I had wondered how Ikola had ended up at Michigan, their success during
that time notwithstanding.  In any event, Heyliger had some success
recruiting up in Eveleth.  The other Michigan player on the 1956 Olympic
team was John Matchefts, also from Eveleth.  In the late 1930s, Heyliger
had as many as 13 recruits on his team from Eveleth.  Apparently, there
was a year when the entire University of Illinois team was from Eveleth.
The town of Eveleth currently has a population of less than 4000.

It must be off-season already.

Doug Peterson

On 11 Apr 2005 at 13:43, Pamela Sweeney wrote:

Working only from memory here, I believe that in those days Michigan
offered hockey scholarships, while most other schools did not.  This
helped them to lure some of the Eveleth players (including goalie
Willard Ikola) away from Minnesota in the '50s. -Pam Sweeney


-----Original Message-----
From: Henry <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Apr 10, 2005 4:04 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: NCAA dynasties

Well, now that Denver's done the repeat I got curious and looked at
the roster of past champions. Wow. In the first ten years of the
tournament, 1948-57, Michigan was in the final 7 times and won 6. No
other team has ever come close to that sort of dominance. Does anyone
know, off the top of his head, (a) who was the coach in those years
and (b) which players went on to good careers in the NHL?

cheers,

Henry