After three long weekends and watching 10 Hockey games the season came
to a satisfying end. My wife Virginia and I thoroughly enjoyed our trips
to the Detroit for the CCHA playoffs, Madison for the West Regional
and Providence for the finals. It is sometimes hard to keep track
of each game in total after being overwhelmed by many that were really
good.
 
We met many hockey-l's for the first time and renewed our friendship
with others. We enjoyed each encounter. It is good to see so many other
college hockey fans enjoying themselves even without their teams in
contention - "there's always next year".
 
I wish to thank Ron Correia for the splendid buffet that he arranged
in Providence. It gave us the opportunity to meet other fans. We
particularly liked being filled in on MSU happenings by "G.M." Finniss
and his wife Susan.
 
I thought that our hockey-l get-togethers between periods was parti-
cularly enjoyable since the game could be discussed and opinions given.
 
It was nice seeing Eric and Paula Biever and Dave Parter and others that
we saw from the West Regional as well as meeting again with Carol White
and Pam Sweeney.
 
Some additional observations about Providence and the games. The Hockey
Fair was disappointing - a few displays and many children's games. It
did give us the opportunity to watch our first Hobey Baker award which
was worth the admission price along with watching some TV shows of past
winners and other finalists. Based on hockey-l previous discussions
I was not surprised that Brian Holzinger won the award. He seemed very
nervous but gave a very nice and sincere speech about growing up in
Cleveland and appreciating the opportunity to play hockey along with
giving credit to others (team members, coaching staff,etc). There was
a nice size crowd of a few hundred who gave him a standing round of
applause.
 
The Maine-Michigan game was awesome. These were two teams that both
really wanted to play hard and win. I think there may have been
a record broken for the number of minutes without a penalty and/or
a major brawl. Great game.
 
The final was a good game as well, but as was pointed out before, Maine
looked a bit tired and disorganized for periods of the game.
 
Providence was a great end to a great season.
 
I hope that hockey doesn't became so popular that it looses some of
friendliness and becomes a major sport/business.
 
We hope to see most of you in Cincinnati next year.
 
      Bill Krebs
 
  Go MSU - 1995 in Cincinnati