Four WCHA teams entered NCAA competition today but only one western team
came out a winner. Congratulations to the University of Minnesota Golden
Gophers. The Gophs took the CC Tigers today 5 - 2  in a not especially
beautiful or exciting game. Well, there were some nice spots, CC's second
goal to go up 2 - 1 was pretty exciting. CC crashed the Minn net and
Callie made the initial save, but the rebound was dished off to a CC's
Schmidt, I believe, who was all alone on the doorstep. The goal the
Gophers got at 19:59 of the first period was exciting too. I thought it
showed a lot of determination on the Goph's part to keep up the pressure
on the CC net with time running out. Larson buried a big rebound off
Kraft's initial shot which was fed by either Checco or Bell, I'm not sure.
 
I thought the one goal Bell scored on the rebound from Checco was going
to be called off. It looked like Bell was in the crease when he poked it
home. Did anyone else see this?
 
It was nice to see Bonnin deposit the hard rubber spheroid into the net
in the third. That goal came seconds into a Minnesota power play.
It was Bonnin's first goal of the NCAA tourney. Hopefully he'll keep it
up. As the third wore on I was really surprised with how many penalties
CC took. I knew they were entirely capable of coming back in this game. I
was surprised when they put themselves in such tough positions with the
penalties.
 
A special note of thanks to all the Badger fans who rooted against the
Gophers! I'm sure the Gophers fed off your negativism. Playing on UW's
home ice was probably a benefit to Minnesota. I wish I could have been
there to see the Gophers do their victory salute. Was the band playing
Battle Hymn?
 
Maine 4 DU 2
End of the road for Sinuhe Wallinheimo and the fighting Pioneers. It
looks like DU gave Maine a game though, so way to play 'em tough DU. How
did Wally respond to the formidable Maine offense?
 
Michigan 4 UW 3
This was definately the game of the day! Wow!!! I knew Wisconsin would
give Michigan a tough fight. It seemed that momentum had shifted to UW
after they tied it up on that sweet steal and empty net goal by Strobel.
That was without a doubt one of the neatest plays I've seen all season. I
can only imagine the S chant following that goal! Whoa! In this case I
think it would be fair to say Buzak desvered it! How about Strobel! Two
SH goals in two nights! It was the same Strobel, wasn't it?
 
About midway through the second when the UW player crushed the Michigan
player to the boards in a clean hit and the Michigan player just kind of
withered to the ice, I thought pretty much said it all for how the game
was going at that point. But Michigan came back and stole back the
momentum on the winning goal. It was a beauty! From the way it looked on
TV, I'd have to say Daubenspeck never had a chance. It looked like he was
completely screened.
 
The UW fans were looking pretty tense there the last couple minutes. I was
surprised Sauer didn't pull Daubenspeck sooner! Maybe he saw how that BU
player blistered a shot from behind the BU goal into the open LSSU net at
the end of the BU/LSSU game to complete his hat trick and decided to play
it a bit more conservatively.
 
I guess in the end when Michigan took the momentum and started beating UW
at their own game of tough hitting and puck control no amount of urging
from the fans could make a difference. Michigan did a good job of
tightening up and minimizing UW's chances. I thought the goaltending of
the Michigan goalie was particularly impressive. Especially that save
where he redirected the puck underneath him and froze on the ice like a
corpse!
 
What a weekend! Five games in two days! Whshew! This was my first time
watching espn2. All I can say is, how cyber-like, genX totally infobahn
wanna be! Cutting edge tv, I guess. I thought the announcers for the
Minnesota games were kind of lame. I thought the guys doing the UW games
were much better. In the Minn/CC game there were several times where the
camera lost the puck and couldn't find the center of the action. To my
understanding it was the people from Madison's public television station
doing the coverage, since they do the Badger's regular season tv games
too. Is this correct?
 
Onto Providence! I believe the Minnesota/BU game will be in the afternoon
and the Maine/Michigan game will be the second game. Is this correct?
 
Congratulations to all teams!
 
Reed