Well, I finally got inside the new Mariucci arena, and it's every bit as
nice as I had been led to believe.  9,000 seats, with the whole ice visible
from every one of them.  Wow.
 
Game 1
  I can see why New Hampshire has struggled.  Trent Cavichi should ask to
be traded.  Buck naked, Cindy Crawford would be unmolested as long as she
stood in front of the Wildcat net.  At least two, and perhaps all three
Bowling Green goals came on shots tipped by someone standing untouched
right on the doorstep.  Particularly in the first period, UNH couldn't do
anything right in their own end.  They turned over breakout passes and
allowed Falcons to reach right around them to take possession of loose
pucks; it got a little better later, but not much.  They also seemed to
have trouble with the width of the Olympic-sized rink on their line
changes.  I ran out of fingers counting the number of times Bowling Green
sprung someone up the far side as the new players were scrambling to get
over.  I thought they had a big rink at their new building?  New Hampshire
would have had a good offense, but they missed an empty net twice in the
first ten minutes.
  I couldn't really get a good feel for Bowling Green.  They played much
better than UNH in the first period, despite leading only 2-1.  After that,
they kind of slacked off.  I wasn't sure if they lost an edge, or if they
were more interested in preventing Wildcat scoring chances.  The power play
looked kind of sloppy and they never were able to finish New Hampshire off,
so I don't know.  Based on the one day's play, I would put my money on the
Gophers tonight.  Mike Savard looked good most of the time, though he
almost put the puck in his own net trying to leave it for a defenseman (hit
the post, I think).
 
Game 2
  Unlike a couple of the people I talked with after the game, I thought
Harvard played pretty well.  Their biggest problem was coming out of the
dressing room flat in all three periods.  The Gophers owned the first 5-6
minutes of the game and scored twice.  After that, the play was very even
for the rest of the period, with no scoring.  The second period started out
much the same, except the Crimson weathered the early storm.  At the eight
minute mark, it was still 2-0 and Harvard was starting to creep back; I was
a little worried.
  Then Tripp Tracy disappeared.  In short order, Brett Abrahamson scored
his first career goal over Tracy's right shoulder and Brian Bonin got one
past him while sliding on his belly in the slot; it was a nice play by
Bonin, picking the puck out of the air, but it should never have gone in.
Harvard made it 4-1 with a power play goal with about 50 seconds in the
period, but less than 30 seconds later, Brian LaFleur, new-found scoring
machine, broke in alone and faked Tracy halfway to Bloomington.
  The game essentially ended early in the third when Harvard, again flat,
had a power play on which the Gophers skated the puck around at will.  The
highlight of the third period was a late power play where Woog sent out
five defensemen, sans Trebil and Crowley.  Greg Zwakman looked hopeless
taking the draw, but the five of them generated some good scoring chances.
 
I'm really looking forward to seeing if Minnesota can win 4-3 in OT
tonight; that seems to be the real key to winning the National
Championship.
 
J. Michael Jackson
 
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