I had hoped for box scores in the Sunday newspaper to post, but once again I
was disappointed by the Detroit News.  I won't try to recreate them from
memory so I will just give my impressions.  It did however have the AP article
on Minnesota recruiting.  I will try to post that today.
 
I listened to the Friday night game between Michigan and Minnesota.  It was
painful.  Outside of some small stretches, Michigan appeared to control the
game.  The game was really over by the end of the first period which showcased
David Oliver of Michigan and a natural hat trick.  Michigan did a good job
on special teams matching up against a poor job by Minnesota.  Problems from
last year seem to be worse for Minnesota, at least that night.  Michigan made
Minnesota pay for the mistakes they made.  Errant or intercepted passes in the
defensive zone were turned into goals by Michigan.  Final score was Michigan 6
- Minnesota 0.
 
I did not hear or even see a score for the Michigan State - Wisconsin game.  I
understand that it was Michigan State 4 - Wisconsin 3 (or 2?)
 
I did attend the Saturday games.  Michigan State got off to a quick 2-0 lead
in the first period before Minnesota and in particular the Minnesota goalie,
Moen, settled down.  Up to that point it was looking like a repeat of the
Michigan game the night before for Minnesota.
 
The game, however, did turn into an exciting one. Minnesota made it
unnecessarily exciting by having difficulty with passing and in particular with
breaking out of their zone.  Fortunately for Minnesota, Michigan State was not
able to capitalize on the mistakes like Michigan had.  In the end Minnesota was
able to a good job of passing in the offensive zone as well as had many
outstanding individual efforts on the way to beating Michigan State 6-5.
 
The Wisconsin - Michigan started out similar to the earlier game in the day
with Michigan going up 2-0.  At that point it looked like Michigan might give
another WCHA team a drubbing.  Wisconsin, in the role of Michigan in last
year's NCAA regional, was able to struggle back and eventually take the lead
for the win 4-3.
 
Shields and Carey were both good in goal, as always.  Shields was only fooled
once but it was costly.  A Wisconsin player took the puck around the goal on a
wrap around.  Shields and a defenseman cut him off.  The Wisconsin player
started skating back the other way but managed a very nice pass back, before
getting too far behind the net, to a team mate coming into the faceoff circle.
Shields didn't see this and followed the first player behind the net to the
other side leaving a wide open target which wasn't missed.  The whole game was
well played by both sides.  I think Michigan played the more consistent game
but Wisconsin was able to play with more intensity at times.
 
A final word on attendance, it was good for college hockey (7-10,000 per day)
but sparse for the Palace (seating around 19-20,000)  The numbers that get
announced at the Palace are misleading.  The total tickets "sold" for the games
was announced as more than 25,000 (I can't remember the exact number.)
However, this includes all the boxes (and there are a lot of them), whether or
not anyone was there, etc.  The announced numbers probably overstate the real
numbers by 5-10,000.
 
Doug P.
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