newsminer.com

Yes, there are finalists for the Alaska Nanooks head hockey position. No, they have yet to be announced.

The nine-member search committee did determine the number of finalists who each hope to replace Doc DelCastillo, who resigned April 10 after one season with the Central Collegiate Hockey Association program. On Friday, however, University of Alaska Fairbanks athletic director Forrest Karr didn’t announce names or the exact number.

There is at least two.

One reason Karr said that he couldn’t name the finalists is because two of them have to discuss the matter with their families and current employers.

Karr said he plans to announce the finalists early next week. The group is scheduled to be in Fairbanks next week, too, for campus visits and a public forum, tentatively set for 5:30 p.m. on Thursday and Friday at the Carlson Center.

The new head coach is slated to be named during the business week of May 12-16 and he will be the eighth in the Nanooks’ 28-year history as an NCAA program.

Sixteen people formally applied and that group was whittled to seven candidates with whom the search committee conducted telephone interviews on Wednesday and Thursday.

The original applicants include Dallas Ferguson, a four-year Nanooks assistant coach who was named the Alaska interim head coach after DelCastillo resigned, and Kevin Patrick, a University of Wisconsin assistant coach who was among four finalists last year seeking to replace Tavis MacMillan, who resigned last April after serving as Alaska’s head coach from 2004-07.

Keith scores for Aces

Alaska Aces and former Nanooks left wing Cam Keith scored short-handed with 40 seconds left in the third period Thursday for the tying goal in a 6-5 overtime victory over the Las Vegas Wrangers in Game 4 of an ECHL National Conference semifinal series at Sullivan Arena in Anchorage.

Center Francois-Pierre Guenette kept the Aces alive in the best-of-seven series with a goal at 8:17 into overtime. Las Vegas took the series with a 6-3 win Friday night.

Including Keith, five former Nanooks were involved in the series.

Left wing Kelly Czuy scored the game’s first goal and assisted on the second goal for Las Vegas on Thursday. His Wranglers and former Nanooks teammate Curtis Fraser, a center, had a plus-minus rating of -2, two shots and a roughing minor.

Defenseman Corbin Schmidt had one shot for the Aces.

The American Hockey League’s Eastern Conference East Division Final features two players with Alaska connections — Philadelphia Phantoms left Kyle Greentree, the Nanooks’ leading scorer from 2004-07, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins left wing Tim Wallace, a former Notre Dame standout from Anchorage.

Greentree and Wallace may have relived memories of the Alaska-Notre Dame rivalry because they had coincidental roughing minors at 5:41 of the second period of Game 1 Thursday night, won 5-2 by Philadelphia.

Greentree also finished with three shots and Wallace had one shot and a -1.

The best-of-seven series resumes today in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.