This week, I invited Chris Miller to pick WCHA games against me again. What was I thinking? But he is my supervisor and I have to keep him happy. Chris used to cover the UMD Bulldogs, but you will figure that out from reading his picks. First an intro from him: Chris: Interesting to see Virg Foss won the Jim Fullerton Award this year from the American Hockey Coaches Association, the seventh consecutive year I've been edged for that honor. The award goes to someone who "loves the purity of our sport" so that qualification usually hurts me, or so I'm guessing, as the voting is never made public. Anyway, Virgie is top-notch with me. He covered the North Dakotas for the GF Herald from 1969 until 2005, and now works for fightingsioux.com. Back before the google was invented, the Herald used to have a feature called "Ask Virg" that was very cutting edge, because people would mail in questions and Virg would answer them. This is like 25 years before newspapers latched on to Live Chats. Virg never ducked a question. He told it like it was. Thing I liked about Virg, and we covered WCHA pucks together for many a year, is that he was a bit classier than your average scribe. Between periods, we'd all be back scarfing down pizza, and Virg would step out to the concourse and light up his pipe and have a quiet conversation with the fans. He was a bit of a celebrity, I must say. They don't let you smoke pipes in the buildings anymore; that's probably why Virg retired. Anyway, looking at the picture of Roman on this blog, he could certainly spruce up his image if he was holding a Meerschaum pipe. Sort of separate himself from the riff raff. Anyway. Virg, good job. Hope there was a hefty monetary award in addition to a handsome trophy. On to this week's picks -- at last: Bemidji State at Michigan Tech Chris: Quite honestly, Tech should not be in the WCHA. They should be in the same league as Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State, and right now, that's the CCHA. Rick Comley, who is retiring as Michigan State coach, had a great idea years ago that all seven Michigan teams should be in one division. It was part of his master plan to realign western college hockey. I think they could still pull it off when the Big Ten teams flee to form their own conference. Roman will whip up the plans shortly. Back to this series. Winter Carnival weekend in Houghton, been there a few times for that, and the ice sculptures are top notch. Mind-boggling, really, what those engineering students can do with a lot of snow, a little free time and some imported Canadian whiskey. (Thanks to @estromgren for tweeting this year's winning entry). Tech has lost (Roman will fill you in) a ton of games in a row and these are the two lowest-scoring teams in the league, so naturally I am predicting a pair of 1-1 overtime thrillers. ... Two ties Roman: Gotta watch this series closely. Gophers finish regular season playing Michigan Tech at home Feb. 25-26, then play at Bemidji State March 4-5. Tech has a 24-game winless streak (0-22-2) and has lost a record-tying 18 in a row in the WCHA. But the all-time series between these teams is 2-2-0 with the home team winning every game. Tech is 73-41-10 on Winter Carnival weekends. Milos Gordic leads the Huskies with 12 goals but they are giving up 4.35 goals per game. So considering all that, these teams should ... Split Wisconsin at Nebraska-Omaha Chris: You know, future Fullerton Award winner Andy Baggot of the Wisconsin State Journal was a pioneer in the league as the first guy to use a small tape recorder. Not sure what year it was, maybe late 1980s … the rest of us would scribble down the postgame quotes and then race off to write, while Bags would patiently transcribe. He had these great deadlines, as I recall, although truth be told I like an early deadline just in case there's a saloon close by. If you actually transcribe a quote, though, it always reads like this: "Well, uh, um, I mean, we, uh, you know, got some, uh, good shots, and, uh, you know, whatever." So transcribing … more trouble than it's worth. Andy and the Wisconsin media army will be in Omaha for this officially "pivotal" series as the teams battle for fourth place. Let's go out on a limb and say the Omahas sweep this series, and Badgers fans immediately demand Mike Eaves be fired and replaced by Dean Blais. ... Mavs sweep Roman: UNO, two points ahead of the fifth-place Badgers, finishes a six-game homestand this weekend. They are coming off a 3-0, 4-3 sweep of St. Cloud State and in second game came back from a 3-0 deficit. That was biggest comeback in UNO history. Coach Blais has 298 career wins so he could get his 300th Saturday. But Wisconsin, idle last weekend, is 5-0 all-time vs. the red Mavs, and has the top goalie statistically in the nation. Scott Gudmandson has an NCAA-best 1.79 goals-against average and a .935 save pct. He is 11-2 in his last 13 games, not giving up more than two goals in any of those teams. Badgers also have four players with 30 or more points, only Miami can match that. So this series will be a ... Split Minnesota State at Colorado College Chris: My greatest trip to Colorado Springs was for a first-round playoff series back in 1992. The old World Arena had this illegal pressbox where you climbed up a ladder, and crawled in, and the ceiling was like four feet up. Crazy. Not good for a hyperactive guy like me who likes to wander around, and I was banging my head all weekend. All three games went to overtime, and two went to triple OT, and by the end of it all, I had post-concussion syndrome. Plus temps were in the 80s, and everyone was sunburned by Sunday night's game. One of the linesmen was practically glowing. Brad Buetow was the CC coach back then. Intense guy. One time he called me up to complain about something I wrote in The Hockey News, and my 2-year-old kid answered the phone and rambled on a long time before finally giving me the phone. Brad was stewing. Good times. I'm going to think the Mankatos steal the opener of this series, but CC comes back to win Saturday in convincing fashion. ... Split Roman: CC freshmen have 82 points on 32 goals and 50 assists and it would be a lot more if Jaden Schwartz had not suffered a broken ankle in World Juniors over the holidays. He should be back soon. Team is 7-6 without him. CC is explosive, Tigers had scored two goals within three minutes 16 times this season, including twice last weekend in a split with Denver. The purple Mavs also with Bemidji State, winning 2-1 in overtime, losing 4-1. Four of Minnesota State's past four games have gone into OT. Their record in overtime games this season sis 1-1-6. ... CC sweeps Alaska Anchorage at North Dakota Chris: As long as I'm pumping up sportswriters, I got to say Doyle Woody of the Anchorage Daily News used to have quite the gig back when the ADN traveled with the Seapuppies, as far as frequent flyer miles go. As I recall, Doyle also missed a lot of flights thanks to his enjoyment of the WCHA night life, often returning to his hotel room long after the 4 a.m. wakeup call, but I would never say that publicly in case Doyle has a good lawyer. In Duluth, we used to convene at the "smoke-free" Pioneer Bar and, in true journalistic style, Doyle met the future Mrs. Woody there one night when she was working for the News-Trombone. They are now happily married and, quite honestly, Doyle still has a ton of frequent flyer miles so after the season he's always jetting off to Bora-Bora or some tropical locale. Enough insight about Anchorage, though. North Dakota had last weekend off to watch Christina Aguilera screw up a song that most of us learned in kindergarten, so they'll be rested and ready to sweep. If not, Dave Hakstol should be fired and replaced by Dean Blais. ... Sioux sweep Roman: UAA has won three in a row, beating the Gophers 1-0 at Mariucci and Michigan Tech 4-1 and 4-2 in the Sully. The Seawolves' neutral zone trap or four-man picket fence at its blue line can hamper opponents. Tech was held to under 20 shots in both losses. But the Sioux smell another title. They are only one point back of UMD and Denver, tied for first place in the WCHA so ... A Sioux win and a tie St. Cloud State at Minnesota Duluth Chris: So Mike Connolly scored five goals for UMD in a game against the Gophers on Saturday, more than Brett Hull ever had in a game for the Bulldawgs, but of course he did have 52 one year. They don't have goal-scorers in the league like that anymore because if you're not recruited when you're 15, you die on the vine. I may have some of the facts screwed up, but I think Hullsie was in his early 30s and a bit on the paunchy side when Mike Sertich brought him down from B.C. with the promise that he wouldn't make him work out or anything, he could just show up for games. You're either born a goal scorer, or you're not, and no matter what kind of skills you have that make NHL scouts drool, if you can't put the biscuit in the basket, you're just a ham and egger. My opinion only. The Bulldogs seem to be the big favorite in this series, and I know Roman will pick a sweep, so I'm going to outmaneuver him and say UMD wins big Friday and the Huskies score the Saturday upset. ... Split Roman: Guessing that Scott Sandelin will keep his top line together. It produced five goals Saturday when it was reunited; UMD won 6-4. M. Connolly had five goals, but Jack Connolly and Justin Fontaine had seven assists between them. Dogs can go up and down the Amsoil rink pretty well and team is 6-1-1 in 2011. But St. Cloud State is 3-1-1 against UMD in last four meetings. And the Huskies have to put their hard hats on, after playing UMD, the play North Dakota and Wisconsin at home, then play at Denver. Those are four of the top five teams in the league. ... UMD sweep Denver at Minnesota Chris: The Pioneers used to play once in a while at the Denver Coliseum during their rink-hopping days, and once in the late 1990s I went to the concession stand there during a game and ran into Michael Eisner, who was the head of Disney and, at least in my own mind, one of the richest dudes in history. He was all alone, no bodyguards in sight, so I struck up a conversation thinking he might hire me for a menial PR job that paid, say, $250,000 a year. Turns out he was there because his kid, Anders Eisner, was a goalie for Denver. Which got me to thinking, that's why I'd be a lousy coach. If that kid was on my team, I'd play him every game no matter what, just to get the old man to donate to the new rink fund. George Gwozdecky didn't, but everything turned out OK anyway, 'cause George won a couple of NCAA titles. Which now makes him the "hot" coach when jobs like Michigan State open up, especially since he was once an assistant there. I don't know that he'd want to leave Denver, though, I mean he's making good money, always has a good team, doesn't have to put up with as much crap from the internet rubes … but hey, back to the insightful analysis of this series. Denver's got the big stars in Shore and Zucker and obviously the Gophers are getting into desperation time so I'll go with a split. And Roman, if you don't start to pick better, I'm going to replace you with Dean Blais. ... Split Roman: Pioneers are 9-1-1 versus the Gophers in their last 11 games. That's not a type, that's not a call for help, just a fact. Luckily DU goalie Marc [Chevy] Cheverie graduated. He gave up two goals as the Pios went 4-0 against the Gophers for the first time in history last season. Yes, the U is desperate for points. But captain Jay Barriball is probably out (lower body injury). But Gophers will come up with big effort one night and get a ... Split