Surprisingly Good Second Line Comes From Impressive Pedigrees

A lot this year has been made about the Brown-Oleksuk-Schmitt line this year, and with good reason. Their emergence has pushed the Dogs from middle of the pack to the top of the WCHA. UMD's second line success was a surprise to me, but it makes sense when I took a look at all three of their pedigrees.

• JT Brown - Father Ted Brown, Vikings RB (1979-86)

Ted Brown played running back for the Vikings for eight years, amassing 4,546 rushing yards, 2,850 receiving yards, and 53 touchdowns over his career. The 4,546 yards rushing is good enough to make him the Vikings 5th all-time leading rusher behind Robert Smith, Chuck Foreman, Bill Brown, and Adrian Peterson, who will probably be #1 on the list sometime next season. Also JT wears 23, just like his dad did.

• Travis Oleksuk - Father Bill Oleksuk, UMD F (1978-82)

Bill Oleksuk played hockey for UMD from 1978-82, and racked up some pretty impressive numbers:

Year	GP	G	A	Pts	PM
1978-79	39	30	14	44	22
1979-80	38	27	32	59	34
1980-81	39	12	27	39	22
1981-82	40	21	27	48	16
Total	156	90	100	190	94

Travis has 41 career points ten games into his junior year after failing to lock down a secure spot in Sandelin's rotation his freshman year, and spraining his knee in the season opener last year. He won't catch his pops in career scoring, but he has a pretty good shot at 100 career points.

• Kyle Schmitt - Uncle Brian Thun, C (Baseball) UMD, Brother Ryan Schmitt, Hockey, UWS

Schmitt's brother Ryan lettered in hockey at UW-Superior for a year and his uncle played catcher for the Bulldogs in 1986-87. In 1987 he batted .276 with 6 RBI and 3 steals. Pretty frisky for a catcher.


I know a lot of the roster comes from athletic backgrounds, it's no secret that athleticism runs in certain families. For instance, Jack Connolly's older brother Chris captains Boston University, the top-ranked team in the nation. Still it's interesting that all three players have can trace their lineage back through the local sports scene.

We Got the Mojo This Year! Dogs Win with 7.9 Seconds Left in OT

Travis Oleksuk just wins games.

Another great win for UMD. Travis Oleksuk tips in a Dylan Olsen shot with a couple of ticks left in OT and the nation's longest unbeaten streak continues. The puck is bouncing our way, guys are making plays when they need to, our backup goalie is leading the nation in goals against and save percentage! It's ridiculous. We can only hope that the good times keep rolling. A couple of notes:

• As I mentioned above, Aaron Crandall is leading all goaltenders with a .958 save percentage and 0.98 goals against average. He came within 13 minutes of breaking Stalock's scoreless streak. Unbelievable. The guy doesn't see the ice last year and this year he's Stalock reincarnated. Granted it's early and he's only played three games, but with goaltending being our biggest question coming into the year it's very encouraging to see Crandall doing so well.
• North Dakota beat Denver 4-3 last night, leaving them tied with us atop the WCHA standings. Next weekend's series in Grand Forks is will be a huge. I can't wait.
• With Oleksuk scoring his 4th game-winning goal and JT Brown getting another goal and assist last night, not enough can be said about the emergence of the second line. There's almost no drop-off when the vaunted Connolly-Fontaine line comes off the ice. It feels like we have twice the offensive firepower this year.
• We've scored the most and allowed the least (except for Bemidji, who has played 3 games to our 7) amount of goals in the WCHA. Throw out that wacky 6-6 season opener against Lake Superior State and we're outscoring opponents 27-10 on the year.

There's a good vibe around the team right now. Everyone know our first line would be solid, but contributions from the second line and blue line is making the difference on the bottom line: 6-0-1. Let's go get the sweep.