Around the WCHA/NCAA

• College Hockey News has released it's 2008-09 Preseason All-CHN Teams. Badger Defenseman Jamie McBain made their 1st Team. No Badgers on their 2nd Team, and no Badgers on their list of players to watch.
  

  D - Jamie McBain, Jr., Wisconsin
  Special offensive ability for a defenseman, this is most likely his last season with the Badgers. Has great ice vision, and a strong shot that gets on net.

  The WCHA is pretty well-represented, with 4 players on the 1st Team and 1 player on the 2nd Team.

• Denver University has suspended 4 players. Senior and captain JP Testwuide, sophomore Jon Cook, and sophomore Dustin Jackson served 1-game suspensions last night, sitting out DU's exhibition game v. the University of Alberta Golden Bears. Junior Cody Brookwell was issued a 4-game suspension and will next be available for the Oct 24-25 series v. Ohio State. So the Badgers won't be seeing Mr. Brookwell when visiting on Oct 17-18.
  
  No official word, of course, regarding the reason for the suspensions. I would think that whatever Brookwell did was pretty serious, having to sit out 4 games, including 1 game against Notre Dame and 2 games against Wisconsin.

• In an exhibition game last night, Denver defeated an always strong University of Alberta. Despite missing the services of 4 players, Denver won 5-4. It's worth noting that UofA has already played 5 preseason games (the only loss was to the Edmonton Oilers Rookie Team) and that they have won the last 3 CIS championships. (Thanks to Puck Swami for the info!)
  


• In an exhibition game last night, Michigan Tech lost 3-1 to the University of Toronto. Ouch. I don't know much/anything about Toronto, but a quick glance at last year's CIS standings indicates they're a middle-of-the-pack CIS team, finishing with a .500 recored last season.
  

• There's a new hockey blog that Badger Fans and WCHA fans should find interesting. (I edited this into a previous post, but I thought I might as well mention it here for those that missed it.) Puck Swami has started a blog called "Know Your Foe" that previews DU opponents. Should be interesting to see what he what he has to say about Wisconsin in 2 weeks, as well as what he has to say about other WCHA teams.


• Hockey's Future has released #s 11-25 of it's Top 50 prospects. No Badgers on this part of the list, although if you remember Ryan McDonagh was #27. I imagine that we'll see Kyle Turris on the list for #s 1-10 when that is released.