The Northern Michigan Wildcats rebounded Saturday night with a 6-4 win over the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs in Marquette's Lakeview Arena. To my relief the crowd did NOT turn up "surly and ugly" as I'd feared. However, I'm sure the fact that the 'Cats played well and led at the end of the first period had a lot to do with keeping things fairly reasonable in the stands. (I have to wonder if we have some fair-weather fans; there were 800 fewer in attendance than the night before.) Wish I could say the same about the atmosphere on the ice in the first period. It was an extremely hard-hitting game throughout, and the 1st period was no exception. Bone-crunching checks all over the place. That was OK--it was obvious the referee was going to let things be physical in that way. The bad thing was that there was a LOT of "stickwork" behind the play during most of the period. UM-D defenseman Greg Andrusak, perhaps their best player, was ejected in the period for a major high-sticking and disqualification penalty. There were also a couple of spears (at least one on each side) which weren't called. I watched the TV rebroadcast later in the evening and got a better look at all this, but even on the postgame wrapup show and interviews the announceers talked about it quite a bit with the players and Rick Comley. Comley commented he was afraid someone was going to get hurt in the 1st. (He must have meant SERIOUSLY hurt, because there were several bodies on the ice getting attention from trainers during the game.) 1 2 3 Scoring: UM-D 0 2 2 NMU 2 0 4 Power-plays: UM-D, 2/6; NMU 4/9 Penalties: UM-D 11/25; NMU 8/16 Goals: UM-D: Torrel 3, Kaiser 1 NMU: Johnson 2, Beaufait 2, Riplinger 1, Frederick 1 Goalie saves: UM-D Flint 29; NMU Saurdiff 23 Rick Comley completely shuffled his lineup last night. The No. 1 line all seasaon, Scott Beattie, Jim Hiller and (since Dallas Drake's injury) Tony Szabo, was used as the FOURTH line and saw relatively little ice time. A number of freshmen and sophomores got extensive time and came through very well. The Wildcat power play was very different, both in terms of personnel (Beattie and HIller were NOT used most of the time) and tactics. After the game Comley said it was the same style of play he used so successfully most of last year, in which Dallas Drake played a big role on the corner, but not the one they've used this year (with great success until the last three games before this one). As the stats indicate, the power play was also much more successful than it had been recently.) Funny,after the discussion we recently had (and which I guess I got started) about awarding goals to players who didn't shoot the puck: One of the NMU goals involved UMD's Flint stopping a shot, which fell in the crease at his feet, a bit behind him. The puck was stationary but as Flint looked around for it he shuffled his feet backwards a bit (I had a great view of all this) and his skate knocked the puck into the goal. I had to feel sorry for him (but happy for the 'Cats). I believe this was the 3rd NMU goal, the one awarded to Frederick. It will be interesting to see what kind of lineups for NMU come out to face the Gophers for the NMU-Minnesota showdown next weekend. (I won't be there--groan!--unavoidable trip to Spokane for family event; and the local paper certainly doesn't cover college hockey.) *********************************** * Steve Christopher, NMU * * "Go 'Cats!''Going for two in '92!" * * [log in to unmask] * ***********************************