The Gophers had a really good series with Denver this weekend. The Pioneers
played well enough to beat us, but lacked getting a few breaks.
 
Gopher goalie Jeff Callinan who played on Friday night, was less than
spectacular. After a stunning performance at Duluth last weekend and being
named WCHA defensive player of the week, he let in some goals that shouldn't
have made it! The Denver goalie, Sinuhe Wallinheimo was very good on Friday
but had an off night on Saturday. The crowd had quite a bit of fun with him
too. The student section started calling Wallinheimo, "Wally", I guess his
name was too long for them to work into their cheers (Black hole, etc).
Wallinheimo has *quite* an attitude and an ego to match. Friday night he was
great, stopping some 49 shots that the Gophers poured on him. The crowd did
the SIEVE! cheer, and he egged them on by turning to the loudest pocket of
students and gesticulating that he wanted more. ;-)
 
On Saturday night Wallinheimo had a tougher time ignoring the crowd after the
Gophers had scored three goals in the first period. The students also had
printed up flyers with "Wallinheimo S*CKS" on it for Saturday night and held
them up often. Only one small incident marred the games, when Wallinheimo
rushed out to the top of the face-off circles to stop a Gopher coming in with
the puck and he froze the puck near the boards at the top of the left circle.
The refs called him for a delay-of-game penalty and very carefully explained
it to him. You see, Wallinheimo is one of three players on the Denver team
from Finland. I guess that the refs wanted to make sure he understood. As I
said to a friend in my section..."It's the same game in Finland." the reply I
got was, "I bet he does that *every* game." ;-)
 
There was a minor altercation at the end of the Friday night game, as Gopher
goalie Callinan took exception to Wallinheimo's theatrics. A full scale brawl
was just narrowly avoided. Saturday night in the first period one of the
Denver players took a cheap shot at a Gopher after the whistle. Gopher
captain, Chris McAlpine, not trusting the refs to handle the situation
butt-checked one of the Pioneers and sent him flying. They both were given
"roughing" penalties.
 
Which brings me to the officiating. We had two of the newer refs, and they did
an okay job, but were not very creative in their calls. Interference was the
call of the evening on Friday and on Saturday, it was roughing although other
types of penalties were called on Saturday also. Their inexperience showed at
the end of the games when they were missing calls on one team, but calling
them on the other team. Average group I guess, could have been worse.
 
Players on the Gophers that gave 110% both nights were Justin McHugh, Dan
Woog, and Brian Bonin. The stealth Gopher, Andy Brink got two goals on
Saturday night. Steve Magnusson also continues to play well and stay in the
good graces of the coaches. Two casualties of the weekend were defenseman Eric
Means, who went out with a shoulder separation and freshman forward Nick
Checco who was also injured but the paper did not specify the injury.
 
The Pioneers gave the Gophers a real run for the money in the second period on
Saturday night. Boxed them up pretty effectively. The Gophers came back in the
third, and held off a last minute surge of a Pioneer six skater attack to hang
on for their first win in the new arena. Whew! Now we can start working on
getting the first sweep in the new arena.;-)
 
Gopher goalie Jeff Moen recorded his first win in 10 games over the course of
two seasons (on Saturday night). The team was elated for him and mobbed him at
the end of the game. The post-game handshakes went well.
 
All in all a good weekend.
 
-Carol
 
Carol S. White                            BITNET: c-whit@uminn1
University of Minnesota        internet:[log in to unmask]
Office of the Registrar
(612) 625-8517                                    GO Gophers!!!