Game summaries and some comments have already
been posted.  Here are a few more comments/opinions:
 
FRIDAY: MICHIGAN 8 Lake Superior 2
If you know me well, you know that LSSU is my second
favorite team, albeit they are a FAR distance behind UM
in that category.  Still, I've been long looking forward to
seeing the Wolverines stomp the Lakers.  Guess what?
It wasn't as exciting as I had anticipated.  Michigan totally
controlled the first period and exited with a 3-0 lead.  The
Lakers made a game of it in the second, as it appeared
that UM was already counting their two points.  Matt Herr's
TIMELY goal late in the second helped the Wolverines
ESCAPE with a 4-2 lead.  After flying in the first and being
grounded in the second, UM appeared to come out flat
again for the third.  Following 46+ minutes of play, the score
remained UM 4 LSSU 2 and both teams seemed to have
the upperhand for significant stretches of time.  Then the
bottom fell out on the Lakers.  Michigan tallied thrice in
1:21 to turn a 4-2 game into a 7-2 rout.  If you went to get a
pretzel, you came back to a totally different game.  At 7-2,
it was over.  My lasting impressions of the game are these:
 
(1) Michigan's recently reunited line of C Kevin Hilton, RW
Warren Luhning and LW John Madden is phenomenal.
I firmly believe that they were the best overall line in the
nation in the second half of last season.  They were 5-6--11
on the night and, at times, seemed to be toying with LSSU.
I've seen 'HLM' cycle in the opponents zone for 30-45 seconds
before, but I didn't remember ANYONE cycling in the Laker
zone for 30-45 seconds.  Michigan did so on a couple of
occasions, and this line was likely the most dominant in
terms of puck control.
(2) It was the worst game I can recall seeing veteran Laker
rearguard Keith Aldridge play.  IMO, Aldridge is the best
overall (most complete) defenseman in the CCHA, but he
was a 60-minute stooge on Friday.  He spent most of the
first period chipping at UM's Jason Botterill, including at
least one punch to the back of the head behind the play.
At first, it seemed like a good strategy -- try to sucker UM's
most notable hothead into a retaliation penalty and, basically,
get him thinking more about the physical aspect of the game
than anything else.  However, it didn't work out that way.  As
the game went on, it was clear that Michigan would gladly
be chippy in return, but not to the point that it would benefit
LSSU with power play opportunities.  Aldridge never received
this message.  He continued to thug his way through the night
and began to find himself in the box as much as on the ice,
which spread the Lakers already depleted defense a little
thinner.  I'd like to hear the reaction of some hardcore Laker
fans to this, because Aldridge is generally a dependable
leader.  From my perspective, he wasn't much of a leader on
Friday.  His continued goon-ism didn't do much, except for
take HIMSELF out of his game.
(3) Continuing the thread from above, I have to mention
referee Steve Piotrowski.  It may be hard to believe, but I do
think he's one of (if not THE) best official in the CCHA.  But,
I think he could have been more of a calming influence on
the game than he was.  He allowed a few situations to escalate
too far before he finally intervened.  I'm referring to instances
where a certain players from each team seemed to have
personal scores to settle with each other, shift after shift.  Pi
was often late in putting them in the box.  One prominent example
is Aldridge and UM's Brendan Morrison in the third period.
With the outcome of the game already decided, Aldridge
turned his attention to roughing up Morrison whenever possible.
At one point, he popped Morrison with a fairly solid crosscheck/
forearm to the chin/neck that Piotrowski saw but didn't call.
About 15-20 seconds later, Morrison deliberately dumped Laker
netminder Jason Caster (btw...making his first collegiate
appearance after Sean Kulick was pulled).  Aldridge immediately
attacked Morrison, who went into a shell.  Of course, this brought
everyone onto the scene as Botterill attempted to pull Aldridge
off of Morrison while another Laker tried to join the fracas and
so on.  To Piotrowski's credit, he PHYSICALLY intervened at
this point, which is almost always left to the linesmen.  (I personally
wouldn't mess with Piotrowski.  IMO, he can toss almost every
CCHA player, including the heavyweights, around at will.)
Still, he could have sent Aldridge and Morrison off earlier in the
shift.  Give 'em coincidental high sticking minors.  (Piotrowski
LOVES to do that when he's tiring of a pair's on-ice activities.
Just toss 'em both for two and call it high sticking. :-)  Now,
several players are involved, resulting in more penalties and
increased "bad blood."
 
Following the game, I went to dinner with a good friend that has
several hundred (probably close to 1000) CCHA games under
his belt, but has recently moved from Ann Arbor so hasn't been
a regular over the last year and a half or so.  He's generally
more "colorful" and less inhibited with his comments than I am,
so I'll tone his thoughts down some.  To paraphrase:
  -- That was a Michigan-Lake Superior game?  That sucked!
  -- That team plays less like Lake Superior than any team I've
ever seen.  (Said with respect and admiration for LSSU's generally
rugged, tight-defensed style...OK, call it clutch and grab...which
we both thoroughly enjoy.)
  -- Their whole game plan seemed to be to piss of Botterill and
injure Morrison.  Not much of a strategy for a big game.
  -- What happened to Aldridge?  He's a total hack!
  -- What happened to (Jason) Trzcinski?  He used to have talent!
  -- Did the Tallaire brothers not make the trip, or did I just miss them
out there?
  -- I kept finding myself looking down to the Laker bench and
expecting to find Larry Pedrie (UIC coach) there!  (For context,
the Lakers looked much more like a bunch of thugs, typical of
a Pedrie team, than they did a talented, disciplined bunch,
typical of a Jeff Jackson team.)
 
Bottom line: Both of us have been waiting for the day that Michigan
trounced LSSU to the tune of 8-2 and, for a variety of reasons, it
simply wasn't that enjoyable.
 
Btw...to get in a little pro-Laker text, sophomore forward Bates
Battaglia showed flashes of brilliance, which I expect of him.  He
literally beat everyone on the ice on one rush.  I got the feeling
that if Michigan had emptied the bench, Battaglia would have
skated around 18 of them instead of just 4-5.  Keep your eyes
on him.
 
SATURDAY: WESTERN MICHIGAN 5 Michigan 0
Hmmm.  This one is difficult to explain to folks that weren't there,
especially considering that UM outshot WMU, 35-22.  I guess
the recipe for losing 5-0 is this:
  (A) Get fewer quality chances than you normally create in 60
minutes, and make MUCH less of them.
  (B) Give up only a typical few quality chances, but watch the
opponents convert on a couple of them.
  (C) Give up a fluke, fluttering goal that goes off of your own
defenseman with 1.2 second remaining in the first period, to
put your team down 2-0 following 20 minutes in which you, for
the most part, had more control of the play.
  (D) Add a couple of empty-netters for fluff.
So, WMU takes the season series, 2-1.  Now, Michigan needs
help to win the CCHA.  It is possible for them to win ALL of their
remaining games and still not be the top seed in the CCHA
playoffs...something I never thought could be said in DECEMBER.
 
Marc Magliarditi was again stellar in the WMU nets.  With LSSU's
John Grahame sidelined to injury, Magliarditi is clearly the best
goaltender in the CCHA.  Michigan didn't test him as much as they
would have liked, but in the few times that he was seriously tested
(including a pair of odd-man rushes, one being 3-on-1) he came
up big.  And, the few big saves came at moments were Michigan
could have cut the lead to 2-1 or 3-1 and gotten right back into the
game.  With 40%+ of the season over, I'd cast a vote for Magliarditi
as CCHA Rookie of the Year AND CCHA Player of the Year.
 
A quick breakdown of the goals:
 (1) At 1:26.  Jeremy Brown parks near UM netminder Marty Turco
and is allowed to stuff one in, unobstructed.  A defensive lapse
which WMU made the most of.
 (2) At 19:58.  Kyle Millar is the recipient of the fluke goal, which
knuckleballs off of Blake Sloan and over the arms of an outstretched
Turco, who had gone down to make what originally looked to be
a fairly routine save.  For the Millar, the Wolverine-killer, it was his
11th marker and 6th versus UM.
 (3) At 36:15.  Freshman Mark Melas gets his 2nd on a nice 2-on-1
rush.  Credit the man with him (sorry, I don't remember who) for
really making the play happen.  The lone UM defender involved
in the play was Chris Fox, who was trying to recover in time to poke/
push Melas off of the puck...but the second WMU skater interfered
with Fox just enough to keep him away from Melas and just enough
to not draw an interference penalty.  Michigan was pressing for a
goal and were beat by an odd-man rush.
 (4) At 56:14.  Empty netter by Steve Duke.
 (5) At 59:28.  Empty netter by Brown.
 
So, has UM and MSU ever been shutout on the same night
before?  I don't know, but I'm going to do a little investigating.
On the weekend, LSSU, UM, MSU and WMU each went 1-1-0,
for a complete wash among the CCHA's top four teams.
Bowling Green had a great opportunity to gain ground, and
take the lead in the loss column, but disappointingly dropped
a pair to Miami and Ohio State.
 
One final note on the UM-WMU contest.  As the game went
deeper and deeper into the third period, myself and a couple
of other UM fans with me tried to beat the WMU fans to the
punch and began a quiet chant of "UNDER-RATED!  UNDER-
RATED!" :-)  Of course, it wasn't appreciated by any.  I wish I
could sit near fellow Hockey-Ler John Belco when I'm in K'zoo.
The WMU fans near us have no sense of humor.  And, they're
easily irritated if a UM fan compliments the Broncos in any way.
I get the impression that they want to hate Michigan so much,
it annoys them if even a single Michigan fans displays objectivity,
or attempts to be gracious in defeat.  Too bad.  With Magliarditi
playing out of his mind and a deep senior class, this year may
be WMU's best bet for making some NCAA-level noise, but
they're not going to fully appreciate/enjoy it by being a bunch
of sourpusses.  Michigan fans have a reputation for being both
arrogant and bland/stuffy.  Hard not to acknowledge the first,
but the year-in-and-year-out Michigan hockey fans are more
colorful than generally given credit for.  The basketball fans
and, to a certain degree, the football fans still sit on their hands,
but the ups and downs of "the ride" keep the hockey fans alive.
 
Until the GLI...
 
 
John H ([log in to unmask]) Happy Holidays!
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.