Man, what a difference a day makes!  The defending Division III National
Champions hosted the defending Division II National Champions.  But it was
like watching 4 teams play two games, not a back-to-back series.  Line scores:
 
GAME 1 - Friday, Nov 5
 
        Bemidji State           2       2       0       -       4
        UW-Stevens Point        1       1       1       -       3
 
GAME 2 - Saturday, Nov 6
 
        Bemidji State           0       1       0       -       1
        UW-Stevens Point        3       4       1       -       8
 
Notes:
 
I arrived late for the game on Friday and missed the first two goals by
Bemidji, so just sat back and watched the rest of the game.  I am told Point
dominated the first 5 minutes or so but couldn't get anything past the goalie.
 We played who should have been our #1 goalie, Dave Ketola.  4GA isn't too
bad, but he left rebound after rebound out there.  More to the point, the
Pointers didn't look fired up - it didn't seem they played with a lot of
intensity.  They weren't really skating with Bemidji.  Other than that, it
seemed fairly even.
 
Game 2 - I left my pen behind. :-(  All this is from memory (and let me tell
you, Alzeheimer's Disease is no fun).
 
Point played up to championship form on Saturday.  They outskated and out hit
Bemidji consistently.  Still, for the first period, Bemidji played well.
Point's first goal was one of those 2/1 passing things of beauty.  The goalie
had no chance.  But the second goal was an unscreened slap shop from above the
circle that beat Robin Cook on the high stick side.  He really should have
stopped it.  I don't recall the 3rd goal right now.  But the point is, it was
good hockey and the score could just have easily been 1 or 2 - 0  or even 1 to
2 for them.  Dave Fletcher in the nets for us had a great game and stopped a
number of good shots.  The only goal he allowed came on a delayed penalty call
when they had 6 attackers out there and snuck a puck through the back door.
 
The story of this game, however, is penalties.  Things began to degenerate in
the 2nd period.  It all started with a pile-up at the Point goal.  I don't
want to name a player because I'd probably get it wrong.  Anyway, a Beaver
thought there was a goal, the ref wasn't in position right away and the goal
light never came on.  The player got incensed and managed to get a game
misconduct.  By the end of the game the refs had called 11 misconducts against
Bemidji and 3 against Point.  Bemidji got 7 (yes, Seven!) game misconducts
(Point, luckily, didn't get any).  It was incredible.  I have no idea what was
going on except that the officials were obviously trying to keep control of
the game.  At the end of the game Bemidji was playing with two broken lines.
They did quite well not to let the score roll up higher.
 
This has to be a terrible blow for Bemidji's next game - losing 7 starting
players.  Who do they play next?  If anyone is on this list from Bemidji I
would be fascinated to hear the story of the game from your side.
 
Tom Rowe                      INTERNET:
UWSP Dept. of Psychology      [log in to unmask]
Stevens Point, WI  54481      *****************************
341-3084                      I am in the prime of senility