All Things Denver, XXVIII

[Old Pio]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Murray had a just horrible series in his hometown of Anchorage. He got a a little better after that weekend (there was nowhere to go but up). That said, I have a feeling that Sam Brittian may edge out Murray by midseason as DU's go-to goalie. If either one can be a .910-.920 goalie, DU has a shot at hanging around with the big boys. If they are both .900 or under, it's going to be a long year for the Pios.

His performance that weekend was horrible, no doubt. But the circumstances were tough and besides, nobody in his position can be that bad. It was a bad weekend all 'round. I seem to recall getting b***h slapped by a prominent Alaska orthopod. So there's a lot to forget.

 

[vizoroo]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Today is 08/10/10.
There are 59 days until DU's next game.


This is based upon 8 October for the start of the regular season
53 days until the first exhibition.[/COLOR][/B]

 

[dggoddard]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

“He just makes players around him better. If you look at the lineup and you see Beau Bennett next to you, you have a chance to become a better player yourself. We as an organization are really excited to see him grow.” -Pittsburgh Penguins GM.

If I'm the Goal Czar, I want to play on Bennett's line. Sounds like they are describing Tyler Bozak.

Forwards
K. Ostrow (Sr) - Martin (Sr) - Maiani (Sr)
Salazar (Jr) - D. Shore (So) - Bennett (Fr)
Zucker (Fr) - N. Shore (Fr) - Jackson (rs-Jr)
S. Ostrow (So) / Knowlton (So) - Olszewski (Fr) - Dewhurst (Jr)
Mermis (Fr) / Jones (Fr)

Defensemen
Donovan (So) - Lee (Jr)
Nutini (Sr) - Makowski (Fr)
Phillips (So) - Wrenn (So)
Ryder (rs-Jr) / Brehm (Sr) / Cook (Sr)

Goaltenders
Brittain (Fr) / Murray (So) / Rosenholtz (Sr)​

 

[du78]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

My sleeper pick for this year is Shawn Ostrow. It will be almost 2 years since he injured his knee in Camrose when the season starts. He was an offensive force before getting injured his last year of juniors. He has a whole year under his belt at DU and should be 100% healthy.

If Salazar could become an offensive player this year like his Freshman year, that would be the icing on the cake.

 

[Pablo]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Bozak and Colborne together again? It may be far-fetched, but the author is speculating on possible Boston-Toronto trades:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/432038-nhl-trade-rumors-toronto-maple-leafs-boston-bruins#page/5

 

[Dmann]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Bozak and Colborne together again? It may be far-fetched, but the author is speculating on possible Boston-Toronto trades:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/432038-nhl-trade-rumors-toronto-maple-leafs-boston-bruins#page/5

Very cool! I'm loving all the preseason posts of late, I'm starting to get excited!! As usual, I'm in the optimistic camp. I believe all the other teams are reeling from graduation and pro attrition just like we are and we have a killer class coming in!!! We have so many forwards we could start another team!! We will be just fine and speaking of just fine, our defense looks tough and deep!! Viz, I'm loving the countdown, keep it up man!!!

 

[Old Pio]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Very cool! I'm loving all the preseason posts of late, I'm starting to get excited!! As usual, I'm in the optimistic camp. I believe all the other teams are reeling from graduation and pro attrition just like we are and we have a killer class coming in!!! We have so many forwards we could start another team!! We will be just fine and speaking of just fine, our defense looks tough and deep!! Viz, I'm loving the countdown, keep it up man!!!

Last year we were all excited about #8 and, in the end, were disappointed and frustrated. This year expectations are much lower and that means any success they have will be that much sweeter. I'm always optimistic. 'Course there was a time when I thought Ross Pritchard and Ron Oyer were doing a good job. So what the h**l do I know?

 

[vizoroo]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Last year we were all excited about #8 and, in the end, were disappointed and frustrated. This year expectations are much lower and that means any success they have will be that much sweeter. I'm always optimistic. 'Course there was a time when I thought Ross Pritchard and Ron Oyer were doing a good job. So what the h**l do I know?

And why would I know what job they weren't doing well

 

[vizoroo]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Very cool! I'm loving all the preseason posts of late, I'm starting to get excited!! As usual, I'm in the optimistic camp. I believe all the other teams are reeling from graduation and pro attrition just like we are and we have a killer class coming in!!! We have so many forwards we could start another team!! We will be just fine and speaking of just fine, our defense looks tough and deep!! Viz, I'm loving the countdown, keep it up man!!!

Thanks, Dmann. Now that we are within 60 days, it does seem the endless summer may actually end.

 

[du78]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Course there was a time when I thought Ross Pritchard and Ron Oyer were doing a good job. So what the h**l do I know?

I think I just threw up

 

[vizoroo]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Today is 08/11/10.
There are 58 days until DU's next game.


This is based upon 8 October for the start of the regular season
52 days until the first exhibition.

 

[dggoddard]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Bozak and Colborne together again? It may be far-fetched, but the author is speculating on possible Boston-Toronto trades:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/432038-nhl-trade-rumors-toronto-maple-leafs-boston-bruins#page/5

It would be deja vu if Boston traded Colborne. Very similar to the Skinner signing, where the Canucks were in a big hurry to bring him in, and then traded him in the off-season.

Colborne's body is still potentially five years away from being fully developed. Its not a slam on him, he's just has a very tall skinny frame. Boston might be only now figuring this out and they have a roster in place to win championships now.

 

[Puck Swami]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

It would be deja vu if Boston traded Colborne. Very similar to the Skinner signing, where the Canucks were in a big hurry to bring him in, and then traded him in the off-season.

Colborne's body is still potentially five years away from being fully developed. Its not a slam on him, he's just has a very tall skinny frame. Boston might be only now figuring this out and they have a roster in place to win championships now.

Colborne was always been seen as a "project" player who is probably still a year or two away from regular NHL duty and maybe 3-4 years away from being an impact player.

Skinner was traded by the Canucks to Anaheim at the trade deadline in his first AHL season with the Canucks AHL team, Manitoba, but was allowed to stay on loan to with the Moose until the end of the year. After a year in the Ducks' minor league system, Skinner was traded in the offseason to the Bruins, who held him in their minor league system for a year until he was traded to the Islanders, who did bring him up for 11 NHL games but later traded him to Atlanta who didn't re-sign him and he ended up with the Avs' AHL affiliate last year. He had a one year deal with Colorado that expired in July. I think he's now headed to Germany this year, realizing the NHL dream is fading and the money/lifestyle in Europe is more fun than another $60,000 year in the AHL.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

And why would I know what job they weren't doing well

Somebody else is gonna have to take this one. DU78, are you up to it?

 

[du78]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Somebody else is gonna have to take this one. DU78, are you up to it?

Pritchard almost put the school out of business and Oyer,a Syracuse football graduate, kept thinking he was going to bring back football. Nuff said. Although DU had a great hockey team my last year, there were always concerns about the cost of everything. How much were the sticks? Can we get another season out of the uniforms? What don't we need on the wish list? How do we keep the travel costs down? In the end the players never ran out of sticks and always had their equipment but it was always a battle.

Going into my last year, Marshall Johnston wanted to put in strength and agility stations (basically resistance stations) in a storage room behind the locker room. How did it get done? Marshall, some hockey staffers and some of the players built it during the summer. The walls were made by cutting up pieces of the old wood basketball floor and anchoring them into the floor. Carpet remnants were put on the floor and each agility station was anchored into the new walls. Voila, a new workout area for the players.

Compare that to the $6.3 million Pat Bowlen Training Center that opened this past year.

http://www.denverpioneers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=18600&ATCLID=204942367

 

[Old Pio]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Pritchard almost put the school out of business and Oyer,a Syracuse football graduate, kept thinking he was going to bring back football. Nuff said. Although DU had a great hockey team my last year, there were always concerns about the cost of everything. How much were the sticks? Can we get another season out of the uniforms? What don't we need on the wish list? How do we keep the travel costs down? In the end the players never ran out of sticks and always had their equipment but it was always a battle.

Going into my last year, Marshall Johnston wanted to put in strength and agility stations (basically resistance stations) in a storage room behind the locker room. How did it get done? Marshall, some hockey staffers and some of the players built it during the summer. The walls were made by cutting up pieces of the old wood basketball floor and anchoring them into the floor. Carpet remnants were put on the floor and each agility station was anchored into the new walls. Voila, a new workout area for the players.

Compare this to the $6.3 million Pat Bowlen Training Center that opened this past year.

http://www.denverpioneers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=18600&ATCLID=204942367

Poor Bil Scharton (SID) must have had something approaching zero budget for his "media guides." The hockey guide was about the dimensions of Reader's Digest and ran 8 to 10 pages of offset printing, no color, darn few photos.

The larger picture here was that Pritchard and Oyer took DU from Division I to Division II, which had a cumulative very bad impact on hockey. For many years thereafter, Denver was the largest city in the country with no DI basketball program.

As I've posted before, when Pritchard's time was up he was unceremoniously fired. I still have the press release. (Paraphrasing): "Ross Prichard is no longer the chancellor of the University of Denver." No eyewash about taking another job or stepping down to engage in academic research--just outta here.

We are living in a golden age compared to what those two clowns ushered in.

 

[Puck Swami]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Poor Bil Scharton (SID) must have had something approaching zero budget for his "media guides." The hockey guide was about the dimensions of Reader's Digest and ran 8 to 10 pages of offset printing, no color, darn few photos.

The larger picture here was that Pritchard and Oyer took DU from Division I to Division II, which had a cumulative very bad impact on hockey. For many years thereafter, Denver was the largest city in the country with no DI basketball program.

As I've posted before, when Pritchard's time was up he was unceremoniously fired. I still have the press release. (Paraphrasing): "Ross Prichard is no longer the chancellor of the University of Denver." No eyewash about taking another job or stepping down to engage in academic research--just outta here.

We are living in a golden age compared to what those two clowns ushered in.

Going to NAIA/D-II in the late 70s was the result of terrible job of overall university financial planning and a very unsophisticated reading of the demographic and economic changes. The University was booming at over 13,000 students just after WWII, cruised through the 50s and early 60s, and boomed again when the biggest wave of the Baby Boom generation went through DU in the late 60s. DU got totally caught with their collective pants down when the Baby Boom had already crested, at the same time time the recessions of the late 70s and early 80s had devasated the country. When I was at DU in the early and mid 80s, the undergraduate enrollment had slipped to around 3500 and overall enrollment was less than 8,000. Today, undergraduate enrollment is over 5,000 and overall enrollment is between 10,000 and 11,000. Huge difference in cash flow....

 

[Old Pio]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Going to NAIA/D-II in the late 70s was the result of terrible job of overall university financial planning and a very unsophisticated reading of the demographic and economic changes. The University was booming at over 13,000 students just after WWII, cruised through the 50s and early 60s, and boomed again when the biggest wave of the Baby Boom generation went through DU in the late 60s. DU got totally caught with their collective pants down when the Baby Boom had already crested, at the same time time the recessions of the late 70s and early 80s had devasated the country. When I was at DU in the early and mid 80s, the undergraduate enrollment had slipped to around 3500 and overall enrollment was less than 8,000. Today, undergraduate enrollment is over 5,000 and overall enrollment is between 10,000 and 11,000. Huge difference in cash flow....

Dwight Smith will alway be a hero in my book. He stepped into the breach after the Pritchard fiasco and kept DU from sinking. And he paved the way for the Ritchie era. Despite the fact that I have some problems about a "chancellor for eternity" and the attitudes that accompany that august position, no rational person can argue that DU isn't immeasurably better off as a result of his tenure.

I don't know how close we came to closing the doors or converting into a barber college, but the fact that it was even discussed is scary. I say again, we're in a golden era now.

 

[Puck Swami]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

I don't know how close we came to closing the doors or converting into a barber college, but the fact that it was even discussed is scary. I say again, we're in a golden era now.

Golden era, indeed.

In 1989, DU was $12 million in the hole, had borrowed money to make payroll and had deferred maintenence estimated at $45 million. It was that close to closure...The big turnaround gift was Ritchie selling his ranch for $55 mllion in the early 90s and donating the proceeds to DU, then coralling all his fellow non-alumni cable TV buddies (Daniels, Magness, Myhren, Sie, etc) to open their checkbooks, too. All of a sudden, other big donors (Newman, Sturm, Nagel, Ruffato, Nelson, Marsico, etc) all want to be part of the new momentum. Since 1997, 19 new buildings have gone up, and $500 million in new investment has been made, and DU is financially solvent with over 11,000 students. And academic selectivity has soared, too. The average incoming freshman has a 3.7 GPA and a 1150-1200 SAT now. Certainly, DU has ridden the baby boomlet, but now they are facing some interesting times again as the number of overall incoming freshmen will be demographically declining again, but DU is still getting about 12,000 freshman applications for 1,100 spots.

DU is pretty much happy at 11-12,000 students overall, but the future growth is going to come from graduate programs, where you can reap the same or more money without having to invest as much as you do with undergrads, who consume more space and services. They are also starting a capital campaign soon that will attempt to raise $500 - 600 million for the endowment. They've probably got about half of that committed already during the quiet period, but they are going to have to put the brakes on tuition hikes pretty soon or they may see some fallout. In terms of new buildings, I think you are going to see Penrose library totally revamped both inside and outside as the next big project.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: All Things Denver, XXVIII

Golden era, indeed.

In 1989, DU was $12 million in the hole, had borrowed money to make payroll and had deferred maintenence estimated at $45 million. It was that close to closure...The big turnaround gift was Ritchie selling his ranch for $55 mllion in the early 90s and donating the proceeds to DU, then coralling all his fellow non-alumni cable TV buddies (Daniels, Magness, Myhren, Sie, etc) to open their checkbooks, too. All of a sudden, other big donors (Newman, Sturm, Nagel, Ruffato, Nelson, Marsico, etc) all want to be part of the new momentum. Since 1997, 19 new buildings have gone up, and $500 million in new investment has been made, and DU is financially solvent with over 11,000 students. And academic selectivity has soared, too. The average incoming freshman has a 3.7 GPA and a 1150-1200 SAT now. Certainly, DU has ridden the baby boomlet, but now they are facing some interesting times again as the number of overall incoming freshmen will be demographically declining again, but DU is still getting about 12,000 freshman applications for 1,100 spots.

DU is pretty much happy at 11-12,000 students overall, but the future growth is going to come from graduate programs, where you can reap the same or more money without having to invest as much as you do with undergrads, who consume more space and services. They are also starting a capital campaign soon that will attempt to raise $500 - 600 million for the endowment. They've probably got about half of that committed already during the quiet period, but they are going to have to put the brakes on tuition hikes pretty soon or they may see some fallout. In terms of new buildings, I think you are going to see Penrose library totally revamped both inside and outside as the next big project.

Are you including the engineering school as part of "new" or already on the drawing boards? For my money, Penrose has always been an eyesore, an extremely ugly building. Any improvements there would be welcome.