As Dave Parter already posted, the Badgers showed little sign of life at last nights showdown. Frankly they deserved to lose. Stupid penalties, no hustle, standing around, *poor* passing, *rotten* stick-handling, "power play? what's that?"... I'll congratulate the Gophers on the upcoming season sweep right now. (We play them for the first of four times on Jan 19.) The Badgers scored first on a 5-on-3 power play - Raygor with a drive from the right faceoff circle at 7:57 of the 1st. The Irish evened the score at 13:57 of the 1st, also on the power play, with Ling on a wrap-around that appeared to miss G-Daubenspeck's pads wide to the ice-side and hit either his stick or his stick-hand glove and deflect in. ND added another power play goal at 8:49 of the 2nd (Dhadphale) and a short- handed goal at 17:33 of the 2nd (Morshead) to really take the life out of the crowd (and the Badgers). The Badgers pulled within one at 10:26 of the 3rd period as Sanderson split the D and beat Eisler in the 5-hole. Wisconsin seemed to get some life for about 3-4 minutes late in the third period, actually playing like a hockey team, but they couldn't score and so they went back in their shell with about 2-1/2 minutes remaining. One of the prime examples for me of the Badger's lack of discipline was when Daubenspeck, after making a save on his knees in close, reacted to a mild poke at his pads with a left to the jaw of the Notre Dame player while still on his knees. He got a 2-minute roughing penalty out of it. There was alot of talk around us of the need for Jeff Sauer to be replaced as head coach of the Badgers. His hockey knowledge was praised, but his lack of discipline with his team was brought up again and again. Frustration with a down year? Perhaps in part. One other note: as a former UW Varsity Band member, I was surprised by how little the band seemed to try to fire up the crowd. I mean, there were 14,000+ people there just waiting for an excuse to get excited, and all we got was The Beer Barrel Polka and the like. Very few cheers started with the band at all, and there were *no* skyrockets. It seemed like the fans had to start their own cheers (like the guy in the white sweater who runs up and down the aisles with two pieces of cardboard, one with "GO" the other with "RED". Ho hum...) Maybe the band has given up hope for the season, too. It's probably a good thing that Wisconsin lost. They would have been completely embarrased and humbled by the powerful BU team that played in the first game. You'd think the Badgers could learn a thing or two from watching a team of the Terrier's caliber play. Observing them from the stands may be the best thing to happen to Bucky this weekend. -- Steve Manning Merge Technologies, Inc. Phone: (414) 475-4300 Service Engineer 1126 S. 70th Street Fax: (414) 475-3940 [log in to unmask] Milwaukee, WI 53214 HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.