Sioux bus rear ended on trip to Bemidji; nobody hurt

Fortunately, nobody was hurt. But about 5 p.m. Thursday the bus transporting the North Dakota hockey team, including the coaches, was hit from behind.

A driver apparently dozed off. And awoke too late to stop as the bus slowed down near a railroad crossing near Erskine, Minn. Nobody was hurt in the accident but the car was totaled and the Sioux had to wait for another bus, a smaller yellow school bus, to take them the rest of the way.

Their bus was leaking coolant. Not a good thing.

North Dakota hockey sport info. guy Jayson Hajdu tweated and blogged about the incident. Once he knew everyone was OK, Haydu wrote, Sioux associate head coach Cary Eades joked, "They've gotta crack down on all this hitting from behind."

To see Hajdu travel blog visit: http://www.fightingsioux.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=58684&SPID=6405&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205012290&DB_OEM_ID=13500

Bemidji State asked the WCHA to schedule North Dakota for the Beavers' first series in the WCHA. The opening of the new Bemidji Regional Events Center also will be celebrated this weekend.

Now the Sioux have something extra to be happy about, too. No injuries in the crash.

Inside College Hockey (INCH) on Thursday came out with its recruiting ratings.

Top classes: No. 1 Denver, No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 3 Boston University, No. 4 North Dakota and No. 5 Minnesota.

Bet Gophers would have been a couple spots higher at least if Seth Ambroz, a forward playing for Omaha of the USHL, had joined the team. He tried to accelerate his high school education to do so, ran into some snags. He is expected to be a first round NHL draft pick next June, maybe/probably in the top 10.

Three other WCHA teams also made the top 15 classes: 7. St. Cloud State, 8. UMD, 9. Colorado College, 12. Wisconsin and No. 14 Nebraska Omaha, the Gophers opponent this weekend.

Forward ratings: CC's Jaden Schwartz is rated No. 1, ... DU has three highly rated forwards: No. 2 Beau Bennett, No. 4 Jason Zucker and No. 14. Nick Shore.

Nebraska Omaha's Matt White is rated No. 9, North Dakota's Brock Nelson No. 15.

Defenseman ratings: Derek Forbort of NoDak is rated No. 1 and teammate Dillon Simpson No. 9. .. Mark Alt of the Gophers is No. 13. ... Also notable are No. 7 Nick Jensen and No. 8 Kevin Gravel of St. Cloud State.