The Spartans will enjoy a short weekend at home against the two cellar-dwellers
in the CCHA before getting back into the fray with a trip to Sault Ste. Marie
next week to face Lake Superior State in two games that could easily decide
second place in the CCHA.  Tonight's game against Ohio State is followed by
an almost unheard of matinee (3:30) tilt tomorrow versus Illinois-Chicago
(moved due to the UM-MSU basketball game at Breslin).
 
The Spartans are coming off one of their best road trips of the season with
an impressive 8-1 win at Bowling Green followed by a less-than-stellar per-
formance against the Buckeyes in a 7-4 win at Columbus last Saturday.  MSU
spread the wealth out over the weekend with the 15 goals coming from 11
different scorers, including 4 defenseman.  Ron Mason, needless to say, is
excited by the prospects.
 
"The pucks are going in for us right now, which is something I couldn't say
in the first half of the season and something you really can't predict.  We
are getting scoring from different people, and that's really a key to keeping
pressure off the best people.  If the best people have to score all the time,
pretty soon they feel the pressure to do it, and if other people score, then
they can relax a little and usually have more success."
 
(Quote from the State News, MSU's independent [read: ultra left-wing] voice)
 
Tonight's game against OSU should prove to be a more wide open affair than the
two more recent Spartan-Buckeye clashes at Columbus, mainly due to the larger
ice surface of Munn Arena.  Do not be surprised to see Eric Kruse make only
his fourth appearance for the Spartans this season in goal tonight.
 
A quick turnaround brings UIC to Munn Arena for their only regular season
appearance this season (if the standings remain as they are, UIC would be
MSU's first round CCHA playoff opponent).  The Spartans haven't seen the Flames
since mid-October, when MSU took two in Chicago.  Especially happy among the
Spartans to see the Flames should be Brian Clifford, who scored 4 goals in the
season-opening series and then went ice-cold until tallying a goal against
BG last Friday (a 21-game goalless streak).
 
These two games are must-wins for the Spartans, especially since Lake Superior
is off this weekend and the Spartans head to the Soo for two next weekend.
A two-game sweep this weekend gives MSU a 7-point bulge on LSSU with only
7 left to play (LSSU will have one game in hand).  And the Spartans look like
they may need all 7 points, since their last seven include the two at Lake St.,
one against UM at the Joe, and three against perrenial nemeses Ferris St. (twice) and Western Michigan (who always seem to pick their game up at least two
levels when MSU steps on the ice).  For those of you around the country who
thought the CCHA didn't have any excitement left because UM has pretty much
wrapped the conference up, think again.  There will still be alot of jockeying
for position in the next few weeks before the playoffs start.
 
G. M. Finniss
Michigan State University
WVU '87, UTenn '92, MSU who the hell knows when?
 
P.S. I felt it was sort of prophetic that the Boston Bruins invited Nancy
        Kerrigan onto the ice at the Gahden (I'm allowed to say it that way,
        my father was born in Salem, Mass.) last night and then promptly
        got SHUT OUT by the Rangers.  Wonder what that says for Nancy's
        chances in Lillehammer?  (And to those who broadcast for CBS, the
        "a" is short, not long.)