Sorry to take so long.  It's taken me several tries to up-load this file:
 
Carol's a little under the weather, so I'll take it upon myself to post
a weekend report.  After serving as Carol's surrogate yeller Saturday
evening, I guess I'll now be her surrogate post-er.
 
Friday afternoon was the WCHA semi-final between the Gophers and
the Badgers.  This was to be the rubber match after the teams split
their season series 1-1-2, tying for second place in the WCHA.
 
The Gophers got out to a 1-0 lead in the first period on a
shorthanded goal by Captain Travis Richards.  "Brother" Jed
Fiebelkorn widened the lead to 2-0 early in the second period.
Wisconsin then began taking a little more control of the game,
helped, in our extremely biased opinion, by the refs (including Greg
"the Badgers' Favorite Ref" Shepherd and Buzz Christenson).  With the
Gophers already shorthanded Buzzy called Craig Johnson for a hook.
We Minnesota partisans had a pretty good view of it (from the
opposite side Buzzy was on) and it appeared (again, an extremely
biased opinion) to be purely accidental, as Johnson got his stick a
little too high while pulling it free from the Badger's hold.  It didn't
help matters when Johnson protested and got the fastest misconduct
I've ever seen.  He didn't have time to say much before Buzzy put
those hands on his hips, so whatever he DID say must have been
succinct and to the point.  (He IS a speech communications major :-)!)
The Badgers' Richter immediately (well, 17 seconds later)
capitalized on the 5-on-3 power play.
 
Midway through the third period the Badgers Shier tied it up.  It was
*almost* a relief that it came before the Gophers could go into a
shell to protect the one-goal lead.  It did seem to get the Gophers
going again, as they got several opportunities but couldn't break the
tie and prevent the OT.
 
The Gophers dominated the overtime, outshooting Wisconsin 10-4.
(Not that you could tell if you watched the TV replay, where they
omitted the first 8 minutes of the OT to fit the game into 3 hours,
but kept in all the between-periods interviews-ARGH!!!)  So naturally
it looked like they'd lose (doesn't it always work that way?  A lot of
pressure at one end, then the other team gets out of the zone and
scores on their one shot...)  Sure enough, about 9 minutes into OT the
Badgers' Spencer shot a rebound at the open side of the net, but
somehow Tom Newman managed to throw himself in front of it.  A
couple minutes later, the Gophers were in possession of the puck and
Captain Travis Richards was hooked down as he broke into the
Badger zone.  We (see previous disclaimers about personal bias)
thought it was obvious enough that it had to be called, even in OT.
This brought the crowd to its feet for what turned out to be the
remainder of the game.  The Gophers completed their set (a
shorthanded goal, an even-strength goal, and a power-play goal) 26
seconds later when Badger goalie Jim Carey made a save and, after a
scramble in front of the net, a falling Jeff Nielsen swatted the puck
and it dribbled off a fallen Carey and ever so slowly slid over the
goal line.  At that point I, along with most of the 11000 or so other
folks there, finally exhaled and started jumping around like a maniac
while the Gophers hog-piled on each other back near their own blue-
line.
 
After dinner (and a drink to calm those nerves!) we returned for the
evening semifinal in which we frankly expected UMD to beat the NMU
Wildcats, but that was not the case, as NMU continued their late-
season surge and Duluth continued their recent slump, losing 6-2.
We then rushed home to get our VCRs started for the replay of the
Gophers' semi-final on PSN.
 
The Gophers past record has been fairly good (4-1??) in WCHA semi-
final games, but not good at all (0-4) in the championship games.
Saturday night they were up against Northern Michigan, a team that
was undefeated in its last 8 games in that arena.  An NMU win, it
was thought, (and apparently NMU coach and NC$$ Selection
Committee member Comley told Woog this) would give NMU the
automatic bid and leave the Gophers out in the cold.
 
Ailing Carol had skipped the afternoon game to nap, and arrived at
the game with about 50% of a voice, having promised herself not to
yell.  I tried throughout the evening to pick up the cheering slack
somewhat;  I took my surrogate yelling responsibilities seriously.
(Of course, Carol was not completely successful in keeping her
promise not to yell!)  And the Gophers gave me something to yell
about early, when they took a 1-0 lead 3:37 into the game on Craig
Johnson's unassisted goal after some sustained pressure.  At 9:33
Justin McHugh made it 2-0, slipping a shot past Saurdiff after
Travis Richards' dump-in bounced off the boards to the face-off
circle.  Naturally, this couldn't last long, it'd be too relaxing!  Sure
enough, at 15:41, NMU's Jason Hehr scored a power play goal to make
it 2-1.  The Gophers had dominated the early part of the game, but
Northern was making some inroads later in the period.
 
In the second period, NMU's Hadden tied it up on a perfectly set-up
power play goal, and Chris McAlpine regained the lead for the
Gophers with just after the expiration of a power play to make it 3-
2.  The scoring may have been even, and the Gophers did actually out-
shoot the Wildcats 13-10, but it seemed to me (in my anxiety,
perhaps) that Northern was getting better chances.
 
In the third period, Minnesota pulled out to a 4-2 lead on an early
(0:59) goal by their lone senior forward John Brill off his own
rebound.  Again, the two-goal lead was too good to last, and on a
Gopher power-play shortly thereafter Darby Hendrickson bobbled the
puck in his own zone, and the Wildcats' Joe Frederick slipped it in to
make it 4-3.  The following minutes were pretty tense.  Both teams
killed off penalties with no further scoring.  Then coincidental
minors were called.  The public address announcer, who apparently
also does the North Stars' games, announced the penalty to "the
North Stars' number 4, Chris McAlpine."  This brought on a chorus of
boos until he repeated it correctly, whereupon the boos were
replaced by a "Norm Sucks" chant (referring to the North Stars'
owner).  With about 3 minutes to go, the Gophers managed to keep
the pressure on in the NMU end for a couple complete shifts, bringing
a loud, constant standing O from the crowd.  Northern finally got the
puck out and got a chance to call their time-out and pull their goalie
with 1:09 left.  With 34 seconds left "Brillo" got his second goal of
the period, taking a pass from Captain Travis Richards (the only
other senior the Gophers played that night, as Callinan was in the
nets instead of Newman) and skating it very carefully into the empty
net.  He was mobbed on the ice by his teammates and Woog called a
time-out.  We couldn't really figure out why at the time (neither
could the TV announcers), but obviously he needed to call it to keep
from being assessed a delay-of-game penalty for the on-ice
celebration.  (Or maybe to regain his breath after practically being
choked by assistant coach Mark Mazzoleni! :-) )  At the end of the
game, the Gophers mobbed their goalie, pushing the net off its
moorings, as the band played the Battle Hymn.  It was very nice to
enjoy the award ceremonies for a change!
 
The all-tournament team consisted of
        Forwards:               Derek Plante    UMD
                                Craig Johnson   Minn
                                Greg Hadden     NMU
        Defensemen:     Brett Hauer     UMD
                                Steve Carpenter NMU
        Goaltender:     Corwin Saurdiff NMU
 
        MVP:    Travis Richards, Minn
 
That makes three years in a row that the WCHA Championship game
has come down to a game between NMU and Minnesota clinched by an
empty-netter.  This time it finally ended up on the right end!!!  :-)  :-)
:-)
 
Pam Sweeney
Go Gophers!!!
1993 WCHA Playoff Champs!!!
Ski-U-Mah!!!