The following comment about Scott Pellerin (as part of a discussion of
Hobey Baker candidates) reminded me of something which has been on my
mind lately.
 
> The reason why I was initially surprised at Scott Pellerin's award
> last year was that his numbers (32-25) weren't tremendous.  This
> was before I thought about his overall record though.  He was
> highly respected by the Alfond fans(loved?!?), he had four
> solid years of hockey, he could turn a game around with his
> physical game (I'm not really proud of this, but he broke
> at least two collarbones with his wild forechecking),
> he had solid grades in a business major, and he graduated!
>
With reference to the collarbones: The brightest spot for the Northern
Michigan Wildcats this year has been the work of sophomore center Greg
Hadden.  With the loss of Joe Frederick, Hadden has become the first
line's center and leads the team (by a lot) in goals.  However, my
thinking is in connection with Hadden's extremely physical play.  He is
known for his extremely hard checks, dished out all over the ice.  The
Wildcat players and coaches credit Hadden's physical play for helping
them a lot, for firing up his teammates and for so riling his opponents
that they end up taking bad penalties in retaliation, which gives NMU
power plays.  (BTW., Hadden's checks, although very hard and often
devastating, are almost always legal and he is seldom penalized for
them.)
 
However, at least two opposing coaches have been highly critical of
Hadden.  Doug Woog of Minnesota was quoted in the student newspaper here
as saying Hadden is a "guided missile who takes off 30 feet away from
his target and is going to kill someone someday," and last weekend's
radio interview prior to the Saturday game with Colordo College had CC
coach Brad Butenow (sp?) saying he was upset with the officiating during
Friday night's game, "when the Hadden kid was allowed to go wild."
 
Question: are very hard but legal checks a good thing or a bad thing?
Hadden, unquestionably, goes out of his way to hit people.  (Although
he's one of the smallest players on the team--160 lbs, 5'7" or so.) I've
seen members of this list offer criticisms of their own teams' players
along the line of "It seems like last year he never hit anybody; this
year's he's finally getting the idea." So, I assume many hockey
aficionados LIKE checking for its own sake.  But how do we square this
with Woog's and Buetenow's criticisms?  Sour grapes, or justified?
 
Just wondering what the opinions are out there.
 
Go 'Cats!  :-)
 
(Smiling after the first weekend sweep of the season!)
 
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                     *      Steve Christopher, NMU       *
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