Some various musings from the weekend.
 
Worcester Friday Night.
 
Shared seats and a ride from Boston with Ed Moeller, a dedicated BU fan.
Ed rooted for the Eastern clubs, I taking my normal stance championed the
Western teams on both nights.  Another great college hockey fan.
 
Colorado College and Denver routinely took the crowd out of the game with
excellent forechecking and clogging of the neutral zone.  Perhaps the
silence from UVM and UNH faithful came from the excellent play of CC and
Denver.
 
Ed brought up a tasty point.  Sean Matile of UNH doesn't appear now the
goaltender to say, "Climb on fellas..Im taking you to the promised land."
I shared this with UNH alum Karen Ambrose in the hallway between games.
She agreed with it and the point that Matile must work on either
suffocating those fat rebounds or directing them to a less dangerous area.
BU's Tom Noble also possesses trampoline pads.  Vermont' s Tim Thomas
usually deadens the puck better than anyone, notwithstanding Friday.
 
 Jim Mullen of Denver impressed everyone albeit he reminds me of Curtis
Joseph when he hits the ice and spreads his pads on every shot.
 
UNH  controlled play better when both sides skated only four players,
allowing for their first goal. BU did this well too on Saturday -- allowing
the speedy Bates to push his in house habitrail gerbils faster and faster
than others.
 
Paging Bogie. Paging UNH's Eric Bogunecki (sp?)
 
Wondering if Dan Murphy's first period stunk up the place more than Tim
Thomas' third period.
 
Laughed when the Cornell fans situated behind the West goal yelled goalie
when pointing to Mullen and Sieve when fingering Thomas.  So much for ECAC
loyalty.  On the other hand, I almost took a picture as I actually saw
members of the CC alumni section cheering for DENVER.  Maybe that Comet
Nostradamus stuff actually works...
 
Altitude Teams:  One of the CC players' parents I met during the game
(Peters) told me CC owned something like a 20-1 record when leading after
two periods.  CC weathered the storm early in the third as did DU later and
took the game away in the later end.  A possible explanation -- high
altitude practices?
 
Love the Tiger  paw stickers the CC Associate AD for Athletics handed out.
 
Both nights, the partisan crowd actually cheered the announcement of the
fifth starter for Denver, mostly because the first three hailed from
Scandinavia & Canada. The fourth represented the state of Minnesota and
Mullen, the sixth, claims Missouri even though his family lived the last
four years in Minnesota.
 
I want to take time out to tell you how grounded Jim Mullen's family
remains.  I sat next to his mother, father (former RPI/St. Lawrence Hockey
player) and sister (a true Goddess) Friday night.  They cheered the team
without disparaging comments for the other side.  I commented how
impressive they're son played to which they humbly said thank you and
seemed more interested in my background.  Happy to see him voted MVP.
 
Anyone else noticed how much better BU played after it kicked Brendan Walsh
off the team?  Although the penalty box seems a little less happy without
#19, BU realized it actually could win more games not being shorthanded as
much.
 
Watching the West Regional Games on TV, I noticed that a Cornell Captain
spent a lot of time in the penalty box during crucial periods of the ND
game Sunday.
 
Witnessing the Michigan onslaught at T's Pub in Boston  for the first 35
minutes of the Sunday game with Minnesota, I noticed some of the BU
supporters cheer when Minnesota actually put a SHOT on goal when the
scoreboard read 5-0 Michigan.  This cheer brought some chuckles from the BU
players who quickly diverted their attention to the Providence v. Arizona
basketball game shown on other TV sets.  Even Jack Parker turned his chair
away from the big screen to the close overtime hoops game.  Guess he wrote
enough in that note pad for Thursday's contest.
 
Congrats to CC for breaking the trend of bye teams reaching the Phinal
Phour.  The 1991 MSU team was the last one I remember doing this.
 
Good luck to all teams, although I think its Michigan's to lose instead of
the others to win.
 
        --John.
 
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