A Little of This and A Little of That

Greg Beller and his Vernon Vipers were the only ones in action as they looked to sweep the Trail Smoke Eaters in their BCHL Elimination Round series. With the Vipers holding a 2-0 lead in thei best of 5 series the odds were against the Smoke Eaters.

Beller for the most part has not been a factor as he has just 4 PIMs to show for his efforts. In Game 3 thought Beller showed why he got the tag of being "a large player with smaller player skills" as he scored a goal in the 3rd period that showed off his hand skills.

Beller got the puck all alone in front of the Smoke Eater's net and in less time that it took write that Beller moved the puck to his backhand, faked the shot and moved the puck back to his forehand badly fooling the Smoke Eater's goalie, Beller had already scored to put the game out of reach at 4-0.

It was a nice play on Beller's part and it helped his Vernon Vipers eliminate the Smoke Eaters and advance to the Interior Conference semi-finals against the Penticton Vees.

USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Men's College Hockey Poll

Carl Hagelin's Michigan Wolverines may have clinched their 10th CCHA Championship this past weekend but it came with a price. The Wolverines dropped one spot to number 2 in this week's poll after splitting their weekend series with Ferris State. North Dakota jumps into the top spot.

The Wolverines are now idle until quarterfinal round of the CCHA tournament which will take place the weekend of March 14th-16th. They will go into that round as the 1 seed due to winning the regular season CCHA Championship against an opponent to be determined this weekend.

The College Weekend Ahead

We start by staying in the CCHA as Max Campbell and his Western Michigan Bronco's will enter the CCHA tournament as the 12 seed and will face 5th seed Ferris State. It will be an uphill battle for the Broncos who finished the regular season with a 8-25-3 last in the CCHA.

Jordan Foote and his Michigan Tech Huskies will be trying to jump from 9th to 7th in the last weekend of WCHA play as they travel to Minnesota State. The difference between the 2 spots in the WCHA standings would be having to face top ranked North Dakota or number 13 Wisconsin.

Billy Ryan and his Maine Blackbears are facing the biggest battle of them all as their league the Hockey East only invites 8 teams to their tournament and right now the Blackbears are in 9th place trailing 8th place Massachusetts by 2 points and needing some help to get past them.

The Blackbears will be facing 6th place UMass Lowell this weekend while Massachusetts faces last place Merrimack. Maine will need to sweep their weekend series and need at least 1 win from Merrimack.

We are Growing

Prospect Park started as a part of the Blueshirt Bulletin magazine in 2004 as part of Dubi Silverstein's efforts to bring Ranger fans true wall to wall coverage of everything New York Ranger. Dubi being the modest type has never been one to pat himself on the back for being smarter or more innovative than even those who write for him realize.

It was Dubi who was the first beat writer (yes Dubi you are one admit it) covering the Rangers to have a blog that interacted with his readers. As his site grew so did all of our coverages which led to this year Mitch Beck creating Howlings to cover the Ranger minor league teams in Hartford and Charlotte and this site here to cover the Ranger prospects playing in North America.

No New York Newspaper offers you direct access to Ranger coverage from prospect to AHL/ECHL to the NHL like the Blueshirt Bulletin family does. If you have not subscribed to the print version then you really are missing out on the best Ranger news anywhere.

As for us this was supposed to be part of a college class assignment but thanks to the many people (48,000 page impressions since Sept 07) who have visited and then passed the word around about us we have gotten noticed and have joined some of the various blogging networks.

Today we became a part of the Yardbarker Blogging Network at Yardbarker.com and we are really excited about joining them because they are a different kind of sports channel unlike the ESPNs and Fox Sports.

Yardbarker is a rare place where athletes and fans do blog together. We are talking real athletes like Baron Davis and Greg Odom of the NBA, Frank Shamrock for MMA fans and from other sports. You will find blogs on just about every sport and every team all in one nice yard.

Check it out, you will find yourself setting up your own page for your own content just like I did.

(Greg Beller picture courtesy of Yale)