(If this has already been turned, please delete if possible)
 
Northern Michigan University won the WCHA playoff title with a 4-2
win over the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers Saturday evening
at St. Paul's Civic Center.  The win gives the Wildcats one of the four
automatic berths in the NCAA national championship tournament.
 
A big part of the Northern Michigan story was freshman goalkeeper
Corwin Saurdiff, who followed a 42-save performance in Friday's 6-3
semifinal win over Wisconsin, with 38 saves against the Gophers.
Saurdiff was named MVP of the tournament, as well as to the All-
Tournament team.  The NMU defense was very good in ways that obviously
made a difference Saturday night.  Although Minnesota's shots on goal
exceeded NMU's by a 40 to 27 margin, the telecast featured several
updates of the official shot charts, which showed that virtually all
of the Minnesota shots, and especially those which were on goal, came
from the sides, not the slots.  The Wildcats worked very hard to clog
up the entire slot, and were effective.
 
The scoring began quickly as Wildcat center Dallas Drake put one in
past Minnesota goalie Jeff Stolp following a pass from winger Jim
Hiller at 1:21 of the first period.  The Gophers evened the contest
on a power play when Justin McHugh poked in a goal during a scramble
in front of the net.  At 6:37 a major fight (in the sense of the number
of players involved, not the physical roughness--no gloves were dropped
or helmets removed) resulted when Northern's Scott Beattie responded to
high hit by Gopher Mike Muller with a punch.  Although the two separated
after exchanging two or three soft punches, several other players on
both sides jumped in at that point.  Referee Buzz Christiansen gave
three Gophers and four Wildats double minors for roughing.  During the
ensuing 3-on-3 play over the next six minutes NMU scored two goals.
Freshman defenseman Jason Hehr took a drop pass from center Mark
Beaufait and beat Stolp from right in front at 8:14.  Beaufait then
scored at 12:14, one second before the beginning of the Gopher power
play, when he let go a wrist shot just inside the blue line in a
1-on-2 situation.  The Gophers shots on goal exceeded the Wildcats by
a margin of 12 to 7.
 
In the second period the shots on goal were even at 11 apiece.  The only
score came at 8:14 when Gopher defenseman Sean Fabian fired a slightly
wide shot which bounced off the chest of a charging Craig Johnson and
was deflected into the net.  Previously Dallas Drake had put the puck
in the net but the referee disallowed the goal.  The TV announcers said
the signalled reason was a hand pass.  The replay clearly shoed there
no problem of this kind; Scott Beattie knocked a rebound out of mid-air
to his feet, then passed it to a teammate, who in turn passed it to
Drake for the shot.  Although the broadcasters evidenced a mild tilt
toward the Gophers in their sentiments, they agreed the goal should have
been allowed.  The Marquette newspaper account this morning said,
however, that the goal was disallowed because Drake high-sticked it
into the net.  I can't remember anything about that aspect of the play
as we were all looking for an illegal hand pass.  (Incidentally,
although a rule is a rule, it's kind of funny that you can't shoot or
pass with a "high stick" (above the waist?) but you can score a goal
on a "high chest" as was the case with Johnson's!)
 
Minnesota mounted an at-times furious assault on the Wildcat zone in
the 3rd period, although NMU had several good rushes itself.  In fact,
although the Gophers had 16 shots on goal to the Wildcats' 7, the
only goal was scored on an empty net at 19:26 by Wildcat Phil
Soukoroff.  Soukoroff picked up a puck in the neutral zone and carried
it in to the medium slot area closely pursued by a Gopher but still
able to get off a shot for the easy goal.
 
Rick Comley WAS pleased with his team's effort after this game.  Best
quote:  Wildcat winger Jim Hiller, who said "I heard some of the
Minnesota players saying this game was taking place on neutral ice.
If this is neutral, how about a playoff game in our HPER building?"
(The Civic Center is about ten miles from the Minnesota campus, and
the big crowd of 12,618 was about 95% Gopher fans.  The HPER building
is the physical education facility on the NMU campus which contains
the ice sheet on which the Wildcats practice, and is a few hundred
yards from Marquette's Lakeview Arena.)  Despite Hiller's comment, the
fact is that the 'Cats have been remarkably successful in the St. Paul
Civic Center, having a record of something like 8-2-1 there, including
four consecutive wins in 1991 while winning the WCHA playoffs and then
the NCAA final round games.  I didn't want to put this on the list
ahead of time, being slightly fearful of jinxes, but the Wildcats
actually refer to the Civic Center as "Lakeviw West."
 
 
  While Minnesota, despite the loss, is assured of having one of the
top two seeds in the western regional NCAA tournament due to its over-
all season record, NMU's seedings is less certain.  It seems to me that
the Wildcats will be seeded higher than Wisconsin (which won the conso-
lation game for third place Saturday afternoon) since the semifinal
playoff win over the Badgers gave the 'Cats a 3-2 season advantage and
their season records are virtually identical (NMU:  24-13-3;  Wisconsin:
24-13-2).  It's really hard to guess what the committee will do with
the relative seedings of NMU, Wisconsin, Michigan State, and Lake
Superior State.  Guess we'll know tonight!
                      ***********************************
                     *      Steve Christopher, NMU       *
                    *  "Go 'Cats!''Going for two in '92!" *
                           1992 WCHA Playoff Champions!
                     *        [log in to unmask]         *
                      ***********************************