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Alaska 2021-22: Living the Dream…34 Game Non-Conf Schedule

mmf

mmf

Nanook Nation
Decent schedule all things considered. 14 home games and 20 away. A little short on home games but that’s just nit-picking. We have a schedule. We have Clarkson, UNO, RPI(4), St. Thomas, ASU, and LIU at home.

i-XGsdZNW-S.jpg

We have 18 underclassmen. But since we didn’t play last year, none of the 18 have played a college game. I think there are 20 that have never played in a Nook sweater. I have absolutely no idea how competitive we’ll be on the ice. We do know we’ll be a culturally diverse group with 14 non-North Americans. Starting goaltending should be pretty solid and our defense should be OK. Just no idea where scoring will come from. I guess some things never change.

The freshman and sophomores from the 2019-20 season did not showcase any prolific scorers. So I do not expect a lot of scoring from our upperclassmen. I hope I’m wrong and one or two can step up. Really looking at the sophomores to provide scoring, which is a heavy burden for a group who practiced together last year but have never played a college game.


i-tP3Wm4k-M.jpg

Even with all the challenges it’s great to have hockey back this season. Not sure how long we can hold on as an independent, but it won’t be for a lack of effort from the players, coaching staff and the hockey community. At least we get to ease into the season with a couple of road games at Minnesota. :)
 
mmf said:
Decent schedule all things considered. 14 home games and 20 away. A little short on home games but that’s just nit-picking. We have a schedule. We have Clarkson, UNO, RPI(4), St. Thomas, ASU, and LIU at home.

i-XGsdZNW-S.jpg

We have 18 underclassmen. But since we didn’t play last year, none of the 18 have played a college game. I think there are 20 that have never played in a Nook sweater. I have absolutely no idea how competitive we’ll be on the ice. We do know we’ll be a culturally diverse group with 14 non-North Americans. Starting goaltending should be pretty solid and our defense should be OK. Just no idea where scoring will come from. I guess some things never change.

The freshman and sophomores from the 2019-20 season did not showcase any prolific scorers. So I do not expect a lot of scoring from our upperclassmen. I hope I’m wrong and one or two can step up. Really looking at the sophomores to provide scoring, which is a heavy burden for a group who practiced together last year but have never played a college game.


i-tP3Wm4k-M.jpg

Even with all the challenges it’s great to have hockey back this season. Not sure how long we can hold on as an independent, but it won’t be for a lack of effort from the players, coaching staff and the hockey community. At least we get to ease into the season with a couple of road games at Minnesota. :)
Click to expand...

Excellent!
 
FAIRBANKS - The games between the Alaska Nanooks hockey program and the Big Ten's Minnesota Gophers have been postponed following COVID protocols.

The games were originally scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 2 at 11:30 a.m. AKT and Sunday, Oct. 3 at 1:00 p.m. AKT at 3M Arena at Mariucci. The teams have rescheduled the two games for the weekend of Jan. 14-15, 2022.
 
Well that quickly turned into 3 week January road trip:
31/1 at Denver
7/8 at Maine
14/15 at Gophers
 
mmf said:
FAIRBANKS - The games between the Alaska Nanooks hockey program and the Big Ten's Minnesota Gophers have been postponed following COVID protocols.

The games were originally scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 2 at 11:30 a.m. AKT and Sunday, Oct. 3 at 1:00 p.m. AKT at 3M Arena at Mariucci. The teams have rescheduled the two games for the weekend of Jan. 14-15, 2022.
Click to expand...

Had the team & staff already traveled to the Twin Cities?
 
LSSULaker889294 said:
I wonder what the Covid vaccination rate is for the Alaska hockey team?
Click to expand...

The policy is that all student athletes have to get vaccinated or have a valid waiver…but for some reason they have until Oct. 29[SUP]th[/SUP]. Right now it’s not required for coaches & staff. Hope that changes.

The AD says a “high percentage” of student athletes are vaccinated (but doesn’t give a %). UAF is never transparent about anything, but especially COVID issues. The U’s press release and even the local newspaper did not say which team had the COVID issue, if it was a player or coach, or if the games were cancelled before any travel took place. I believe if you are not vaccinated you must get tested before any travel. Or maybe that’s even if vaccinated. That’s probably where a positive test came back which postponed the games. Who knows.
 
I believe the Big Ten has tougher testing guidelines which the visiting team must follow. I heard BSU's Women's Coach talk about their trip to Ohio State last year and how the testing guidelines were so much stricter (when to test, how many times, etc.) leading up to the game.
 
Alaska Nanooks vs Clarkson Golden Knights
Friday and Saturday, Oct 8th & 9th

It’s been 580 days since the Nooks last played a game.
Good thing hard work is a character trait and not a skill set that gets rusty. Give it your all boys.

Go Nooks!
 
mmf said:
Alaska Nanooks vs Clarkson Golden Knights
Friday and Saturday, Oct 8th & 9th

It’s been 580 days since the Nooks last played a game.
Good thing hard work is a character trait and not a skill set that gets rusty. Give it your all boys.

Go Nooks!
Click to expand...

And the hard work was there. Very impressed by that Alaska team. Tough team. Having not played in so long and having a lot of new comers, they played great. Looking forward to tomorrow night.
 
CLKHockey said:
And the hard work was there. Very impressed by that Alaska team. Tough team. Having not played in so long and having a lot of new comers, they played great. Looking forward to tomorrow night.
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With some many new faces and having not played a game in 18 months, there weren’t a lot of high expectations coming in. We are just happy to be playing and to be in the Carlson Center to watch it. The fact that it was interesting right up to the end is a good sign in itself. We have a team that played hard tonight with a goalie that kept us in it for sure. We just need to find some offense and things could get fun. Hoping that we see some of that offense tomorrow night!
Go Nooks!
 
Alaska falls to Clarkson Friday night 1-2.
Thoughts on Friday’s game:
  1. I hardly recognized any name on the ice for the Nooks.
  2. Remembering it’s the first game of the season and the first game in 19 months, I was pleasantly surprised by team speed and puck pressure. Good forecheck and backcheck.
  3. Took too many penalties but really put a lot of pressure on the puck during the PK. Did not give Clarkson a lot of time or space.
  4. Team defense overall was pretty solid for the first game of a young and inexperienced squad. Gave up very few odd man rushes or second chances in the crease.
  5. Grigals played a good game, and the boys played well in front of him. The lopsided SOGs in this game do not tell much of a story. Taking 5 or 6 penalties plus a 5 min major kept us on our heels too much of the game.
  6. I thought we out-worked Clarkson 5x5, but I’m biased.
  7. We were not much of an offensive threat, but that will come. With all our penalties there was not a lot of flow to the game.
  8. We had 11 Fr., 6 So., and 3 Jr. skating tonight. Didn’t realize we have a bunch of players still sitting out waiting to clear COVID protocols. By my guess, we have 4 or 5 forwards and 1 dman that may have been in the lineup tonight had everyone been cleared to play. Just my guess.
Overall I was very encouraged by what I saw tonight. Not sure if kudos go to our two new assistant coaches, but our PK and overall team defense is a different style than we played in the past. A lot more puck pressure. Hope we can clean up a few things for tomorrow. I’m sure Clarkson will be a better team tomorrow also. Looking forward to Saturday night.

Go Nooks!
 
Alaska defeats Clarkson 2-1 Saturday night. SOGs 27-27.
Penalties: Clarkson 9-18, Alaska 6-12
PPG: Clarkson 0-6, Alaska 1-9

Alaska scores a SHG (Brady Risk) in the second and on a PP(Filip Svennson) in the third.
Clarkson scores on a 4x4 (Tsekos) with a extra attacker with 1:14 left in the game.

A lot of hustle out there by both squads, but again a pretty choppy game. Not a lot of quality offensive play on either side. Puck control ebbed and flowed between teams. Both goaltenders were solid.

The Nooks head to UNO next weekend, for the first series of a three week road trip: UNO, Clarkson, Cornell. Hope everyone is cleared to travel. Our roster could look a bit different.

Go Nooks!
 
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Was happy with the teams overall performance. Too many penalties but Clarksons short handed goal on Friday was the difference maker for sure. Was super nice to be back in the Carlson Center, seeing new and familiar faces all over!

Thanks to Clarkson for traveling here to play! Thanks to all the teams really for playing us this season, hope we have a new home soon though.
 
Alaska at UNO
Friday, Oct 15, 4:00pm ADST
Sunday, Oct 17, 1:00pm ADST

First meeting with our old CCHA foes since Oct 2016. Per UNO site:
Alaska holds the all-time advantage 23-17-11
Alaska also holds advantage in the last ten games 4-3-3

UNO is 3-1 so far this season, having split with Lake State and sweeping Maine
Alaska is 1-1, having split with Clarkson last weekend. Alaska’s first series in 580 days.

Alaska skated 11 Fr., 6 So., and 3 Jr. last weekend. A number of potential starters were not in the lineup. Not sure if it was because of COVID protocols or other reasons. But it's hard to criticize the play of anyone last weekend. Good job. This is the beginning of a 3 week road trip (UNO, Clarkson, Cornell) so we may have taken more players on the road than normal. It will be interesting to see today's lineup.

Go Nooks!
 
We battled hard tonight, came back to tie it and outskated Omaha in the third. Just couldn’t bury the chances. It was good to see some guys back this week, and Zohovs and Israels made a big difference in face-off wins. I’m starting to feel like we will be making things interesting this year. Especially if Grigals stays healthy. Hoping to see a win on Sunday!
 
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