First, I must make a BIG apology to Maine and all the Maine fans - You
see, I feel I am responsible for the UMaine loss to Providence in the HE
semis...Oh yeah, sure, Providence might have outplayed Maine for 10 mins
of the 2nd period etc etc, but it is I who jinxed Maine even before the
game began. :-)
 
I am the author of that infamous article posted 3 days ago on shootouts
and the HE regular season champs...in which I theorized that there may
be some NCAA seeding problems if Providence were to win HE. Little did
I remember that Maine was playing Providence in the HE semis...so, there
it is. I'd said the absolute wrong thing...oh, please forgive me :-).
Of course, that would not work against BU, because of the hatred for BU
(on the ice ie.) :-) :-).
 
 
Oh, and I should also apologize for wasting some bandwidth on that post,
since Mike Machnik had done (probably more detailed) analysis along
similar lines..I'd missed that article...so. (I know Mike, I know...
it's no big deal :-). Anyway... oh, cc'ing that email to John was
 
pretty nasty, if I may add :-) :-) ).
 
BTW, since someone (Nick?) posted about polling for/against shootouts
because of my article, here's my 2c...while I am against a shootout at
this point, I agree with whoever mentioned that a simple for/against
poll would not be too meaningful. If we must have a reasonable H-L
poll, it needs to be a comprehensive one, with several options.
 
On LSSU...well, what can I say...the Lakers are back...:-)
The CCHA championship game, however, was not too exciting (perhaps, I
needed to be a Lakers fan :>). For much of the first and second periods,
it was quite slow. MSU would take a 2-0 lead on the Lakers, only to
sit back on their lead for a long time. They simply seemed to be content
in trying to clear the puck out of their zone for the most part. Knowing
LSSU's style of play in the last few years I feared (for MSU :>), that
this was playing right into the Lakers game plans. MSU was up 2-0 on a
14-13 SOG in favor of the Lakers. By the time, MSU woke up, the Lakers
had tied the game at 21-13 SOG. It took a long time in the 2nd (after the
early part of the period) before MSU even had a SOG.
 
And in the 3rd period, when MSU mad a rather weak attempt at a dump for a
line change, which LSSU pounced upon at mid-ice (LSSU wd convert it to
take the lead for the first time and for good in the game), it was all
but over.
 
So, LSSU is now in the East bracket, which I thought they would and I was
hoping that they would be seeded last and face BU :-). Now Maine might
have to face them. From what I hear about the way Maine plays this year
on defence and along the boards, this should make for a very similar
kind of play from both teams and should be interesting, were it to happen.
 
Well, it has been an interesting year so far and I am looking forward to
an exciting NCAA tourney...may the best team (and that wd be Maine, right?
:-) ) win.
 
 
Cheers
Venky
                     GO BLUE!!!!!!!!