Hockey Talk Aug. 27 — Blue lines and Birthdays

By Jim den Hollander

Editor/Publisher

Saukhockey.info

The Ducks will wrap up its first week of pre-season play tomorrow with an all-nighter at the Lake Delton Ice Arena. Today, they continued dryland workouts and helped with the most creative day of ice preparation.

Off the ice, the Ducks went through another morning workout focusing on upper body, played some handball and helped Lake Delton Ice Arena owner Aaron Kirby putting in the lines and faceoff circles.

The team gets a good portion of Saturday off, coming in at 5 p.m. for an overnighter as they put the finishing touches on the ice. The reward will be some time on the ice, helping Kirby detect cracks and weak spots in that overnight session and the first on-ice practice for the team will be on Sunday.

Happy Birthday – Andrew Schulenburg, Duncan Adams, Matt Millendorf and Chris Pelisek

Andrew Schulenburg turns 25 today. He started at Reedsburg Area High School the same season the RWD hockey team was formed. In four seasons with the club, Schulenburg appeared in 95 games behind only Austin Schyvinck and Zach Clisch who both played 96.

Schulenburg is ranked ninth in scoring with RWD, potting 36 goals and collecting 73 points along with 60 PIM.

Following his graduation from RAHS, Schulenburg spent four seasons at UW-Oshkosh and continued his hockey career there with another four seasons of ACHA Division 2 play. He racked up another 94 games played and totalled 24 goals and 56 points along with 54 PIM and a +3 rating.

Duncan Adams, a native of Rochester, Minn., is celebrating his 23^rd birthday today. Adams signed on with the Ducks for the 2017-18 season under Head Coach Jeff Worlton, playing 23 games patrolling the team’s blue line before moving on to play for his home town Rochester Ice Hawks in the NA3HL for the latter part of the campaign.

Adams chipped in a goal and a couple assists with the Ducks and returned to the USPHL the following season, remaining close to home with the Kasson Vipers.

Matt Millendorf turns 26 today. The Stamford, CT. honors student played in goal for the Ducks in 2014-15. He appeared in just four games and was part of what is likely the best single season goaltending staff in the team’s history with Sandro Aeschlimann, Jared Young and Tyler ‘Arne’ Arneson also battling for time in the blue paint.

Millendorf turned in awesome numbers in his four games, with an 0.77 Goals Against Average and a Save Percentage of .948. Millendorf played a few games with Breezy Point in the NA3HL at the end of the campaign and moved on to play a couple seasons with Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Also celebrating a birthday today is longtime Ducks game day worker and super fan, Chris Pelisek. Pelisek has worked in the penalty box and been a goal judge and always has a kind word for the players before and after their games at the Lake Delton Ice Arena.

Chris Pelisek looks on from the best seat in the house as Ducks forward Wyatt Mikkelson carries the puck in action from the 2017-18 season.

Saukhockey.info would like to wish Matt, Duncan, Andrew and Chris a Happy Birthday today and thanks for some great hockey memories.

Jimmy D’s notes — Daily articles ahead of schedule

By Jim den Hollander

Editor/Publisher

Saukhockey.info

In the past week or so there has been a push to make daily items for Saukhockey.info. The play originally was to begin that on Sept. 1 but the timing of the start of the Dells Ducks 2021-22 Training Camp made it a good starting point.

Within the next week or so, the Lake Delton Ice Arena will once again become a busy hub for varsity teams with early captain’s practices and as of right now, some out of town teams are looking to the local arena as a home base for ice which once again is hard to find under restrictions in the state capital.

Lately, inspired by the success of this site, I have been inspired to bring back another website I dabbled with called Midwesthockey.info.

Again, the Midwest site started as a hobby, putting in random stories on primarily pro and junior hockey stories from around the Midwest Region. Recently, with my internet expertise, I somehow pushed a button that obliterated that site from view. I have asked a friend to help me restore that site which currently has over 700 items on it from previous seasons on it.

My goal was to also begin updates on that site as a sister to Saukhockey.info on Sept. 1 as well. Reviving it has proven more difficult than first thought though. I may have to begin a whole new site which would not be favored, but perhaps the lone alternative. I may also begin by putting those items on Saukhockey.info, at least for a while.

There is a Midwesthockey.info facebook page already in place as well.

In the next week or so, I hope to reach out to the youth programs for RWD, Baraboo T-Birds and Sauk Prairie Flyers and Monkeys, to create a pipeline that will allow me to run all of the youth results every week as well.

It would be nice to find some local photographers that might be attending Ducks, varsity high school or even youth hockey games to create more art for the stories this season. Unfortunately, all we can offer here is a photo credit for now, but that could change down the road.

Watch this space for more updates on both websites.

Hockey Talk Aug. 26 — Handball and hockey logos

By Jim den Hollander

Editor/Publisher

Saukhockey.info

The Dells Ducks wrapped up the fifth day of training camp at the Lake Delton Ice Arena Thursday (Aug. 26, 2021) with some more dryland training including leg exercises, games, including some handball and working on the ice surface in its second day of icemaking.

Lake Delton Ice Arena owner, puts down some water on Wednesday with one of the first floods of the season. Yesterday the owner and players put down the first coat of white paint.

Enough ice was down in the early part of Thursday for Lake Delton Ice Arena owner Aaron Kirby to apply the first coat of white paint with help from team players. A technical issue prevented them from doing a second coat later in the day, but that will be fixed quickly.

Thomas Howell talked on Thursday (Aug. 26, 2021) about how things are going through the first five days of training camp for the Dells at the Lake Delton Ice Arena. An ’04 from Gilmer, Texas, Howell is a returner, looking to take his defensive game to a new level this season as he takes on more responsibility on the Dells Ducks’ blue line.

Kirby and the players are expected to begin work on hand painting the lines and logos on Friday and the team has planned to spend the night at the rink Saturday overnight, giving them a chance to finish work on the ice surface. The reward could be a light skate on Sunday and regular on ice workouts will likely begin on Monday.

Ice rentals are already in place for Tuesday and the Ducks will take up a big chunk of the free ice as they finally prepare for an opponent with 10 days to get ready for a Detroit road-trip Aug. 10-12 to play a pair of games against the Detroit Fighting Irish sandwiching a game against the Metro Jets.

Ducks’ Head Coach Shaun Falzone continues to be pleased with the progress of his squad, now five days into training camp.

The team’s regular season home opener against the Rum River Mallards is now 22 days away.