Here's my personal commentary on the Western Regionals in Grand Rapids.

Obligatory NCAA commentary: Once again they didn't ship tournament pins to
the Western Regional.  Once again they save the good seats for people who
decide to show up the week before the games, when they know their team is
going to be there.  These are the same people who aren't going to show up for
all the games but only their team's games.  Some of these people even left
before the end of that game.  (There were plenty of Michigan and Michigan
State fans who attended the whole affair, call them hockey fans.)


Day One - attendance almost 7,000 (waiting for the rest of the Michigan and
Michigan State fans to show up)

Wisconsin versus Providence
---------------------------
Wisconsin dominated the game earlier but it didn't show on the scoreboard.
One thing I noticed early is that Wisconsin took a lot of bad (dumb) penalties -
hits/punches after the whistle, lots of stick work, retaliation and so on.  The
penalties didn't cost them in this game but you had to believe it would against
Michigan State.  As the game wore on, it became more even in play but not in
the score with Wisconsin winning 4 - 1.

Michigan versus Mercyhurst
--------------------------
Michigan was the better team, Mercyhurst was the luckier team.  Michigan
dominated the shot statistics two to one but could still have lost the game.
Mercyhurst got some lucky breaks on their scores and Michigan didn't.
Michigan time and again got behind the Mercyhurst defense down in front of
the net but couldn't seem to put it away.  In the end, Merchhurst did better
than I thought although I was more impressed with Niagara last year as an
underdog.


Day Two - attendance well over 9000 (the rest of the Michigan and Michigan
State fans show up, keeping in mind that most of the Providence and
Mercyhurst fans have headed home)

Wisconsin versus Michigan State
-------------------------------
This was a disappointing game, in some respects.  It could have been titled
"Wisconsin pays for their mistakes" and subtitled "What was Melanson
thinking about?"  MSU converted three powerplay opportunities, which
included one 5x3 goal.  Wisconsin, and Melanson in particular, made costly
mistake after costly mistake.  One unfortunate mistake was Heatly's shot into
Miller clearly after the end of the period which precipated a large "gathering"
of players on the ice and 12 minutes of penalty time for Heatly.

MSU's Miller is a very good goalie.  It's hard to tell how good because he has
such a good defense in front of him.  As the mood of the game turned from
bad to worse I assumed Mason removed Miller from the game for his own
protection - probably a good idea.  It was a shame to see Melanson injured.  I
couldn't tell how it happened as I was watching the puck going to the
sideboards.  I suspected that an MSU player was checked into him from
behind and fell on his leg as Melanson was moving to cover the open side of
the net, but I really don't know.  I mention this because several times during
the weekend an opposing player was checked into a goalie.  Another goalie
was nearly injured this weekend, as well.  Don Cherry had a commentary on
Hockey Night in Canada a week or two back on this problem in the NHL.

Michigan versus St. Cloud
-------------------------
This was a much better game.  However, I was disappointed in St. Cloud's
performance.  I expected more out of them but was concerned they might not
have the tournament experience or composure needed.  I had forgotten they
had a tournament appearance last year.  Nonetheless, St. Cloud was not on
their game and nearly lost all composure in the third period.  I was also
puzzled by St. Clouds break outs.  It seemed that they were mostly even or
odd-man rushes the wrong way, 2 on 3.  I don't know why the rest of the St.
Cloud players seemed to be lagging behind.  Maybe it's the product of a
defensive style they play.  I couldn't tell.

Michigan impressed me in a number of ways.  They create a lot of scoring
opportunities, even against good teams like St. Cloud.  They are very good at
keeping the puck in at the points, it's tough to clear the puck on them.  Maybe
more than anything, I was impressed they hadn't lost a step for having played
a close game the day before.  I have seen teams gassed in the third period
and lose leads against the bye team.  It may have also been that St. Cloud
didn't know (how) to, weren't able to make use of that advantage.

There were two goals that I would be interested in hearing about from anyone
who saw TV replays.  We saw one replay on the jumbotron but not enough to
really tell.  The first one, early on,  was a deflection off a Michigan player in
front of the net.  Did it go off his stick or body?  It looked like when it deflected
off the player the stick was up in the air and could have been called high-
sticking instead.  The second question was where the Michigan goal was
called off for a man in the crease.  It sure looked like it from the one replay,
but I was off to the side of the screen so it's a little hard to tell.

Doug P.
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