Is Hockey-L down?
 
Here I sit the day after drinking my coffee looking forward to seeing
what happened last night and seeing no messages ...
 
Since we don't get morning newspapers here, (too far North, too cold,
too much snow and too small ?) I look forward to my Sunday Hockey-L.
 
Anyway, I will make my report of last noght's game hoping that the
list will come back soon.
 
 
Well, another loss.
 
MTU  0 1 0 - 1
MINN 0 1 1 - 2
 
2nd Period:
 
MINN Nielsen 13 (Bianchi, Trebil) 10:35
MTU  Stevens 12 (K. Peterson, Perrault) 15:54 MTU
 
3rd Period:
 
MINN Bonin 12 (C. McAlpine, Dustin) ppg 1:08
 
Saves:
 
MTU  Caraveggio 12  7  9 - 28
MINN Moen        4 10  7 - 21
 
(Need I say more?)
 
I called out the shot problem in yesterday's message: ditto again.
 
MTU seem to come with more vigor and held it throughout the game.
However, Minnesota proved that they could score more points than
MTU. From the telecast, I gather that Minnesota's goalie, Jeff Moen,
play one very fine game.
 
The first period was marked by hard hitting hockey with no penalties
until very near the end of the period when a brouhaha broke out sending
3 players from both sides in the penalty boxes. According to the radio
announcer, all ten players on the ice should have been in the boxes.
Even little Figliomeni (5'6" {standing on a soap box!}, 145 lb) was
paired off with a Gopher.
 
The second period began with a couple of early MTU penalties which
put Minnesota up two men for about 14 seconds. After successfully
killing off these penalties, P. Mikesch got a 10 minute misconduct
for running his mouth at the ref's (Waisanen and Ritchie) after
being rejected from a face off. It wasn't Pat's night. Midway in
the period, Nielsen beat MTU's Hunter at the blue line and went in
to score. During this period, Chris McAlpine picked up a penalty for
slashing and became the player in Minnesota's history who has had
the most penalties, hardly a record that I think either Woog or
McAlpine wanted.
 
Early in the third period, Bonin got a pass across the MTU crease
and drilled it home on a powerplay resulting from Kisil's late 2nd
period interference call. At 4:07 in the third period Minnesota's
Niesen slashed Pat Mikesch sending him to the locker room. The
Minnesota fans clapped when a 5 minute major was announced against
Nielsen.  The remainder of the game was marked additional penalties
which prevented MTU from putting up much of a late assault. Minnesota
did manage to hold the puck for most of the late third period
preventing MTU from pulling the goalie.
 
After rereading the above paragraphs, I have dwelt on penalties
more than intended. I did not think that the penalties called were
excessive or unwarranted. However, they did seem to set the tone of
the game after the first period. Our radio color man, Dave Fisher,
kept wanting more penalties called on both sides and discussed them
through out the play by play. Bob Olson is a very good play by play
announcer but when the color man goes on and on about this or that
penalty that was uncalled, groaning and moaning in the radio, it
totally destroys the listening enjoyment of the game. From previous
messages, you know that I don't like penalties: I like five on five
hockey cleanly played. I gather that there was a lot of that in
the Mariucci Arena last night but  you could not come to that
conclusion if you listened only to Dave Fisher. Minnesota was the
better team and deserved the win. MTU gave them a good game that
was probably enjoyable to the fans at the Mariucci.
 
MTU's next opponent is University of Alaska Anchorage in Anchorage.
They travel Wednesday; however dyscadia clearly gives UAA an
advantage. MTU is now noted for lack a daisical Friday nights.
Coupled with the time change from Eastern to Alaskan, (four hour
difference) does not bode well.  I think UAA is a weaker team but
MTU has had trouble with them in the past. MTU needs the points for
wins bad if they expect to play after the season.
 
Walt Olson
MTU