Prior to this weekend, Wisconsin was 1-30 on their last 30
powerplays. Said Coach Sauer:
"If they [the CC coaching staff] watched the tape of our
powerplay, they will have no idea what we are trying to do..."
Blaine Moore got his first hat trick as a Badger on Friday night. NOT
ONE HAT was thrown on the ice. All the media people were speculating
that the fans were in shock at how many goals Wisconsin had scored (or
that they had let CC back into the game). Basically, it was a boring
friday night crowd... and the band was at about 20% strength (on one
song it was obvious that they had NO first trumpets!). A lot of the
band was at the Field House for the first round of the NCAA volleyball
tournament (Wisconsin beat Bowling Green).
Coach Sauer thinks Greg Shepard is the best WCHA referee (this
was reported last year, and he hasn't changed his mind).
Doug Macdonald (Wisconsin's captain, out with a separated
shoulder) sat in with the radio announcers for a while Saturday
night. He said that Shepard is the players' favorite as well,
because he lets a little more go, and is real easy to talk to on
the ice, and jokes around with the players. He also compared the
officiating to the BC Junior leagues: Much stricter in college,
including the linesmen.
Wisconsin scored their three non-empty-net goals Saturday night
with *wrist shots* instead of slapshots -- the CC goalie didn't
have time to setup, and seemed really surprised at all three
shots.
WCHA Commissioner Otto Breitenbach was interviewed Saturday nght
between periods. His comments:
-- officiating. Maybe the WCHA called the "new emphasis" rules
tighter than other leagues, and maybe there is an unofficial
compromise between the coaches, players, and refs, but the
philosophy hasn't changed, and he says the games are getting
better, and he is pleased to see that many players who have
the opportunity to hook/hold/grab/interfere seem to be
obviously restraining themselves. He hopes to keep this
level of enforcement (and not keep getting more and more lax
as the season goes on).
-- expansion: He said that the hockey community has an
obligation to make sure that the Alaska programs continue at
the same (high quality) level that they are now. This means
that they probably will end up in the league.
However, he said, the whole definition of the league needs
to be re-examined (this sounds like he is calling for
massive change, I don't think that is what he meant, just
that the league structure might change, such as going to
divisions).
Mankato State, the other program that says it wants to move
up to Division I is a few years away from being in the
league, he said. They are going to build a new arena, and
they need to build their program. He said the other teams
will have to be supportive of their program as well (which I
think means scheduling them). It is going to be tough for
them with so few independent teams around to play, and so
few non-conference games allowed to teams.
-- NCAA convention and rules: They are trying to organize
support at the NCAA convention (in January) to recind the
cut in coaching staff (next year the staff will be limited
to 1 head coach and 1 full-time and 1 part-time assistant).
They hope to get back the 2nd full-time assistant, and think
it may be possible, on saftey and equity with other contact
sports (read football) grounds. They will try and get all
the hockey schools together on this, and call all their
friends who aren't hockey schools. Their best hope is to get
the Presidents' Conference to endorse the change before the
convention votes on it... recinding all the other new limits
(schedule, scholarships, season length) he thinks are lost
causes for now, and there are no proposals on the agenda for
the convention. He didn't say who "they" are (in this case,
actually "we" since "they" are always the unidentified bad
guys in a large organization!).
Well, thats it for now....
--david
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david parter [log in to unmask]
university of wisconsin -- madison computer sciences department
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