Destination: Denver...WCBN Style (Part 3)

continued from part 2

4/11

1:00 PM MST

After Christian and I spent the morning working on papers, we met up with former WCBN Sports Director and current voice of the Wichita Thunder, Steve Schuster, who was in town watching the games. We spent some time walking down the 16^th street mall, including a stop at the frozen four memorabilia tent. The most popular t-shirt was the North Dakota version which pretty much summed up the Fighting Sioux’s trip to Denver as their school was spelled ‘North Dakata.’ Must have been designed by a New Yorker. We had a delicious lunch at Johnny Rockets and then returned to the hotel to do some more paper writing.

4:45 PM MST

We leave the hotel to go see Michigan’s only win of the weekend as Kevin Porter takes home the Hobey Baker Award, edging out frozen four MOP Nathan Gerbe of BC and an unrecognizable Ryan Jones of Miami. Jones’s hair was finally long enough for him to donate to Locks of Love so none of us recognized him without his flowing locks. The entire team was in attendance with the exception of Billy Sauer.

6:00 PM MST

After enjoying a delicious dinner at the Pepsi Center (the dinners got better and better as the tournament went on), we watched as the All-American Team was named. Congratulations to Kevin Porter picked up first team honors and Chad Kolarik was named to the second team.

6:45 PM MST

The skills competition starts with men and women player from across all divisions represented the East and West. The competition featured a puck-control relay race, speed competition, hardest shot, accuracy, rapid-fire (for the goalies), and culminated with each team member taking a penalty shot. The penalty shot was the most exciting event as Eric Ehn of Air Force brought the crowd to their feet with his goal. He started from the right boards, came across the crease, dropped down to make a hand pass back to himself then went behind his back to slap the puck through the five-hole and into the net.