Since my copies of the list digest have not included descriptions of either of the Northern Michigan-Minnesota-Duluth games played this weekend in Marquette (only a statistical summary from a Duluth fan on Friday's game, and a score report from him on Saturday's), I thought I'd offer a few comments. (I was at the Friday game, and watched the delayed rebroadcast of Saturday's.) Friday night ended up being a terrific lift for Wildcat fans, and no doubt a real letdown for Bulldog followers. The 'Cats came from WAY back to win, overcoming 3-0 and 4-1 UMD leads. The beginning of the game seemed a repeat of the problems NMU has experiences early this year, especially in last weekend's disastrous series against Michigan Tech. Wildcat defenseman Steve Hamilton was assessed a five-minute major penalty for checking from behind midway through the first period. The Bulldogs took full advantage of this, scoring three goals on this one penalty's power play. (Oddly, for a brief period in the middle of the major, UMD had a 5-3 advantage, but did not score during that time.) Northern got on the board near the end of the period to make it 3-1 and provide some hope for its fans. However, the second period saw the Bulldogs score quickly, in a short-handed situation on a breakaway. Rick Comley replaced his goalie, a freshman who had a good outing in a win over St. Cloud State two weeks ago, with sophomore Dieter Kochan. Kochan shut out the Bulldogs the rest of the way. (After the game Comley said he was not that displeased with the starting goalie's play, but he felt he had to make a change to shake up the way the game was going.) Northern scored twice in the second period to end it on the short end of a 4-3 score. In the third period Greg Hadden tied the game about midway through it with a pretty spin move and a one-timer from the lower part of the left wing faceoff circle. Several minutes later Jason Hehr scored the game-winner during a power play on a very hard shot from the blue line which went through a crowd of players in the front of the goal. I'm not sure the UMD goalie ever saw the puck (or maybe even the shot). The thing Comley seemed to like best about the entire game was the way the Wildcats completely dominated play in the final two and a half minutes of the game. The Bulldogs never came close to having a chance to pull their goalie; the puck was in the UMD end nearly the entire final two minutes. NMU, which had been absolutely horrible on special-team play so far this season (around 6th in the WCHA in power play success, and dead last in penalty-killing), turned it around quite a bit in this game (after the three goals it yielded during the first period major. The 'Cats killed all penalties in the final two periods, and scored four of their five goals on power plays. In Saturday's contest it was NMU who established leads and UMD who played catchup--quite successfully most of the time. Northern scored the first two goals in the first period, both on power plays. UMD scored once also and the period ended 2-1 NMU. As I recall UMD outscored Northern 2-1 in the second period to leave it tied at 3-3 going into the third. NMU took the lead midway through the final period on a quickwrist shot by Brent Riplinger from a scramble about 15 feet to the far left of the UMD goalie; I replayed that goal several times in super-slow and stop motion, and never could get an exact picture of what happend, but it appeared the shot, which came in at a pretty extreme angle, cauth the back of the goalie's left knee and richocheted into the net. But afew minutes later Rusty Fitzgerald scored for UMD on a nice rush down ice and the regulation play ended with the score 4-4. In the overtime UMD almost won it in the first minute, when a Bulldog broke in cleanly on Kochan and got a shot at point-blank range, but Dieter stoned him, as they say. About a minute later Kory Karlander redirected a shot taken during a good NMU attack (looked kind of like a power play) and it got by the goalies left leg for the winner. In this game also NMU's special teams play was much improved, especially on offense; I believe the Wildcats had four power play goals, I'm certain they had at least three. However, once again they also gave up a shorthanded goal, scored by the same player who did it the night before--Joe Ceccarelli (sp?). Rick Comley was quoted as saying many positive things emerged from the weekend (in addition to the four precious WCHA standings points!): much better penalty killing, power plays, and goal tending. Final comment--so much for comparative performances. Last week Michigan Tech humiliated Northern, while Minnesota-Duluth was taking 3 out of 4 points from Wisconsin on the Badgers' home ice. Then this weekend Wisconsin sweeps Tech in Houghton, while the 'Cats take two from the Bulldogs. Guess that's what makes sports interesting! ********************************************************************** * Steve Christopher, NMU [log in to unmask] GO 'CATS!!! * **********************************************************************