* On the subject of the NC$$: Heather and I came away with souvenirs from
Milwaukee without having to give the NC$$ any more of our money than we had
to.  First, we collected a few of the plastic cups bearing the NC$$ logo
that were used for Coke.  I also saw a bunch of other people had the same
idea, grabbing stacks of cups after the games before the cleanup crew could
come in to sweep them away.  And after some prodding from me, Heather
convinced one of the ladies staffing the information table at the Holiday
Inn to give her one of the big buttons that read "Milwaukee Welcomes the
NC$$ Championships" or whatever it said.  That was Heather's #2 prize of the
weekend.  First was Carol's gift of none other than a ceramic dalmatian
(liquid soap holder) - we were so surprised. :-)  Thanks, Carol!  We'll
think of you and hockey-l whenever we wash up for dinner.
 
* Driving home Sunday, I caught WFAN out of NYC and heard a well-known hoop
coach talking about the cutback in hoop scholarships (13 to 11 or whatever)
and how he expected sometime in the future to see 75 or so hoop teams leave
the NC$$ and form their own association.  Interesting, since the idea of
hockey leaving the NC$$ has been bandied about here and even received some
support from a number of DivI coaches.
 
* Natural hat trick: three straight goals by one player in one game.
Doesn't necessarily have to be in one period, doesn't have to be at even
strength.
 
* The Milwaukee media definitely made too much of Wisconsin not being
there.  The event didn't suffer by their absence.  The local news station
we watched Friday night only gave the Hobey presentation a quick aside when
they were wrapping up the sports segment, which was disappointing.
Newspaper coverage was pretty darn good.
 
* I've never seen as much beer as we saw Friday at the Pabst brewery.  It
was funny that the tour swelled to twice its size near the end when free
samples were given out - I got the impression people knew just when to show
up. :-)
 
* Someone commented on players playing for floor hockey teams in the
offseason, i.e. Maine players.  This is ok as far as I know, though there
are usually intramural limitations on the number of varsity athletes you
can have.  5 years ago we had a team of seven players at Northeastern, and
two were Huskies.  My highlight that year as a D was forcing opponent Rod
Isbister off the puck/ball on a rush; Isbister is Northeastern's third
all-time leading scorer. :-)
 
* Officiating was not a factor IMO in any of the three games, but remember
my idea of good officiating chiefly deals with consistency.
 
* Here's another plug for the "Out of the Woods" documentary on Maine.  I
don't know of any other situation where a college hockey team allowed a
cameraman to follow them around all year long - into the locker room before
and after games and between periods, into the classroom, on the bus, and
even on the bench, and it made for an interesting insight into what makes
the Maine program tick.  It wasn't all goody-goody either, making sure to
show the times when things weren't going well and even Walsh's criticism of
some players (like the one I won't name who Walsh said worked harder
celebrating his goal than during the rest of the game).  I also learned
what made Patrice Tardif explode against Merrimack for 8 points in two
games back in November...his dad, who was very sick, made the trip down to
Orono to see Patrice play for what was to be the last time before he passed
away in December.  Patrice gave him the puck from one of his goals after
the weekend.  Losing two games by a combined 25-3 doesn't seem so bad now.
 
Most interesting revelation came from the Ferraros who said that no other
HE team recruited them.  That was shocking.  It could have been a
reluctance to take on two players who weren't likely to stick around too
long, but I have to believe they would have made any of the other seven
teams much better this season.
 
Funniest moment may have been when the Black Bears were relaxing around and
in the pool during their trip to LA, and Walsh said something about Kariya
and the twins (as he called them) being over in cold Sweden. :-)  That was
followed by a shot of Kariya getting popped by one of the Ferraros early in
the Canada-USA game, then Kariya asking him after the game why he did that
(he said he didn't know it was Kariya :-)).
 
I'm still not sure what the song is that the Bears sung after the HE
championship and then after the NC$$ championship.  I thought it could have
been the alma mater, but I don't know.
 
* It appeared that the Maine and BU bands did the best job of wooing the
hometown fans by playing the Wisconsin fight songs - and pretty well, too.
I think we heard "When you say Wisconsin, you've said it all!" almost as
often as we heard "M-A-I-N-E GOOOOO BLUE!", and that was OFTEN.
 
* On the Maine goal disallowed in the Michigan game, the paper reported
that the NC$$ Ice Hockey Committee released this statement: "Neither the
on-ice officials nor the goal judge witnessed the puck cross the goal line
before the referee at the blue line blew the whistle.  The whistle was
blown after the goal cage was raised off the ice."    The paper added,
"Freely translated, that means: 'The call was blown and we're just darn
relieved that Maine won later so we wouldn't have to hear about this
forever.'"
 
* Let's see, an Eastern team has won the title in 1985, 1989, and 1993...
guess that means Eastern fans can make their reservations for 1997 if they
want to see another Eastern championship. :-)
 
* Lost in the shuffle of BU's loss to LSSU was the fact that David Sacco's
assist allowed him to end his career with 143 helpers, tying him with John
Cullen for first on the all-time BU assist list.  Oddly enough, those 143
A's were racked up over five seasons, as Sacco had 4 in 3 GP in 89-90
before suffering a season-ending shoulder injury that caused him to
redshirt that year.
 
* Jeff Jackson has quietly (for those of us outside the CCHA) established
himself as one of the top coaches in the country.  I believe he has the
second best record in the nation over the last 3 years or so.  Lacher
didn't endear himself to the BU fans with his decking of Jacques Joubert
after the lone BU goal, but he's a pretty darn good goalie.  Jackson and
LSSU's accomplishments are that much more impressive when you consider that
no team has come as close to repeating as champion in the last 20 years as
they did.  This from a school with an enrollment of just 3,200.
 
* Michigan goalie Steve Shields may have gotten a lot of flak before this
year, but he showed he deserves to be listed among the top dufflebags in
the country.  Maine could have won that game long before they did if not
for Shields.  I won't be surprised to see the Wolverines make a return trip
to the final four next year if he comes back with another strong season.
 
* Not a final four comment, but former Spartan Bryan Smolinski had 3 points
tonight to help Boston to a 7-1 win at Quebec.  MSU fans might be
interested to know that he seems to be fitting in pretty well.
 
* Finally, mucho thanks to Steve Manning and all involved who coordinated
the 2nd annual hockey-l dinner Thursday, as well as to all who made it a
success...it was fun, and we will look forward to seeing you in St Paul!
---
Mike Machnik    [log in to unmask]   Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors
alternate address days: [log in to unmask]             *HMN*  11/13/93
(Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.)