Tonight's Red Berenson Show is now available at Michigan Hockey Net.

Coming off a bye week, Red answers a lot of fan questions and looks at this
week's showdown against rival Michigan State.

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Central Scouting Preliminary Rankings

The NHL Central Scouting Bureau has released their Preliminary
Rankings. These rankings do not work the same at the Mid-Term and Final
Rankings. The players are divided up by the league they play in and ranked
among their peers there, and in the case of the USHL/U.S. High Schools,
players are simply ranked as 'A' and 'B' Players.

Michigan center T.J. Hensick was ranked #2 among college skaters, while
2005 recruit Tim Miller (Omaha, USHL) was ranked a 'B' Player.

Boston College forward Dan Bertram was the #1 ranked college player, and
Jonathan Sigalet (Bowling Green) and Nathan Davis (Miami) were ranked #3
and #4 respectively.

The early recruiting signing period began last week and Michigan is
expected to get letters of intent from six players: Andrew Cogliano (St.
Mike's, Ontario Provincial Junior Hockey League), Jason Bailey, Jack
Johnson, Zach MacVoy, and Mark Mitera of the U.S. Under-18 Team, and Tim
Miller (Omaha, USHL).

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And finally, from the "Here we go again..." department, the University will
soon be trying once again to crack down on fan use of profanity after the
"F*** Ohio!" chant by the students at the Michigan/Miami game a few weeks
ago, and a near physical confrontation between a few adults in the stands
behind the penalty box. Obviously there was a large outcry over the incidents.

Myself, and from what I'm hearing now, other Michigan hockey Internet sites
which list the chants, have been asked to remove all chants by the athletic
department and hockey program. I've voluntarily agreed to comply for the
time being, though I did leave three chants up--the Goal Count, How Much
Time Is Left, and getting the band director to dance--simply because I feel
there is nothing offensive about these whatsoever (unless yelling "Thank
you!" to the announcer is now considered profane) and they have been
staples of Yost fans for several years.

It will be very interesting to see what happens this year, as we've all
heard the threats over the past handful of years yet in the end they've
turned out to be nothing but empty threats. It will be more interesting to
see how the Athletic Department tries to implement this without infringing
on fans rights, and probably most importantly, First Amendment
rights. According to an article written by Howard M. Wasserman, an
assistant professor of law at Florida International University College of
Law, for FirstAmendmentCenter.org, he concludes:

"The point is that a state university may not formally punish — even via
non-criminal sanction such as removal from the arena — those students who
depart generally accepted norms by loudly wielding a particular loaded word
to inform officials or opposing players that they are not very good at what
they do."

You can read his whole article at
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/Speech/pubcollege/topic.aspx?topic=fan_profa\
nity
in which he talks about the incident at a Maryland basketball game last
year that prompted that university to try developing a policy, but cites
several case laws, specifically Cohen v. California (which was used as the
benchmark case for Maryland's admin in trying to make the policy), to show
how they can't restrict freedom of speech.

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That's all for now...

Go Blue!

Jason
Michigan Hockey Net
http://MichiganHockey.net/