I'm not going to try to recap the games, but just some observations from
along the way.
 
Ohio State did well enough this year to not be looked at as one shot
wonders, but they certainly didn't look like they played with the same
passion or have as much fun as they did last year.  Much like Michigan
missing Matt Herr's leadership, the Buckeyes didn't look the same
without Ryan Root obviously having such a marvellous time.  It's to be
expected, that it isn't as much fun when you aren't such a dark horse,
but it's still too bad.
 
As has been observed, Red Berenson should try to get a patent on his
timeout speech.
 
The Michigan-Denver game was pre-empted here for the Timberwolves game,
and I didn't have any luck getting on to WTKA, so I logged on for the DU
radio broadcast.  I no longer think the Gophers have the worst radio
broadcasters in college hockey.  These guys were every bit as much the
homers that the KSTP crew is, and also managed to be boring.  I almost
switched to the Red Wings game when Denver got up 3-0.  Good thing I
hung in there.
 
Man, did the Dane County Coliseum look empty.  Anyone have attendance
figures?  Or have those been classified?
 
Man, does the Dane County Coliseum have terrible zamboni doors.  I
thought the one at Joe Louis Arena was bad, where, among other freaky
bounces, Michigan State got a gift game-winning goal against Minnesota
in the 1987 semi-final.  At least that one only rears up a couple times
a season.  In four games this weekend, I counted at least seven times
that a puck going around the boards to the camera's right caromed out in
front of the net.  This alone was enough reason to build a new arena.
 
Colorado College had a strange weekend.  They had stretches where they
looked very, very good.  They also had stretches where they looked very,
very bad.  Three goals in 42 seconds against St. Lawrence carried them
to victory; other than that, it was a pretty even game.  I agree that
the absence of Toby Peerson loomed large.  Did anyone other than the
Gophers play them four times with him in the line-up?
 
I saw very little of the Clarkson-Maine game, as the West Regional was
on here.  But right now, I've got to tab them as the favorites in
Anaheim.  Man, did they play well.
 
Nothing I saw yesterday changed my mind that Northern Michigan is one of
the dirtiest hockey teams around.  I wish Rick Comley would finish
swallowing his upper lip and then disappear.
 
Rules Question: Is offsides negated if  the other team knocks the pck
into its own defensive zone?  I know I've seen this called offsides lots
of times.  Did the officials just blow it those other times?  This was a
huge play, as UNH's only goal in regulation came when Jason Krog was
clearly offsides with less than fifteen seconds left in the first period
when the puck bounced off of a Michigan skate back into the zone.
 
Even if it shouldn't have been a goal, the better team won the
UNH-Michigan game, though I'd have been overjoyed if the Wolverines (re:
Josh Blackburn) had managed to steal it.  But I wasn't all that
overwhelmed by the Wildcat snipers.  Blackburn made some fine saves, but
Krog & Company made his job easier than it might have been.  And
Michigan's only goal came when Krog completely fell asleep at the wheel
for a defensive zone face-off.
 
After a nuclear war, are we going to be left with nothing but
cockroaches, Twinkies and the Michigan hockey team?  These guys are
almost impossible to kill.  UNH badly outplayed them for most of te game
yesterday, but the Wolverines dragged it to overtime.  In the last eight
years, Michigan has won two national titles.  Their six losses in the
NCAA tournament have all been by one goal, four of them in overtime.  Of
course, considering the two finals they won, maybe it has just been
decreed that Michigan's last game of the year shall always be a
heart-stopper.
 
Michigan State appears to have joined the "Can't Put the Puck in the
Net" Brigade.  Even moreso than UNH vs. Blackburn, they really made Jeff
Sanger look like a god.  Colorado College should never have been ahead
in that game, but it looked like the Spartans were going to cough away
another tourament game, their seventh in a row.  Other than forgetting
that the object of the game is to score, they played really well.  After
Steve Kariya (duh), Mike York probably made the best case of any of the
Hobey nominees.  He had a beautiful assist and backchecked very well.
The only real negatives were one stupid penalty that may have been a bad
call and that he seemed to have the same virus about delivering the puck
into the net on his shots.
 
Will the first person to find the North Dakota hockey team please alert
the media?  I'm not sure what team that was that I watched this
afternoon, but it didn't resemble any Sioux team I saw this season.  I
was more than happy to watch Jason Blake pull a disappearing act,
though.  Kudos to Boston College for designing and exacuting a superb
game plan.  It somewhat resembled what BU did to Michigan in Milwaukee
two years ago, but with less physical domination.  Instead, the Eagles
were just never out of position.  They completely clogged the ice
whenever North Dakota tried to get anything going.  It was quite
surprising, considering that the knock on them has been defensive
consistency.  I had expected an open throttle game from both teams, and
BC probably surprised the Sioux as much as they did me.  Most surprising
was Scott Clemmensen.  I've never seen him play that well, and the first
goal he gave up to CC was the same old thing: bad rebounds.  After that,
though, he tightened up for the whole weekend.
 
I can't believe I'm going to Anaheim rooting for Michigan State.  Ugh.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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