Here's a hodge-podge of things, as I'm trying to catch up with my mail:
RE: UNIV OF MICHIGAN HOCKEY CARDS
To everyone that has messaged me, yes, the offer still stands. I will try
to personally reply to each of you this week. [Sorry for the delay.] I
plan to purchase several cellophane wrapped sets at Friday night's game.
Sets are $10 each. $1 is a good estimate for postage, et al, so send $11
(US) to one of the addresses at the bottom of this post. Again, I'll try to
be in touch with all of you soon.
RE: NITTANY?
Jeff Billman writes...
>What is a _Nittany_ Lion, anyway? I lived in Penn State territory for
>seven years and never got a definite answer to this question.
Some co-workers and I kicked this question around a couple of months ago.
From my recollections, Nittany is: a town northeast of Penn State; a
valley, which may include PSU; a variety of apple, obviously grown in the
Nittany Valley; and some form of fowl (turkey?). Of course, this still
doesn't resolve the issue of the origin. The local expert (in my office) in
these matters believes it to be Native American in origin.
RE: UM SHOTS ON GOAL, GORDON & SHIELDS
Eugene Shen writes...
>Another possibility is that good goalies allow fewer rebounds than bad
>goalies. I've never watched Shields or Gordon play, but maybe Shields is
>better at freezing the puck by either catching it or smothering it. If the
>puck is frozen, then the opposition cannot pick it up and get another shot
>off.
Good point. Not accurate in this instance, but a good point. :-)
Seriously, my friends and I have discussed this possibility, but we feel
that as a generalization, Gordon gives up fewer rebounds than Shields.
Gordon certainly has a better glove hand, as is more apt to catch a puck
and hold it rather than play it off of the body. Maybe this results in more
face-offs in the zone which eventually results in more shots? Also, Shields
is a better stickhandler and is more likely than Gordon to clear the puck
from the zone, either following a dump in or a shot on goal. To this end,
it's harder to keep the puck in the zone against Shields, which would seem
to indirectly result in fewer shots.
Another possibility that we hope to investigate someday is power play time.
Gordon sure SEEMS to play a greater proportion of his minutes with Michigan
shorthanded than Shields does. This could result in more shots.
Last thought on clearing the zone. I don't think I mentioned it last week,
but Shields picked up another shot on goal in his last game. At least, I
would credit it to him. Ferris dumped the puck into the Michigan zone,
Shields stopped it behind the net, saw that he wasn't being immediately
pressured, brought the puck out to the side of the net and cleared it to
Craig Lisko (Ferris netminder) at the other end. From my angle, it looked
like it was on goal.
RE: CCHA STATS I POSTED THIS MORNING
There were at least three numerical errors in my post. UAF is 7-5-0 with
*67* GF vs the CCHA and 4-4-0 with *40* GF against the WCHA. Their total
goals should be 178. Sorry.
RE: TOP 1993-94 FRESHMEN DISCUSSION
My CCHA All-Rookie team is shaping up as this (overall stats):
POS NAME TEAM GP G A PTS PIM
F Brendan Morrison MICH 30 18 21 39 20
F Jason Botterill MICH 26 16 16 32 58
F Mike Peron UIC 28 15 10 25 94
D Ben Nelsen UND 30 6 6 12 22
D Harold Schock MICH 30 3 9 12 34
G Bob Petrie BGSU 21/11-7-1/3.21/88.0
BGSU's Curtis Fry may replace Peron by the end of the season.
I can easily list 20-25 other CCHA freshmen that have impressed me, but I'll
conserve the space, this post is already too long.
As far as freshman classes go, Merrimack and BU both impressed me out east.
In the CCHA, it has to be Michigan all the way. Bowling Green also has a
talented bunch of frosh. One indicator I like to see is individual games
played by freshmen, per team. Barring other mathematical errors, here are
the CCHA overall totals to date:
FROSH TEAM
SCHOOL GAMES GAMES
Michigan 225 30
Kent 199 31
Bowling Green 188 28
Western Michigan 169 29
Notre Dame 169 31
Ferris State 166 30
Illinois-Chicago 162 30
Lake Superior 156 31
Alaska-Fairbanks 116 29
Michigan State 107 30
Ohio State 101 27
Miami 53 27
In a biased attempt to support my school, I'll add a more detailed
statistical look at the Michigan freshmen:
POS NAME GP G A PTS PIM +/-
C Brendan Morrison 30 18 21 39 20 3
LW Jason Botterill 26 16 16 32 58 13
W Mike Legg 26 9 8 17 14 12
F John Madden 25 5 9 14 12 8
RW Warren Luhning 27 8 5 13 63 10
D Harold Schock 30 3 9 12 34 28
D Blake Sloan 28 2 3 5 38 9
D Peter Bourke 21 0 4 4 14 11
D Chris Frescoln 12 1 2 3 26 12
Michigan plays with 7-9 freshmen among the 18 skaters every game. UM has
allowed 71 goals while their freshmen have scored 62.
RE: A VERSION OF WOOFING??
[Note: I don't have the original post, so I must apologize for not being
able to identify "Steve".]
Brian Morris writes...
>Steve suggests:
>>save some really eye popping players (like apparently Michigan
>>has) but you can assemble a great team without a super star--sort of
>>imagine a team where none of the players could be on Michigan's
>>1st line or will make the NHL but all the players are better than
>>Michigan 2nd line.
You didn't think I could resist this, did you? :-)
While Michigan's current #1 line of Oliver (21-39--60), Wiseman (13-45--58)
and Hilton (10-11--21) is explosive, the second line of Knuble (27-21--48),
Morrison (18-21--39) and Botterill (16-16--32) is no slouch. :-)
My lunch hour is over.
John Haeussler University of Michigan
3299 Valley Hts Dr P.O.Box 1248 Room 2090
Adrian MI 49221 Ann Arbor MI 48106-1248
P.S. To David Naghski -- Did you receive my UAF/CCHA/Detroit message OK? I
was having trouble with it bouncing here.
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