Two WCHA Journalists Bite The Bullet This Week

"Black Monday" proved to be a brutal blow for mainstream college hockey media coverage as two respected pundits are moving on to new opportunities.

Bruce Ciske, the voice of the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs and Kate Crandall, the beat writer for Colorado College will no longer be covering WCHA hockey.

Midwest Communications operations manager Jack Lawson said Tuesday that the company is de-emphasizing sports and moving toward news and talk radio. Because of that change, Ciskie’s position was terminated. However, Lawson said Ciskie “was a professional, hard-working employee and a first-class guy.”

The Duluth News Tribune reported, Ciskie, 31, had been UMD’s play-by-play man for more than three years. Ciske had been with the company for 12 years.

Kate wrote in the CC Tiger blog, "The Colgate game was my last and today is my last day at The Gazette."

"I am leaving to pursue opportunities outside of the journalism world. Starting in June, I will be teaching middle school in the School District of Philadelphia through Teach For America."

"I’m looking forward to making an impact in my classroom, but I’ll certainly miss covering the Tigers. It’s been great."

We figure she just wants to go to a school that's got a chance to win a championship.

Both Ciske & Crandall did a great job covering their teams and its another loss for mainstream media coverage in the WCHA.

Joe Colborne Featured On AOL Fanhouse

(above) Big Joe is featured in AOL's Fanhouse

Last weekend Bruce Ciskie was calling the play by play for the Minnesota-Duluth Radio Network against DU. This week he broke out the laptop and talked about DU's newest star on the rise Joe Colborne. Its a good read, so check it out.

When you're a first-round pick, expectations become high automatically. It doesn't matter if you're playing major junior, college hockey, or if you're in the minors. You need to produce, and preferably now. (read rest of article).

Best College Hockey Websites & Blogs:

By no means a complete list, but these are the sites that I bookmark. If you know of other sites, post them on the comments below and I'll add them to my list.

Websites (Hit the links to view sites)

US College Hockey Online - The Fan Forum is really fun and the scores updates & radio links are essential for out of town fans.

Inside College Hockey - I really like their polls and lists. Also their newspaper links are an outstanding resource to find out what is being said in the local fishwraps around the country.

College Hockey News - The new kids on the block. Nice crisp layout and an excellent writing staff give them a chance to take on USCHO.

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Denver Pioneer Hockey - The "official" site of the University of Denver Hockey Program & Athletic Department. The site looks really good, with tons of offseason upgrades.

RPI Hockey.Net - This site has every imaginable college hockey ranking system. Good news if you play in the WCHA, strength of schedule will always get a nice boost in these rankings.

Chris Heisenberg's College Hockey Recruits - This is the bible of who's going where among the free sites. Also lists & ranks every college recruit going back to 1995, so one can check out the recruiting steals and the busts from past seasons.

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Western College Hockey Recruiting - Site dedicated to the CCHA & WCHA has an excellent recruiting section.

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Hockey's Future - For the lowdown on collegiate players that have been or about to be drafted into the NHL is site is fantastic.

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USHR - The US Hockey Report is a fee based site, but if you want to be the first person in your season ticket section to know which recruits were kicked out of boarding school, this site's for you.

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WCHA Fan Message Boards

Minnesota Duluth - The Penalty Box always has a good time.

North Dakota - Sioux Sports is a great site with tons of good stats, info & posts.

Minnesota - Just what you'd expect from the State of Hockey. Gopher Puck Live.

Colorado College - The boys down south are still looking for the hardware, but at least they have a good message board.

St. Cloud State - Fresh off of overthrowing their coach, Da Huskies' fans have da Board.

Michigan Tech - Its no surprise that that computer geeks at MTU aka Mitch's Misfits have a very nice site.

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Blogs

Pioneer Hockey Blog - I liked Dubbie's site so much, when he wouldn't sell it to me for a million bucks, I copied it.

Bruce Ciskie's Blog - Home of the "Voice of Reason" Duluth's own Bruce Ciskie Show.

Western College Hockey Blog - Perhaps the best college hockey blog out there. WCHA & CCHA coverage.

Chris Heisenberg's Recruiting Blog - Good read.

Boston College Blog - Not totally devoted to college hockey, but when it does its very good.

Michigan College Hockey Online - Covers EVERY college team in the State of Michigan.

The Blog that Yost Built - All things relating to U. of Michigan Hockey.

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