Overheard at tonight's BU-Lowell game in the press box:
 
(person #1)
"I hear that after Maine beat Lake Superior in the Freeze Out, [LSSU coach]
Jeff Jackson said Maine would be lucky to finish fourth in the CCHA."
 
(person #2)
"Then where would Brown finish?"
 
Pretty funny, but it brings up the point: why do coaches say things like
this?  Sid from BU tells me that when he was at the Badger Showdown, he saw
quotes from Wisconsin's Jeff Sauer about how the Badgers were looking
forward to playing in the final four in front of their fans, and then the
Badgers went out and lost the Showdown championship to BU.  Sid thought it
seemed as if the Badgers were looking straight past the season into the
final four (a little dangerous since they're only 10-7-1 and nothing is
guaranteed) and that they may have been overconfident after blowing out BC.
 
This also reminds me of the 1988 NC$$ tourney and the degree to which teams
took Merrimack lightly as the first-ever independent to make the tourney.
First, Northeastern's coaches told their team after a 5-3 win over
Merrimack the first night, "You played one period [well] and still won...
they [Merrimack] don't even belong on the ice with you."  Merrimack
rebounded with a 7-3 win the next night to win the series on total goals.
(Having been at NU then, I was there to hear the "they don't belong on the
ice with you" words first-hand.)
 
Next, Merrimack went to LSSU for the quarterfinals, where before the
series, then-LSSU coach Frank Anzalone spent much of his time telling
Merrimack coach Ron Anderson about how his team planned to make the trip
from the UP to Lake Placid the next weekend for the final four.  Merrimack
beat LSSU in the first game, 4-3, before the Lakers went bounced back to
win the second game 5-0 and took the series on total goals, going on to win
the championship.
 
If coaches don't take the opponent seriously, the players can't be expected
to.  I firmly believe that one of the reasons Maine is still unbeaten is
the way Shawn Walsh approaches each game.  He posts a sign in the locker
room before each game that reads, "The most important game of the year is
TONIGHT against [tonight's opponent]."  Maine is an outstanding team, no
doubt, but upsets do occur, and I think the degree to which a coach takes
his team's opponents seriously and prepares his team to play the game is
vital to ensuring that those upsets don't occur.
 
BTW, I only saw the signs for the Merrimack series (elsewhere around the
rink but I heard they were posted down in the locker room area), but they
looked as if they were designed to allow the name of the opponent to be
altered and I'm assuming this is done for other games as well.
---
Mike Machnik    [log in to unmask]   Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors
(Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.)    *HMN*