First practices are still a little more than two months away for WCHA, but Minnesota State Mankato recently sent out its prospectus for the 2009-10 season.

Coach Troy Jutting said he does not expect the Mavericks to be rated too high in preseason because of the situation in the nets.

 Sophomore goalie Austin Lee did not play last season and red-shirted two years ago. He is the most experienced goalie. He will be joined on the roster by two freshmen netminders.

The team has seven seniors, five juniors, nine sophmores and seven freshmen.

The 3rd Annual Oshie Sports Celebrity Benefit and Golf Tournament will be held on Wed. and Thurs. in Grand Forks, N.D.

The first night, celebrities will sign autographs at the Rydell - GM Auto Center Cadillac Showroom in Grand Forks.
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Th golf tournament will be held Thursday at King’s Walk Golf Course.  

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Five Minnesota hockey players, including two from Hill-Murray, have been named to the U.S. team that will played in the under-17 Five Nations Tournament from Aug. 18-22 in Fussen, Germany.

The 21 players on the team were picked from the recent Select 16 development camp in Rochester, N.Y.

On the U.S. team are forwards Ben Bahe (Stillwater) and Kevin Becker (Roseville) of Hill-Murray, a Catholic school in Maplewood; defenseman Dan Molenaar of Eden Prairie and forwards Christian Horn (Plymouth) of Benilde-St. Margaret’s and Anthony Greco (Faribault) of Shattuck-St. Mary’s.

The other teams in the Five Nations Tournament are the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia and Switzerland.

A sixth player on the U.S. team is forward Ken Gillespie (Fuquay Varina, N.C.) who also plays at Shattuck-St. Mary’s.

Troy Jutting, Minnesota State Mankato’s hockey coach the past nine seasons, has signed a four-year contract extension. Its effective going back to July 1.

Terms were not revealed.

Said Kevin Buisman, Minnesota State’s Director of Athletics:  “Troy is a veteran coach who understands what it takes to be successful at this level. 

“Our staff does a great job in terms of skill development, as evidenced by the number of players who have moved on from here to the professional ranks recently and that in turn has ratcheted up the quality of new talent we have coming in each year.  Off the ice and in the classroom, these young men have generally been great ambassadors for the program.  Attendance and interest continues to grow and we look forward to an exciting future with Coach Jutting behind the bench.”

Jutting’s record is 142-162-44 in nine seasons. His Mavericks, of course, had that memorable three-game playoff series with the U in 2008 in Mankato. All three games went into OT, the Gophers won the series two games to one.

* Ex-Gopher forwward Mike Dorr, who left the team in midseason, will wear No. 18 for the Mavericks next season. He will be eligible to play in January.

 ROWDY IN GRAND FORKS

Two North Dakota hockey players are in a bit of trouble. Joe Finley, 22, and Matt Frattin, 21, got cited for disorderly conduct at 3 a.m. Tuesday.

Seems they were throwing each other’s stuff on the street: a kitchen table, a lawnmover, dishes, cups, etc.

The cops didn’t like that. Finley, a senior defenseman last season, was a first-round NHL draft pick of Washington in 2005 and has signed with the Caps. Frattin, a junior forward last season, was seventh on the team in scoring with 13 goals, 12 assists for 25 points.

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Six former U of M women’s hockey players and present Gopher, Anne Schleper, a sophomore defenseman, are among the 41 players who have been invited to the 2009 USA Hocky Women’s National Festival from Aug. 18-24 at the Super Rink in Blaine.

That’s an important invite. Twenty-three of those players will make the U.S. national team wich will compete in a 10-game Qwest Tour before the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, B.C.

Among the ex-Gophers at the camp are forward Natalie Darwitz, a two-time Olympian who was an assistant coach at the U this past season; forwards Gigi Marvin and Erica McKenzie, and defenseman Rachel Drazan.

Also there will be forwards Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux, who played for the Gophers as freshmen this past season, but decided to transfer to North Dakota after the season ended.

One more camp invitee with a Gopher tie is goalie Megan Van Beusekom of Loretto, Minn. She was the Gophers’ goalie coach this past season while training with the same select team as Darwitz  at the Super Rink.

Jenny Potter of Edina and Angela Ruggiero will try to make their fourth Olympic team. Darwitz and Julie Chu are trying for their third.

After the Qwest tour, the final two players will be cut.

Coach Mark Johnson of 2009 NCAA champion Wisconsin will be the coach of Olympic team.

One other Minnesotan invited is forward Allie Thunstrom of Maplewood who played for Boston College. �

Here is a news release on an event Gophers women’s hockey coach Brad Frost is having for his program: 

 The University of Minnesota women’s hockey program will hold the inaugural GWH Golf Open on Monday, August 17th at Victory Links Golf Course in Blaine, Minn. Registration is now being accepted for the event to benefit Golden Gopher Women’s Hockey. Contact Hockey Operations Director Eric Bakke at 612-624-4859 or bakke193@umn.edu to reserve a spot.

The cost to participate is $100, which includes green fees, golf cart, range balls, gifts, buffet dinner and a donation to the hockey program. The tournament will be limited to the first 200 paid registrations. All proceeds generated from the GWH Golf Open go directly to support the Gopher women’s hockey program.

Golfers should arrive at Victory Links by 8:45 a.m., for registration and tee assignments, with a shotgun start at 10 a.m. The golf competition will be a four-person team scramble. Following golf will be a social hour, silent auction and dinner buffet. Awards and prizes will be presented throughout the afternoon. The program will also include brief comments by head coach Brad Frost and others.�

Bruce McLeod, commish of the WCHA, was asked on Friday what Bemidji State and the University of Nebraska Omaha would add to the league.

He was quick to reply: “Bemidji State has a very storied program, with a lot of history to it. [And 13 small college national titles.] Bob Peters is legendary in out sport and what he has done. [Peters is a former BSU coach.]

“They are in the midst of erecting a new building which will be ready in the fall of 2010. If you spend much time up there, you know that’s hockey country. Hockey is in the culture of the community and of the region.”

And Nebraska Omaha?

“Down there they have a gorgeous building that seats over 14,000,” McLeod said. “It’s a vibrant community. They are going to be a player in hockey with the hiring of Dean Blais and [assistant] Mike Hastings. A lot of things they are doing tells us they will be a very competitive program over the years.

“That’s what the WCHA is all about. Ten institutions committed to quality programs. Both these groups, Bemidji State and UNO are committed to that type of thing. If you look around, other conferences don’t habe that. It takes a lot of things, like great coaches, buildings.”

SKED WOES

McLeod said integrating UNO and BSU into the WCHA schedule for 2010-11 won’t be easy. That’s a year earlier than first planned.

“Our staff is working on some scheduling models. Our goal, and we will get there, is to be as least disruptive as possible. We are committed to that.”

WCHA VOTE

McLeod was asked which school abstained from voting on expansion. He declined to say. The vote was 9-0, with eight yes votes needed.

“It [the abstention] was not about Omaha or Bemidji,” McLeod said. “They were concerned about the process.”

How was that process? “I don’t want to say it was easy, comfortable,” McLeod said. “It was not. Trev is a tough guy to deal with. I got some scars to prove it.”

As for what the WCHA schedules will look like, McLeod said there are about five different possibilites. None include divisions.

“The number of conference games vary” in those scenarios, he said. “Those are some decisions we will have to make relatively quickly.”

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The media will find out somehow. WCHA commish Bruce McLeod on Friday would not comment on what the admission price for University of Nebraska Omaha and Bemidji State was.

But it’s a safe bet that UNO got a better deal. The UNO Mavericks had a conference, were not necessarily looking to switch and were approached to leave the CCHA. That’s leverage.

Bemidji State practically got on its knees to get into the WCHA. The community, with state help, is building a Bemidji Regional Events Center but without a conference to form rivalries, attract recruits and get an NCAA tournament bid again, the Beavers might have trouble filling that new 4,000-seat arena.

BSU needed the WCHA much more than the conference needed the Beavers. No leverage there.

Bruce McLeod, WCHA commish, called it a watershed day. “The addition of these [teams] position us to bigger things in the future,” he said. “I am happy for all the parties involved.”

He called it a win-win situation all around. Even for the CCHA perhaps, which UNO left. “I hope their close in the CCHA can be filled by [Alabama-]Huntsville. But it’s not our decision. Then college hockey has done a great job of taking care of its down with the demise of the CHA.”

BSU and Alabama-Huntsville are two of the four remaining CHA teams. That league will fold after this coming season.

He said the WCHA schools did what they should have in voting 9-1, with one abstention on expansion.

“In the end, they all looked beyond self-interest and rose to the occasion,” McLeod said.

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The WCHA on Friday admitted Bemidji State and the University of Nebraska Omaha.

With those two teams, the conference grows to 12 teams. This is the first expansion of the WCHA since Minnesota State Mankato joined in 1999-2000.

BSU, which will have a new arena to play in its first WCHA season, was desperately looking for a home. The CHA, the Beavers’ four-team conference, is disbanding after this upcoming season.

UNO, a member of the CCHA for 10 seasons, was approached by the WCHA to be the 12the member. UNO has a new athletic director, Trev Alberts, and a new coach, Dean Blais, and was interested in upgrading its program.

Everyone seemed happy with the expansion.

“This is a happy and proud day for me,” said Bruce McLeod, commissioner of the WCHA. “I’m happy because I think this is such a win-win circumstance for the WCHA, our new members and collegiate hockey in general.”

“This is a great day for the Beavers,” said BSU coach Tom Serratore, whose team surprised the hockey world by reaching the Frozen Four in March.

“We’re excited about becoming a part of the WCHA’s rich tradition of outstanding hockey,” Alberts said.�