semi-finals. Sweden also had a bye to the semi-finals. Canada was going to face Kazakhstan in the quarter finals while Russia was going to face Slovakia. Canada beat Kazakhstan and Russia beat Slovakia, so the semi-finals games were going to be Canada-USA and Russia-Sweden. We were pretty nervous before the game, a Canada-USA game is always intense and the WJC championship is among the most important international tournaments! Before the game, our captain Jack Johnson let out a few words but I was a bit too nervous to listen. I only heard things like: “For the flag, nation, patriots, must win, could even die on the ice…” Canada took the lead three minutes into the game with a goal by Jamie McGinn. We tied it with less than five minutes to go with a PP goal by Luke Lynes. The period finished with a 1-1 tie. In the second, Canada had the only goal as Bryan Little scored on a breakaway. The third period was almost over when Dustin Kohn took a penalty for team Canada. We took the chance to pull our goalie and Marshall was able to score to tie the game at 2! Thirteen minutes into the first overtime, a low shot by Ben Maxwell took Jeff Frazee off guard… I couldn’t believe we had lost on such a play. The next day, we came out and destroyed team Sweden to win the bronze medal by a score of 7-1. This was a bit of a consolation, although we still considered it as a loss. Canada won the gold medal against Russia. Here are the tournament’s top scorers and first all-star team: M.Safwat (USA) – Litte (CAN) – Mouillierat (CAN)
Parent (CAN) – Taranov (RUS) Plante (CAN) Code:
Chapter 13: Playoffs should be posted on Sunday October 2nd |
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10-02-2005, 10:59 AM
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#25 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 13: Playoffs
We missed four games while we were away; those were a 2-2 tie followed by a 3-2 loss against Denver and 4-1 and 5-2 wins against St. Cloud State. To finish the season, we 14 games left and we did well enough for fourth place in the WCHA: 4-2 win followed by a 4-3 loss to St. Cloud State, 4-3 win followed by a 4-3 loss to Minnesota Duluth, 2-0 and 1-1 against New-Hampshire, 2-1 and 3-2 losses against Minnesota, 3-0 and 3-1 wins against Colgate, 3-2 win and 3-3 tie at Denver and finally a 3-2 loss and a 3-0 win against Minnesota Duluth. Our final record was 21-12-5, including 14-10-4 against divisional rivals. Code:
We were now a part of the WCHA playoffs and we had to play in a best-of-3 against Minnesota-Duluth who had finished 7th in the WCHA standings. In other series, Minnesota was going to face St. Cloud State, Denver was going to face Alaska-Anchorage, Wisconsin was going to play against Western Michigan and Michigan Tech was going to fight with Colorado College. The winners of all these series were going to play in the WCHA Final Five from March 15th to March 17th 2005. The year had gone by pretty fast too, Marshall and I had a great adaptation to NCAA hockey and we led the team in scoring as freshmen! Here’s what the top 5 looked like: NAME GP G A PTS Safwat, Marshall 34 18 22 40 Safwat, Garrett 34 15 16 31 Oshie, T.J. 38 13 17 30 Toews, Jonathan 38 11 18 29 Koze, Andrew 38 10 14 2 Meanwhile, the mid-term CSS Rankings had come out. The top 10s for the North-American and European skater lists as well as the top 3 for the North-American and European goalies lists looked like this: Code:
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So these were Central Scourting Service’s rankings, and we had fallen behind James O’Brien in their opinion, but that was no problem to us as these rankings had little-to-no importance. The series against Minnesota Duluth started on March 9th. In the first game, after leading 1-0 (A goal by Kozek) for most of the game, Minnesota Duluth scored two quick goals in late third period to give his team the win and a 1-0 lead in the series. In the second game, which we couldn’t lose as we faced elimination, we won 5-4 in a close contest. Marshall and I both had two goals while T.J. had the other one; a five points night for Marshall, three points for myself. In the third and final game, we took an early 3-0 lead in the first period with goals by Lee, Cullity and Toews. In the second period, Mason Raymond scored twice for Minnesota Duluth to cut the lead to one goal. Then, in the third period, the unthinkable happened… Scott Birnstill tied the game before Mason Raymond completed his hat-trick with a game-winner with less than four minutes to go. We loss the series and were eliminated from the WCHA playoffs before the Final Five… a pretty bad result! Even with this loss, we had were a part of the NCAA tournament for the road to the Frozen Four, which was going to be held in St. Louis, Missouri. Here’s how the bracket for the tournament looked like: Northeast Boston College vs. Michigan Tech Ohio State vs. New Hampshire East Michigan vs. Boston University North Dakota vs. Harvard Midwest Minnesota vs. Mercyhust Michigan State vs. Colorado College West Denver vs. Bemidji State Wisconsin vs. Bowling Green So our game was against Harvard, they didn’t have such a strong team, certainly not among the top of these in the tournament. The game started, and we immediately saw how determined they were with this game; they played with much more emotion and they battled harder. Both teams played well though and the game was still scoreless after one period. In the second period, Michael Montgomery scored to give Harvard a 1-0 lead, but less than a minute later, Zach Jones tied the game at 1. While the period had almost ended, Andrew Kozek scored to give us a 2-1 lead with twenty minutes to go. No goals were scored in the third period as we eliminated Harvard to advance to the East Divisional finals! In other games, Boston College, New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado College, Denver and Wisconsin won. The divisional finals would be as follows: Boston College vs. New Hampshire North Dakota vs. Michigan Minnesota vs. Colorado College Denver vs. Wisconsin Michigan had a much stronger team than Harvard and we entered the game as underdogs. The game started, and Marshall scored twice in the first period as we took a 2-1 lead after twenty minutes. No goals were scored in the second period and we started the third with that lead. Jason Bailey scored six minutes into the third period to tie the game at 2 and this was still the score at the end of the period, we were going to overtime! At thirteen minutes into the overtime, with our line on the ice, Zac MacVoy intercepted a pass by T.J. Oshie and left on a three-on-one with only Brian Lee back. Lee did a great play to block the pass and Marshall took the puck, he passed it in my direction and it was now a 4-on-1 for us! While coming into the offensive zone, I passed the puck to Marshall who let it back to Chorney who released a slap shot who passed in the five hole of the goalie! We had won and were going to play in the Frozen Four in St. Louis! Boston College, Minnesota and Denver were the other teams who were going to be a part of the Frozen Four. During the week before the frozen four, it was announced that Boston University forward Mike Williams was the winner of the Hobey Baker awards as MVP of the NCAA. The freshman of the Year title went, without much surprise, to Marshall, who even was a finalist for the Hobey Baker as a freshman. I was proud for him, it’s a great award to receive and we were both really happy. The first semi-final of the frozen four was the one between Minnesota and Boston College. Boston College were able to play hard enough to get the win in front of the tournament’s favourites as they beat the Gophers 3-1. Now it was time for our own semi-final. Oshie scored the first goal of the game but Ian Boots was quick enough to tie the game at 1 before the end of the first period. We scored twice in the second period to take a two goals lead; Lee and Sprague had scored. Then, in the third period, Denver scored thirty seconds in to cut the lead, they scored again three minutes later as they tied the game at three. Less than a minute later, Marshall scored to give us a one goal lead again. We scored again to make it 5-3 with a goal by Cullity, but Denver replied immediately. With less than a minute left and a one goal lead, Denver pulled their goalie for an extra player, and it worked; Dan Baco scored to tie the game at 5 and bring us to overtime. With a bit more than one minute to go into the first overtime, Ian Boots went on a breakaway. He arrived in front of Patterson, deked him and the puck slid into the net; Denver had come back twice to finally get the win in OT. We were eliminated. Denver won the Frozen Four two days later, on April 7th for the fourth time in a row.  Chapter 14th: NHL Entry Draft should be posted on Wednesday October 5th. |
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10-02-2005, 02:11 PM
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#26 |
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n00b
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Oh they both get drafted by the sabers play on a line with crosby woohoo.
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10-05-2005, 11:09 AM
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#27 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Aug 2005
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Chapter 14: NHL Entry Draft
We’re Friday June 1st, and we’re going to travel to Toronto tomorrow for the annual NHL Entry Draft combine. This will be interesting as we’re going to have tests in the morning followed by interviews; I can’t wait. CSS’s final rankings have me at #5 and Marshall at #7 North-American Skaters. According to ISS though, I’m 5th overall and Marshall’s 10th overall. These lists will all prove useless though on June 23rd on NHL Draft day. As usually, the physical tests were pretty tough. The importance is how hard you work, not how well you perform and that’s why I think we both should come out without hurting our stock. They measured us too; I’m now at 5’10/171 and Marshall’s at 5’8/165. People are now able to difference us as they know I’m a bit bigger than Marshall. It’s difficult to know how well the interview went, but I think it was pretty good. I was interviewed by 21 teams, Marshall by 23. Every teams asked what I’d think about a team trading up to get both of us; pretty difficult to answer. We both answered almost the same thing: “Well, it would certainly be great as we’ve always played together and our chemistry is awesome; and it would certainly be odd not to be together, but I don’t think it’s something that important. I’m gonna be glad whatever team I go to.” We’ve been invited to the prospect showdown on June 22nd as some of the top prospects will be shown to the media. It will be great to meet guys like Kuznetsov, Hamill, Biega and Bruneau for the first time and to reunite with guys like Ian Cole and James O’Brien who were also invited. The showdown was a lot of fun, but we’re starting to get a bit anxious at the draft; I don’t know if we’re going to sleep well tonight. Mom and Dad should come to see the draft tomorrow, it starts at 12:00ET. Well I didn’t get much sleep, I don’t know how Marshall did it, but he fell asleep as soon as he touched his bed… Now it’s 7:00am and time is passing by too slowly. We’re leaving for the arena at 9:00 and from then on it’s going to be the longest time of our life. We agreed to be happy with whoever is picked first, and I think it’s what we needed to do. Anyway, it’s now 11:55ET and in five minutes, commissioner Gary Bettman will come on the stage to tell the draft is started. I’m currently looking at the top 15: 1. Toronto Maple Leafs 2. San Jose Sharks 3. Buffalo Sabres 4. Carolina Hurricanes 5. Columbus Blue Jackets 6. New York Islanders 7. Nashville Predators 8. Minnesota Wild 9. Chicago Blackhawks 10. Dallas Stars 11. Atlanta Thrashers 12. Anaheim Mighty Ducks 13. Washington Capitals 14. Florida Panthers 15. Edmonton Oilers Let’s hope we’re both drafted in the top 15, it wouldn’t be that bad but for the moment I’d be sad to fall further. Bettman comes on the stage: “Hi and welcome to Atlanta for the 2007 NHL Entry Draft. First, I’d like to thank the city of Atlanta for their hospitality and their great organisation for this special event in the life of these young hockey players. I’d like to congratulate the Detroit Red Wings for their Stanley Cup win and the Tampa Bay Lightning for their awesome playoff run. Before we start, I have a trade to announce. The Islanders trade Mattias Weinhandl to the Phoenix Coyotes for the rights to Evgeny Nikolayev, Joseph Palmer and a 2nd round pick, 54th overall. Toronto is up, go ahead and make your pick.” “With the first overall pick in the 2007 National Hockey League Entry Draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs are proud to select; from the Ontario Hockey League Belleville Bulls, Andrei Kusznetsov!” We then hear a voice say: “Toronto selects Andrei Kuznetsov, San Jose is on the clock.” After the pick, Kuznetsov goes on the podium to shake hands with the GMs, Scouts and Owners and to put the jersey and then San Jose’s GM comes on the stage. “The San Jose Sharks would like to thank the city of Atlanta for their great hospitality. We’d like to congratulate the Detroit Red Wings for their Stanley Cup win. With the second overall pick, the San Jose Sharks select, from the University of North-Dakota, Garrett Safwat!!” I didn’t realise it at first; I never expected to be drafted so soon. I think Marshall was even happier than me. He jumped and hugged me, and shaked my hand. Mom was crying, Dad was screaming “That’s my son!” I went on the podium, shook hands with GM Marty Raymond, Assistant GM Marty McSorley and Head Scout Pat Funk. I couldn’t get that big silly smile off my face. The jersey looked great! “San Jose selects Garret Safwat, Buffalo is on the clock.” “The Buffalo Sabres select James O'Brien” I was meeting the Sharks staff when I heard it and I apologized to applause, explaining that he was my teammate for two years and that I wanted to congratulate him. They all laughed, they seemed as happy as I did! While O’Brien was on the stage putting on my favourite team’s jersey, the Sharks coach Ron Smith came to me and said: “I’m glad to meet you kid, I’ve heard about you all season long! I know what you’re thinking, go ahead and get back to your brother. I know you want to see him get drafted so congratulate him when he does and comeback for all the post-draft stuff afterwards while he’s on the stage.” “Really? I can do that?” “Sure, I’m pretty sure that’s what you want, and I don’t see a problem with that.” “Thanks” I said while I was leaving While I was walking, I heard the next pick. “The Carolina Hurricanes are pleased to select, from the Vancouver Giants, Zach Hamill!” I met Zach while I was walking up to our place and I congratulated him with a tap on the shoulder and he smiled back. When I arrived at my place, my mother asked: “What are you doing here?” “They said I could come back to see where Marshall was going to be picked.” “They might want to trade to get Marshall and see how you guys react?” asked my dad “I don’t think so, how does that feel?” asked Marshall “Wait and see” “The Columbus Blue Jackets select Jan Krupka!” “It was great to see James be drafted to Buffalo” “Yeah, I have to admit it would have been great if it was me” “Yeah” I answered laughing “But don’t worry, I’m pretty sure you’ll love it wherever you go. “The New York Islanders would like to thank the city of Atlanta and its great hockey fans for their kindness. With the sixth overall pick, we are proud to select, from the Prince-Edward Island Rockets of the Quebec Junior Major Hockey League, Michael Biega!” After the traditional photo, Biega came off the stage and Nashville got ready for their pick: “Nashville selects Aleksandr Smirnov!” Then came Minnesota with the 8th overall pick. “The Minnesota Wild select, with the 8th pick in the 2007 draft, defenseman Martin Herman!” Marshall was starting to move a bit more, mostly by nervosity because he certainly wasn’t angry to still be on the board as he had already said he thought he would be picked in the 9th to 15th range, by either Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Anaheim, Washington, Florida or Edmonton. “The Chicago Blackhawks are proud to select, from Kazan, Russia, defenseman Sergei Frolov” Then came Dallas, Marshall had already said he'd love to one day play with Saku Koivu who was now the captain of the rebuilding Sabres. “The Dallas Stars select Logan Couture!” Then came the Atlanta Thrashers, Marshall had talked about how great it’d be to be drafted in the city that holds the draft and hear the fans cheer or boo the team’s pick. “The Atlanta Thrashers select Marshall Safwat! And the crowd seemed ecstatic; this was the greatest cheer so far in the draft. Marshall was really happy, he shook my hand, my mom was crying again and my dad was still overjoyed; I felt so proud! That was a great moment! When he arrived on the stage, I think the jersey fitted perfectly on Marshall! That was too good to be true. I said bye to my parents and I left for the Sharks’ draft table. The rest of the day was pretty filled: Interviews, photos, autographs, meetings… for how long the hours before the draft were, once I was drafted it was way too short. But at the end of the day, I think we both came out of there pretty well! It's a long way to the top - Player's Diary is suspended indefinitely. It might come back in the next few months; but there won't be any updates for the next few weeks. |
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10-07-2005, 02:47 PM
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#28 |
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n00b
Join Date: Jul 2005
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oh wow I didn't see that coming....anyways please continue this is looking so good.
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