After struggling into Lansing at about 12:30 last night (man, that's a long
drive) and sleeping most of the day away, I finally got up the energy to hit
the computer and send in my impressions of the 1995 NCAA College Hockey
Championships in Providence, RI.
Since it had been a while since I had been to New England (18 years to be
exact), I had forgotten how "agressive" (for lack of a better term) New
England drivers can be. I was quickly reminded. About the third or fourth
time that someone stuck his nose out of a cross street to make either a
right or left hand turn made my blood start to boil. And this was just
Thursday morning.
My wife and I stayed at the Ramada in Seekonk, MA (not a bad place to stay,
$59 for a 2p/1 queen bed room with free breakfast buffet and much lower taxes
than RI) and arrived about 11:30pm on Wednesday. Didn't do much that evening
but headed to town at about 11:30 for the first semifinal. I don't know where
Brian got parking for $8, but we parked in the Civic Center garage for $5
(took us about an hour to get out of there after the second semi).
My seats, to put it bluntly, were perfect. Section 223, Row E, seats 3 and 4,
right above one of the tunnels coming into the stadium, so I had NO ONE sitting
in front of me. Perfect place to rest my notebook (which I carry constantly
now). I was somewhat delighted to look around the crowd and see a smattering
here and there of Spartan green (a lot of it on the presonages of Bill Krebs
and his wife Virginia). Originally, we were sitting by the Michigan band
(which brought back memories of my first trip to JLA) but for some reason the
two bands got switched before the opening faceoff. May have been because the
Maine section was down at my end.
I, unlike Mike and some others who have voiced their opinions here, did not
think Maine weas in really deep trouble after Michigan's second goal. What
I was beginning to see from Maine was something which I don't see too many
teams do to Michigan, and even if they try they don't do it that successfully.
One of my greatest pet peeves at watching Michigan State play Michigan in the
past few seasons is that they don't go after Michigan's forwards when bringing
the puck across the blue line, instead backing up towards the goal. While
Michigan's forwards make some great passes in the neutral zone, they tend to
carry the puck into the zone and go for the net quite often (IMHO). Maine's
defensemen (Imes sticks out in my mind as the best at this) consistently rode
Michigan's forwards off the puck. Many of Michigan's shots on goal (which
came in bunches) were from faceoffs won in the Maine zone.
The two goaltenders were, to be honest, awesome. I've never really given Marty
Turco a lot of credit at Michigan, mainly because he doesn't face a lot of
shots. He did on Thursday. 56 of them. And on a majority of those, he was
in position. As Brian Morris pointed out later at dinner, he didn't fall for
a deke the entire game, until Shermerhorn's game winner in the third OT. Many
of the saves looked easy, but that's why you get into position so that you don'thave to make the tough saves.
Blair Allison, OTOH, did get caught out of position a few times, but made up
for it with some brilliant saves. There was no question in my mind, win or
lose on Thursday, that Allison should have been the All-Tournament goaltender.
Maine pulled themselves even and managed to take a 3-2 lead on a power play
goal with about 6 minutes to go in the third. Many Maine fans behind me felt
that it was over then, but MacIsaac's penalty and the subsequent goal by
Knuble on a great shot from the slot quelled that idea real quick. The game
had the feel of overtime to me when Maine cut Michigan's lead to 2-1 in the
first. And overtime we got. A LOT of overtime.
Both teams had some great scoring opportunities in both of the first two over-
times, but it seemed like Michigan was finding the puck more often in their own
end in the second OT. It's a real tribute to Turco that Maine didn't score in
the second OT, since he saw 17 shots in that period. The game winner, as
others have written, was sort of anti-climatic. (For instance, it didn't com-
pare to Steve Guolla's OT winner in the CCHA semis against BG for drama.)
Off to dinner, which was real easy to find if you followed Erik's Gopher
regalia. It was a great pleasure to meet people who you've only known elec-
tronically (sounds sort of Biblical, doesn't it?). Had a great conversation
with Bill and Virginia as well as John from Northeastern (I never did get your
last name, and you don't post enough for it to stick out in my mind) along
with Brian Morris. It was also good seeing Karen Ambrose and the original
"Get-A-Lifer" Dave Hendrickson along with one of the more priveleged people in
the world, Dave's son Ryan. Of course, no evening is complete without meeting
the most prolific poster of them all, Mike Machnik (or Big Country as he was
going by there). There were many that I didn't get a chance to talk to, in-
cluding the man who nurses the list, Wayne Smith (who may be one of the first
list administrators to ever be greeted with "SIEVE!"). All in all, a nice
get together.
On the way back to the arena, I was greeted with a sight that only a Spartan
could love. Live and in person in Providence, accompanied by his musical pogo-
stick, was Goofus, decked in Green and White, except for his NMU sweatshirt.
We caught him just as he was reaching the "fighting with a vim" part and stayed
through the "FIGHT! FIGHT! RAH, TEAM, FIGHT! Victory for MSU!" line. It's
nice to know a little slice of Heaven came to Providence, even if Ron's guys
didn't make it.
On to the second semi, which I felt was pretty evenly played through the first
40 minutes. Minnesota surprised me a bit with their ability to come back in
the first when BU came out firing. It looked like this one was going to go
down to the wire, but BU came out strong in the third and took Minnesota out.
You have to feel somewhat for Doug Woog, with 10 consecutive appearances and
no titles. Eventually, he'll get lucky enough to get the crown. (I just hope
it's not at MSU's expense.)
Friday, being a nice sunny day, lent itself to many interesting possibilities.
My wife really wanted to see downtown Providence, but I wasn't really too keen
on the idea. We ended up eating on Federal Hill (Cassarino's (sp?)) and then
going to the Providence Zoo, which was quite entertaining. (If we ever get
the film developed, we have about eight pictures of the polar bears. We're
both huge PB freaks.) Since it was still early, we drove down to Newport,
and after nearly getting lost, were able to get to Ocean Drive and get a
rather breathtaking view of Rhode Island Sound and see some of the more
ostentatious homes along Ocean Drive and Bellevue Avenue before heading back
to Seekonk for a fish dinner (it was Friday after all and it's still Lent)
before collapsing.
Saturday, for a Westerner, wasn't exactly what you would call a much anticipatedday, since two Eastern teams were playing for the title, but the game did appearon the surface to be a pretty good matchup. I figured that Maine had to still
be exhausted from Thursday's marathon, but it didn't show itself until the
second period, when the Black Bears managed one shot on goal in the first 13
minutes of the period. Maine appeared to have some life and the momentum when
they scored just after a 5-on-3 situation expired early in the third to cut
BU's lead to 3-2. But what Maine had been successful at against Michigan did
not work well for them against BU. The key play was BU's fourth goal, when
a bad pass in the neutral zone led to a 2-on-1 on Allison by Bates and Sylvia,
due to the bad pass and the failure of one of the Maine defensemen (MacIsaac
or Tory seem to stick in my mind, but don't quote me) to ride Bates off the
puck. After that, it seemed like a matter of time, as Maine couldn't really
mount much of an offense and BU added 2 more to win 6-2. After the game, it
was back to the hotel to catch the UCLA-OSU game before going out to dinner in
Seekonk while watching the UA-UNC game.
Of all the weekends to have to pick to drive 13 hours back and forth in the
span of five days, I had to pick the weekend that we switch from Standard Time
to Daylight Savings. The trip back through RI, Mass., NY, Ont. and half of
Michigan seemed shorter than the trip out, but that's because we'd been there
before. I really applaud the intestinal fortitude but have to question the
mental state of some of the Michigan fans who made the turnaround in about 48
hours or so. (NY's really got to change that speed limit soon. 55's bad enoughbut when it takes you 5-6 hours to cross a state, it really sucks.)
Overall, a good trip, one which it will take me about a week to recover from.
Fortunately, the next two finals are out my way (Cincy and Milwaukee, or is it
St. Paul?) so the drive time will be a HELLUVA lot less. And, with a child in
tow (my wife's due in August), thank God for that!
G. M. Finniss
Michigan State University
WVU '87, UTenn '92, MSU who the hell knows when?
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