At 1:01 PM -0500 12/7/96, Howard Quimby wrote:
> I didn't realize that Philbin had been given a DQ.
> That's part of the reason why I was so upset last night -- It looked like two
> UNH DQ's for MC's one, and that would have been ridiculous.
The confusion probably came about because in trying to sort out the
penalties, the PA announcer neglected to announce Philbin's DQ. But he had
been escorted off the ice before anyone else. We called down from the
press box to verify that he had gotten the DQ. I thought it was announced
later, but I can't quite recall.
> You are right in saying that the third was played cleanly. Although I might
> argue that UNH was going out of its way to be polite in the period. ;)
I suspect both coaches had a lot to do with this. Dick Umile obviously had
good reason for not wanting his players to get involved in anything. And I
would surmise that Ron Anderson told his team that the guys who didn't want
to continue to work or who wanted to get out of hand, would not be seeing
much ice time thereafter.
The third only saw two goals, a PPG and a SHG for UNH, and it was pretty
well played. Of course the game was over at that point. Cris Classen saw
his longest stint of the year in the Merrimack net, 20:00, and played very
well. The rookie will be the only returning goaltender next season (other
than redshirt junior Jim McNiff, who hasn't played much in his carer), so
it will be interesting to see if Anderson goes to him more since seniors
Thibeault and Legault have struggled lately. Classen has allowed three
goals in his 30+ minutes this season, but all three were on special teams
and were goals he had little chance to stop.
> I also didn't like that the referees did very little to break up Johnson and
> Filipowicz until after DeGregorio and two uniformed police officers took the
> ice.
I think this was merely coincidence. By that time, the altercation had
pretty much subsided with only the one "bout" still going on. DeGregorio
and the security officers probably were not going to step in and do
anything.
At the outset, it was very difficult for the officials to control it
because ten players were involved. These guys have officiated many more
games than I have :-); I can't question the way they tried to control the
situation. I think they did a decent job. With the way it looked at the
outset, it was fortunate that only four players had to be DQ'd.
> That's why it's tough to see Filipowicz get the DQ for fighting. He was
> really just holding off Johnson and if no one steps in to pull Johnson back,
> of course it's going to continue. Even after they were seperated,
>Johnson was
> still trying to get at Filipowicz as Filipowicz was pretty much looking
>around
> as though asking, "Would somebody please do something to get the guy off my
> back? I just want to go to the penalty box and get on with the game."
Earlier in the melee, both players were definitely throwing punches. That
was enough to warrant DQs by the rules. That's the nature of these things.
It's possible that Johnson started it - I'm not sure - but it isn't unusual
for the other player to fight back. If Filipowicz was not also throwing
punches, I would not have agreed with his DQ.
> Hockey is a tough and physical game but this UNH fan is growing sensitive to
> the cheap stuff that seems to follow a high ranking.
I can't comment on the other games UNH has played, but this certainly
wasn't a case of Merrimack going after UNH just because they're highly
ranked. It was only one incident that got out of control, and there was
nothing to indicate ahead of time that this might happen. The Merrimack
players involved were among the ones who have displayed more pride this
season and who probably took the blowout quite personally, perhaps in part
because some of their teammates were not performing as well as they were
and the last few weeks have been rough. It's only natural for them to get
frustrated and display some anger. It doesn't excuse the incident, but it
does help to explain it. I doubt it would have happened if the Warriors
had played better and the game was closer.
At the same time that UNH loses an important player like Boguniecki and a
solid rookie D like Filipowicz, Merrimack loses two guys who have worked
hard this season and tended to spark them - Philbin can be an offensive
sparkplug and Johnson has been a good two way player, especially killing
penalties. It sure doesn't help either team.
> Anyway, tonight's game should be a tough re-match. Merrimack still has a
> pretty good club and like you said, they get a couple bounces, keep it close
> and maybe they have a chance of picking up the win. It favors UNH to be at
> home tonight, but they'll also be missing the "infuriating catalyst" to spark
> the effort. Here's hoping that UNH doesn't think it will be an easy
>outing...
I expect UNH to continue to play very well, and Merrimack will have to lift
their level of play. The first period showed that even if you play well,
you cannot afford the kind of costly mistakes that led to UNH's first two
goals, nor the kind of defensive breakdowns that allowed Bekar and Nickulas
to have high percentage shots in the last minute. UNH will not be beaten
without a very strong all around team effort. That's not what we saw from
Merrimack last night. They are capable of making a game of it, but they
didn't in this case.
At the same time, this blowout was probably due more to the superb effort
that UNH gave than anything else. They played an outstanding game in all
areas, from the goalie on out. They are certainly a very good team and it
won't surprise me to see them go very far.
--- ---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] *HMM* 11/13/93
***** (Part-Time) Color Voice of Merrimack Hockey WCAP 980 AM *****
***** Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at: *****
***** http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html *****
>>> U.S. College Hockey Online http://www.uscollegehockey.com/ <<<
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.
|
