1. Congrats to all the tourny winners and NCAA seeds.
 
2. Double-strength congrats to Brown University. From 1-25 to an NCAA
appearance within the tenure of one class. Warning: do not take this team lightly!  cf.
Harvard's follies.
 
3. Good luck to the Three Musketeers, Clarkson, Brown (and yes, even Hahvahd). I
believe this is the first time since the inception of Hockey East that the ECAC has had
more seeds than they. It was certainly deserved - too bad RPI got the shaft; after this
weekend, they would have been mad enough to beat anybody. Way early predicition:
next year will be all their's.
 
4. A word on the HE semis on Friday. OK, several words. Did anyone out there notice
anything about the officiating in the BU-UNH game? Like, there wasn't any! I had
the rare (at least I hope it will be rare) privilege of watching a tournament game with
no rooting interest, and I thought the refs abdicated all responsibility from the opening
face-off to the horrendous no calls on successive, flagrant, delay-of-game plays by BU
down the stretch.
 
In normal Very Badly Officiated Games, you get the following: A slugs B, ref C is
oblivious, so there's no call. Then B slugs A in retaliation, and C wakes up and whistles
B. That's normal referee ineptitude (a.k.a. a day at the office with John Gallagher),
and I can accept it.
 
On this night, A would slug B (now remember, I couldn't care less who won this game,
but  A seemed to correspond to BU most of the night.) Ref C, Gravelles specifically,
watches passively. Then B retaliates, perhaps even more flagrantly, C's still watching
intently - and doing nothing! This wasn't clean checking - it was hacking, holding - in
short, the Tie Domi charm school. It was ridiculous.
 
The game just got worse and worse, and if it weren't for the tremendous performaces
by Abel and the-BU-goalie-who-isn't-Cashman-darn-I-forget, it might have been
one of the worst games I've seen all year. And remember, I've seen spectacular efforts
like Cornell-Union!
 
Anyway, it was the worst officiated game by someone other than Gallagher that I've
seen in a while.
 
5. Radio announcers who aren't awful - what a revelation! Anyone in the Boston area
should try this one night next year. Listen to the Harvard announcers for as long as
you can take it (average time, 2 minutes), then switch over to the BU announcers. The
latter are intelligent, professional, in short everything that the former are not. A real
pleasure to listen to - if they're out there on the net somewhere, thanks for a good call
in the championship game.
 
6. What is it with the Crimson, anyway? What have they won, 6 regular season titles
in the last 8 years. And how many ECAC titles - one! The announcers were
complaining incestantly about bad ice on Saturday (basically, blaming the loss to
Brown on it). Did anyone out at Placid notice that the ice was especially terrible?
 
Good luck and good hockey to all of you whose teams are still in it. Look for the Cornell
sweater at Worcester. I'm just scouting the competition for next year!
 
Greg
Somerville
Let's Go Red!
 
OK, maybe '95...