Impressions from a Michigan fan on the UM-UM game:
first period
Very exciting well-played game.  Minn must have been setting Mich up on Sat
because they played like a whole other team today.  They skated hard and fast
- fastest team we've played all year; their passes were hard and crisp as
well their checking (and since the refs allowed it, so was their tackling and
mugging, as was Mich's, comments on the reffing to appear later in this
post).  Minn scored shorthanded at 3:38 and that made me real nervous.  Mich
scored at 8:32 on a power play to even it up.  The comment I wrote down at
this stage of the game was that Minn was very good at controlling the puck in
their offensive zone during their power plays, Mich just could not clear the
puck to save their lives.
 
At 9:19, Minn had a 5 on 3 power play.  Turco made 2 different stops during
that time that both Minn shooters had already raised their arms in goal
scoring fashion - both missed "open" nets on spectacular saves.  But finally
at 11:56 at the end of the original first penalty, Minn scored on a scramble
type of goal.  At this point, I wrote down that Mich's defense was palying
horrible.  At 17:01 I wrote down "who are these refs? What league are they
from? They are (and would continue to remain) horrible during the entire
game.  I never complain about refs but these refs were inconsistent, they let
muggings go on in front of their faces, one ref on the scene would not call
the penalty and the other one 40 feet away would (what a joke!!!!).  Dell was
one of the refs and he kept his whistle in his purse all game long.
Second period
In the second period Legg got a great goal for Mich that tied it up.  I
thought that Mich was finally figuring out how the refs were calling things,
finally figured out what would work against Minn and what would not, and
controlled (relatively so) the second period.
Third period
In the third Mich's Herr knocked the heck out of DeBus the goalie so the ref
blew the whistle.  That's an obvious penalty if I ever saw one. Then we
noticed that Herr was not headed for the penalty box but for the faceoff
outside the blue line - because he had also knocked the net off when he
knocked DeBus on his rear - what a horrible call (that went for us) that
typified the reffing all game long.
 
At 7:33 Luhning scored to put Mich up for the first time all night.  Then Red
Berenson went into his all defense/no offense mode.  Hey Red, you can't do
that at this stage of the season, you've lost all the NCAA games that you've
done that in!!  Finally Minn scored at 14:59 and now had the emotional
advantage.  (This is another reason why you can't do that, Red!!).  However,
Mich's offense was able to turn it on again and controlled the play for the
next 3 minutes and scored with 2:01 to go in the game.
 
Someone from Minn will have to tell me why Woog waited until 38 seconds left
in the game to pull DeBus especially since Minn controlled the puck from 1:13
on in the Mich zone - horrible call by Woog.  Mich iced the puck with 10
seconds to go and had to fight off the last face-off in front ot Turco to
hold on.
 
If I heard properly, Turco only had to make one save in the third period, if
someone could help on that please.
 
The UM kids left the ice saluting their fans and as sky-high as I've ever
seen them.
 
For the Minn band, my suggestion is to keep on playing your OWN fight song -
it's much better than playing the fight song of other schools that have
already been knocked out the tournament.  Are you trying to fire up your team
or the crowd?
 
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