It's Tuesday night, and tomorrow at this time Erik & I will be winging it to
Providence.  So, I better do some sort of report on my trip to the West
Regional before it's very old news...
 
(Hey, I haven't even read any posts from after the Regionals yet, that's the
problem with not having e-mail available at work.)
 
Erik & I started off for Madison early Friday morning.  About a hour and a
half out of town a bus started passing us slowly on the left.  It was
keeping pace with us for a couple seconds so we looked over and there in the
windows were Gopher fans waving enthusiastically at us!!  I suppose they
knew where we were headed by our Gopher Hockey bumpersticker and ZAMBONI
license plates.
We arrived in Madison with plenty of time to spare, so we checked out the
various stores on State Street, and then headed for the Dane.  It was a
gorgeous day, sunny and warm, and tailgating was definitely happening.  We
didn't even get inside the building before someone noticed our Gopher
apparel.  It was a TV crew from back home in Minnesota, who interviewed us
as we walked towards the entrance.  We hung around the front of the bulding
for a while, and the TV crew came back for more!  I suppose it was the
Gopher ears that we were wearing, they could spot them bobbing up and down
across the parking lot.  Anyway we declared on television that we were
planning on cheering for the Badgers, since they weren't playing us and we
wanted to beat them in Providence.  Our friends blame it on temporary
insanity caused by sunstroke I think.
 
We met David Parter and his friend John Perkins inside the arena while we
were sitting in our seats watching the warm-ups.  Dave said that Woog had
been quoted as stating (in jest) that he'd even buy Wisconsin fans beer if
they would cheer for Minnesota.  I told Dave I'd pay attention and figure
out how many beers worth of cheering he did.  By the end of the game I
figured he'd racked up two beers worth.  Minnesota won against RPI 3-0.  We
were very happy.
 
The arena started to fill in with lots of red for the evening's game.  We
were totally surrounded by red, but no one made any rude remarks.  Of course
we had Dave and John there talking to us, so people could tell we had red
escorts.  I think we totally shocked them when we actually cheered for their
team however.  We said "STEVE! STEVE!" instead of that other word (but it
didn't seem to rhyme) and we didn't make the arm gestures, but we did clap
to "On Wisconsin" and joined in the "X (X+1) We want more" cheer.  We also
spelled out "W-I-S-C-O-N-S-I-N, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, YAaay, Badgers!" after
they scored goals.  These are true confessions of a cheesehead for a day.  I
really wanted Denver, Wisconsin, and Minnesota to win and go to Providence.
I had to settle for one out of three.  I would've cheered for CC too, if
they hadn't been playing US!!  During the period breaks we met some other
Hockey-Lers, including Doug Peterson, Virginia Adams and Bill Krebs, and
some various others whose last names I've forgotten!  Wisconsin beat
Michigan State, and both Badger and Gopher fans were having a good time.  We
went back to Dave's house for pizza afterwards.
 
That morning we got upsetting news.  One of our players, Jason Godbout, had
not played on Friday even though we had been told he had been given the OK
from his injury the weekend before.  It turned out that he had a stroke!
He's doing OK now, but will not be playing hockey until it is decided what
to do about the heart condition that caused the stroke.
 
The next day's games was more tense.  Even towards the end of the third
period when we were ahead by three goals it was hard to believe we were
going to win because of the last minute come-backs we've seen lately.  The
teams played solidly, although CC looked tired towards the end of the game.
The last seconds ticked by and the band played the Battle Hymm, which they
do after a sweep, and the Gophers did their circle salute to the fans that
they also do after a sweep and after big wins (which this certainly was!)
The two Wisconsin fans in front of us even clapped a bit.  Erik said that
the local fans were yelling WOOOOOOOOOOOG! in honor of the wonderful
coaching job that Doug Woog had done, bringing his team once again to the
NC$$ Phinal Phour, but I think he misunderstood their general intentions.
 
The Wisconsin - Michigan game was very close, good plays and mistakes made
by both teams.  I think the Wisconsin crowd was more tense too, either that or
my hearing had been impaired by the previous day.  The crowd didn't seem
quite so loud.  Daubenspeck played very well, but Michigan was really good
at keeping Wisconsin bottled up in their own zone.  I hope our coaching
staff was paying attention to what they did!  Michigan won, and we got the
news that Denver had lost, so it was only Minnesota going on to represent the
WCHA.  We were congratulated by Wisconsin fans on our way out of the arena,
and at a sports bar we went to afterwards.  We got a few snide remarks, but
a tip o' the gopher ears and a smile and wave sent any ill-wishers off
totally confused.
 
I want to thank Dave Parter for arranging for our tickets and getting us
great seats and being a great host!!  And a thank you to John also, for
making sure that Dave did get the tickets!
 
See you in Providence!
 
  Paula Biever
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"Frammin' on the jim jam ... frippen on the krotz ...
 A schleppin' and a spritzzen in an all out ZOTZ!"
 
                      Wizard of Id, parker and hart
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^