CHRISTMAS BREAKdown

Christmas break has begun across the USHL and games won't start up until December 29 and your Fargo Force won't play until December 31.  It's time to reflect on what has happened in the first half of the season...

Force fans expected a lot going into the year returning fourteen players that led them to the Clark Cup Finals in the inaugural 2008-09 season.  The preseason roster had 16 players committed to Division 1 programs and it was looking as if the Fargo Force would be headed to the Clark Cup Finals once again.  We had two solid goaltenders locked up (we thought) in Cody Campbell and Zane Gothberg before the season started.  Gothberg decided to stick around his high school team for one more year in TRF and the search for a solid backup had begun.

The month of October was terrible for Fargo and Force fans that had set expectations high going into the year.  They finished the month of October with a 5-6 record and a big question mark in between the pipes.  Cody Campbell struggled and the backup goaltending was questionable which forced the coaching staff to look that much harder for any form of solid goaltending.  From preseason to present, we have seen Martin Janzons, Keegan Asmundson, Ryan Holfeld, Cody Campbell, Dayn Belfour and Ryan Massa in between the pipes in a Fargo Force uniform.

From November until now, the Force have been one of the best teams in the league and the team that everyone had thought they should be going into the season.  Fargo is 11-3-1 since November 1.  They have seemed to found their niche in net with Ryan Massa putting up solid numbers in 9 games played with the Force.  Massa is 6-1 with a 2.59 GAA and .913 SV%.

Fargo has the fourth best power play and third best penalty kill in the USHL.  They have scored the third most goals in the league and if Massa is able to keep it up, the Force may see themselves among the league leaders in goals against by the end of the year.

There are a lot of good signs going into the 2nd half of the year.  We have seen many players like Nate Condon, Nate Schmidt, Corey Leivermann and Johnnie Searfoss step up their game.  Matt Leitner and Eamonn McDermott have done what we expected them to do all along.  Leitner is the team leader with 25 points and McDermott has been solid all year on the blue line.

The young guns like Brian Cooper, Garrett Allen, Alex Lippincott, and the new addition in Marek Hrbas have been all you can ask for in young USHL players.  Allen is among the team leaders in scoring.  Hrbas and Lippincott are plus players and Brian Cooper has played well as the youngest player on the Fargo Force roster.

There are many improvements that can be made going into 2010, but there are a lot of things to be happy about if you are a Fargo Force fan...