Hi everybody!  Time for my annual report on the Great Western
Freeze-Out.  Unfortunately, this year I only made it for
the championship game, but I will post all the scores:
 
Saturday, Nov. 27
New Hampshire 7, Clarkson 3
Miami 5, Univ. of Toronto 4 (OT)
 
Sunday, Nov. 28
Clarkson 6, Univ. of Toronto 5 (OT)
Miami 6, New Hampshire 2
 
Going into this tourny, I had correctly picked for myself
all of the outcomes except the championship.  My feeling was
that Miami wasn't quite the team they were last year, and
UNH was entering with a strong 8-1 record.  (This information
I got by sending the message GET HOCKEY-L FILELIST to
[log in to unmask] in the body of the letter, and
subsequently sending GET 9394COMP SCHEDULE in order to get
the composite schedule and scores!  Just teasing, Wayne :-))
 
The linescore for the championship was
 
Miami           2  2  2  -  6
New Hampshire   0  2  0  -  2
 
My impression for most of the game was that the UNH Wildcats
never got over that wild party they had in Hollywood on
Saturday night despite the R&R they took on the links Sunday
morning.  The Wildcats played with little hustle or concentration
for most of the game while Miami was obviously taking the game
very seriously from the get-go.  Nonetheless, the Wildcats showed
some strong team defense in the opening portion of the game, but
given their first power play, the Redskins converted.  Miami was
rolling then.  Miami scored their next goal on a beautiful
breakaway multi-line pass (which I'm not used to anymore) which
allowed Matt Oates (I think) to score the easy goal.  At the
end of the first, shots were even at 11.  It is worth noting
that despite some brief early pressure by the Wildcats, the
Redskin goalie Rich Shulmistra was a wall.  After those saves,
the Wildcats gave up.  The Wildcat goalie, Trent Cavicchi (sp?),
was a sieve, though.  Not a good outing for him.
 
The second period was marked by the same lackadaisical play by
the Wildcats and the same hustle by the Redskins.  A noteable
difference was truly inspiring reffing---the refs called more
penalties on the Redskins in a clear attempt to inspire the
Wildcats.  That was fine by me---it would even up the contest.
(Nothing like nonpartisan cheering.)  Sure enough, the Wildcats
scored a power-play goal and for the next five minutes played
some truly inspired hockey.  No sooner had I made this observation
to a friend than the Wildcats scored an even-strength goal.  At
that point, the score was 4-2.  Miami's 4th goal was pretty
interesting.  A Redskin forward shot the puck off the back
of Cavicchi's right leg from behind the goal for the unassisted
score.  Cavicchi was not paying attention and was promptly pulled
in favor of Heinke.  The shots at the end of two periods was
23 to 22 in favor of UNH.
 
The third period was much like the first.  One power-play goal
and one even-strength goal for the Redskins.  At one point the
Redskin coach complained bitterly about a penalty called on
his team, yelling "That was a brutal call, ref!" so that everyone
in the quiescent Forum could hear him.  To me that was sort of
a silly complaint.  Did he really think that anything of worth
was going to come of the UNH power-play with his team up
5-2 at the time?  I say save it for the games that count.  The
shots at the end of the game were something like 33 to 31 in
favor of the Redskins.  If I had to pick a player of the game
it would be Shulmistra and the right post he brought with him.
 
The game was relatively unphysical and clean.  My impression is
that the GW Forum is a large skating surface and doesn't lend
itself too well to hard physical play (but I could be wrong,
as usual).  There were some fine hits, but they were few.  The
reffing was just fine.  The better team won convincingly.  In
retrospect, the entire Miami team shut down the Wildcat offense
by stuffing the neutral zone between their blue line and the
red line.  The defense always beat UNH to the puck on UNH
dump-and-chase plays and soon had breakouts of their own.
 
I enjoyed last year's Maine-LSSU Freeze-Out final much better.
Sigh.  Now I have to root for the Kings again.
 
Stephen Leroy
Caltech '90 and '94
Cornell '88