The No. 8-ranked Bulldog hockey team fell 5–4 in over­time to No. 12-ranked Northern Michigan in the CCHA Tournament semifinals.

Ferris junior Todd Pococke scored late in the first period to give the Bulldogs a 1–0 lead. Midway through the sec­ond period, the Wildcats ripped off three goals in 1:02 to take a 3–1 lead. Bulldog senior cap­tain Cody Chupp scored to close the gap to 3–2 after two peri­ods of play.

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The No. 8-ranked Ferris hockey team is set to bat­tle the No. 12-ranked Northern Michigan Wildcats in the first CCHA semi­fi­nal matchup at Joe Louis Arena.

Ferris lost and tied, even­tu­ally los­ing in a shootout, in the two regular-season con­tests against the Wildcats. Northern Michigan senior goalie Brian Stewart was the dif­fer­ence as he saved 94 of 97 shots he faced in the series.

In 2003, the last time the Bulldogs made it to the semi­fi­nals, Ferris defeated Northern Michigan 4–2 before los­ing to Michigan in the finals.

The win­ner of the first semi­fi­nal will play the win­ner of the sec­ond game, fea­tur­ing top-seeded Miami (Ohio) and Michigan, for the CCHA Playoff Championship. Miami has played in the cham­pi­onship game twice in the last four years, while Michigan has played in it in four of the last five seasons.

The Bulldogs have made three prior appear­ances at Joe Louis Arena, but have never won a title. The Wildcats won back-to-back CCHA Tournament Championships in 1980 and 1981 and their last appear­ance in the title game was a loss to Michigan in 1999.

Ferris is ranked eighth in the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) and is tied for eighth in the PairWise Rankings. Both of these rank­ings help deter­mine which 16 teams receive bids to the NCAA Tournament. Ferris is in a posi­tion to make the NCAA Tournament, depend­ing on what hap­pens this week­end. A win over Northern Michigan would almost guar­an­tee a spot in the national tournament.

The Bulldogs and Wildcats face­off at 4:35 p.m. and fans can watch the game on Fox Sports Detroit. Michigan and Miami play at 8:05 p.m. and the game will be shown on the Big Ten Network.

Does St. Patrick’s Day have his­tor­i­cal “drink­ing roots” or is the prac­tice of imbib­ing some mod­ern skew of the orig­i­nal celebration?

Irish and non-Irish alike are out in their finest, green­est attire today in cel­e­bra­tion of St. Patrick’s Day. Besides wear­ing green and eat­ing corned beef and cab­bage, the other activ­ity many peo­ple asso­ciate with the hol­i­day is drink­ing. (more…)

Throwing a tra­di­tional Irish party for St. Patrick’s Day is a non-traditional American thing to do.

A new idea for this year’s St. Patrick’s Day cel­e­bra­tion is to throw an Irish party com­plete with tra­di­tional foods, dances, cos­tumes, and music. (more…)

The nation­ally No. 8-ranked Bulldog hockey team is head­ing to Joe Louis Arena for the CCHA semi­fi­nals after sweep­ing then No. 18 Nebraska-Omaha at home.

The vic­to­ries gave Ferris its first trip to the CCHA Championships since the 2002–2003 sea­son and a 12–0 record all-time in CCHA Tournament games at home. (more…)

Governor Jennifer Granholm and the Michigan leg­is­la­ture are look­ing into a pro­posal to amend the Tuition Incentive Program that ben­e­fits cer­tain col­lege students.

As part of Granholm’s pro­posed higher edu­ca­tion bud­get, she is propos­ing a cap on the amount of that will be cov­ered by the gov­ern­ment for TIP stu­dents. The TIP is a two phase finan­cial assis­tance pro­gram that helps qual­i­fied stu­dents pay tuition and make col­lege more afford­able. (more…)

Bulldog head coach Mike Mignano, in his third year with the team, said this is the most tal­ented team Ferris has ever had. The team fin­ished eighth at the NCAA-II Men’s Golf Championships a sea­son ago and is look­ing to crack the top five this season.

The Bulldogs are geared up to make another run at a national title. Mignano said every­thing the team does each day is based on the goal of win­ning a national championship.

“I think in gen­eral top five is good, but the guys won’t be happy unless they win it,” said Mignano.

Ferris never fin­ished out­side the top five in any event dur­ing the fall part of the sea­son. The Bulldogs’ worst result was at the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championships where they fin­ished tied for fourth.

The team kicks off its spring part of the sea­son with the UC-San Diego Southern California Intercollegiate Tournament in Mission Viejo, Calif. March 22–23. Mignano said the 12-team field con­sists of six of the top 20 teams from nation­als last year, includ­ing 2009 national cham­pion Sonoma State (Calif.).

“Obviously we’re going out there with the goal of win­ning, but more impor­tantly we want to kind of see where we are at in the mix,” said Mignano.

The ros­ter is lit­tered with tal­ent and expe­ri­ence as the team sports four seniors, five juniors, and four sopho­mores. The team is led by seniors Kurt Valley and Eric Lilleboe. Senior Craig Burrows and juniors Joe Brown and Garrett Simons also had one or more top ten indi­vid­ual fin­ishes dur­ing the fall sea­son for the Bulldogs.

“Kurt Valley is with­out a doubt the hard­est work­ing guy on our team,” said Mignano. “He’s our cap­tain, he’s our leader and he def­i­nitely sets an exam­ple for every­body else.”

The Bulldogs will be hit­ting the road early in the sea­son as the first four tour­na­ments of the spring will be played in California, Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. Lilleboe said the team is very deep and expects they will be in con­tention for a national title in May.

“Getting off to a good start early def­i­nitely helps us with con­fi­dence, but we would much rather end the year hot at region­als and nation­als,” said Lilleboe. n

The speed at which the day goes by can be daunt­ing. Weeks evap­o­rate and months turns into semes­ters and years.

In all of this mov­ing for­ward, we inevitably neglect the present. (more…)

Ferris State University will be cel­e­brat­ing Women’s History Month, which is a time to reflect on women’s past and present struggles.

“As with all cul­tural events we spon­sor, Women’s History Month is another oppor­tu­nity for the FSU com­mu­nity to engage and learn about cul­ture, his­tory and cur­rent events,” said Michael Wade, assis­tant direc­tor of the Office of Multicultural Student Services. (more…)