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]         *
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