All right! Having been stranded in the Southern California college hockey
wastelands for nigh on to forever, it's been about 25 years since I last
attended a real, live college hockey game. So last Sunday morning Arleen and
I drove the 135 miles down to Anaheim to catch the final two games of the
Great Western Freeze-Out (eat your heart out, Tony Buffa). We dragged along
Joe, a native southern Californio friend of ours who just recently moved from
Santa Barbara to Anaheim. Met up with John Whelan at the Pond, where the four
of us sat together. Met Margie Rennet and her kids and a couple of other
HOCKEY-Lers between periods. Nice folk!
 
First game, Miami vs. BC -- having gone through my formative hockey years at
RPI from 1960-68 I naturally grew up learning to hate all things Boston, and
especially BC. So deciding to root for Miami was a no-brainer.
 
The first period was terrible. All clutch and grab and kick the puck along
the boards. Pass? What's that? Never heard of it. BC's play, especially, was
sloppy -- they couldn't seem to bring any play to completion.
Situation: puck in the corner deep in Miami's zone; puck squirts out (by
accident, probably) in front of the Miami crease; lands right on the stick of
a BC player; no Miami defenseman close enough to check him -- tremendous shot
opportunity; he stops the puck with the blade of his stick; he sets to shoot;
he looks at the goal; he MISSES THE FRIGGING PUCK! He gets knocked on his
butt by a Miami defenseman -- one blown opportunity.
Situation: puck deep in BC's zone; BC defenseman gains control; nice outlet
pass to BC's center; he starts to break out of the zone with both wings --
looks like a good 3 on 2 break; just before he crosses the blue line into
neutral ice a Miami forward skates up behind him, reaches out with his stick,
blithely takes it away from him -- without a check or anything -- turns and,
unmolested, skates in on the BC goalie! That seemed to be typical of BC's
efforts -- so near and yet so far.
And the first 19:55 of the period continued like that. Only 4 saves by each
goalie. BC seemed to have several players who were noticeably faster than
Miami, and they buzzed around like angry hornets harrassing Miami and
generally keeping them from getting any organized plays set up. Miami,
however, kept lumbering along trying to remember how this game was supposed
to be played and trying to swat away those pesky hornets. Finally, in the
last few seconds, Miami actually completed 2 or 3 consecutive passes and put
the puck away with only 02.5 sec showing on the clock.
 
The second period was better because Miami was able to put together some
reasonable plays. BC, on the other hand, seemed to have a case of terminal
sloppiness -- missed passes, flubbed shots, overskating the puck. Just when
it looked like they were about to do something right, they'd find a way to
screw it up. And Miami just plugged along -- often BC's harassment would mess
up their tempo, but periodically they'd string together a few good passes
and, BANG, another goal -- a total of 3 times in that period.
 
The third period started out the same way, with Miami executing while BC
skated even faster and more frantically than they had before. BC actually
outshot Miami, but not with quality shots. It got so bad that -- I don't
believe I'm actually going to say this, and if anyone ever repeats it, I'll
deny ever having said it -- I almost started rooting for BC, just hoping
they'd get their act together and make it an interesting game. (Now if they'd
been playing RPI, I'm sure I would have enjoyed a blow out.) But no such
luck. BC finally did score -- on a slap shot from the point on a power play
-- but not until the game was far out of reach.
 
Amusing sidelight: The scoreboard has the teams listed as "Eagles" and
"Redskins." After Miami's first goal they post a "1" for the Redskins. Our
friend Joe, the native Southern Californio, says, "How come they gave that
goal to the Redskins?" "Because they scored they goal." "No, they didn't."
"Yes, they did." "No, they didn't!" Turns out he'd noticed that BC wears the
same colors as the Washington Redskins, so he assumed they were the Redskins.
Good thing he didn't remember that the Eagles had played in the first game
when he saw Michigan State skate out in their green and white jerseys for the
second game.
 
Second game -- Maine vs. Michigan State -- good playmaking, good hockey, good
game. Enjoyed the whole thing, from beginning to end. Really felt bad for
MSU's Smith when he scored that goal for Maine. Ouch!
Having been out of touch with college hockey for years and years (until I
discovered HOCKEY-L last January), I don't know all the hot players, but I
read the hype put out by MSU's SID and decided I'd keep an eye on Anson
Carter. Frankly, I was kind of disappointed. To quote our friend Joe, "That
Carter dude is really doggin' it!" (That's how Southern Californios talk.)
Maybe he'd been out partying late Saturday night. He had one flash of
excellence -- on MSU's first goal. He and Keyes were circling between the red
line and Maine's blue line (as MSU's forwards did on every power play), when
the outlet pass connected with Carter, Keyes accelerated like a sonofagun,
and Carter hit him with a perfect lead pass. Keyes already had his
afterburners on, took Carter's pass without breaking stride, and just flew
around the Maine defense. Good play, pretty goal.
Speaking of Keyes, while that first MSU goal looked pretty, his penalty shot
was pathetic. Just skated straight at the goalie and shot the puck right at
him.
CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION
OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA
(OFRA = Old Fart's Reminiscence Alert)
Hey, Tony, remember Bobby Brinkworth? (Silly question -- how could he ever
forget?) Now there was a guy who could deke a goalie. I saw him on breakaways
and on penalty shots and he never ever never missed one. On a penalty shot,
Brinkworth would have a goalie twisting himself into a pretzel off in the
corner, while he shot the puck into an empty net. Is goalie dekeing a lost
art? Maybe I should start a thread on that.
END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA
 
Question for you CCHAers: does Shevos, the ref, always refuse to blow the
puck dead when someone's trying to freeze it in along the boards? He was
really kind of obnoxious about it throughout this game. A bunch of guys would
be fighting for the puck, and all I could hear, even from across the rink,
was Shevos yelling, "MOVE IT! MOVE IT! MOVE IT! NO WHISTLE! YOU'RE NOT
GETTIN' A WHISTLE! NO WHISTLE! MOVE IT!" And the scrapping would drag on and
on and several times it continued until Shevos stopped play by calling a
penalty! I assume he thinks that people shouldn't freeze the puck because it
interrupts the game and wastes time, but calling a penalty does that in
spades. And there were at least two penalties that would never have happened
if Shevos hadn't been playing his mind game.
Speaking of refs, there was only one time that I noticed anyone obviously
getting on a ref -- and it was totally uncalled for. The incident happened
right in front of where we were sitting. The play has moved down ice. An MSU
player is standing in neutral ice following the play when a Maine player
skates up behind him, puts his stick around the guy's ankles, and pulls his
feet right out from under him. I'm certain the Maine player thought he was
behind the play and wouldn't get caught, because he certainly did it
blatantly and with no apparent provocation. However, he did get caught, and
when the ref called it Shawn Walsh starts screaming, "THAT WAS A TERRIBLE
CALL, REF, THAT WAS A TERRIBLE CALL" loudly enough that everyone in the arena
could hear him clearly. I hadn't paid any attention to Walsh before that, so
my first impression of him is pretty poor.
 
Oh yeah, while I'm listing my gripes I ought to add that TV time outs really
do suck! They seem to prefer taking them right in the middle of some fast and
furious action, just so they can interrupt the flow of the game and break up
any momentum. Or at least that's the way it seems.
 
Nonetheless, Sunday was great -- six straight hours of college hockey -- God,
it's been a long time! Maybe next year we can get Buffa to come down there
too.
 
Bob Stagat
RPI '64 & '68
 
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