Well.... Of course I am disapointed that Wisconsin didn't do better in the NCAA's ... or in the WCHA tournament. But, to echo what someone (Mark?) said, I don't recall the Wisconsin people on the list predicting the Badgers to win the series, let alone a blow-out. We haven't blown-out any of the better teams this season. Congratulations to Clarkson on their victories, and good luck. Now, to some comments: * Wisconsin may be the defending NCAA champs -- and if my team had beaten the defending champs I'd gloat and enjoy it, but reality is that this *isn't* the team that won it last year -- in college sports, it almost never is. * [Previous point continued] Wisconsin finished higher in the WCHA than predicted in pre-season polls (then again, North Dakota finished lower, so we should probably just ignore pre-season polls all together). One hockey (newspaper) reporter was interviewed on the radio a few weeks ago (before the first round of the WCHA tournament) and gave his vote for WCHA coach of the year to Jeff Sauer, for accomplishing much more than was expected (I believe Rick Comley was coach of the year, and I am not arguing against his selection). * Wisconsin was 2-6 in the last four weeks. The only wins were over UMD in the first round of the WCHA playoffs, and despite the almost-made-it comeback against Minnesota in the WCHA semi-finals, didn't play well down the stretch. * Clarkson has an awesome powerplay and played very well, doing the right things to beat Wisconsin. * By all reports, Wisconsin played terrible Friday night against Clarkson. A reporter for one of the local papers wrote something about mass amnesia: forgetting how to play defense, forgetting how to play as a team, and forgetting all the little things that got them into the tournament. * It isn't an excuse for losing the series, but the week had its share of distraction for the team: First, as mentioned before, the WCHA tournament ended Monday night. The team got back to Madison late monday, and went to class Tuesday. They left Wednesday for upstate NY. I don't know where they flew into, but then they had a bus ride to the Potsdam area. They couldn't stay in Potsdam, no hotels there could/would take them, so they stayed 45 miles away (don't remember the name of the town). Getting to and from the rink was another bus ride, so they didn't have a Friday morning skate. On his TV show (recorded early in the week), Sauer was aked about all this. He said it was more reason for the WCHA tournament to be on the weekend, and the NCAA tournament to be at sites with the best facilities avaliable for a tournament (in other words, not out at host schools, but at major sites. According to NCAA rules, the host team is reponsible for local arraingments for the visiting team, and obviously Sauer was not thrilled with what Clarkson came up with. That doesn't mean they didn't do their best). He said the team would just have to ignore the distractions and concentrate on the games. * Sauer was not pleased with the officiating in either game. Both sets of radio announcers said the linesmen were even worse (both ways), and felt that the ref was not good (again, they felt he made several weak calls both ways). In particular, they said he missed the initial penalty on a lot of calls, and called a lot of questionable penalties. They also said that the Clarkson Coach wasn't happy with the officiating either, questioning many calls and complaining at the ends of (some of) the periods. * As for the too-many-men on the ice call in game 2, one set of announcers didn't see it at all, the other saw it and felt that the ref blew it -- he said the player wasn't in the play, and 99% of the time the penalty would not have been called. I never heard an explanation of what happened, and I didn't see it, so I don't know. * I don't know why the band didn't go to Clarkson, I assume because of cost, amount of classes they would have to miss, and difficulty finding a place to stay. * Re: Sauer's prediction that Clarkson won't beat Lake Superior is just that: a prediction. I'm sure it wasn't meant as a cut at Clarkson. If a reporter asks a coach how an opponent will do against another opponent, the coach answers the question. * Both Madison campus papers used (the same) article from the Clarkson student paper to cover the series. This is already too long, and it is begining to sound like I am making excuses... I'm not (much). Again, congrats to Clarkson and good luck! --david