MTU Huskies brought their hard hats and gloves to the MacInnes
Student Ice Arena on the banks of Lake Superior and worked over
the touring UAA Seawolves 5-3 while a blizzard roared outside.
This was a 'uge win for the Huskies at home to use Coach Mancini's
term.  The Seawolves probably thought that the doors opened
in the 2nd period and the blizzard came inside.
 
UAA looked potent during the first period.  They pelted the MTU
goalie, Matt Kucway, from all over the rink. Matt staved off
all but two of their closest shots. The first was a dribbler
that Matt had stopped by gave up a short rebound in the crease.
UAA's David Vallieres managed to squeeze the puck into net at
6:50.  At 8:20, UAA's Glen Thornborough broke into the zone
along the left board and then angled toward the crease near the
baseline. At about 10 feet out, Glen fired a bad angle shot that
Kucway was unable to stop.  While the Huskies looked good the
first five minutes of play, they faltered the remainder of the
period as UAA's three man defense at the blueline jammed up
the Huskies' attempts to escape from their own zone.
 
It looked even worse when Norcorss shot was blocked but the
rebound found the net off a Tech player just 40 seconds into the
2nd period. However, Coach Mancini pulled some wizardry out of
the hat, made a line adjustment and a couple of position
adjustments. From then on, Anchorage could do no good.  MTU's
Liam Garvey got his fifth goal of the year on an unassisted right
point blast at 2:41.  UAA's Lee Schill could stop everything
fired directly at him but seemed to lack the ability to move to
his left. MTU took advantage of this as Kyle Peterson hammered
a rebound into the net at 8:09 on a powerplay.  With the
exception of a few shots from the right point, most of MTU's
shots were coming from the slot as MTU overpowered the guts
of the UAA defense.
 
MTU continued to break down the UAA defense in the third and
continued to hammer Schill form the left side of the slot. First
Brett Meyers beautifully and skillfully executed a drive
down form the right which caused Schill to move into position
to stop the rightside shot. However, Brett kept the puck and
moved around Schill for the left side shot at 2:46.  Then MTU's
Randy Stevens picked up a rebound at the left circle at 8:19 for
the go-ahead score. At possibly the worst moment in the game,
at 15:29, Jeff Mikesch picked up a five minute major for checking
from behind. It was a good call as Jeff definitely leveled the
UAA player.  Thus MTU had to work if they were to win the game.
Stevens got the game winning short handed goal at 16:54 as
he broke down the right side of the slot and got a rare right
sided shot past Schill.  UAA reached deep into its bag of tricks
but could not penetrate the MTU until Rautakallio found an
errant rebound at 18:08. MTU stayed with the game forcing
UAA into various awkward situations. As a result, UAA could
not pull its goalie until only 34 seconds remained on the clock.
It wasn't enough.
 
I can not say enough about how much the officiating crew of
Bob Ames and Buzz Christensen have improved over this season.
This was one of the finest officiated games that I have seen
this season. They called penalties when they were warranted
but did not become the game itself. Coach Mancini joked after
the game that he wasted half of his play card since those plays
were for special teams. At one time, these were among the
WCHA's worst referees. Now they are probably among the best
if not the best.  Ames and Christensen have learned how to work
together and thus are now calling the game of hockey as it was
meant to be called.
 
As a sidenote, I talked with Jason Prokopetz for a few minutes
last night between periods. Some of you will remember that
Jason received a DQ for running the goalie a week age and now
has to sit out for week because of the Coach's suspension. Jason's
heart is in the right position. I was singularly impressed by his
positive attitude to improve.  As a young player, he made a
mistake. But watch out: he has learned from it. Jason is going
to be a great MTU hockey player.
 
Walt Olson
MTU