UNH Hockey 2023 Off Season Thread Turn and Face the Strange

[Robert Balin]

Probably best to limit that trivia question about Cap Raider to once per year? But what I have found surprising is Casey DeSmith moving up quickly on the Cats’ all-time NHL games played by goalie Ty Conklin. CDS also leads NH-native UNH alums in NHL games played by a widening margin, 134 to Paul Thompson’s 24.

Speaking of Bow Lake, name the UNH alum from Melrose who played in the most NHL games.

Andy Brickley?

[Chuck Murray]

Speaking of Bow Lake, name the UNH alum from Melrose who played in the most NHL games.

"Most NHL games" as a UNH alum, or as a resident of Bow Lake and/or Melrose??? I'm confused.

Neither Dan Winnik nor Rod Langway were from OR currently reside in either place, barring recent developments?

Thinking maybe you got too strong a whiff from Blue Skies' deck stain while painting Coach's dock this weekend ...

[Chuck Murray]

La Liga Strangiato

With the memory of his trip to reclusive Bow Lake still etched in his memory, the troubled young coach couldn't quite move on from his mentor's tepid reception to some of his revolutionary new ideas. Sure, scheduling the defending national champs for a pair of early home games would be a no-brainer, considering his program's perennial status as "Champions of October". But breaking even, in a high-profile out of conference series, probably wasn't going to be enough to accomplish the earth-shattering impact. Heck, even a sweep would likely be forgotten by the time January arrived, and the formerly top-tier program would once again be struggling for air at the bottom of the Hockey East standings. The pressure was becoming suffocating, and occupying too many of Coach's waking moments, so when the going gets tough, the tough go ...

Recruiting, right? Ha, not even close. Besides, that was Stew's and Jules' department. In the dog days of June, with school out of session, and virtually all of hockey shut down for the Summer, it was time for Coach to join the missus and go ... shopping!! Yup, shopping ... and this time, not far from the eastern terminus of Route 4, the MS7 family wandered over to Greenland to check out the local Target department store ...

MS7: Hon, why are we going to this Target place, what's in here for me?!?
MS8: Oh, c'mon hon, you're telling me you've never ever been to a "Tar-JAY" before???
MS7: Uh ... nope. Do they sell hockey gear or fishing stuff? Y'know, guy stuff??
MS8: (giggling) Oh Mikey, you're SO adorable! Nope, no stinky jock straps or socks here ...

... but it was the offseason after all, so Coach just decided to go with the flow and hang with his better half. But after a solid 5 minutes of just gawking at what clothes the missus was scoping out for her summer adventures, he got distracted and slinked off to check out the turtlenecks which were out back near the corner of the store, near some bright colored advertising. Coach seemed almost magnetically drawn to the area, where his sense of curiosity and confusion was quickly noticed by a helpful sales associate, who sauntered over to help ...

PP: Bonjour, mon ami! Mais I be of assistance to you, my good man? You seem confused, n'est-ce pas?
MS7: (startled) ... uh, yeah, I think you can help me here. I'm looking for camping gear, and ...
PP: Je m'appelle Pierre - Pierre Puufster, at your service! You are looking for ... ???
MS7: I am looking for camping gear, outerwear, y'know ... looks like you folks have some interesting ...
PP: Is monsiuer looking for "outerwear" ... or for "outwear"??
MS7: I dunno - is there a difference??? I've never been to Tar-GAY before ...
PP: (giggling) ... ooh, Monsiuer, you make a Freudian slip there, no? You mean Tar-JAY ...
MS7: (confused) yeah, whatever they call your store. Anyway, I'm looking for thermal underwear ...
PP: Well, monsieur, you have come to the right place! How may I assist you in your fitting?
MS7: (blushing) I think I can handle that myself, sir. Anyway, what's up with THIS???
PP: You mean the new "tuck-friendly" feature, n'est-ce pas, monsieur??
MS7: What on God's green earth does that mean? What's it supposed to do??
PP: Well, monsieur, as you have asked, I will try to answer. So if you are a boy and you want to be a ...

Coach's jaw dropped as the sales associate walked him through the explanation, and his initial reaction was to walk away and pretend this had never happened. But after a couple of moments, and working through some thoughts that were beginning to take shape more vividly, the coach found a new sense of appreciation and urgency ...

MS7: Hmmm ... not that I'm personally interested in that feature, but it could come in handy for storage ...
PP: Whatever works for Monsieur, we aim to please. Would you like to make an order today?
MS7: How much inventory of that ... thermal underwear thingie do you have on hand? So to speak??
PP: Monsieur, there is no shortage of your item. Tar-JAY had been hoping to move a lot of these this month ...
MS7: ... well, it does seem a little early in the season for that stuff, but ...
PP: ... but we have to move the stock back here due to ... I think "blowback" is your word for this??
MS7: We'll need dozens of these, maybe a hundred? You got that here, or do you need to order??
PP: Monsieur, I can assure you, we have everything your little heart desires right here. Let me ring you up!

Thirty minutes later, after asking his sales associate to confirm inventory, and making shipping arrangements, Coach wandered around the store to catch up with his missus. Turns out that after an exchange of texts, the missus had wandered off to the nearby Lowe's to put together a list of honey-do tasks for Coach to conquer during his summer downtime ...

MS8: Jeez hon, where've you been? I never imagined you'd stay in Tar-JAY longer than me (giggling)!
MS7: Uh ... well, I found some camping gear out back. Needed to buy some camping gear, that's the ticket ...
MS8: Mikey ... I never knew you liked camping? When did that start?? We've been together a long time ...
MS7: It's not for us, hon ... err, it's for the kids ...
MS8: Our kids HATE camping ...
MS7: ... the kids in the program, hon. Aaahhh, it's for this new dry land training concept I came up with ...
MS8: Typical "Coach Mike" ... just can't unplug from the job, 24/7/365. Why not let Jules handle it instead?
MS7: Jules is recruiting up in Nunavut and Alaska, hon. He can't do it all. And they were running out ...
MS8: I wish your new boss could see you, working SO hard, she'd be SO proud ...
MS7: Let's leave the whole concept of "proud" alone, just for now, OK hon? Just give me the honey-do list ...

So with that, the couple left the site of the day's adventures, with Coach increasingly uneasy but committed to doing everything he needed to do to get his lingering program back to the top of the hockey universe. Two things were for sure ... it was gonna be a long summer, and a very interesting Fall when the kids returned to school ...

NEXT - WHO KNOW WHAT COMES NEXT IN LA LIGA STRANGIATO ...

[boblav1]

UNH Men's Hockey Announces 2023-24 Schedule (adobe.com)

[Snively65]

"Most NHL games" as a UNH alum, or as a resident of Bow Lake and/or Melrose??? I'm confused.

Neither Dan Winnik nor Rod Langway were from OR currently reside in either place, barring recent developments?

Thinking maybe you got too strong a whiff from Blue Skies' deck stain while painting Coach's dock this weekend ...

Yeah, not my best effort with the misplaced prepositional phrase ‘from Melrose,” which would have been better placed at the end of my sentence.

But, RB got my drift with Andy Brickley, who also ranks #11 in NHL games for UNH alums at 385, likely to be passed by Warren Foegele (349 NHL games) this coming season, perhaps more surprising to me than CDS in NHL success. Brickley is the only Melrosian in the top 31 UNH alums in NHL games played.


next question: Who is the UNH alum with the most NHL games that was not NHL-drafted?

[norbert]

I must say the UNH promo for the home schedule is something I’ve never seen before. I’m not even sure how to describe it. Maybe bizarre? Definitely a work of art. That’s it back into hiding.

[HockeyRef]

I must say the UNH promo for the home schedule is something I’ve never seen before. I’m not even sure how to describe it. Maybe bizarre? Definitely a work of art. That’s it back into hiding.

Just watched and loved it!!! Very cool

[norbert]

Just watched and loved it!!! Very cool

A guy riding a horse to start the schedule announcement? All I could think of was Putin that time riding a horse. At least emailed STHs with the news... ow wait yeah nevermind.

Apparently there is $6M in the budget to fix the seats at the Whit. Lipstick on a pig.....

[Chuck Murray]

I must say the UNH promo for the home schedule is something I’ve never seen before. I’m not even sure how to describe it. Maybe bizarre? Definitely a work of art. That’s it back into hiding.

Decidedly low tech, gave me flashbacks to the days of yore online when this would have been seen as cutting edge.

I will say, MS7 is doubling down on the whole "Champions of October" thingie, he could be "dead man walking" by Thanksgiving Day weekend if his guys don't get out of the blocks quickly. OR he could have an extension nailed down waiting for him under the Christmas tree? It promises to be a season like no other in recent UNH history, that's for sure.

Snives, I'll take a stab that the answer to your latest trivia question is Jason Krog?

[HockeyRef]

A guy riding a horse to start the schedule announcement? All I could think of was Putin that time riding a horse. At least emailed STHs with the news... ow wait yeah nevermind.

Apparently there is $6M in the budget to fix the seats at the Whit. Lipstick on a pig.....

Yeah lol...still was kind of original! Hey we got our schedule ahead of the plebes what more can ya ask for I mean....

[norbert]

Decidedly low tech, gave me flashbacks to the days of yore online when this would have been seen as cutting edge.

I will say, MS7 is doubling down on the whole "Champions of October" thingie, he could be "dead man walking" by Thanksgiving Day weekend if his guys don't get out of the blocks quickly. OR he could have an extension nailed down waiting for him under the Christmas tree? It promises to be a season like no other in recent UNH history, that's for sure.

Snives, I'll take a stab that the answer to your latest trivia question is Jason Krog?

So apparently the thing with the low rent video was that someone in the marketing department asked each of them to send in a clip to which they used for the promo. They are all back next week I would imagine there could be a better way to shoot a promo for this. A text driven email from an aol.com email address would have been a better presentation.

As for Snives trivia, I am going with 3 year starter, brother of #2 pick, and Stanley Cup Champion of my Blackhawks who will welcome Bedard on Wednesday to the family and say TVR.

[HockeyRef]

Decidedly low tech, gave me flashbacks to the days of yore online when this would have been seen as cutting edge.

I will say, MS7 is doubling down on the whole "Champions of October" thingie, he could be "dead man walking" by Thanksgiving Day weekend if his guys don't get out of the blocks quickly. OR he could have an extension nailed down waiting for him under the Christmas tree? It promises to be a season like no other in recent UNH history, that's for sure.

Snives, I'll take a stab that the answer to your latest trivia question is Jason Krog?

I got a kick out of it, to be honest, and thought it was a cool way to introduce the season...as for next season...from what I'm hearing? Short leash...very short.

[lindah]

To add to the discussion of UNH's NHLers...
Jamie Hislop 345g - Calgary
Bobby Gould 697g Calgary and Washington
Dave Lumley 437g and 2 Stanley Cup rings

[NCAA watcher]

I got a kick out of it, to be honest, and thought it was a cool way to introduce the season...as for next season...from what I'm hearing? Short leash...very short.

This was 400X more effort than I've ever seen from UNH, and in line with what other programs do. You can quibble with the execution (some coordinate the handoffs from one clip to another by a segue), but a pretty positive that they made far more effort than the usual press release.

(And where was that stunning green/blue mountain lake in the Nov. Northeastern announcement?) Alberta? Colorado?

[Darius]

Decidedly low tech, gave me flashbacks to the days of yore online when this would have been seen as cutting edge.

I will say, MS7 is doubling down on the whole "Champions of October" thingie, he could be "dead man walking" by Thanksgiving Day weekend if his guys don't get out of the blocks quickly. OR he could have an extension nailed down waiting for him under the Christmas tree? It promises to be a season like no other in recent UNH history, that's for sure.

Snives, I'll take a stab that the answer to your latest trivia question is Jason Krog?

Okay. Can hardly wait.