Walt Olson writes...
>John Haeussler writes,
>
>"The All-GLI team, as randomly selected by a group of white mice in
>a laboratory experiment:
>
>....
>
>
>G  Jamie Ram, Michigan Tech (This brought a tremendous roar of
>     laughter from our section.  Can you say OVERRATED?  These must
>     have been the same lab mice that selected the All-America team
>     last season.  For the record, Ram goes 1-1 with nine goals
>     against.  Early in the third, my friend and I began predicting
>     the All-GLI team.  We figured Shields would get the nod if he
>     held the shutout in the title game, even though Gordon played
>     in the first round.  Once MSU scored, the odds on choice was
>     Buzak, who beat MTU in OT, 3-2, and held Michigan to four
>     goals -- their second lowest output of the season -- while
>     being pretty well peppered.  Is there no justice?  I've
>     penciled Ram in for First Team West All-America again this
>     season.  He's as much of a lock as Charlie Ward was for the
>     Heisman. :-) "
>
>In defense of Ram's selection, who else could they chose? Shields looked
>good but did not play two games and did not look as good as Ram did
>in the first game (MSU-MTU). Buzak was tremendous but Michigan seemed to
>be able to score at will against him in the UM-MSU game. Some wouild also
>suggest that in the MSU-MTU game, Buzak wasn't tested: MTU doesn't play
>much of an offensive game. 80% of the play was in the MTU zone. That
>leaves Notre Dame's Salzmann and Louder, neither of which showed anything
>worthy of note. I can't even remember the name of the UM goalie in the
>ND-UM game: he played OK but nothing that was outstanding.
>
>John, in a rare display of affection and bias to to UM, I suspect you
>wanted Shields; but unfortunately, (perhaps due to the flu that he had,) it
>just wasn't there. My choice would have been Buzak followed by Ram. Ram's
>play during the ND-MTU game was not exactly stellar (23 saves). To Ram's
>credit, he doesn't get much help from his team mates.
 
As I said in my previous post, Buzak should have been the All-GLI goaltender
without a doubt.  Michigan certainly didn't score at will against him.  As
Mike pointed out, if UM and MSU would have swapped Shields and Buzak for the
title game, Michigan would have won 9-0 or 10-0.
 
Given that he didn't play the opening game, Shields didn't warrant
consideration unless he tossed a shutout against MSU.  Even with a shutout,
he would have been a questionable choice given that he didn't play that
well.  On the other hand, Buzak did exactly what he had to do.  He got the
win over Tech and kept his team in the game against Michigan.  Yeah, Ram got
the win over ND and kept his team in the game against State...but, not
intending to offend the Irish, giving up six goals to ND is a little
different than giving up four goals to Michigan.  And Buzak wasn't
surrounded with support, either.
 
Sorry for the snappy tone.  I'm not biasedly (sp?) backing Michigan on this
one.  Ram was outstanding in the previous GLI, but his honors this year were
on reputation alone.
 
And, I'm sure Buzak could have used a new CD player.  :-)
(Given to the All-GLI team.)
 
 
  John H
  U Mich