If you weren't paying attention . . .

I'll be honest; I didn't follow hockey at all during the offseason. I showed up for the scrimmage, looked at the roster, and said "I don't even know who a couple of these guys are". (No disrespect to those 2 players, I just hadn't been following things at all.) Then I went to St. Louis without having time to read any articles or preseason previews. And so, despite having attended the first series of the season, I'm feeling a bit behind. So I thought I'd better get myself caught up. And while most of our readers are probably WAY ahead of me, I thought we might have a few readers out there who (like me) hadn't been paying much attention, and for them (and myself) I'm writing this post. (My apologies for duplicate posting of items that have previously been posted on the blog.)

Things I missed on madison.com (WSJ):
Baggot: As season begins, Dolan is center of attention

"[Sean Dolan is] two things. He's a leader on the ice and off the ice. Everything that coach Eaves wants us to do on and off the ice he's kind of the spokesman for that. He took on that role himself this summer and it made it an easy decision for all of us." -- Derek Lee

Baggot: Newcomers to fill veteran void

“This is a new team, a new season. We’re going to be a special group. The core of our team is already something special. Just to sit back and see already what we have is pretty neat.” -- Sean Dolan

WCHA Previews
CHN - WCHA Part I, WCHA Part II
Hockey's Future
USCHO
INCH

Other Previews
Milewski (USCHO) - Looking for No. 1: Watch these 5 title-less teams in 2011 hunt
Hockey's Future - Alabama Huntsville and Atlantic Hockey (hmm, I'll have this to It's Friday)

Polls/Rankings
WCHA preseason media poll - 5
WCHA preseason coaches poll - 7
WCHA preseason blogger poll - 6
INCH WCHA presason ranking - 6
INCH preseason 58 power ranking - 19
Current USA Today poll - 15 (last week 13)
Current USCHO poll -15 (last week 13)

Other Random Lists
INCH's Top 15 Freshman Classes -- Wisconsin comes in at #12 (5 other WCHA teams made the list, all in the top 10)
INCH's Top 20 Freshman Forwards -- Mark Zengerle is #8
INCH's Top 20 Freshman Defensemen
INCH's Top 10 Freshman Goalies

UWbadgers - Meet the Freshmen (or 5 of them, anyway)
#25 Mike Mersch
#29 Jason Clark - One wish? Win a national championship here at UW
#27 Frankie Simonelli
#5 Chase Drake
# 9 Mark Zengerle - Favorite hockey memory? Committing to Wisconsin