My observations of the action might be a bit sketchy, since I sat in the
fifth row, to the right of the benches.  Action in almost a full quarter
of the ice remained pretty much a mystery to me and events in front of
the far net weren't much better.
 
Cornell - Miami
 
First off, I just have to ask who thought that "Give My Regards to
Broadway" makes a good fight song?  It almost made he happy to listen to
the MSU band in the evening game.
 
Miami started out skating well and looked like they were going to
control the game.  They scored first and it looked like Cornell was
going to spend all game just trying to get the puck into the offensive
end.  Even when they did, scoring opportunities were hard to come by.
For a team that seems to rely on garbage goals, it was odd that the Big
Red don't seem to set a forward up in front of the net.  Everyone spent
most of the time on the perimeter.  Even when they were digging for the
puck on the boards, no one was set up to take a centering pass.
 
The other thing I noticed very quickly was that Randy Robataille did not
receive his Hobey nomination for his backchecking.  It's not often that
I've seen someone who hangs around the opposition's blue line so much.
 
After Cornell tied the game at one, the whole thing seemed to degenerate
into an ugly affair.  My conclusion during this game was that the two
teams were playing very lethargically.  I revised my opinion somewhat on
day 2.  Obviously, Cornell's whole goal is to clog up the game and bring
as close to a halt as possible.  Miami never managed to solve it, but I
do think that Mike Schaeffer takes it too far.  Repeatedly, Cornell
turned down odd man rushes in order to go off on line changes.  I really
think that you ought to push a 2-1 a little harder than taking a shot
from above the face-off circle and peeling off.
 
My other reaction to Cornell's style is that it's hard to watch.  Even
if successful, I'm not sure I could manage to sit through a whole season
of games like this if it were my team.  It pretty much seemed as if any
given five minutes of this game were just like any other five minutes.
Neither team ever got more than a one goal lead until the empty netter
at the end.  The energy level seemed low; I thought Miami would have
been better off trying to play more physically.  Instead, solid checks
were hard to come by for either team.  I kept waiting for the Redskins
to try something, anything, to change the texture of the game.  In the
end, though, they seemed to not even register a pulse.  All I could
think during the third period was that I just could not picture North
Dakota losing to either of these teams.
 
 
Michigan State - Minnesota
 
From the opening face-off, this was a much faster and more physical game
than Cornell-Miami.  This mostly meant that Minnesota was flying and the
Spartans either could or would do little to stop them.  Minnesota's
first two goals were scored by the Dan's (Woog and Hendrickson).  Since
I don't think that they hit double digits in goals between them this
year, it was not a good sign for the Spartans.  Between them, Mike York
tied the score at 1-1, but Hendrickson's goal came less than a minute
later and broke open the floodgates.  It took a while for the goals to
mount up, because the Gophs made a lot of trips to the Erik Rasmussen
Memorial Penalty Box.  Their short-handed play was tremendous and added
a lot of jump to the team.  During the 1:08 of two-man advantage they
gave up, the Spartans were able to manage almost nothing.
 
Their chances came after MSU went two men down late in the first.
Hankinson stuffed in a PPG to send the teams to the dressing rooms with
a 2-1 Minnesota lead.
 
In the second, the shot totals were 15-10 in favor of the Spartans,
which gives an entirely incorrect picture of the play.  Minnesota scored
at 4:37 and 7:19 to take a three goal lead.  After this, they seemed to
decide that State couldn't skate with them and really slacked off.  MSU
was unable to capitilize, though, tallying just once in the fifteenth
minute.  They didn't even seem to have a lot of good chances.
 
Michigan State never seemed to really be in the game at all.  Continuing
a trend I've noticed in the past, they ice the puck more than anyone
else I've seen.  It almost seems to be a calculated strategy, but
they don't even seem to be attempted passes to anyone.  No one seems to
be moving on their breakout plays.  Also, Chad Alban had an immense
amount of trouble holding onto his stick.  Hendrickson's goal was scored
while he was looking the other way trying to pick it up.
 
Minnesota scored it's last goal early in the third when Mike Crowley
buried a power play shot from between the circles before the announcer
could even announce the penalty.  From there, the game was played on
cruise control.  MSU seemed to just want to get on the bus and go home
and the Gophers were content to let them be.
 
I was very interested in watching Frank Cole, Bill Doiron and Bill Jones
officiate the game.  I thought that they did a very good job.  For the
first time this year (as well as the second, third and I believe fourth)
I actually saw an assistant ref make a call.  This was a major factor in
Rassmussen wearing a path to the box.  The WCHA seems to have him
conditioned into believing that if the Head Ref isn't watching, he is
free to act.  Doiron flagged him repeatedly and deservedly.
 
 
North Dakota - Cornell
 
Cornell came out and tried to do the same thing to the Sioux that they
had done to Miami.  While they did manage to contain UND for a long
time, in the end it meant that the Big Red had no offesne to speak of.
For long stretches, they were unable to keep the puck in the offensive
zone for more than about ten seconds.  Their two goals both came at the
expense of a North Dakota penalty kill that ranked near the bottom of
the WCHA, and alternated with power plays that ranked among the ugliest
I've ever seen.
 
North Dakota never trailed and, despite the fact that that they were
unable to put Cornell away during the first two periods, I never felt
like they were in much danger.  It was going to take a fortuitous bounce
for Cornell to score at even-strength.  This came close to happening a
couple f times.  Still I figured that after back-to-back games, the legs
were going to give out before the game ended.  This is what happened,
and during the last ten minutes, the Sioux produced a score that was
fairly reflective of the difference in play.
 
Jason Elliot was named to the all-tournament team.  I'd have to say that
this mostly reflected the fact that none of the goalies looked
particularly good this weekend.  Elliot left a lot of big rebounds
during both games.  Miami never really took advantage, but UND did.  My
choice would have been Turco, based on his play during a crucial moment
of the last game, but I'll get to that.
 
I'd also like to compliment Dean Blais on another aspect of his program.
 It was nice to see that his players actually got to watch all of the
games in which they didn't participate.  They arrived late for the last
game due to showering and left early, presumably to catch a flight, but
I did like to see that they got to enjoy some of the action.
 
 
Michigan - Minnesota
 
It was the game I'd been waiting all weekend for, and it turned into a
major disappointment.  On the first shift of the game, Brian LaFleur
broke his stick and made the mistake of thinking that he had the time to
get a new one.  Bang.  Botterill feeds Morrison on a 2-1 and it's 1-0
after 33 seconds.
 
On the whole, the first period was very even.  In a poorly officiated
game, the first major break went to the Gophs.  (On the whole, Minnesota
got the advantage on the calls, but not to the extent that the crowd
around me seemed to think.)  Before the halfway point of the period,
they got a 2-man advantage and started with a barrage of shots.  Turco
came up HUGE in the first thirty seconds of the 5-3, stopping about four
point blank tries.  This more than made up for the soft goals he let in
later, because it set the stage for what was to come.  If Minnesota
scored here, I might have been a different game.
 
From there, it remained a very tight game until the 18:41 mark.
Michigan probably had a slight edge in the play, but Minnesota didn't
seem to let the early goal rattle them and had plenty of their own
chances.  I really thought the ship had righted itself and we were in
for a barn burner.
 
Then the wheels came off.  Muckalt score at 18:41 and Botterill at
19:42.  I felt horribly snakebit, because it just wasn't a 3-0 period.
I said during the intermission that I didn't think Minnesota would be
able to do it, because they'd be out of gas by the end and needed to be
protecting a lead.
 
And then it got worse.  Botterill scored again at 0:23 when no one
covered him in front of the net.  The Gophers quit then and let Matt
Herr blow by them without even trying to stop him, making it 5-0 at the
0:57 mark.  It was at this point that I wanted to crawl under my seat.
I almost told my dad that I was headed for a nearby bar and that I'd
meet him at the car after he enjoyed the rout.
 
Exactly how Minnesota managed to avoid giving up any goals over the next
few minutes still eludes me.  Dan Hendrickson almost immediately took a
frustration penalty and the penalty kill wasn't exactly lively.  I
thought Michigan was headed for a double digit night.
 
To their credit, the Gophers bounced back better than I could have
hoped.  Turco waved a puck past him on a soft shot by Rasmussen before
Michigan scored again.  It was only after this sixth goal that Minnesota
seemed to come to life.  Rasmussen scored again on a better shot and
Casey Hankinson potted his third of the weekend to cut it to 3.  Helped
again by the ref, they put on a good deal of pressure towards the end of
the period.  I started to think that if they could just get one more by
period end, they might just be able to will themselves to find the
energy it would take to mount the kind of third period rally they
displayed last week in the WCHA Final Five.
 
Instead, Morrison broke free again and drove home the stake with just
over a minute to go.
 
Turco misfired again when Dave Spehar put a wrister from the left circle
past him at 0:57 of the third.  Thanks to Morrison's last goal, though,
it never really seemed to give enough hope to overcome the lack of legs.
 Minnesota got 1:31 of 5-3 advantage towards the middle of the third,
but was never able to generate any real threats.  Even if they had
gotten it close at this point, I thought that Michigan would have been
able to turn it back on and run them over again.
 
The game got ugly several times.  Mike Legg dropped LaFleur from behind
into the boards, though when I complained about the lack of a call, a
relative of one of the Michigan players informed me that he'd simply
lost an edge.  Apparently, this happens in hockey.  Kind of funny that
Legg just happened to have his stick gripped to deliver a solid
cross-check.  Mike Crowley dropped Morrison well after he'd put the
seventh Michigan goal into the net, nearly igniting an ugly fracas.  In
the third, Bubba Berenzweig bounced someone's head on the ice a couple
of times.  It would have been nice if Minnesota had gone out with a bit
more class (Abrahamson's slash with 3 seconds to go was a bit much), but
it had turned into that kind of game through the efforts of both teams.
 
I would say that I haven't been as disappointed as a Gopher fan since
the 1989 final.  Last year, I really didn't think that we were going to
be able to beat Michigan and could take solace in just how close we made
it.  This time, I really thought we could do it and instead we laid an
egg.  At crucial moments, Minnesota just didn't play smart.  Steve DeBus
didn't look as bad as seven goals might indicate, but he never stepped
up to make the play(s) that would have held us in the game.  The 2:16
between Muckalt's goal and Herr's dug a whole that no one would have
crawled out of.  The team seemed to feel that way, too.  When it was
over, I went behind the Gopher bench to thank them for a good season.
None of them, players or coaches, even looked up to acknowledge that I
was there.  I think that this one is going to hurt for quite a while.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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