All right! Having been stranded in the Southern California college hockey wastelands for nigh on to forever, it's been about 25 years since I last attended a real, live college hockey game. So last Sunday morning Arleen and I drove the 135 miles down to Anaheim to catch the final two games of the Great Western Freeze-Out (eat your heart out, Tony Buffa). We dragged along Joe, a native southern Californio friend of ours who just recently moved from Santa Barbara to Anaheim. Met up with John Whelan at the Pond, where the four of us sat together. Met Margie Rennet and her kids and a couple of other HOCKEY-Lers between periods. Nice folk! First game, Miami vs. BC -- having gone through my formative hockey years at RPI from 1960-68 I naturally grew up learning to hate all things Boston, and especially BC. So deciding to root for Miami was a no-brainer. The first period was terrible. All clutch and grab and kick the puck along the boards. Pass? What's that? Never heard of it. BC's play, especially, was sloppy -- they couldn't seem to bring any play to completion. Situation: puck in the corner deep in Miami's zone; puck squirts out (by accident, probably) in front of the Miami crease; lands right on the stick of a BC player; no Miami defenseman close enough to check him -- tremendous shot opportunity; he stops the puck with the blade of his stick; he sets to shoot; he looks at the goal; he MISSES THE FRIGGING PUCK! He gets knocked on his butt by a Miami defenseman -- one blown opportunity. Situation: puck deep in BC's zone; BC defenseman gains control; nice outlet pass to BC's center; he starts to break out of the zone with both wings -- looks like a good 3 on 2 break; just before he crosses the blue line into neutral ice a Miami forward skates up behind him, reaches out with his stick, blithely takes it away from him -- without a check or anything -- turns and, unmolested, skates in on the BC goalie! That seemed to be typical of BC's efforts -- so near and yet so far. And the first 19:55 of the period continued like that. Only 4 saves by each goalie. BC seemed to have several players who were noticeably faster than Miami, and they buzzed around like angry hornets harrassing Miami and generally keeping them from getting any organized plays set up. Miami, however, kept lumbering along trying to remember how this game was supposed to be played and trying to swat away those pesky hornets. Finally, in the last few seconds, Miami actually completed 2 or 3 consecutive passes and put the puck away with only 02.5 sec showing on the clock. The second period was better because Miami was able to put together some reasonable plays. BC, on the other hand, seemed to have a case of terminal sloppiness -- missed passes, flubbed shots, overskating the puck. Just when it looked like they were about to do something right, they'd find a way to screw it up. And Miami just plugged along -- often BC's harassment would mess up their tempo, but periodically they'd string together a few good passes and, BANG, another goal -- a total of 3 times in that period. The third period started out the same way, with Miami executing while BC skated even faster and more frantically than they had before. BC actually outshot Miami, but not with quality shots. It got so bad that -- I don't believe I'm actually going to say this, and if anyone ever repeats it, I'll deny ever having said it -- I almost started rooting for BC, just hoping they'd get their act together and make it an interesting game. (Now if they'd been playing RPI, I'm sure I would have enjoyed a blow out.) But no such luck. BC finally did score -- on a slap shot from the point on a power play -- but not until the game was far out of reach. Amusing sidelight: The scoreboard has the teams listed as "Eagles" and "Redskins." After Miami's first goal they post a "1" for the Redskins. Our friend Joe, the native Southern Californio, says, "How come they gave that goal to the Redskins?" "Because they scored they goal." "No, they didn't." "Yes, they did." "No, they didn't!" Turns out he'd noticed that BC wears the same colors as the Washington Redskins, so he assumed they were the Redskins. Good thing he didn't remember that the Eagles had played in the first game when he saw Michigan State skate out in their green and white jerseys for the second game. Second game -- Maine vs. Michigan State -- good playmaking, good hockey, good game. Enjoyed the whole thing, from beginning to end. Really felt bad for MSU's Smith when he scored that goal for Maine. Ouch! Having been out of touch with college hockey for years and years (until I discovered HOCKEY-L last January), I don't know all the hot players, but I read the hype put out by MSU's SID and decided I'd keep an eye on Anson Carter. Frankly, I was kind of disappointed. To quote our friend Joe, "That Carter dude is really doggin' it!" (That's how Southern Californios talk.) Maybe he'd been out partying late Saturday night. He had one flash of excellence -- on MSU's first goal. He and Keyes were circling between the red line and Maine's blue line (as MSU's forwards did on every power play), when the outlet pass connected with Carter, Keyes accelerated like a sonofagun, and Carter hit him with a perfect lead pass. Keyes already had his afterburners on, took Carter's pass without breaking stride, and just flew around the Maine defense. Good play, pretty goal. Speaking of Keyes, while that first MSU goal looked pretty, his penalty shot was pathetic. Just skated straight at the goalie and shot the puck right at him. CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION CAUTION OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA OFRA (OFRA = Old Fart's Reminiscence Alert) Hey, Tony, remember Bobby Brinkworth? (Silly question -- how could he ever forget?) Now there was a guy who could deke a goalie. I saw him on breakaways and on penalty shots and he never ever never missed one. On a penalty shot, Brinkworth would have a goalie twisting himself into a pretzel off in the corner, while he shot the puck into an empty net. Is goalie dekeing a lost art? Maybe I should start a thread on that. END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA END OFRA Question for you CCHAers: does Shevos, the ref, always refuse to blow the puck dead when someone's trying to freeze it in along the boards? He was really kind of obnoxious about it throughout this game. A bunch of guys would be fighting for the puck, and all I could hear, even from across the rink, was Shevos yelling, "MOVE IT! MOVE IT! MOVE IT! NO WHISTLE! YOU'RE NOT GETTIN' A WHISTLE! NO WHISTLE! MOVE IT!" And the scrapping would drag on and on and several times it continued until Shevos stopped play by calling a penalty! I assume he thinks that people shouldn't freeze the puck because it interrupts the game and wastes time, but calling a penalty does that in spades. And there were at least two penalties that would never have happened if Shevos hadn't been playing his mind game. Speaking of refs, there was only one time that I noticed anyone obviously getting on a ref -- and it was totally uncalled for. The incident happened right in front of where we were sitting. The play has moved down ice. An MSU player is standing in neutral ice following the play when a Maine player skates up behind him, puts his stick around the guy's ankles, and pulls his feet right out from under him. I'm certain the Maine player thought he was behind the play and wouldn't get caught, because he certainly did it blatantly and with no apparent provocation. However, he did get caught, and when the ref called it Shawn Walsh starts screaming, "THAT WAS A TERRIBLE CALL, REF, THAT WAS A TERRIBLE CALL" loudly enough that everyone in the arena could hear him clearly. I hadn't paid any attention to Walsh before that, so my first impression of him is pretty poor. Oh yeah, while I'm listing my gripes I ought to add that TV time outs really do suck! They seem to prefer taking them right in the middle of some fast and furious action, just so they can interrupt the flow of the game and break up any momentum. Or at least that's the way it seems. Nonetheless, Sunday was great -- six straight hours of college hockey -- God, it's been a long time! Maybe next year we can get Buffa to come down there too. Bob Stagat RPI '64 & '68 HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.