It's like this every year. We told our kids before the game that every time we play Hershey, you throw the records out. ... We had a lot of kids do some good things out there.

We've got a lot of kids who can play and who can come in and contribute, and that's been an advantage for us. Everyone understands their role.

Their kids play extremely hard all the time and I'm sure they'll increase their intensity at tournament time. We'll have a size advantage on them in the post and we want to make full use of that.

Kids used to get their sticks caught in there all the time. Now they feel safe and can play with more confidence. You can send the puck up along the boards and it doesn't jet back out like it did before.

I would never commit ahead of time that he wasn't going to play. I would hate to tell somebody they're not going to play or their minutes would be limited, then all of a sudden 6 minutes into the game put him out there. That wouldn't be fair. I think it's better that he stayed ready, but unfortunately he didn't get in.

Right now I'm a little bit shocked because he announced something, but at the same time he didn't play the second half of the year.