Charles In Charge of WOLV

C-ya Kelvin Grady

2009-04-02T14:33:00.003-04:00

The Michigan basketball team got some sad news in the aftermath of their first tournament appearance in over a decade. Their point guard Kelvin Grady is leaving the program. Largely seen as a potential successor to Fifth Year Senior Captain CJ Lee, Grady's loss will have a huge impact on the team next season.

Although he did not start much this past season after starting his whole freshman season, he was a crucial figure in some games. Against Duke in the regular season he assisted on two key three pointers to Zack Novack by getting the ball up court and driving to the lane before kicking it out to him. Those two plays were the six point swing that the Wolverines needed to be able to pull off the upset, because before that happened Michigan was trailing by three with six minutes left in the game, less than a minute later thanks to Grady and Novack they led by three.

Another game in which Grady was a huge help was in the NCAA tournament in which Grady relieved starter Lee and was able to get the ball past Clemson's full court press in the first round, without his ball handling skills, it's quite possible that Michigan's tourney appearance would have been one and done.

Which begs the question: who will be Michigan's point guard next year? For now the answer will probably be either be redshirt sophomore Laval Lucas-Perry or incoming freshman and four star recruit, Darius Morris.

Perry is generally a shooting guard despite his point guard size, he is not generally the one to bring the ball up the court, although he can do it. Morris is highly regarded as the top point guard out of his home state of California and it was a steal for Michigan to get his commitment before their tournament run, but he's also a freshman and can be expected to make freshman mistakes.

Morris has the potential to be the best point guard at Michigan since Jalen Rose, but he will need some space to grow, which is where the loss of Grady hurts. Without another true point guard on the team, Coach John Beilein will have to scramble to find somebody to give him that growing space.

All good things come to an end

2009-03-22T20:49:00.003-04:00

Michigan's basketball team has exceeded any kind of expectations that any rational person who had been observing them in recent years could make. They were coming off of a 10-22 season in which they finished tenth in their conference and lost their starting center Ekpe Udoh transferred to Baylor. The Wolverines had two largely unheralded guards coming in as freshman from Indiana, the 2007 Michigan Mr. Basketball in Manny Harris, an undersized center in Deshawn Sims, two walk on point guards, and a coach who has over 30 years of experience who decided it was time to go to work.

Wins over UCLA and Duke began to peak some interest in the program as the Wolverines got out to a great non conference start with only two losses. Michigan needed to make an impressive showing in the conference schedule to get a NCAA tournament berth. It looked like the team would falter especially after consecutive 18 point losses to Purdue and Ohio State on the road. Michigan needed a spark, and they got it with late season home victories over Minnesota and Purdue at home, before finishing off the season with a dramatic come from behind victory against Minnesota on the road.

The Wolverines finished the regular season 19-13, on the bubble for the tournament, needing one more win to get that precious 20th win to get them over the hump for certain. They played Iowa, a team that had beaten them two weeks before. With that in mind Deshawn Sims stepped up to the plate and hit a home run in basketball terms. Scoring the first 14 points of the game, Sims would finish with 27 as the wolverines coasted to a 28 point victory.

Despite a loss in the next round of the Big Ten tournament to Illinois, Michigan was in the dance for the first time since 1998 (when i was 10 years old). WOLV TV went gaga for the Hoops team and there is video coming for it.

Michigan would face Clemson in the first round of the tournament. The Tigers had size and a stifling full court press that had frustrated most of their opponents. What the Wolverines had was heart, and when they saw a 16 point second half lead dwindle to one, Manny Harris drove to the lane got the lay in and the foul and converted it to put on ice with less than 40 seconds in the game.

They faced their end against Blake Griffin and the Oklahoma Sooners, and while the national media may focus on Griffin's great performance. I personally admire how the young and grossly undersized Wolverines went about trying to stop him and for some periods of the game managed to slow him down without having to resort to taking charges. It was a great effort by a young team that will be back in the tournament next year.

I believe in my heart that if John Beilein does not receive the National Coach of the Year award he should be given another one, the Lemonade Maker of the Year. Because he took the lemons that he was given by the previous tenure and he made tournament quality lemonade in two years, not many coaches can say that they turned around programs that quickly.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Dance Preview of Michigan vs. Clemson

2009-03-17T19:12:00.004-04:00

As everybody should know the Wolverines are in the NCAA tournament for the first time since i was a ten year old going on eleven. I recently got an internship for Bleacher Report and i have a link for my preview of the game that i had to write for them right here.

Just so you know, this might mean that i have to update this blog less often.

ahhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Go Blue beat Palin's Money.

2009-03-17T19:06:00.003-04:00

Michigan's playing that school that's really close to Russia, in the CCHA semifinals at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, I would post a picture of Sarah Palin on this blog, but my parents read it and I don't want to offend them. I'll have a more in-depth preview up later in the week, because i've had a busy week and i need some relaxation to catch up on.

FINALLY!!!!!!!!! Here's the video i promised of fan interviews at Yost Ice Arena which I said I was going to do last year.

Check out the old guy i interviewed.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

A Michigan hockey fan's longest week of the year.

2009-03-05T22:40:00.002-05:00

With the bye week going on there has been plenty to occupy the mind of the typical obsessive Michigan hockey fan for the week. Namely the fact that Michigan has gotten not one but two outdoor hockey games next year. On top of the fact that Red Berenson will be back for at least one more season. And this doesn't take into account the fact that the Michigan basketball team is playing their biggest game in years on saturday, which i will get back to later.

The Michigan hockey team itself aside from dealing with post break stresses of every other student in Ann Arbor is also wondering who they are going to be playing next week at the great cathedral of college hockey, Yost Ice Arena. There is a possibility that the winged helmets on ice will be playing the now extremely hated Michigan State Spartans. However it is a remote possibility because the Spartans are the No. 11 team in the conference which would mean in order for them to play the Wolverines they would not only have to beat Northern Michigan in Marquette, they would also need Bowling Green to upset Ohio State.

The former might actually be possible, MSU got three points against the Wildcats in October, but that was before a wave of injuries and suspensions swept over the Spartans and reduced them to the laughingstock of the CCHA. The latter is highly unlikely due to the fact that the only quality win BGSU has had all year is against Michigan on a friday which shouldn't count because at that point in the year it seemed unlikely Michigan wanted to play anybody on friday at home for some strange reason.

The realistic teams that Michigan could face are Northern Michigan, Western, and Nebraska Omaha (UNO to those who care). They could also face Ferris State and Lake Superior State, but i'm not going to talk about them because it would involve some really weird upsets.

Northern and Western are the most realistic teams that the Wolverines will face next week, and they lost to both teams earlier in the year. In both games they lost with Billy Sauer in goal when the team was refusing to give him goal support. If Bryan Hogan is in goal they should have no such problem and advance to Joe Louis Arena with goals to spare.

Go Blue.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Beautiful

2009-02-27T01:07:00.002-05:00

It's incredibly hard for me to find words that describe the performance of the Michigan basketball team against Purdue without having to dip into some of the great literary geniuses like Shakespeare and Dickens. Shakespeare wrote with eloquence that has been unmatched by any speaker of the English language and Dickens wrote of struggles that any human could go through and live to tell the tale about.

In essence that's what this team is about, it's about beauty and eloquence at home in front of your own fans, and struggle and hardship on the road. The wolverines have been high as Mt. Everest at times this season like when they beat Duke in December, and they have been low as Death Valley as recent as this past sunday when they lost to Iowa in overtime. But they have managed to get through it and for most of this past night they achieved perfection on the hardwood for a program that has been kicked while it was down for the past 11 years.

They've dealt with scandal, shame, probation, bad coaching, and under performing overachievers. But now they have something, something that feels right, it's not perfect but it might be enough for them to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They're hoping it isn't a train, but they feel if they make it out of the darkness they will be ready for whatever challenges may await them, because boy did they go through some stuff in that darkness.

The road to the NCAA tournament is neither completed nor easy for the Michigan Wolverines but it is getting closer to its end, and they will soon find out if that road will get them inside the big dance or not.

according to the daily this was the video they showed the team before the game.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Are we going dancing?

2009-02-19T00:02:00.003-05:00

Michigan's basketball team is about as bubble-licious as they get right now. They have wins over three currently ranked teams in Illinois, Duke and UCLA. They are not ranked and sit at a 16-10 overall record with a 6-7 mark in the Big Ten. Something that could help the Wolverines make their first tournament appearance in over a decade is the fact that this year, the Big Ten is absolutely crazy as far as who's beating who. For example, today Penn State beat Illinois and Northwestern beat Ohio State. Michigan split with both Illinois and Penn State winning both games at Crisler and losing both road games, they swept Northwestern and got swept by the Buckeyes.

They face a test to their hopes at Crisler Arena tomorrow in the Minnesota (mini-pop) Golden Gophers coached by the legendary Tubby Smith, a man who i initially wanted to take the job at Michigan when it became open. The Gophers, like a healthy chunk of the conference has been in and out of the rankings for much of the year. They had their greatest start in school history in the non-conference schedule, going 12-0. Since then they have won 7 of their past 13 games and look like if they maintain their pace they're going to make it into the NCAA tournament. But like Michigan they have been streaky, they have lost three out of their last four games.

The Wolverines have split their last four games, but the two wins came against traditionally lowly opponents in Northwestern and Penn State. The Gophers only win came against Indiana, the traditional power in the Big Ten who's going through the same thing Michigan's football team went through this past season, more on that later.

Neither team can afford to lose this game and stand a chance at staying in the good graces of the tournament selection committee. They're both on thin ice and if they slip up on the hard wood they could fall through the cracks. Michigan has to be hungrier in order to win this game, they don't just have to play bigger than the guys they have. They have to be bigger then the guys they have. They have to play like their scared to lose. A former Green Bay Packer under Vince Lombardi once said it best,

whenever we played a great team like the Cleavland Browns with Jim Brown we played out of fear that we had to stop him because his performance would determine the outcome of the game, and he played his last game against us in the championship and lost, so that means he didn't have a good day.

The Packers weren't always as big as Jim Brown but they played bigger than him and they felt that they were bigger than him. To bring this football analogy to the point, Michigan has been getting outsized in big ten games so far this year, and when they've beaten teams it's because they didn't try to be bigger than their opponents, it's because they felt bigger than their opponents. It's because Zack Novack felt that he could stretch his 6'5" frame out just enough to get that rebound against Illinois, it's because 5'10" David Merritt made the extra effort to knock a ball away from an opponent against Duke. That's what it takes to win games, that's what it takes to make it to the big dance, hopefully that's what Michigan will do tomorrow night.

(preview of hockey series vs. OSU tomorrow)

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Michigan Baseball preview

2009-02-18T23:55:00.002-05:00

Seeing that the collegiate baseball season starts friday against South Florida, i figure that i should give a statement on how good i think the team is. I think they should be one of the top teams in the big ten this year, but don't take my word for it.

ahhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Taking Care of Business

2009-02-08T16:39:00.002-05:00

Finally!!!!

Michigan swept a team that was neither a major rival or a team that was in the upper echelon of the college hockey. The first win was more impressive with the short handed goal by Matt Rust to tie the game up at the end of the first period was the biggest spark i've ever seen the winged helmets on ice receive.

Scoring two goals in the first two minutes of the second period is the best follow up i've ever seen at Yost because there was a real sense of urgency by the team to capitalize on the momentum swing from the first one. As a result the fans were about as pumped as i've ever seen them for a game against a relatively weaker opponent this season.

Everybody knew Michigan had struggled in games against teams like Lake Superior State, nobody knew that more than Red Berenson. I don't know what he used to get the team pumped up and motivated for this series but he should keep it. It even got the team through the grinding defensive battle that was last night's game.

Most of the people i've talked to about the game said it was ugly. My response is,

ugly or not a win's a win and a loss is a loss, and we won that game.

I honestly think that this game is the type of game we need to win in order to seal up home ice advantage and a first round bye in the CCHA tournament, because it's becoming increasingly evident that Michigan's not going to be the number one seed because of the lead that Notre Dame continues to hold over the rest of the conference.

more coming later.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Move over Sam, in comes Graham the Superman

2009-02-04T01:27:00.002-05:00

Many of us remember Sam McGuffie prior to becoming just another defector as the guy who front flipped a guy on the football field in high school. Needless that guy never materialized at the collegiate level and he left to pursue Gymnastics at Rice University in Houston.

Well the maize and blue faithful need not fear. A new superhero has been found in Defensive End Brandon Graham. After taping my Charles In Charge segment on WOLV Overtime, i went to Mock Rock the annual charity dance off/lip syncing contest at Hill Auditorium. Not only was i spending my hard earned money on a good cause i saw several good routines, the best of which was not the football team. But the football team's routine was very good this year, and when Graham and another player who's name i did not catch back/front flipped and somersaulted through the air, the host Desmond Howard exclaimed in awe, "OH MY!!! IT'S OVER!!!!" While i will admit that Howard was probably saying the latter part because he's a former football player. I was just as in awe of what he did, and it got me thinking.

What if he could flip like that over offensive linemen and tackle a quarterback all in the same motion? There would be no way to stop him. He could be unstoppable. I'm caffinated, trying to write a paper, and full of excitement towards next football season. It really sucks that i won't be a student to enjoy it.

ahhhhhhhh

c-ya

A mixed weekend

2009-02-03T18:04:00.002-05:00

The first game was one of the best Michigan hockey game i've ever seen. They went on the road into a hostile environment into probably the worst arena in the CCHA, according to my friend Shaun, and they beat the number one team in the nation.

Not only did they do that they beat them on some incredible skilled goals from two undrafted seniors in Travis Turnbull and Tim Miller.

Although the first game was a masterpiece the second one is more likely to be on ESPN classic, as if they ever show a college hockey game, due to their general disdain towards all things at the University of Michigan, and love of all things Notre Dame. The first period featured a goal that is appropriate in the world's greatest game on grass, futbol, but should not be even considered legal in hockey.

I was at center ice and even i could clearly see from where i was standing that the goal shouldn't have counted. His foot was going forward as it hit the puck, and it went in the net. On top of that, if i saw it, how did the ref who was standing behind the net and called it a goal not see it. Was he looking away? Distracted by the crowd? Distracted by a player? Because if he saw the whole play he would not have called that a goal. I didn't make that big a deal of it at the time though, mainly because i thought that Michigan was going to come back and win it.

I knew Notre Dame had a great defense and was worried when they got that first "goal" but when the first period ended without another one, i felt confident that the wolverines would at least tie it.

This kinda summarizes how i felt after a penalty shot goal and another goal in the second period. (NSFW)

The so called "Irish" fans sitting in the student section proceeded to rub it in our faces that they were "the better team" so they claimed. Tensions and tempers were running high when i took my place in the dance for "Can't Turn You Loose."

Getting that first power play goal from Aaron Palushaj was just what the doctor ordered. Hope was restored, there was a flash of light towards the end of the metaphorical tunnel. Then Robbie Czarnik ended his 21 game goalless streak and the light was becoming more visible. Then with about half a minute to go and an extra attacker on the ice, after a lengthy scrum around the net a goal had been scored, and the winged helmets on ice had made it. They had gone into a series with the number one team in the country and were going to come out of it with at least three points.

But hold the phone.....

What was this? The refs were going into the booth to have a look and determine whether they had blown the play dead before the shot was released. They ruled it to be not a goal from their overhead camera, and the puck luck of the Irish prevailed once again to the general disdain of the thunderstick wielding Yost crowd, who proceeded to pop those balloons in disgust afterward. Michigan has retained their place in the top four in the CCHA and are four points, and two games behind second place Miami, but they would prefer to be four points and zero games behind Notre Dame.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Looking out for the no. 1

2009-01-30T16:17:00.005-05:00

Jeff Jackson's Irish fighters have finally discovered the keys to having a good offense in college hockey, getting lots of shots on goal and having goal scorers. With guys like Christian Hanson (son of one of the infamous Hanson Brothers of Slap shot) and Calle Ridderwall, the second and fifth leading goal scorers in the CCHA. On top of that they still have the second best goaltender in the conference in Jordan Pearce.

Notre Dame is not ranked No. 1 for nothing they haven't lost since before Halloween, and the only blemishes on their record since then have been three shootout wins against Lake Superior State and Western Michigan. Granted the most challenging teams they've beaten are an overrated Boston College team and an Alaska squad who have traditionally had problems winning on the road.

That being said this is going to be the toughest home and home for the Wolverines all year. They have to beat a team that has a strategy that has frustrated them two years in a row, and now they've added something extra to that strategy, goal scoring. Michigan has to score first in each game they can't afford to fall behind against them in any case, playing behind a Jeff Jackson team is always costly. In this case they absolutely have to come out aggressive and alert at the same time. They can't afford to make mistakes, something that the Irish thrive on making their opponents do. Last but not least the winged helmets on ice have to be confident that when the going gets tough their tough get going. If they have to play without Kampfer use him as an inspiration for a victory do not let him be hurt in vain.

And where do you go when it's all done?

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Downer on a great day

2009-01-25T23:52:00.004-05:00

Everything was going so well that evening for the Michigan athletic department. The basketball team had beaten Northwestern and pulled even in their conference record making their case for the NCAA tournament selection committee stronger. The hockey team was playing a great game against their arch rival Michigan State, they were up by two goals with less than a minute to play, thank you.

The Wolverines were about to wrap up their sixth straight victory over their little brothers the Spartans. The latter were not pleased about this outcome, but what could they do? A lot of damage that's what.

Steve Kampfer had a so so game, he assisted on an early goal in the first period and then he got juked in the second period on State's first goal later on in that period he had been playing either lethargic or tired, depending on your definition. But he was playing hard in the third period when he made a clean open ice hit on Corey Tropp in order to separate him from the puck. From my understanding of the rules of hockey there is nothing wrong with doing that, as long as the guy has the puck you can check him. Kampfer didn't have the puck, but that didn't stop Andrew Conboy from clotheslining him. As if that weren't enough, Tropp decided to get in on the action and hit him on the head with his stick, i guess it was for "good measure."

The melee that ensued was not as noteworthy, the fans got upset and started chanting "**** you State" and "sore losers." I was told later in the game that Kampfer's dad found out it was his son who had just been the victim of the on ice assault, he ran out of the parents section of the arena and started screaming at Rick Comley from behind the bench, and later allegedly stormed into the visiting locker room to confront Conboy, Tropp and Comley.

Profanity and chants and open ice hits are all part of hockey at Yost, but what Conboy and Tropp did was not normal. Personally i'd go so far as to call it aggravated assault, a felony under state law. I think that not only should Rick Comley move to expel those two players from the team the Washtenaw County prosecutor Brian L. Mackie should start drafting charges for aggravated assault on them as well.

What could have been a great day for the Michigan athletic department turned into a day of great shame for college hockey in general as we see it's greatest rivalry devolve into senseless violence. Hopefully somebody will make some sense out of this and see that Kampfer returns to the ice and to the classroom where he is working on a bachelor's in political science like me.

It's times like these when we realize how vulnerable we are as human beings.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Coming back from the worst week ever

2009-01-23T00:43:00.003-05:00

Aside from the winged helmets on ice's absolutely unacceptable loss to Bowling Green AT YOST on Friday. Michigan also suffered greatly at the hands of the hoops teams of Illinois, that school in Columbus, and the cherry on top of this sundae of vomit was a fifteen point loss to Penn State, one of the Big Ten's perennial cellar dwellers.

First Michigan hockey. The icers are in a mini goal scoring slump that they had better break out of quickly, because they are going into the coldest of all wars. They have to beat Jeff Lerg who despite having less support from his teammates is still a great goalie. The Wolverines have to score plenty of goals against MSU to win this one, they have to maintain the pressure they got on him earlier in the season and they have to get over the godawful performance of last Friday, in which i might add it looked like Chris Summers was playing like a bored drunk and was leading his team by example into a loss.

Michigan cannot afford another loss to another down team with upcoming games against Notre Dame, Nebraska Omaha and Ohio State, all of whom are in the top four in the CCHA. There is no excuse for them not getting four points out of this weekend series, if they want to have a first round bye in the conference tournament they have to start with a sweep of MSU.

Turning our attention to the hardwood, the loss to Penn State was the worst loss i've ever seen the Michigan basketball team play in, and i've seen a few. It was so painful to watch that i watched most of TNT's new show Leverage instead, primarily because i couldn't deal with the fact they were losing to the Nittany Lions.

They lacked the will, swagger, and the never say die attitude that i saw in the non conference schedule and in the Indiana game recently. They didn't just play tentatively, they played as if they had loss that sense of urgency that drove them to upset Duke and UCLA, as if that was enough to make the NCAA tournament all on their own.

What i have to say to that is, WAKE THE HELL UP PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Wolverines still have a shot at making the Big Dance due to the absolute insanity that is going on in the Big Ten tournament this year, if they can still squeak out a .500 record and make it out of the second round of the conference tourney they should be going to the dance. But they have to finish the regular season with the same intensity they started it with in order to get into the madness of March. They can start by beating Northwestern the team that just beat seventh ranked Michigan State at the Breslin Center for the first time since 1984.

p.s. those of you who actually watched the game this is what you're missing.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Michigan vs. Miami series hype blog.

2009-01-08T23:42:00.003-05:00

Disclaimer: i'm kinda drunk right now, so please excuse the way i might come off here.

The winged helmets on ice are going into what seems like the most important series of the regular season. They're coming into it pretty pumped up from winning their second straight GLI with Inside College Hockey's new hidden Hobey Louie Caporusso. Judging from that and the "Hobey Baker" chants i heard at the Joe after the death of the Spartans it wouldn't surprise me if he got some consideration for the hockey version of the Heisman trophy.

The Wolverines are hoping to capitalize off a win two weeks ago against a team that was limping through their season. Miami is hoping to recover from a loss to a team that hadn't won in 56 days. Ironically, or perhaps fittingly Michigan ended that team's season last year in the game that sent them to the frozen four.

There are many factors in this game, not the least of which is vengance. Last year that was a big enough factor in getting the Wolverines over the Redhawks in Miami with three hard earned points, especially considering how crazy that second game was.

Other than that there are the scorers. Michigan boasts two 25 point getters in Aaron Palushaj (who played in the World Junior Championship) and Louie Caporusso (who did not). Miami has the leading scorer in the CCHA in Carter Camper with 27 points 12 of them from goals. Louie trails him in points but is considered more deadly with his shooting as 18 of his points come from goals. He will probably start and he will probably get the old Bobby Hull treatment, wherever he goes, the Redhawk defenders go with him. With him and probably Camper being constantly trailed both teams will have to look to other options that are more likely to be open.

Special teams will also be a factor, Miami has a decided advantage in that department with three of the top seven power play goal getters in the CCHA. Staying out of the box will be absolutely crucial for the Wolverines if they want to win. They have to be able to play the type of disciplined hockey that Red Berenson has been preaching since he came back to Ann Arbor from the pro ranks in 1984. They need to play like they are ready to give their coach a championship in his last season. In order to execute that latter statement they have to get at least two points out of this series in order for them to be taken seriously by the selection committee, and that will also go a long way to get the team to make a first round bye in the CCHA tournament for the umpteenth year. They need all the help they can get they can get it from everybody who's available.

ahhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Indiana game: a retrospective.

2009-01-08T23:11:00.005-05:00

There is no way Michigan should have been down by 17 at the half against the decidedly un-vaunted for a change Indiana Hoosiers. As a matter of fact the way i saw it, i was surprised that they weren't down by more at that time period. When i left my apartment at halftime to go to an undisclosed location where i ended up watching the second, I was considering writing a tirade about how the Michigan basketball team should be forbidden from scheduling games on Wednesdays.

Michigan's miraculous run back to tie the game was shocking to say at the very least. I'm so used to seeing the wolverine basketball team collapse under the weight of a huge deficit but this turned out to be the second time that they turned a 20 point deficit into a victory. They needed overtime this time just like against Savannah State. But this was on the road in conference play, and a win against Indiana in basketball is still a win against Indiana no matter how you look at it. It doesn't matter that the Hoosiers are on probation, it doesn't matter that they're starting four freshman for the first time in school history. What does matter is that Michigan basketball is back, they have beaten the Hoosiers at Assembly Hall for the first time since Jimmy King and Ray Jackson were seniors.

What matters is that the wolverines are back in consideration for their first Big Ten title since 1986 after being in danger of falling to the last place team in the conference, as well as falling to 1-2, putting them in dangerous territory to drop out of the race entirely. Now they have space to recover, space that allows them to beat Michigan State in Crisler Arena. Space that might afford them another loss which might hurt, but won't kill the maize and blue's tournament chances. All that matters this year for the athletic department this year is that Michigan make one of the major money making ventures in college sports, the last ten years they've made bowl games but not the NCAA men's basketball tourney. This year could be the first time since 1974 that vice versa is the case.

stay tuned for my Miami hype blog next.

ahhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya.

Review of the first two Big Ten games.

2009-01-04T23:09:00.003-05:00

Michigan showed both inexperience and poise in their first two conference matchups. Against Wisconsin they seemed to be completely lacking in the ability to stop the Badgers offense. When they played Illinois they wore their opponent down over the course of the game and eventually took the fight out of the Illini.

One thing i have noticed about Beilein's system is that not only do they execute a shoot threes to set up the inside game on offense, they know how to defend against teams that do the same thing. However, when the Wolverines played the Badgers they had a problem in the fact that they were playing a team that was thinking, pound it in first, then go outside. This left the maize and blue guessing where the Badgers were gonna take their shots, and ultimately guessing wrong. The lack of multiple post presences in the Michigan defense has made it vulnerable all season to the inside post game. On top of this i really think they stijavascript:void(0)ll have a long way to go to executing a good man-to-man defense in order to complement their superb zone play.

However i was able to see some hopeful things out of that particular game. The first was that Zack Novak is one of the most resilient players in the nation, hitting three pointers with multiple hands in his face and playing uneffected by the struggles of Manny Harris and then injured Deshawn Sims.

Everybody knew Illinois was going to be a big test for this team, they were a good team but some people were unsure how good they were. They had lost to a top ten Clemson team and beaten a top ten Purdue team a few days earlier in overtime on the road. Michigan however was not impressed, they came out and decided to throw the kitchen sink at them with the three point shot which kept it close as the Illini shot 58% from the field during the first half yet led by a single point.

In the second half, the 1-3-1 defense that Coach Beilein is famous for took over and forced turnovers and bad contested shots. On top of that there were a few moments during that game where i saw Michigan playing a very solid man to man defense, especially on in bounds plays, they were forcing Illinois to scramble to find open men and when screens were set, someone was always around to help pick up the slack.

I was glad to see Deshawn Sims playing like a man again, after fighting through the Wisconsin game with a bad toe, and Zack Novak is a warrior out there after getting hit by a moving screen from Alex Legion that ended up forcing a turnover for a fast break to Manny Harris as Novak's eyebrow bled. Fortunately he came back which shows not only how resilient the Wolverines are, but also how they play with so much of a sense of purpose that silly things like bleeding eyebrows can't hold them down. Hopefully the maize and blue machine will continue their rolling through the big ten schedule with games against Iowa and Indiana this upcoming week, before going to Champaign for the rematch of today's game and the hosting of the Ohio State Buckeyes on January 17.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Michigan: 5, Michigan State: 1

2008-12-30T21:31:00.003-05:00

The score says it all doesn't it?

No it doesn't. Actually what really helps to understand is the difference in shots on goal between the two teams. Michigan had 54 throughout the whole game, fairly well distributed throughout each period. State had 20 for the whole game and five of them were in the last two periods. On top of that as my friend who was sitting next to me throughout that second day at Joe Louis Arena was telling me the score should be 7-1 at least. There were several missed opportunities in which a guy was out of place with a wide open net on one side.

Truth be told, the score should have been at least 7-0 because when you take into account the fact that there were a couple of wide open nets that were missed by the Wolverines, one should also think of Michigan State's goal and how it was scored. The Spartans had a two man advantage when they should have been merely playing on the power play.

The tripping penalty that Carl Hagelin was called for seven minutes into the game was one of the worst missed calls i've ever seen in hockey. He merely lifted his stick up and Brandon Gentile took the most blatant dive this side of Christiano Ronaldo. What really got people riled up was when the replay was shown on the video board at Joe Louis Arena, after the goal was scored and the announcer was announcing who assisted on the goal every Michigan fan in my area was yelling,

GIVE AN ASSIST TO THE REF!!!!

All in all the tournament was very good. Michigan showed that they could dominate on offense and on the scoreboard as well. However this weekend should not be seen as a marker of things to come just yet. They did not play the best competition that college hockey has to offer. The real test of this team's metal will be on January 9-10 against Miami, the top team in the CCHA whom they have already been swept by in Oxford. Hopefully for the winged helmets on ice their luck and the results of the two contests will be in their favor next time around.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

GLI Preview

2008-12-26T20:59:00.005-05:00

North Dakota: No Oshie, no Lamorreux, no Ryan Duncan, no problem for the Sioux right?

Wrong. Without those four major stars in the lineup for the men in Grand Forks, hockey season has been a disappointment by their normal standards. Prior to December the Fighting Sioux had not swept a single series, been swept in the season starting Icebreaker by Boston University and UMass. On top of that they had serious problems with every conference team they had played. Prior to a sweep of St. Cloud St at home December 12-13 they had gotten either one or two points in every series for over a month, including a home loss to Alaska-Anchorage, the perennial bottom feeders of the WCHA.

Unfortunately for the Michigan teams in the Great Lakes Invitational, the Sioux might be finding a way out of that slump. They have won four straight games, two on the road against Harvard, somewhat atoning for their poor performance in Boston at the beginning of the season, in addition to the aforementioned sweep of St. Cloud St. However, neither one of these teams is a true power this season. What is apparent, however is that the Sioux will have some confidence to try and carry them through what is expected to be, two tough games.

With the lack of star power the Fighting Sioux have started to spread the puck around more and get as many players on the score sheet as possible. This seems to have worked because they do not have a single player in the top twenty in scoring in the WCHA, but have still managed to have a record above .500, albeit barely at 9-8-1. Whatever travails North Dakota are facing, however, must seem trivial to what are facing their opponents in the semifinal, the Michigan State Spartans.

Michigan State: The Spartans clearly believed that Jeff Lerg would not fall victim to Kasey Keller syndrome, in the sense that he could win games on his own as a goalie. This has not been the case all year, it was most dramatically demonstrated in their most recent home-and-home series against the Michigan Wolverines, in which they got a goal in the first period and their defense proceeded to drop the soap in the second and third periods giving up six goals and more importantly, failing to support Lerg in anyway.

The Spartans are coming into this game on the lowest of lows, not only did they just get swept by their archrivals, they haven't won a game since Halloween. If they want to prove that they are still a capable team in the CCHA this year the GLI could be the shot in the arm the team is looking for, and even if it isn't, they could use it as added incentive to play like more of a nuisance later on in the schedule.

Overall, the MSU-NoDak game looks like it could be one sided, but probably won't be.

Michigan Tech: The Huskies have had it almost as bad as the Spartans, they have won twice since Halloween, but their problems have been compounded by replacing Rob Nolan at goaltender. Nolan, who put on one of the greatest performances i have ever seen in the GLI last year, has been replaced by Josh Robinson who has had a decent showing especially in the last three games in which he has given up a mere two goals.

The Huskies like the Fighting Sioux might be on their way back up again. This past weekend they swept Northern Michigan in a home and home series in which they gave up a single goal. One problem with that is, Northern Michigan has not been known for scoring goals this season, they have tended to rely more on their defense. Tech knows they will be in for an offensive assault from the Wolverines tomorrow at 3 regardless of the fact that Aaron Palushaj and Matt Rust are playing in the World Junior Championships. They had also better be prepared for a Michigan defense that might be revitalized from the return of Steven Kampfer.

Michigan: Woo hoo, Kampfer's back and blonder than ever. After losing two of their top defensemen, the winged helmets on ice have struggled to find the right combination of blueliners to go with Chris Summers. Scooter Vaughn and Chad Langlais have played admirably in the absence of Kampfer and Mark Mitera, but they have also succumb to fatigue at times due to the lack of depth the injuries have caused. Would they have beaten Miami, Western Michigan, and Wisconsin if one of them had been healthy, maybe, maybe not.

What is true about this team is that they are coming in having won three of their last four, they beat the top ranked Minnesota Golden Gophers at Mariucci Arena and swept their bitter in state rival the Spartans three weeks ago. They have had plenty of rest and are looking to justify their place in the pantheon of the gods of college hockey with or without their leading scorer.

Even without Palushaj and Rust, they still have Louie Caporusso, Carl Hagelin, and Travis Turnbull who scored the tournament winner last year in the dramatic double overtime win against Tech. They have Bryan Hogan, a goalie, who may not be the best, but somehow manages to inspire his teammates to score goals for him, something Billy Sauer seems to be incapable of doing in his senior year.

I expect Michigan vs. Michigan Tech to be a good competitive game with the good guys coming out on top.

ahhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?????????

2008-12-23T21:06:00.003-05:00

Shavodrick Beaver didn't just de commit, he recommitted to Tulsa.

TULSA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not only this, he did this in a matter of hours. Right after de committing from Michigan, he gave the announcement that he was now committed to Tulsa. Tulsa has a good team, they made the Conference USA championship, but do they have the same kind of calibre and recognition as Michigan, even with the atrocious season that just passed us by. No.

Maybe i'm over reacting to this, but i think this could be a huge problem for the image of Michigan football, that there are things that high school football players need to think twice about when they commit to play for the winged helmets. That maybe the academics are too hard for a good player to come here, or that maybe the coaches might be a little to impersonal with their players and not involved in the players lives. I think that this also may create a perception that players can just back out of a commitment to Michigan without repercussions.

Do i think that Rich Rodriguez is at the root of this problem? Not yet, he's only been the coach for a year, and this is one blog that is not ready to pass hasty judgment against a coach after one season, even one as bad as this past one.

Beaver's backing out does not affect the team as much as some people have said it would. I believed before and i still believe today that Steve Threet will be the starting quarterback next year. Tate Forcier may get some playing time as a backup, but i don't think he will start as a freshman. In all honesty if Threet stays healthy and the offensive line plays better than they did next year they should at least make a bowl game.

The number one thing i DON'T want for Christmas is any more surprises involving Michigan football.

Stay tuned for the GLI preview on friday.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Anticipation

2008-12-19T20:24:00.004-05:00

Laval Lucas Perry makes his debut for the Michigan Wolverine basketball team tomorrow at 4:00 pm at the Palace of Auburn Hills a few miles south of his hometown of Flint. Unfortunately i will not be there, but i hope that i will be able to find a way to watch, due to the fact that i am home for the holidays at my parents house and they do not have cable.

Still i will be rooting for the Wolverines and be trying to keep up with this historic game as it happens.

On You Say Maize I Say Blue last month i predicted that Laval Lucas Perry and Stu Douglass would be the impact freshmen who would lighten the load of Manny Harris this year. I also said that any expectation higher than a winning record overall and a NIT appearance would be unreasonable. The former may still be correct but as a result of the early season play i feel that i underestimated the Wolverines.

I had heard a lot about Perry when he transferred here, i heard he was the kind of player that fit Beilein's system of shooting threes. Of course at the time i was under the impression that the system relied entirely on shooting three pointers and not any sort of mixing it up with inside shots. This year the Coach's system has began to flesh itself out with the three point shot setting up the inside game. Make a few triples and then pound it inside with the backdoor cut has been Michigan's mantra all season, giving them an astounding 7-2 start and upsets over Duke and UCLA.

The most amazing thing about this is that they did this without the player who was supposed to fit the new system. They also did it without relying on Manny Harris to do everything, and while Manny has done pretty much everything on the court at one point or another, he's gotten plenty of help from his supporting cast, which Perry joins tomorrow.

I hope i get to see the game on TV because this game is on as big a stage as one can find in the state of Michigan. The Palace, the home of the Pistons on a road game against a team that made the tournament four years ago, and have challenged in their conference to make it the past two years. Oakland is not a team to be overlooked, they have a loyal fanbase and they will show up hoping that they will replicate something that happened last year, a win over Oregon at the Palace last year. Michigan has to be on the guard, and keep their new guard from messing up in his first game in front of a bigger crowd than he will play against in normal competition. But then again there are so many ways that this game is not normal.

More on Schafer and McGuffie, plus i'll have a GLI preview after Christmas.

ahhhhhhhhh c-ya

MEEEEEEEEEECHIGANNNNN BASKETBALLLLLL

2008-12-09T00:20:00.003-05:00

If Mason can show up for a game at Crisler that would be a fantasy come true.

Unlike so many of my esteemed colleagues i was not at the match up between Michigan and Duke in basketball. I did, however watch the game on TV and i was in shock.

That's the best word i can use for what i saw, shock, beating UCLA was nice, but it didn't prove anything. UCLA might be one of the best teams in the nation and they certainly deserve to be ranked, but anybody can forgive them for an early season slip up or two because they have some relative inexperience in the front court with the departure of Mike Love from last year, i guarantee that if Love had not made the jump for the NBA after last season Michigan loses that game. Also i had just seen Michigan lose to Maryland on the road in a game they clearly had a chance to win. They lost by a mere five points and gave up an obscene number of second chance points due to a lack of poise in the defensive rebounding department. I saw them lose a game they could have won had they played it right.

On top of that i saw them squeak by Savannah State in overtime after trailing by twenty points, but i saw this comeback as a positive sign especially after the Tigers upset Bowling Green on the road.

But the real reason for my shock was that the team Michigan was playing had just manhandled a top ten Purdue team in West Lafayette in front of Gene Keady's disciples. They were disciplined and tough, and they didn't make any mistakes that i could easily detect.

Once the game in Ann Arbor began it became clear that this would be different. Michigan's 1-3-1 defense seemed to be poised at shutting down Duke's three point game. Although it had done that in their first meeting the Blue Devils made up for it by picking apart the maize and blue's relative weakness inside. This time was different because it seemed that for once, Michigan was prepared, they got the rebounds off of Duke's missed three pointers, they were able to keep them from driving to the basket with regularity. They didn't shut down the Blue Devils entirely, but who does that.

This defensive showing was just part of what i saw that shocked me from Michigan. They were using Beilien's three-point oriented offense to use the long shot to set up their inside game. The offense would use the threat of the three pointer and the kick out to drive to the basket on the give and go or the backdoor cut and get the lay up or the dunk. In my opinion this was best illustrated by Manny Harris's airplane jam with less than two minutes in the game.

This game was special for a number of reasons, not the least of which was because the court was rushed. Something that hasn't been done since the Ohio State game last year.

But another reason was because i got to see the smirk wiped off of Kyle (Paul Bettany) Singler.

I love Michigan, in spite of its deceivingly hard class, its problems with football lately and the fact that it's in a state where the economy has been awful since the Carter administration. This game was more reason to be reminded of how great it is to be a Michigan Wolverine.

Go Blue

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

If you can't play hockey right, go to state.

2008-12-08T23:55:00.002-05:00

(clap, clap)

I had heard that the school in East Lansing was having trouble with their hockey team this year, but i had no idea how bad they were until i saw it with my own eyes at Yost on Friday. After getting a goal on weird breakaway, (highlights coming soon) their offense died and gave up several breakaway opportunities in which Michigan was able to shift the puck to the open side of the net away from Lerg and score. Not only did they do that, they seemed to be doing it at will by the end of the game.

A 6-1 win is great for any team, but when that team is Michigan and that win is against Michigan State after struggling to put goals in the net against Wisconsin can be a momentum builder for a team like the Wolverines. The momentum they got eventually carried them as they got three goals in the last two minutes to beat the Spartans at Munn.

Apparently State's team is young, but they won't admit it, my friend from the good guys went to the game on Saturday and remarked to one of the female students of the other school that Michigan was a young team last year too. She responded with a "ghetto head roll" and threatened him with physical harm, my friend, an occasional commenter on this blog told me his brother had to intervene to keep him from getting hurt. I guess not everybody loses graciously, or is willing to accept their own problems with their team.

The winged helmets on ice now look to get that momentum going against Michigan Tech on Saturday December 27 at Joe Louis Arena in the Great Lakes Invitational where they hope to retain the Macinnis Cup for the second year in a row after not winning it for nearly eleven years in a row.

If Michigan's offense is going to improve it will need to be much better than it was against WCHA competition last time it played them (Wisconsin). If they're not expect a defensive struggle with Bryan Hogan in net, something he's not accustomed to yet. More on Hogan later, but first here's my first experimental youtube video.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

And now for something happy and positive: Basketball

2008-11-28T15:15:00.003-05:00

When i saw Manny Harris and the guys beat UCLA at the Garden last Thursday. When i saw them blow out Norfolk State on Tuesday i felt that this is Michigan basketball back again. This team is in full force and they'll be able to at the very least challenge for an NCAA tournament berth. If they can start executing like they did against Norfolk every game they will be one of the best teams in the country by the end of the season and there will be no reason why they shouldn't go to the tournament. But they have to get past the brunt of their schedule first.

After taking on Savannah State tomorrow in a game they should be able to win. Michigan has to go into College Park to take on the Terrapins. Maryland just beat that school from East Lansing last night and beat them quite convincingly i might add. Not only did they beat the Spartans they beat them at a neutral site arena just like the Wolverines beat the Bruins in New York. This is crucial for Michigan's comeback, if they can beat a team who's in a similar situation of trying to comeback from mediocrity back into national prominence they will be energized going into the Big Ten season no matter how they do against Duke later at home.

While i do realize that it is a long season and that it's hard for things to go right all the time but i have to say that this team has me excited right now. It might be the beginning but it seems like the beginning of a beautiful and inspiring story that makes me feel like a little girl watching one of those Julie Andrews movies from the sixties. I hope it ends as well as it has begun.

I can't get over how happy this makes me feel.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

for real this time.

Hockey update

2008-11-28T15:04:00.002-05:00

Note: i couldn't think of anything better for a title for this one.

With the exception of the Saturday game against Western, the winged helmets on ice have been having a huge problem. They can't score goals. They've scored two goals combined in three of the last four games against Western Michigan and Miami. This is not only unacceptable it's a travesty for any Michigan hockey team, who pride themselves for their ability to put the puck in the net, maybe there is a lack of senior leadership out there, maybe they are missing Chad Kolarick and Kevin Porter, but they still have great potential goal scoring threats on this team and they're not doing what they're supposed to.

Michigan is taking on Minnesota and Wisconsin this weekend and if they want to beat them they better hope that turkey they had was packed with some kind of scoring magic because boy do they need it now.

ahhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Post Thanksgiving mortem

2008-11-28T14:27:00.003-05:00

After watching the Michigan football team die in the second half against that school in Columbus. I tried to think of a way to not be negative about Rich Rodriguez's tenure here at the University so far. The most common saying thrown my way has been, all of his previous teams did really bad in their first seasons and they improved exponentially after that, i didn't accept that because this is Michigan and play like that is still unacceptable under any circumstances.

The conclusion i came to was that if the players who stay stick together they will be able to accomplish a better season next year. The biggest thing for this team in the off season is to preach teamwork and the ability to pick up for another's mistake, that means going after fumbles like you've never gone after fumbles before, block like your life depends on it not just your team's success. Together the Wolverines must stand or divided they will fail.

This season had promise in it, when they beat Wisconsin it seemed like everything was going to go right for this team, and the exact opposite happened. Threet got hurt and was never the same, the offensive line lost its sense of purpose and the secondary could not execute for some reason, except in the Minnesota. It seemed like every winged helmets worse nightmare come true and the problem was the team was not together it seemed like everybody out there was trying to take care of number one before busting their butt for the team.

In this case i want to single out two individuals for two very different reasons. Charles Stewart the strong safety has played like an embarrassment to all people named Charles especially Woodson and myself. His failed attempt at getting an interception against Illinois was the turning point in the game and quite possibly in the season because by playing the ball and not the man he allowed the big play to be made and exposed the world to the secondary's great weakness. Then, in the Ohio State he gets into it with one of the coaches for no reason that's been revealed so far. That is not only unacceptable behavior for a Michigan Wolverine it's unacceptable for any college football player to mouth off at a coach on national television especially if you're the one who's been screwing up lately. I'm glad he's graduating and i hope he finds something other than football to work in because he's been an abomination on the field.

Brandon Minor should be saluted for the following postgame quote:

You can’t really blame Rich Rod because everybody on the team did not buy in like they’re supposed to. We have a couple of guys not going hard,” he said. “We’ll correct that most definitely. That ain’t going to happen on my watch as a senior.

This is truly one of the most positive things that could happen to this team all season when Minor acknowledged this. He told the fans, we are taking the brunt of this season on ourselves as well as the responsibility of making it better next year. If there is anybody who should become the next great leader on the Wolverines for next season it's him.

Two things that Rich Rod will have to work on in the off season are:

1.) Teach the offensive line how to run block for your scheme and run these plays over and over again until you can get them to block correctly.

2.) Get the secondary to learn when to go for the interception, how not to get beat and how to break up passes.

Also i've been watching the Pittsburgh Steelers have some success with the type of defense HRG wants to run, their reason:

THEY ARE DEEPER AT LINEBACKER.

If Rich Rod wants to be successful on both sides of the ball he will have to load up on recruiting linebackers as well as recruiting running backs and linemen.

P.S.: It's not summer so i have to be able to post on all major sports individually now.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Michigan metaphorical rivalry essays part 2: Ohio State

2008-11-21T15:03:00.003-05:00

Remember when i said that i would post a metaphorical essay for each of Michigan's major rivals? Well here's the second edition.

Ohio Stat is like the neighborhood redneck bully. You know the one who lives with his cat lady mom, who tries to beat you at everything because you're the most unique person around. He hates you because you're both smart and good at sports, the latter is the only thing he's good at. He's frustrated with his life so he's taken out his frustration on you the past four years by pounding you.

It's not that you haven't fought back, it's just that the last couple of years he's had some help from his wine cooler drinking friend Mr. Rogers. Who thinks he's helping the kid when he's really just making him more aggressive.

He seems to be taking some kind of rage inducers that help him pound you on the football field, although it's also possible he's making up for 1988-2000.

But there is hope of him not kicking your ass this week, you challenged him to a basketball game which you won. And he was eating his heart out over that, but you and i know that that redneck bully lives for one thing, beating your ass especially on the football field.

P.S. If the state of Michigan looks like a hand then doesn't the state of Ohio look like a pair of tighty whiteys?

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

IS HOOPS BACK IN ANN ARBOR???????

2008-11-21T14:58:00.003-05:00

I'm still in shock from what happened for a number of reasons.

1.) Michigan finished against a ranked team for the first time in 11 years.

2.) They won without Manny Harris having to score 20 points and give them at least half of their offensive output.

3.) They beat UCLA with a 1-3-1 zone that gave up countless wide open three pointers last year. I know they had been practicing this but i thought that without Ekpe in the post they'd be back to square one on the defensive side of the ball.

Now they play Duke and everybody in the college basketball world is talking about the Michigan upset.

Stay tuned for my obligatory OSU rivalry post.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

A season lof AUUUUUUUUHGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH on the ice too.

2008-11-14T22:44:00.003-05:00

Football has been having a terribly excruciating season this year and it has put every person who bleeds Maize and Blue this year through a lot of pain.

But what happened today with hockey was just ridiculous. I don't understand how you can out play a team like Western like that and still lose. They had twice as many shots, applied almost constant pressure to Riley Gill throughout the first two periods and yet they only got one goal. On top of that, you really have to convince me that Gill had that good of a game and is that good of a goalie, a lot of time their opportunities were good it's just that either the passes out in front ended up untouched or they shot the puck into traffic and it ran into a guy in the wrong jersey. Granted he came up big when he could, but you can't tell me Michigan's ineptness was not the cause of several fans in the student section angrily screaming obscenities after the game.

I thought hockey was supposed to be a diversion from the crap that has been going on the gridiron this year. But the winged helmets on ice are disappointing too at this point as well, Michigan just had their first home loss to a team that prior to tonight hadn't won a game in conference play. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. You can't go to Michigan and lose a home game to WESTERN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the subject of Billy Sauer i am truly torn, i have to ask, WHAT HAPPENED???????

Last year he was standing on his head to get the Wolverines to the frozen four. Now? He let's in a slap shot in that he apparently doesn't see. I don't get it what is it with him this year. Last year he didn't have many problems and aside from the Notre Dame game in the Frozen Four last year he had an excellent year, and in my opinion was the comeback player of the year, but this is just bizarre and i am swallowing my words as far as Billy Sauer is concerned.

And for those of you naysayers who say that the defense is depleted without Mitera and Kampfer, yes those losses are crucial, but that's no excuse for losing to WESTERN AT HOME!!!!!!!!!!!

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Changing of the Guard part 1

2008-11-09T20:36:00.004-05:00

As the winged helmets on ice struggled on the road against Sarah Palin's money at work. I read the score in the game tracker that said that Michigan State lost 3-0 to that school in Columbus. This came as an absolute shock to me because normally the Spartans would take apart a team like the Nuts. But not only did the Bucks beat MSU on the scoreboard, they outshot them 49-21. While outshooting opponents has never been State's mantra, this was still pretty jarring, even with as good a goalie as Jeff Lerg is in goal, Michigan State let the Bucks let loose on him and eventually he let three in. On top of that, the next day OSU completed the sweep with a 3-1 victory in a much more even handed game.

This plus the fact that the Nanooks played Michigan ridiculously close in both games despite the fact that the Wolverines outshot them in both games, cause me to wonder whether there is going to be a changing of the guard in the CCHA. It makes me wonder if the intra state rivalry is going to carry as much weight as it has in the past. With the emergence of Notre Dame in the last two years under Jeff Jackson questions have been raised and a new quadrumvirate has arisen in Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame and Miami (Ohio). Now with State starting to falter and Michigan having playing under .500 hockey on the road it raises questions about who the State of Michigan's top two college hockey programs are.

Well rest assured dear readers one of them is undoubtedly still Michigan, they just need to adjust to playing on the road better. This year they've been letting the Yost crowd carrying them through the early part of their home schedule. I understand that this has been the way it's been done in the past, but they'd better snap out of it by now because otherwise they're not going to get very far in the season if they can only win half their games on the road. It's a tough conference to play on the road in, but this is a problem that needs to be addressed and soon, and hopefully they will when they face the Lawson Lunatics this upcoming saturday after my dear friend Peter Saul will try to attempt the impossible and get a one camera broadcast of a hockey game this Friday against Western Michigan.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

C-ya

Back to reality (football)

2008-11-03T17:48:00.003-05:00

Denial's a bitch and i've been sleeping with her for the last couple of weeks. I honestly thought Michigan was going to beat the Spartans. They didn't seem to have much of a passing game before then, i guess i was wrong. I thought the wolverines might beat Purdue because they were desperate to keep their bowl hopes alive, but i was wrong there too, because i didn't account on the defense not showing up.

To say that this football season has been a disappointment would be a gross understatement, it is an unprecedented (i'll explain later) catastrophe that could (fingers crossed that it won't) have very bad long term consequences for the program i loved as a boy and taught me what it felt like to win in a world where i always felt like i was going to lose.

I grew up with two truly great loves as far as sports were concerned, Detroit Tigers baseball and Michigan football, i loved the Red Wings but there was a lull in that love due to the strike. I never stopped loving Michigan or the Tigers. With all of the turmoil the Tigers went through under Randy Smith as general manager i got used to the feeling of the Tigers being a perennial losing team. The Wolverines however create something different for me, one of the first memories for me as far as football is concerned was the Remy Hamilton game, which i watched at my grandma's house just over a month after my grandfather had died.

For some reason the winged helmets that Michigan had just spoke to me in a way that Notre Dame's plain golden domes didn't. Secondly i liked the sound of a name like Biakabatuka. But they kept winning after that game and Frank Beckman was consistently the voice of both the Tigers on TV and the Wolverines on the radio, so as a kid with aspirations to be an announcer i felt very close to both. And the way i felt about both was understandable, the Wolverines were the rock pillars of winning and consistency and all that was good in the world, the Tigers were the lovable losers whom i knew.

But now that has all changed and it may not get better. What is happening at Michigan, an outsider taking over at head coach and having a losing season right out of the get go, after a good coach steps down, is unprecedented in the 129 years of Michigan football. However i can think of a relevant comparison that makes me shudder to think it might be true, but unfortunately it may be. John Cooper.

Cooper was hired one year after both the death of Woody Hayes and the firing of Earle Bruce. Michigan fans are all familiar with his record of futility against them. On top of that he also was part although he did not start or finish the downfall of academics in the college football program, something Michigan has prided themselves on in the past.

On the latter part i don't think there is too much to be worried about, but on the former, i am deeply troubled. If he doesn't beat Ohio State in a season this bad it would be the greatest failure of a season in the living memory since before Bo came to town.

It's not the problem of the spread not working anymore, the wolverines have the skill players what they don't have is the tools to defend it. Not enough emphasis is put on defense in the current system right now, if HRG had put an emphasis on the defensive backs and getting them to do better in defending against the pass Michigan would not be in this position. If anybody is on the chopping block right now it's either him or defensive backs coach Tony Gibson.

stay tuned for happy days when i write about Michigan hockey.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

I guess he wasn't blonde enough

2008-10-15T11:41:00.003-04:00

It really must suck to be a starting Michigan defenseman this year. First captain Mark Mitera takes a skate to the knee, now a fellow political science major Steve Kampfer has been allegedly bodyslammed out of the season just in time for the Northern Michigan game. And that's not all, as i'm sure everybody who's read the Daily or MGoblog now knows the alleged assailant was a football walk on (undoubtedly a third or fourth string fullback) and ex-wrestler Mike Milano.

If Milano did assault Kampfer at 2 in the morning on sunday i'm curious to know why. Maybe he was frustrated that Kampfer's team was winning and his wasn't. Maybe they had different political views, or maybe Kampfer just wasn't frickin blonde enough.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Relief from the frozen front at Yost.

2008-10-14T01:37:00.005-04:00

One of the greatest goals in Michigan history was scored by Aaron Palushaj this past weekend. I was in the stand watching it instead of looking at it from a media perspective as i could have been but i saw it nonetheless and it was glorious. Taking on three defenders is dangerous in hockey and he got mugged on the way to the goal, so much so that the ref was going to call a penalty before the puck went into the net, by which time he had waved it off. It could be a season changing moment for the winged helmets on ice.

After Fridays game there were undoubtedly a group of bloggers who would be willing to write off Michigan as unable to compete without Mark Mitera in a tougher more physical CCHA compared to years past. However the St. Lawrence Saints came out with the same game plan that NMU came into Yost with last year and got out played at their own game by the maize and blue. Palushaj's goal aside this game was determined in the corners, by the hits who was tough who could endure more of the beating, clearly by the end of the game the answer was overwhelmingly clear. This year's Michigan hockey team is incredibly well conditioned and is ready for a hard hitting season this year.

Goaltending looked good, the team as a whole was imperfect, but perfection is a hard thing to ask for, especially so early in the season. The first line looked good with Hagelin, Rust and Palushaj. It seems clear to me that Carl Hagelin has been lifting some weights this past summer because he was not merely toughing it out in the corners and in front of the net, he was giving it back to the opposing defenders. Watching this team play last weekend makes one wonder if the hockey conditioning coach could work with Barwis on the football team.

The only things in the immediate future that i am regretful of is that Michigan's next two games will not be televised from Marquette, and that WOLV will not be able to present anything to you hockey related until November.

Stay tuned for a preview of Northern Michigan.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Two Agonizing Saturdays, and one trashed apartment

2008-10-14T01:04:00.004-04:00

As a lifelong Michigan football fan it is hard to imagine a Wolverine team that has no idea to either defend against the pass in the secondary, nor block for the run on the line.

When one grows up watching Charles Woodson, Marlin Jackson, Cato June, Leon Hall, and Earnest Shazor break up passes, make interceptions and punish recievers trying to get yards after the catch. It is hard to watch this year's team play these last two weeks.

When one grows up watching Steve Hutchinson, Jeff Backus, Jake Long, and Ron Payne create huge holes for Anthony Thomas, Mike Hart and Tshimanga Biakabatuka (i refuse to call him Tim) to pick up yards through. It is hard for one to see running backs as talented as Brandon Minor and Sam McGuffie struggle to get past the line of scrimmage due to missed assignments.

A few weeks ago, no one would talk about these problems because the problem of holding onto the football was too glaring. Turnovers still hurt, and by the lord the amount of turnovers committed early in this first half of the season are appalling enough to cause Bo Schembecler to turn in his grave. However even a back who knows how to hold onto the football as well as McGuffie can't do anything without some room to run with.

I understand the amount of youth at receiver and with the depth the winged helmets have at running back i see no reason to change the run-first strategy Rich Rod has in place, however he has got to work on run blocking. These players didn't do too much run blocking under Carr because he depended more on bigger stronger players to hold off the pass rush. Now the emphasis is more on the faster stronger players who can get out of the blocks like a sprinter and drive defensive linemen into the ground like air under the feet of Usain Bolt. Nobody on the line seems to be capable of doing this and since teamwork is essential on the offensive line more than any other area of the field it is essential that somebody start doing it and doing it now.

Brendan Harrison will be sorely missed after his graduation after this season. Donavan Warren has shown amazing amounts of moxie in his two years here so far and has shown calm under pressure, his absence last Saturday undoubtedly caused the regrettable fall of a record last Saturday. Morgan Trent is fast, he can jump and break up passes, and he still is not a great tackler, i'm not asking for him to be Charles Woodson but at least get a hold of the guy. If Charles Stewart misses another potential interception on a play that results in a touchdown he will be run out of town on a rail.

My rage not only led me to write this cliche ridden piece of crap article it also led me to throw stuff all over my already fairly dirty off campus apartment in the face of exams this week. A loss to Toledo is just plain unacceptable on any level for any era at Michigan, even a transitional one.

In spite of that i am not one of those who believe that Rich Rod should be fired immediately. I think that he should seriously re-evaluate where he recruits for in the future and try to keep his players more disciplined in the future.

Is this season a lost cause, technically no because if Michigan beats Penn State they have a winning record in conference play. However with an abomination of a secondary the wolverines looked like they might be having the wings from their helmets clipped by Joe Pa before he dies, i'm just curious if i'll have the stomach to watch it without snapping.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

BEST SATURDAY EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-09-30T00:19:00.004-04:00

If i had gone to bed early enough the previous night to watch the 90s cartoons it could've been better, other than that it went beyond my wildest dreams.

Okay i'll admit it just like everybody else, and i know that every other blogger and their mother's written about it, but the first half offense sucked. More specifically the offensive line sucked, i was personally offended by how badly they were missing their assignments in the zone read allowing the tackles a free hand at the running back. Of course not all of the blame can be placed on the men up front. Steve Threet seemed to not be sure whether to hand off, throw it, try to run away or scream ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!! They're chasing me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Wisconsin defensive line must have been thinking, "'cha those guys are too lazy, we can take 'em." While the Badgers thought the Wolverines were lazy turns out they were just resting. The first scoring drive was done mostly in the air, with a gutsy 4th and 1 call to Kevin Grady, who held onto the ball for five yards. In all honesty the pass Steve Threet threw to Kevin Koger looked like it should have been over his head, Koger made the best catch i've ever seen a true freshman collegiate tight end make in a spread option system. On top of that he knocked the safety down on the play.

After that the winged helmets really started to show how much they could fly, especially Brandon Minor, picking up the first down catch right before darting into the end zone. Thompson's interception was a surprise to everyone in the student section, being on the opposite side of the field i really didn't expect that the Badgers would start throwing the ball like crazy, but they did, and they paid for it.

Threet's run was also a huge surprise to everyone, gutsy move, but let's not give the credit to his feet, but more to his brain. Steve sold the fake to the Badger defense so well that seven men collapsed to the side of the field where Minor was going, Threet breaks a tackle and the safety had to chase him down. If Threet could run the play would've ended in the end zone. Michigan should be glad it didn't, because not only did it give them time to run down some clock it also gave Sam McGuffie the chance to make the world say a refrain that we'll be hearing for some time, wham bam thank you Sam.

The Michigan defensive line played one of the best games i've ever seen. They stopped the run, their pass rush was incredibly potent and didn't allow much time for Allan Evridge to throw the ball. Brandon Graham is a certifiable all-american and i were an NFL scout i would probably try and take a good look at this guy. The secondary improved substantially in their ability to cover a team passing out of desperation.

The secondary will be tested substantially by Illinois dual threat quarterback Juice Williams. A lot of people regard Juice Williams as simply a running quarterback who doesn't pass much, however, that was last year when the Illini had Rashard Mendenhall at tailback and they had a running game so potent, they didn't need to throw the ball that much. I'm not saying that Juice is one of the greatest passers ever, but he can throw the ball downfield and use his weapons as good as any quarterback in the big ten. Juice's abilities on offense are Illinois primary strength, their primary weakness is their defense.

The Fighting Illini defense has given up at least 17 points in every single game they've played in so far. Chase Daniels made them look like fools in the first game of the season against Mizzou. Eastern Illinois managed to score 21 points on them and they're a middle of the road I-AA team and this past weekend lapses in judgment absolutely killed Illinois against Joe Pa.

So, should we expect a Michigan victory, not so fast. They need to figure out a way to stop Juice Williams, which is easier said than done. They need to be able to cover an attack that is pretty similar to what was being run by Utah at the beginning of the season, and they need to stop them from scoring on as many possessions as possible. The latter can be accomplished by the offense not turning the ball over, keeping it on the ground, not missing their blocking assignments and not making any stupid mistakes.

Michigan will need this win to prove that the comeback was not merely a fluke but a statement that the winged helmets are not going anywhere away from the upper echelon of the college football scene. They also need to prove that their helmets are actually going to make them fly.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

And now for something completely different.

2008-09-20T00:29:00.004-04:00

HOCKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOCKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOCKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT'S ALMOST HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, a little overboard with the caps and exclamation points, but still. Season starts in a few weeks, TV schedule comes out next week and WOLV overtime will have interviews that week as well. Not only that, the hockey team releaseda temporary depth chart. With a major shocker.

Now i know that Brian at mgoblog and the house that yost built have probably already talked about this, but Chris Summers moves to forward and Scooter Vaughn is now a starting defenseman. Woo hoo!! Way to go Scoots.

I think moving Summers to forward is a suitable move because he is definitely a much more offensive minded player than a normal defenseman should be. Which is also why i think Scooter is a great choice as a starting defenseman. How many breakaways or two on ones did he break up this past year, by hanging back and reading the forward's stick daring him to shoot the puck right into him? How many times have we seen him go to extreme lengths to get the steal and get the puck out of the zone make the extra stretch, the extra nudge?

I think Scooter Vaughn, while he may not be the most talented or skilled defenseman on the team, he makes up for it with sheer determination, which is all you can ask for out of a player like him.

And just to get you further in the mood.

Blatant rip off, eh Mister Cost?

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

A cooling off week

2008-09-19T23:50:00.003-04:00

Only Michael Phelps could've saved Michigan in that pool in South Bend, that much is certain. The ball was wet, the ref gave a couple of questionable calls to the Irish, and if Rich Rod doesn't go Coach Boone on the guys about fumbles then team will have a lot of problems.

He probably already broke his foot off in Kevin Grady's hind parts in fall two a days, but unfortunately his foot must've come out Grady's hand when he was about to get tackled on that play.

We got a lot of at leasts in that game. At least we now know for certain that Steve Threet is the quarterback and can throw the ball effectively. At least we know Sam McGuffie can handle whatever a defense throws at him and still get positive yards.

Unfortunately this game also raised a lot of questions about the defense, can they stop the physical old school style of smash mouth football or do they just specialize in stopping speed? Is our secondary ANY good at all? And last but certainly not least, what the hell happened to the age old concept of getting pressure on the quarterback? Because it seemed like Jimmah Sunshine had a cruise ship load of time to get his passes off.

Now Michigan faces the Wisconsin Badgers and PJ Hill and Travis Beckum. For the latter i would expect that Rich Rod would keep disgraced Tight End and my fellow Phoenix alum Carson Butler on the team simply for practice. Throw the ball to him in practice a lot, and try to stop him. He's probably more athletic than Beckum, but because of poor decision making and the fact that Rich Rod's system doesn't utilize Tight Ends often he doesn't get much credit. They need to use him in practice because last year neither the maize and blue secondary or linebackers could stop the man.

Wisconsin believes they have an edge in the Big Ten because they do not run the spread. Michigan wants to start winning now to silence their critics.

Stay tuned for a preview of Wolverines vs. Badgers.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Notes going into the Golden Dome

2008-09-12T00:17:00.003-04:00

Both teams in the Michigan-Notre Dame game are coming off of close victories against shall we say, less than sterling, competition. Michigan beating MAC east champ Miami (Ohio) by ten with only two really solid drives throughout the game without much of a passing attack. Notre Dame beat San Diego St by eight in a game where they got a little luck and a lot of help from the referees.

One of the things that Notre Dame will have going for them in this game, aside from home field advantage, is the revenge factor. Michigan has outscored the Domers 85-21 in the last two seasons, they are ticked off and hungry for vengeance. Their offensive line, virtually all freshmen last season, now have a year of experience under their belt, and they will undoubtedly want to destroy the Wolverines.

The Maize and Blue on the other hand come into this game with a chip on their shoulder. A loss to Utah by two, a win against Miami by ten. Not impressive to the media or the fans, they have something to prove, and that is, they are better than this they can be a solid winning team with a good offense and a suffocating strangling defense. One of the advantages for the Wolverines this year will be up in the trenches, every one of the starting front four, which made the Domer front five see wings in their sleep a year ago, has returned. Not only that the conditioning program they've dealt with over the summer have made it look like their helmets actually give them wings.

Both teams come in with some changes, Michigan arguably comes in with the bigger one with a new coach and a new offensive system that runs the ball out of a different formation. Notre Dame on the other hand, their biggest change is the amount of hair on Jimmy "sunshine" Clausen's head. A major distraction to be certain for the Irish, his hair should be ample motivation for the Wolverines. Seeing as that he would like a kiss from a defensive tackle, something i'm sure Terrance Taylor, Will Johnson or Mike Martin will be obliged to do. A helmet to helmet kiss that is.

I don't see much to scare me from Notre Dame's passing game, their receivers are decent, but unless they figure out a way to throw the ball to whoever Charlie Stewart or Stevie Brown is covering, i don't see Clausen having a great game. The biggest threat i see on the Notre Dame offensive front is running back Damon Allen, the first opponent whom our defense has faced who can legitimately break tackles. Our defense, which hasn't missed a tackle so far this season, will be severely tested, as the Irish will try to do the old three yards and a cloud of dust attack against a team that's seen the spread set two in a row.

The Domers do not have a spectacular defense but they have experience on their side, not to mention the idea that they want to pound the heck out of Michigan for what happened the past two years. They will try to blitz Michigan every down and force Steven Threet to make quick decisions, his ability to make the zone read will be tested as will our offensive line. My idea, control the ball, avoid turnovers at any cost, run draw plays, maybe even an old school single wing fullback trap. But above all else, DO NOT TURN THE BALL OVER. Let the defense do their job, they're faster than they were a year ago against virtually the same guys they faced last year.

Anybody who says this is going to be an ugly game should remember that ugly is just beauty in disguise.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

It wasn't pretty but we won.

2008-09-06T23:48:00.003-04:00

Last week, the Rich Rodriguez era of Michigan football got off on the wrong foot as the maize and blue lost their first game of the season to Utah. Many people wondered if the offense was worth noting, as Utah gave us several drives via penalties and our defense seemed to only shut down the Utes when they were taking their foot off the pedal.

Make no mistake about it, Miami is nowhere near as good a team as Utah, but hey a win is a win, no matter how you play it. Today was a day in which Wisconsin and that school in Columbus both trailed a Conference USA opponent and a MAC team respectively by at least eight points at some point in the game. Michigan however did not trail at any point during the game, and while our defense gave up a couple of big pass plays, we kept Bo's alma mater out of the end zone all afternoon. Our line was particularly impressive with it's speed and ability to put pressure on the quarterback.

Going into the Notre Dame weekend let's look at some of the pros and cons so far.

Pros:

Defensive line; if Brandon Graham continues to have the season he's having this year so far, he might be a contender for all-American. The best part about that is, while opposing lines are trying to focus on stopping him they might let loose one of his equally capable, yet less heralded teammates.

Steve Threet can run the ball when he needs to. Granted the defensive ends for the Redhawks are nowhere near as fast as the DE's for Utah, Threet really executed the zone read extremely well today. Everybody was surprised by that, most of us came into the season expecting Steve Threet to be like John Navarre at very best, but he's quick, he's made some good decisions and, for right now, he's our man at Quarterback. I don't care what anybody else says, he's our guy right now.

Our O-line this year, is nowhere near as bad as Notre Dame's was last year. While that might not be saying much they are practicing against the same line that molested Jimmy Clausen last year so badly he saw yellow wings in his sleep. While Mark Ortmann's injury is a HUGE loss that can't be understated, due to our lack of depth on the line, at least we can keep the opponents our long enough for a play to develop, sometimes.

The McGuffie sweep works. I'd be surprised if we don't use it more often, Wham bam Sam might not have the reputation of Noel Devine or Steve Slaton yet, but he's getting there.

And last but certainly not least, our defense has not missed any tackles. Last year the biggest problem for our team's defense was letting guys slip through our fingers. Now while we haven't played anybody like Travis Beckum or Beanie Wells just yet, the fact that nobody's pulled out of the polygrip so far has been, in my opinion the most impressive thing about this team so far this year.

Cons:

The secondary still has problems. Morgan Trent was a projected pre-season all-American this year, but he's shown that he is probably the only player that has trouble making tackles. Donovan Warren has been good, making crushing hits and breaking up key passes, Brendan Harrison broke up a sure touchdown against Miami. But Stevie Brown continues to set a bad example for the secondary by letting sure pick sixes slip through his fingertips.

The return game has not improved. Granted we don't have Steve Breaston, but it would be nice if we had somebody who could get us out of the bad field position Miami had us pinned in all day long.

McGuffie sometimes zigs when he should zag. This is a typical freshman running back mistake, probably every running back, including Barry Sanders, has probably made a mistake like that at some point in his career. I'm not asking McGuffie to be Barry, clearly he isn't, but what i am saying is he needs to learn how to move better when his O-line lets him down. It's clear that he can break tackles and is one tough mo, but he needs to be able to shake and bake with some more consistency if he's to be carrying the mail for this team.

Finally, the passing game. To say it's been lackluster, save a few big plays would be a gross understatement. Sheridan's problem is that he's under throwing too much, Threet's problem is that he's overthrowing too much. Thankfully for us Threet's overthrows have trouble staying on the field so far, so no INT's. We haven't seen very much good execution on the bubble screen which was so dear to the success of West Virginia the last couple of years. But hey, what did you expect, Pat White?

Speaking of which, i think both guys are glad not to be Pat White this weekend, i'm not even sure he'd want to be.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Oh well, it's a new season b/w The battle for Bo (football version)

2008-09-05T19:57:00.004-04:00

I tore my Michigan hat to pieces by the end of the third quarter and then demanded that i be photographed holding it "for the state of Michigan." This illustrates how frustrating the first three quarters under Rich Rod were. The fourth was a ray of sunshine amongst dark clouds, but it was very deceptive. We had a one play drive in which Threet threw the bomb to Hemmingway for the score, and the McGuffie touchdown was set up by three penalties. Not only that, we had the ball three times after that, and still couldn't score.

I know that this team is young on offense and that in the second half the defense was impressive, but was that because the Utah receivers had just turned the gas off or because we had finally adjusted to playing bump and run with them in our secondary. I'm not sure, but i hope to god that the adjustment to what the offense gives us strategy that Scott Schafer (a.k.a. HRG) talks to us about doesn't mean first halves where our secondary gives the receivers as much room as they need to catch the ball and run with it.

Now we go into the Miami game, the battle for Bo, the school he went to vs. the school he made famous. The Redhawks program has lost a lot of it's luster since Bo left, they've only won four MAC titles since 1969 despite dominating the conference in the 50s and 60s under Bo, woody and Ara, who each won conference titles. They haven't been as well known as the cradle of coaches in football since, and they would like an instance of revenge on the school that took their last hall of fame coach.

Michigan for their part are frustrated and ready to prove something to every TV pundit and enemy blogger out there. They will want to make a statement saying, "Here we are world entertain us. We're the team they should be playing highlights of on NBC right after Heroes."

The wolverines are going to try to make it look like their helmets actually give them wings tomorrow, because they want a win, not just for themselves, not just for Coach Rod, but for the whole state of Michigan who is counting on something uplifting to happen out there in the Big House.

P.S. maybe Schafer could put the Kensei symbol on all the players bodies to give them super powers, you never know.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

For lo the summer is long and past

2008-08-30T12:11:00.003-04:00

And the autumn leaves turn their color.

The men in blue will put on their blue jerseys and their winged helmets for a new coach, enter the stadium in a new way and will try to once again make the University of Michigan the pride of the two peninsulas.

With great success has come great envy from many people and programs. Some respect, others hate, all are green with jealousy (some literally). But when the men in blue take the field and leap up to that banner it will signify the end to one of the toughest times of my life.

I'm not gonna speak for anybody else, but i know i have waited so long for this moment, and if the Wolverines can deliver a win on the turf of the big house it would make me once again proud to be a part of this once great state that has fallen on such hard times and given me so much hell these past three months. It would be a restoration of hope for me in being here.

But enough about me, let's play some football.

Utah's good, but they are beatable, and in my slightly biased opinion every opponent on our schedule, including Ohio State, is beatable. It's not a matter of doing the impossible for this team, or being perfect, it is merely a matter of will to win.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

When new coaches come in, historically speaking

2008-08-27T00:26:00.003-04:00

The first game of a Michigan coach can set the tone for his time here in Ann Arbor. Most coaches start off with a win and then go on to much greater success here.

Who can forget Lloyd Carr's first game against Virginia. After two less than stellar seasons he lead a team to a national championship and then two yrs after that guided the maize and blue to five comeback victories and a win in a BCS bowl game. Although later in his career he would slip as we all know but the fact that he got off to a great start like that made the team known for their ability to stay in games and never give up.

His predecessor Gary Moeller was considerably less lucky, and ended up being on the short end of a 14 point Notre Dame comeback in which The Bus ran over the winged helmets in the fourth quarter. The problem with giving up comebacks to other teams would culminate in that play with Kordell Stewart and Bryant Westbrook that nobody needs to be reminded about.

Bo's first game was against Vanderbilt, a then mediocre southern team which had still not integrated. Ol General Patton led his troops out in his first game and kept the infantry on the field until they had racked up 367 yards rushing as a team, largely behind the legs of their newcomer sophomore running back, and their junior quarterback!!!! Patton's troops would walk out of the Big House with a 42-14 victory that was quickly overshadowed by the embarrassing 40-17 loss we would endure to then fifth ranked Mizzou and two weeks after that when we lost to the Duff beer company of East Lansing in Bo's first intra state classic.

By this point the Michigan fans, who had never heard of Bo before 1969, were starting to grumble considerably, they probably weren't happy when the winged helmets went down 9-7 at halftime to Minnesota in Minneapolis. At halftime of that game the old general called on his troops to save the season that day, and by golly they did scoring 28 points to win the ball game and set the tone for the rest of the season to set up the stage for the funeral of the 1969 Ohio State Buckeyes.

Now with this in mind does this mean that if Rich Rod wins his first game will we be great again and triumph over Ohio State at the end of the season and return to the pantheon of the college football gods, or that if we lose we will return to being over hyped and disappointing. Well, first games are always hard to tell, and here in Ann Arbor there seems to be a pattern at Michigan for the coaches and their success on the football field. Which is an easy explanation for why Rich Rod's only the tenth coach here at Meeechigan since 1901. And there's a good chance that he will continue that if he gets a win at Utah on saturday.

The only two Michigan coaches since Yost who have lost their first games were Moeller in 1990 and Bump Elliot in 1959. The last Michigan coach to lose his first Ohio State game was Harry Kipke in 1929, and then won two national championships a few years later. The last Michigan coach to BEAT Michigan State in his first attempt was Bennie Oosterbaan in 1948. That's right Bo, Mo, and Lloyd all got bested by Little Brother in their first attempt one way or another.

But nevermind all of you in the land of the winged helmets, for you should hang onto your maize and blue kilocycles, because it's going to be one interesting ride.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

It's been a while but I'm BAAAAAAACK

2008-08-21T21:33:00.003-04:00

Hello everybody, i've been gone for almost a month now with work and a loss of Internet at my parents house but i'm back and i am ready for the new semester of University of Michigan.

In the upcoming week expect me to say something for a preview of the season and a preview of the Utah game coming up, a game i am going to attend. If i could live blog the game i would but that's not going to happen, so what i'll do is post a post game as well as the set list of songs that i sang on the way over to the game and on my way home, of course this will be ex posto facto.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Lemonade Maker

2008-07-29T21:15:00.004-04:00

What we need in Michigan football land is not a snake oil salesman, not a coach who installs a system and swears on the bible that it will never change. No what we need at Michigan is a coach who can take the lemons he is given and make sweet (but not too sugary) lemonade.

The concept of the lemonade maker is about as old as the forward pass in football, it just hasn't been called that. Which means i want a dime everytime anybody says lemonade maker for the rest of my life and once i get off my job, i'm hitting the blogs and checking to see what people are saying.

In my opinion the greatest lemonade maker in the history of college football was Bear Bryant the legendary coach at Alabama. Although many people forget this part, Bryant coached at three different schools prior to taking over the Tide, Maryland, Kentucky, and Texas A&M. At Maryland and Kentucky he ran a single wing type offense that was somewhat similar to what Crisler did here in Ann Arbor, however he changed that when he came to Texas.

Although the Southwest conference and Texas football in general was where the idea of throwing the ball out of the single wing really came to national prominence, by the mid 50s things had changed. And the Bear found himself coaching a team that was on probation as a result of some quite vile sins of their previous coach. He made the Aggies run a training camp in 1954 that might make Barwis queasy he made the team train in the desert for the whole summer and denied them water breaks during practice time. Even though that particular team went 1-9 the underclassmen on that team would go onto an undefeated 9-0-1 season in 1956, and the year after that John David Crow the Louisiana skyrocket who established the Aggies as the best running team in the nation, out of a T-formation!

Although Bear was only at A&M for four years, him and Crow helped establish the Southwest as a running conference that even the Big Ten had a hard time matching. Bur when he came to Bamma he took the lemons he was handed and once again made some delicious lemonade. In the 1960s Alabama was quarterback U as they sent Joe Namath and Ken Stabler out into the world of pro football prepared and ready to win super bowls.

In the 70s integration came and only the Bear could have pulled it off in the racist climate in the SEC at the time. He led the first integrated SEC championship team in 1971 out of a wishbone three yards and a cloud of dust offense with four backs (including the quarterback) sharing the running duties equally.

We all know about the success the Bear had over the years by adapting to changes and adding new things to do in new climates. The thing that many other people don't recognize was that Bo was a lemonade maker too, although it is possible he probably squeezed his lemons a bit tighter than the Bear for his system.

We all know that Bo ran a "three yards and a cloud of dust" offense throughout his time in Ann Arbor. What many non historians don't know is that when he came to Michigan he had the best receiving tight end in college football at the time in Jim Mandich on his team, and throughout the 1969 season, especially in the
Ohio State game, Michigan was at their best when they were able to balance out getting the ball to Mandich while balancing that out with their running attack.

After that season for the next ten years Michigan either lacked a quarterback or a receiver was as reliable as Mandich. That all changed under Anthony Carter, although he only averaged four catches a game he still made Bo rethink the forward pass as well as the reverse in order to get the ball to a player he needed to carry the team. Over the course of the 80s Bo proved to be the anti-matter of Woody by instituting a more balanced attack that at times resembled a hybrid of Woody Hayes and Bill Walsh.

Which brings us somewhat back to the present. Michigan has been running the Woody Walsh system since the eighties and while it may be good enough to have a winning record in the Big Ten it is not nearly enough to compete at the same level as the USC's, LSU's and most importantly that school down in Columbus. Rich Rodriguez brings in a system that may be different from things that the maize and blue faithful are used to seeing, but after watching the highlights of the Spring Game as well as watching Glenville State highlights i believe that he can take the defensive minded lemons and make bitter lemonade for the rest of the Big Ten to swallow, and for the offense, i'm not sure yet. Hopefully he won't need to add any more sugar than is necessary, in any case i hope he proves to be as much of a lemonade maker at Michigan as he was at Clemson and West Virginia.

ahhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

AAAAUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH

2008-07-17T23:57:00.005-04:00

Today is a sad day for Michigan hockey fans across the world as we say goodbye to the last member of one of the greatest lines in the storied history of Michigan hockey under Red Berenson, Max Pacioretty. He has signed a contract with the Montreal Canadiens for a three year entry level contract, and i would not doubt it if he ended up getting brought up to the big leagues at some point during next season.

In foresight it's obvious why the Habs signed him, they're trying to get duplicate the success that the Red Wings have had with Thomas Holmstrom by signing a guy who specializes in screening the goalie, something he did to perfection here in Ann Arbor. However it is Michigan who is on the very short end of a deal, i highly doubt Coach Berenson was prepared for this and now he has to re-analyze his team for next year's depth chart at forward, and although this team is incredibly deep it hurts to see a dependable star player like Patch leave so early.

Prior to him leaving the first line would have probably been Patch, Carl Hagelin, and either Travis Turnbull or Aaron Palushaj, now you will probably see Turnbull definitely starting as the grinder forward that normally would have been taken up by Patch. The problem however is that although Turnbull has been known to play the grinder well, can he protect Carl Hagelin from getting pummeled every time he gets into the corners, because it seemed that in every game in the NCAA tournament the opposing defensemen would just let the Swede have it. So now either the Swede has to really tough it up and start hitting back against some much bigger defensemen in some cases, or Turnbull or someone else is gonna have to step their corner game up. In any case we will need the swede to show the flashes of greatness that he showed in the postseason everyday this upcoming season.

If Chris Summers is moved up to forward, which i doubt will happen, but is entirely possible, that might help but it would leave an incredibly large gap on the defensive end of the ice. Hopefully Scooter Vaughn can step up into a role if he needs too this year, to truly prove his worth to the NHL scouts, which he apparently was unable to last year.

All in all we are going to need ten of the fabulous twelve freshmen to become super sophomores.

aahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Michigan metaphorical rivalry essays Part 1: Minnesota

2008-07-16T21:13:00.002-04:00

Minnesota in football is like that guy you know in your neighborhood who was in a rock band in the seventies and had some success did a couple of tours with some good bands, but afterwards really burned out, and never seemed to adjust to the new climate in the eighties.

You know a few things about him but in reality, these things just add to the mystery of the man.

He apparently has a home but you don't know where. You see his son playing hockey, but you don't know how much he's associated with old dad. He seems to like the cold but he prefers to stay indoors for a lot of events. And the thing that boggles you the most is that he keeps asking you for "Jugs".

You're not entirely sure whether he has a speech impediment or whether he's just messing with you, either way, you try to avoid him as much as possible. Although generally docile he has taken stuff from you in the past, most notably in 2005. His son is also a hell of basketball player and if he's winning, he'll pour it on you in hockey.

wow that was shorter than i thought.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

programming update 6-26-08

2008-06-26T23:31:00.002-04:00

Next time i will get a chance, i will finally get a chance to start my Big Ten rivalry essays in metaphor format. It will read something like this.

Ohio State = Neighborhood redneck bully
Michigan State = your sports rival relative
Penn State = old senile war vet
Minnesota = washed up old rock star
Wisconsin = your alcoholic arm wrestling uncle
Iowa = dangerous schizophrenic
Purdue = cranky guy (not sure if he's young or old)
Northwestern = prissy dude who hates sports
Chicago = prissy dude who hates sports more
Illinois = weird dudes who for the most part don't do much, but do stuff every once in a while
Indiana = basketball player who eschews football
Notre Dame = rich dude with a major superiority complex in regards to you.

P.S. I'm writing these all from the perspective of Michigan.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

weekly update 6-26-08

2008-06-26T22:40:00.002-04:00

Sorry i haven't posted in a while i've been at work.

The winged helmets on ice just released a new schedule for the 2008-2009 season. As you already know, what i would like to talk about here is what games are likely to be covered by WOLV.

October 10-11 vs. St. Lawrence

This series rests on the same weekend as the Toledo game and will not likely conflict as far as time is concerned with that game. However if the athletic department is interested in getting us to cover the saturday game we may have trouble finding a crew who will be ready that day. If we do, we may have to bend a few rules regarding dress code, to enable our crew to not have to go home and change before the game like we normally do. However it would be a great honor for us to do the opening two games of the regular season, especially if, as rumored, this turns out to be Red Berenson's last season at Michigan.

Thursday October 23 vs. Niagara.

This game is an anomaly because: a.) it's a game on thursday. b.) it's right before Michigan makes a trip to Boston to play BU. I'm not sure what the chances are of CBS college sports coming into to broadcast this game, but something tells me they may not be likely. However stranger things have happened and i'm not going to assume anything at this point. This game should be a great matchup with Niagara facing off against a Porter-less Wolverine team, considering that Porter scored four of Michigan's five goals, it should be a much more interesting game compared to in the NCAA tournament.

October 31-November 1 vs. Ohio State

The only reason why WOLV has a shot at broadcasting this game is because Ohio State is not that good of a hockey team, and not that big of a following compared to ours. I would love nothing more than to broadcast a game like this. However it is highly unlikely because of FSN Detroit's interest in the CCHA and the Big Ten Network's potential interest in doing hockey in the stead of Comcast Local.

Friday November 14 vs. Western Michigan

This will probably go to us because the simple fact is there probably won't be much interest from other networks to do this game, it should be a good game to watch though. Michigan will undoubtedly be the favorite in this game, unfortunately it is highly unlikely that we will get to interview Rich Rodriguez this year because he will probably be preparing the team for the Northwestern game the next day.

Friday January 16 vs. Bowling Green

The reason why you won't see Hockey Night on WOLV TV via Mgoblue for two months is because the college hockey showcase is the last weekend in november, and the last series in before the GLI is a home and home against Michigan State, which will obviously be on television. This is all sandwiched between two series with Miami (Ohio) which will undoubtedly be televised. Bowling Green will come into this game with a lot of questions concerning their offense considering that they lost Dereck Whitmore to graduation this past season. They will however be much tougher defensively which could make this a battle to watch.

February 6-7 vs. Lake Superior State

Given the decline of Laker hockey in the last couple of years i would not be surprised to get one of these games, but not both. It is likely that FSN Detroit will probably broadcast one and we at WOLV will do the other. This will be kind of sentimental for me, because the first hockey broadcast i worked was an overtime loss to Lake St. So for sentimental reasons, i hope the maize and blue redeem themselves against Team Sweden.

February 13-14 vs. Nebraska-Omaha

Yes, this time you'll hear "Charles in Charge the sideline reporter" as the announcer, i guarantee it. If the folks at WOLV don't let me do play-by-play for this one the critics would have won a decisive battle.

I didn't include any road games or games against Miami, Michigan State or Notre Dame, and for good reason, there is no way in heaven or hell that WOLV will do any of those games this season unless some divine miracle happens.

With the end of comcast local it is highly possible that you might see a substantial amount of Hockey Night on WOLV TV presented by Host Communications this upcoming season.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Coaching Transitions Part 2: From Bump to Bo.

2008-06-15T20:02:00.004-04:00

Although 1969 is considered the turning point for the Michigan football program, and understandably so, there was truly not much of a difference in the playing style from Bump to Bo. The real transition was not for Michigan football in 1969 but for the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry.

The transition for Michigan actually happened in 1968 when track and field coach Don Canham was hired as Athletic Director replacing Fritz Crisler after his twenty years of service to the University. If Kipke's weakness had been defending the single wing, then Crisler's weakness was revealed not by him as a coach, but by him as an athletic director in his inability to get consistent TV coverage for games. Although he got started on the right foot by improving the press box to then modern standards and having the first game of that season vs. UCLA broadcast nationally. However after that season he failed to follow up on ways of getting people to watch the games on television, and by the mid 60s the only Michigan game that was consistently televised every year was the Michigan-Michigan State game, and normally that was only carried on local Detroit stations.

This eventually became a major problem in Michigan's ability to recruit great players, and although they were able to have some good teams under Bump Eliot, namely the 1964 team that won the Rose Bowl, they had an extremely hard time competing with Woody and Duffy (from MSU) for recruits because these recruits could see MSU and OSU on TV but they couldn't see U of M and the winged helmets in the big house.

Unfortunately that was only one problem in football recruiting at Michigan, the other was more psychological. Fritz Crisler could be a truly fiery coach at times during his heyday in the 40s, the same could not be said for Bennie Oosterbaan his successor. Although at 6'9" he towered over most of his players, he didn't intimidate them and was generally considered a nice guy. Although this might be a good thing for a job interview it became a liability during the fifties in the Big Ten in a time when increasingly it was the nice guys who finished last. Woody Hayes was hired at that school in Columbus in 1951 and in three years had won a national championship. Michigan State had just joined the Big Ten in 1950 and two years later won their only undisputed national championship in football. Two years later they hired Duffy who would later go onto say, "A tie isn't like kissing your sister, it's worse." And most surprisingly there was the sudden emergence of Iowa under Evy who famously shyed away from his mentor Crisler's offensive oriented approach into a more defensive mindset that sent him and the Hawkeyes to two Rose Bowls in three years during the 50s.

Michigan was in need of a coach with personality when Bennie quit in 1958 after ten years as head coach to become the head of Alumni Relations. Bump Eliot had a mediocre season in 1959 with one extremely important win that insured that he would stick around, a 23-14 victory over Woody and Ohio State in the Big House in film footage here.

Unfortunately this game was not televised, and the Wolverines had a dismal record in rivalry games under Bump going 3-7 against Ohio State and 2-7-1 against Michigan State. When Don Canham came in before the 1968 season things would change, although getting TV coverage for every game would take some time, he did get national coverage of both rivalry games that year. One of these games ended up helping tip the balance of instate recruiting in favor of the Wolverines over the Spartans.

In 1967 we went 4-6 and the average attendance for games at the big house was a pathetic 67,000, the only bright spot we had was a junior running back named Ron Johnson who had just ran for the first 1,000 yard season in school history.

After a loss against Cal to start the season the Wolverines had won three straight but were still unranked going into their matchup with the Spartans in Ann Arbor. The Spartans for their part were undefeated and ranked number 12 in the nation at the time. In this game we showcased the hard powerful running of Ron Johnson who blew through the State defense for 153 yards and a touchdown. That was not one of the three miracles of this game however, the three miracles were:

1.) That it sold out (the Tigers were in the world series at the time and neither football team had a great previous season).

2.) It was nationally televised, the networks could have easily ignored this rivalry which had been so lopsided in favor of Michigan State at the time.

3.) Michigan won.

Michigan would win eight straight before meeting the number two ranked Buckeyes in the infamous 1968 game. If there can be any justification for the pounding that we received in that matchup it is this, Bump's boys had beaten Woody's nuts in 64 and 66 the last two times we had played them in Columbus at the time. For Woody the two point conversion was sending a message to us that the Horseshoe was his turf.

The Ohio State game ended up embarrassing Bump to the point of resignation, contrary to rumors Canham did not fire Bump for being an inconsistent coach, he would later say, "Bump had an 8-2 record my first year as AD, anybody could've lived with that."

This time Canham knew exactly what the football team needed to continue their sudden success, and more importantly fill the stands. They needed a coach with personality along the lines of Woody, Bear, and Joe Pa.

With Woody and Bear firm into their jobs the next best candidate was Joe Pa, whom we actively pursued while he was preparing Penn State for an appearance in the Orange Bowl. The negotiations went nowhere fast. The next person on the list was Evy, many Michigan alum figured the former Michigan player and Iowa coach turned AD felt like he owed something to his alma mater. Evy, who was comfortable in his position with the Hawkeyes at the time, felt no such obligation.

When we finally hired Bo, we were hiring a nobody. He was the coach at Miami(Ohio), who had to have been very upset to see him leave. Not only was he an alumni of the school, he left at a time when the MAC conference had just been guaranteed a spot in a bowl game for the first time (the Citrus Bowl). Miami had finished second in the conference in 68 and was expected to challenge for the title again next year. Without the enigmatic Schembechler at the helm, the Redskins probably felt shorthanded, and for good reason they wouldn't win the conference again until 1973. But their loss was our gain and by that year every Michigan football game was being televised at least locally.

I could go on about what Bo did as a coach and his successes and failures, but i won't because virtually everyone who reads this blog either knows, or can find out for themselves elsewhere in a much more eloquent way than i can put it.

Bump became the associate AD at Michigan in 1969 and received the game ball from the Ohio State game that year from Bo for recruiting all the players who had helped win that game for him. In 1970 Bump took Evy's job as AD at Iowa and after several years of trying, finally hired a great coach in Mr. porno-stache himself, Hayden Fry, who ended the "Big Two and Little Eight" years of the Big Ten by earning a Rose Bowl berth for the Hawks in 1981.

On Bo's style: the type of football that had been played under Bump was quite possibly even more run oriented than Bo's. However seeing that Michigan games weren't on TV under Bump, we all grew up knowing Bo as a running heavy coach. To his credit he did eventually learn how to balance the attack in the late 70s and early 80s, and he knew that the key to have an effective running game was to have a good passing game to keep the opposing team honest.

His first several years we didn't have a good quarterback, but were still able to have success without throwing the ball much. It is quite possible we may see something similar this upcoming season under Rich Rod.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Coaching Transitions: Part 1; Kipke to Crisler

2008-06-12T18:28:00.004-04:00

With Rich Rod being the first Michigan football coach from "outside the family" since Bo, i decided to do a historical recap of the two times since the advent of Fielding Yost that Michigan has gone to a football coach from outside of the family, not including Yost of course. I will try to get as much information in as humanly possible.

If you think that posts about history are boring; bite me. Those who fail to understand the past will not have a good future.

In my opinion the transition from Harry Kipke to Fritz Crisler is more similar to the transition happening now than from Bump to Bo. Because at the time we had lost four straight games to the Buckeyes and we were implementing a new offensive system.

Harry Kipke was a former player under Yost from 1921-23, an All-American halfback who won a national championship his senior season. When he took over the Wolverines in 1929 we had just seen our coach at the time Tad Wieman (another one of Yost's former players) bolt after having a losing season in 1928. After a mediocre first season in which players had trouble adjusting to playing in the Big Ten, Kipke won at least a share of four straight Big Ten titles including national championships in 1932 and 1933.

Kipke's system of play was known as, a punt, a pass, and a prayer. He also apparently coined the phrase, "A great defense is a great offense." On offense his teams were renowned for their ability to throw the ball, this was largely thanks to their large handed quarterback at the time Harry Newman. At the time this was incredibly remarkable, and not just because of the "taboo" of throwing the football, as Bryan of mgoblog has so eloquently put it, about the pre-modern days of college football. The fact was prior to World War II the ball itself was much rounder in diameter than it is today, making it harder to grasp with one hand let alone throw. At the time throwing the ball consistently required not just a large handed quarterback, but it required the receivers to have large hands as well in order to catch it and come down with it.

The two shortcomings of Kipke became apparent after most of 1933 National Championship team graduated. He was unable to recruit anybody who could throw the ball as well as Newman after that, although he did recruit Tom Harmon (more on that later). The second great shortcoming was Kipke's inability to get his teams to defend against the single-wing offense.

Although nowadays the single wing is regarded as an old school running heavy formation in the 1930s single wing was regarded as a "razzle-dazzle" offense in which several programs in the east, including Princeton under Fritz Crisler learned how to have consistent passing attacks who had had undefeated seasons in 1933 and 1935. Interestingly enough, in my opinion, visually it looked a lot like the spread offense, only with four backs instead of four receivers.

The bread and butter play of the single wing was the end-around run. And it was used to perfection by our two main rivals at the time and their enigmatic coaches, Ohio State's Francis Schmidt (who had brought it with him from Texas Christian) and Minnesota's Bernie Bierman. Both of these teams had beaten us four times in a row and it was clear that Michigan needed a change in direction.

When AD Yost hired Crisler, at the time it was one of the biggest coups in the athletic department's history. We had just stolen an established coach from out east from an established program to come to a team that was struggling. What ended up happening was Crisler got a guarantee from Yost that he would take over as AD once Yost retired, a detail that didn't come out into the public till some time later.

Although the team had been really struggling as of late, Crisler saw great potential in three of the then incoming sophomores (freshman were ineligible to play) onto the team, Tom Harmon, Paul Kromer and Forest Evashevski. Harmon and Kromer would become known as the touchdown twins the next season. Of course we all know that Harmon later won the Heisman in 1940. Evashevski (or Evy as he was commonly known) was initially recruited to play center, but was switched to quarterback under Crisler a daring move that paid dividends as he went all-Big Ten as a "blocking back" in the single wing system. Later he would become the coach at Iowa and would eventually be a candidate for Michigan's coaching job in 1969 (stay tuned for part 2 for details.)

Although Michigan wouldn't win the Little Brown Jug under Crisler until 1943 when we finally did take the jug back we didn't relinquish it for ten years straight. The winged helmets (which Crisler himself added for the receivers to be distinguished from defenders on passing plays) had much more success against the Buckeyes under Crisler beating them three times in a row in his first three seasons, two of them shutouts IN COLUMBUS. Crisler's coaching career culminated with a win in the 1948 Rose Bowl in the second year in which the Big Ten was guaranteed a spot. Michigan had gone undefeated that year and finished the regular season ranked number two in a very close vote to Notre Dame. When we beat USC 49-0 in Pasadena, the AP took a then unprecedented postseason poll in which Michigan was overwhelmingly voted number one. The Irish, were not pleased with this outcome and made Crisler's boycott of playing Notre Dame from 1943 consensual until 1978.

Crisler became de-facto AD during World War II with Yost beginning to increasingly feel the affects of old age. He was officially hired as AD in 1948 upon his retirement as head coach and stayed there for twenty years, until Don Canham, who would be a big figure in part two.

And what about Kipke? He became a regent of the University before going into business, eventually becoming an executive with Coca-Cola.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

weekly update 6-10

2008-06-10T19:51:00.002-04:00

I'll cut to the chase this time.

The NCAA has made some rule changes for hockey in this upcoming season among them are that all face offs are going to be on a dot, and more importantly four officials on the ice and OPTIONAL SHOOTOUTS!!!!!

To the former point, from the perspective of a TV man i don't agree with this, it's bad enough having three officials especially if one is standing in the corner where you happen to have a camera hooked up. One time i was performing my duties as a cameraman at Yost for WOLV TV in a game against Alaska, my camera was in the right corner in front of the main entrance at Yost facing the goal where Michigan defends in the first and third periods (i.e. to the left of section 109) During this power play one of the officials skated over to the corner to get a better view and stood right in front of my tripod held camera.

I yelled at him to get out of the way, but to no avail. Fortunately for me, nobody scored during that power play and he eventually moved. Now i know darn well that there are ways of getting around such a situation without the refs getting in the way, as a matter of fact, we've prevented anything from happening like that again. However in my opinion four refs mean they can be more in the way. Not just for the cameras either as Mark Mitera recalls from the Miami game in which he tripped over an official's leg as a Redhawk player went for a breakaway.

I do, however, see a benefit for this from a fan's perspective. There will be less of an opportunity for players to get away with blatant penalties. Under normal circumstances i'm a fan of letting the players play on, but in cases like the series against Northern Michigan at Yost, there have to be exceptions. Sometimes the players can get too physical to the point that it seems like they're trying to hurt the other team's players and hopefully with four officials this will not happen.

Now to the part that's on everybody's minds. SHOOTOUTS!!!!!!!

I'm not going to pretend to know what Red Berenson thinks about having shootouts in college hockey, i know that several coaches in Hockey East and the ECAC, namely Jerry York, have been lobbying for this change. However i don't know whether it would really benefit Berenson to allow a shootout to end a game and risk a loss.

From a television perspective, i love it. If i am the announcer to any game that ends up in a shootout i will start throwing out all the spaghetti-western references that the Michigan Wolverine fans can handle, including:

CUE THE MORRICONE

If i could actually cue the intro to The Good The Bad and The Ugly at WOLV that would be awesome too, but i'm not getting my hopes up.

As a fan of Michigan i'm not a hundred percent certain in Billy Sauer's ability to stand tall in a shootout, it will all depend on the opposing team and the opposing goalie's abilities as well. I know personally, if i were Red Berenson and i were faced with a tie game against Northern Michigan i would not want to go into a shootout with Bryan Stewart. He's like the man with no name.

Hopefully, there won't be too many situations where there needs to be a shootout, personally i didn't think there were nearly as many tie games in college hockey as there were in the NHL when they adopted the rule, but whatever.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya.

Red Wings give something for the state of michigan to cheer about.

2008-06-07T22:45:00.006-04:00

I seriously wish i didn't have to work the day we won the cup because i felt like really celebrating. Seeing all the videos on the free press website it really means something. I was at the celebration in 2002, watched the game at the Fox with my dad, and the rest of the night turned out to be really special because when we went outside it was as if the whole town had shown up in solidarity with the team. This year it had to have been different, there were fans outside of hockeytown cafe chanting Detroit Hockey as a tribute to the Pistons who got the Murphys Dropkicked out of them by the Celtics. I was really hoping for two championships this year because lord knows this city needs them in these times.

As i've said before i'm not rich, i'm not benifitting from this economic situation. And i have to tell you it's damn hard to sell anything when it seems like half the town is either taking the buyout and moving or is looking for a new job. Then there's the mayor, who's making the city look so bad he gets booed at a celebratory parade.

HOW MANY TIMES DO WE HAVE TO TEL YOU KWAME?????

RESIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But i'm not here to dwell on politics i want to talk about happy times and how the Wings won the cup. They won it with a true showing of teamwork and not depending on one single man to win the game. They won every game as a team and they celebrated as a team, that's what Pittsburgh is going to have to learn.

Hey Crosby may be the face of the league, but if the Pens want to get over that hump to kiss Lord Stanley's Cup they have to invest in the same type of team that the Red Wings have.

Also, anybody who doesn't thing the Wings play physical enough hockey clearly didn't see game two of the finals in which Pavel Datsuyk jumped on top of a Penguin player and started pounding him.

P.S. Wings fans should start incorporating some of the Yost chants at the Joe, it would really do something for the atmosphere.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

programming update: June 4, 2008

2008-06-03T23:33:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the extremely long period of time in between posts on my blog, i figure that i owe you an explanation:

Although i am a University of Michigan student, therefore putting me in an elite category for intellectuals in the United States (in a manner of speaking). I have made some bad decisions in the past, bad decisions that have left me financially strained. In the last couple of weeks since i last posted, i have taken a new job, one at a factory where i pack produce, it doesn't pay well but it has long hours and a steady paycheck, plus they bus you from the temp agency to the plant, so i save money on gas. My previous job which made me absolutely no money, but still left me time to do updates on the blog every week, was a commission sales job, enough said.

Anyways, with my new summer job being taken into account, i will probably be lucky to get in a post every week, but i will say this, it will be memorable, i guarantee it.

Seeing as that all the other Michigan blogs have posted about the NCAA baseball tournament, i will just say this, the Wolverine Nine was probably the only team in Michigan that didn't get screwed by the officials that week, unfortunately they got screwed by mother nature. This just goes to show how mad people are in the state of Michigan, more on that once the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya!

Weekly Update May 22, 2008

2008-05-22T14:28:00.004-04:00

Apologies for not getting to this sooner, my new job has ridiculous hours.

Big Ten championships for track and field, and baseball.

After losing to Little Sister in the first round of the Big Ten softball tournament, Wright State, our first opponent in the NCAA regional tried to give us a challenge. Their coach Mike Larabee made a bold statement that Wright State would do the same thing that Appalachian State did to us last September 1, only in softball.

“I want to remind you guys of the beginning of the football season. Appalachian State went into the Big House and beat Michigan. It was one of the biggest upsets in history and we can beat Michigan too,” Larabee said.

“This year, expect to go to Ann Arbor and win an NCAA Regional Tournament. We’re going to shock the softball world.”

Yeah, right and guess who gives up a ten run inning.

Our ladies in blue cruised to a regional championship and will host Virginia Tech in the Super Regionals tomorrow in Ann Arbor.

Baseball set the record for most Big Ten wins in a season. And they play Illinois in their first game tonight.

One thing about this that i will say about our baseball team and about college baseball in general. Everybody is now saying that they are going to host an NCAA regional, this is not guaranteed, yes the tournament selection committee wants to let more northern teams host but there is another team that has a shot, St. John's from the Big East. They have played in a much tougher conference than we have and also play in a much more baseball oriented area in New York City. If we don't win the Big Ten tournament we will really be at the mercy of the tournament selection committee to give us a regional because we haven't played the type of schedule that the other teams that will host have played.

That being said, i have no reason to believe that they can't do this or that Michigan and St. John's won't end up hosting regionals. Rich Maloney knows better than anybody out there that hosting the regional will be the key for this team's goal, Omaha. When i talked to him before the start of the season he told me that if they host a regional and (god forbid) a super regional, there's the key to going to Omaha, home field advantage.

P.S. sorry to pepper this post with links like YSMISB, i'm just really tired from this past week's workload.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

AND NOW FOR THE RETURN OF ANGRY CHARLES

2008-05-05T21:26:00.009-04:00

Anger trigger number one: Ekpe Udoh is transferring.

To Ekpe i have nothing but questions:

Ekpe, Why did you decide to leave? Doesn't Michigan count as part of your family, weren't you concerned for your teammates? Don't you value a world class education while being able to attract NBA scouts? Was the weather in Michigan really that bad? Was it Beiline's fault?????

To Beiline i have very little other than rage:

Dang you Beiline, why couldn't you convince Ekpe to stay???? Are you still oblivious to the way big ten basketball is played??? Do you realize what position this puts the basketball team in, we have no defense or inside presence without him!!! Do you realize that or are you so obsessed with getting a good outside shooter that you would sacrifice our only great defender???

Do you plan on recruiting guys who can play defense to play with Manny and Wright, because if you do you'd better get them now!!!!

Anger Trigger Number Two: Big Ten softball championships.

I understand that Michigan and Northwestern ended both of their regular season's tied for the big ten championship. What i really don't understand is how they ended up deciding the host of the big ten tournament by flipping a coin. I'll admit i wouldn't be ranting about this if the coin had landed in favor of Michigan, but shouldn't the host spot go to the team that had the better regular season record. If that were the case then the Wolverines would have hosted because they have only lost five games all season compared to the Wildcats eleven. Michigan is also the sixth ranked team in the country they went 5-1 against ranked non-conference opponents before splitting with the 12th ranked Wildcats. I highly doubt Northwestern's record is nearly as impressive.

Anger Trigger Number Three: No Original Six Stanly Cup!!!!

With both Montreal and the New York Rangers falling in five games in their second round playoff matches the only original six team left standing is my own home town Detroit Red Wings. While i love the Detroit Red Wings a lot, i feel that i am an old time hockey fan more. I hate the fact that all these teams started migrating south under Gary Bettman's leadership of the NHL, it just made no sense to me.

THERE IS NO ICE DOWN SOUTH, WHY WOULD YOU PUT A HOCKEY TEAM THERE!?!?!?!?!

This year i thought that things would be different, i thought that if two northern teams were to play for the Cup hockey would at least have a return to some of the former dignity it used to have. And i thought what better way than to have two original six squads duke it out. As of yesterday, it is no longer meant to be and i am sad for it. While i remain happy that the Red Wings are still in the hunt for the Cup and i also am glad to see two northern teams in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia fighting for the Eastern crown, i cannot help but despise the presence of the Dallas Stars in NHL's final four.

How is it possible to play hockey in Texas?

Gary Bettman

Weekly Update: Cinco de Mayo style

2008-05-05T21:00:00.003-04:00

Due to my new job's bizarre scheduling and the way Michigan sports news goes i wasn't able to post anything of substance until now.

The baseball team took three out of four that school in Columbus. They did it without amazing hitting either. In the first two games the Michigan nine got most of their runs in the last two innings, in both of those games prior to that point it was tied 1-1. This was helped by the fact that Nate the Recker did not have a homer in the weekend for the first time since the Iowa series that started the conference schedule. Nevertheless the one man wrecking crew did help the team with two RBI's over the course of the series, but the fact that he went hitless in both ends of the doubleheader on saturday plus the fact that they had trouble scoring runs that day speaks volumes as to how much his bat means to the team.

Of course with this team when one man isn't doing his best another always steps up and this weekend it was Zach Putnam who pitched a complete game and drove in a run to aid his cause on friday (the National League scouts are loving this guy). Putnam has been overshadowed in my opinion by the recker simply because of Nate's home run clout and that's unfair. Putnam was a preseason all-american and this weekend he proved to us all why that is.

In any case the Wolverines are now 2 1/2 games ahead of Purdue as those pesky Hoosiers in Bloomington took two out of three from their in state rivals.

Weekly Update April 28, 2008

2008-04-28T22:12:00.004-04:00

My first weekend of relative freedom was good, but it could have been a lot better.

First, in Maize and Blue land, the softball team swept through Michigan State with two straight mercy rule games before playing a twin bill at home with Northwestern, who they were tied with for the lead in the Big Ten. Northwestern went out and shut down the Wolverine bats in the first game to win it 2-1. In the second game it looked like more of the same, the Wildcats had a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the sixth when the Wolverines loaded the bases with one out for the female version of Cecil Fielder, Dorian Shaw. After fouling off nearly a dozen pitches, she finally struck out, as did the next batter to end the threat. However it was enough to wear down Northwestern's pitcher Lauren Delaney, who loaded the bases again this time with nobody out this time for Angela Findlay, who walked. That gave the bat to co-captain Samantha Findlay who has been Ms. Clutch all year, and delivered a clear cut walk off single to left to drive in the two runs needed to win the game in the seventh.

Michigan is still tied for the Big Ten lead with Northwestern, they have one more series left in their conference schedule against Penn State on the road. The Nittany Lions have struggled their way through the Big Ten this year after an impressive start in the non conference. Coach Hutchins will probably try and preach to them that they can't look past anybody, especially when the Big Ten championship is at stake. If Michigan can lock up the regular season championship then they should be able to blast their way into the NCAA tournament because they have been dominant at home this year.

The baseball team's hopes of winning the Big Ten title have been put in jeopardy as they split a four game set with last place Indiana. After assaulting the Hoosiers 14-6 on friday, the Wolverines were stumped in saturday's first game by Matt Beshore who struck out eight in a game that only lasted seven innings due to scheduling conflicts. Michigan lost the first game 2-1, then pounced on Indiana 11-4 with Nate "the 'recker'" Recknagle going 4-4 with his 17th homer of the season. Unfortunately they expended everything in that game and the score of saturday's nitecap was reversed in favor of the hosting Hoosiers. With Purdue's sweep of Minnesota, including three come from behind victories, the Wolverines now stand atop the Big Ten by a mere game, and they're playing Ohio State.

Fortunately that school in Columbus struggled with Northwestern having to settle for a split as well. Also Rich Maloney refused to leave any quotes for mgoblue, making one think that he was NOT PLEASED with the performance on sunday. If Maloney pulled a Jim Leyland on his team he should hope they react the way the Tigers do.

The Tigers could have done so much better at this point, but hope is on the way in the form of Curtis Granderson. He returned this past week hitting pretty much anything that came in front of the plate this past week, although they dropped two out of three to the Angels at home this past weekend, as a longtime Tigers fan who has had his heart broken by them so many times, it's good to have Grandy back on the field.

The Red Wings didn't just beat the Avalanche in the first two games of their playoff series, they showed them who was the boss. After giving up two really bad second period goals in game one to cut their lead to 4-3 Chris Osgood played magnificently in net. I couldn't believe what i was hearing on the radio at the time, sprawling out to make sure the Avs shooters would not get it in. I hope Billy Sauer takes some pointers from the wizard of Os in the offseason, because right now it looks like he's taking Vezina Trophy winners to school.

Last but certainly not least, i thought for certain that the Pistons were going to return to the Palace trailing the Sixers three games to one. But the self preservation kicked in early as they showed the world how they win by owning the court to send it back to Detroit on their terms. Hopefully they can complete it and end all this upset talk.

DOES HE LOOK LIKE A......JUSTIN BOREN?

2008-04-23T15:49:00.005-04:00

With all the money Jake Long just made by signing with the Miami Dolphins he might want to pay a visit to his old line mate and ask his former line mate and recent Ohio State transferee Justin Boren a simple question.

What does Rich Rodriguez look like?

It would even be better if he gave him the talk while Boren was eating a Whimpy Burger.

Weekly Update April 22, 2008

2008-04-21T22:41:00.003-04:00

Now that i'm done with my final exams i figure i'll post on at least a weekly basis give or take, depending on how my job situation shapes out.

Michigan named defenseman Mark Mitera team captain for the hockey team. Bryan and Packer at mgoblog and the blog that yost built both seem to think this is a good idea, i on the other hand do not. I think that Mitera is not a captain quality player because he does not lead by example, the biggest issue for him is puck handling, he has never seemed comfortable handling the puck in his own zone and leading his team out to the attack from the defensive position, something that guys like Chris Summers and Scooter Vaughn do regularly. He also doesn't get down and block shots like the rest of the team, reminiscent of a problem Jack Johnson had while still playing for Michigan. But of course the biggest problem i have with Mark Mitera is own goals, if he played for the Colombian national soccer team he would have been dead before the end of the season. Two own goals in consecutive weeks, one of them costing the team their big rivalry game against Michigan State. It's just unacceptable in my opinion.

Speaking of State....

The Wolverine baseball team crushed the Spartans at Fisher Stadium this past sunday 27-6 to complete a four game sweep. More importantly, there were at least 2,600 fans at both of the games in Ann Arbor. This should really help Rich Maloney's case for getting Ann Arbor to host an NCAA regional should Michigan make the tournament, i interviewed Maloney before the season started for the Daily and he told me that one of the reasons why they renovated the Fish was so that they could host a regional. The fact that they came within a game of making it to Omaha last year also buoyed hopes as well.

"If we had the Super Regional at Michigan last year it would have been a dream come true," Maloney said. "Our goal has always been making it to Omaha, but this past year, because we came so close, we actually started to believe it."

"We're trying to play as competitive a schedule as our travel limitations will allow us to and that will speak volumes to the NCAA selection committee."

One of the things that he also talked about that day was that only three teams who have made it to the CWS after not hosting an NCAA regional or super regional. Maloney's guys have been making strides lately, drawing 1,000+ for both games of a series vs. Eastern Michigan right after the end of classes. One of the games was a night game as was the game this past friday at the Fish. Clearly night games are going to attract more fans, but will it get them into the clear? The jury is still out.

One thing to remember here is that Fisher Stadium is designed to hold 4,000 people and this past weekend less than 70 percent of the stadium was filled, in academic terms the athletic department is getting a D in their attempts to fill the stands at baseball games. Still if Michigan wins the Big Ten regular season title, they will play the Big Ten tournament at the Fish and that would undoubtedly draw a lot of fans, if not sell the place out. If the Fish sells out and Michigan wins the Big Ten tournament there, then you can punch the ticket for Ann Arbor hosting an NCAA baseball tournament regional.

Hosting these things is key as Mark Rosen, the volleyball coach who hosted a regional at Crisler this past season, will tell you:

"We don't have to travel, and we get more practice time this week. It'll be fun to have our home crowd, and it'll be fun for the players to have their family and friends here to support them."

And when you don't have to travel the jet lag factor that often contributes in losing goes way down.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

p.s. i tried that at the baseball game when State swapped pitchers, didn't seem to catch on all that well.

EKPE PLEASE DON'T GO

2008-04-17T00:25:00.004-04:00

If Ekpe Udoh decides to transfer away from the University of Michigan, the basketball team will suffer a setback that could possibly be worse than what happened during the Amaker years. They will be without a defense, which would put the Wolverines in the bottom of the Big Ten they will probably miss out on a golden opportunity to capitalize on playing with a potential great NBA style player in Manny Harris.

Ekpe Udoh is the big ten's leading shot blocker and the only player who can come close to averaging ten rebounds a game. In the poor shooting big ten one of the most important things for a team to do is to have good defensive rebounding. So far nobody else on this team has the inside presence that Ekpe has.

The common perception is that Bieline's offense and three point shot heavy style of basketball there is not much room for Ekpe. This is one of the most false perceptions about the basketball team ever. It is essential that if Bieline ever expects for his style to work at Michigan they will need rebounders and shot blockers, and plenty of them to work within the big ten's style to execute Bieline's.

Finally i would like to say this, if Bieline doesn't get Ekpe to return, he will have made a monumental failure. Not only is he losing a player who can compliment his style, he's losing a class guy who if he transfers he does so for less iffy reasons than virtually every player you see doing it these days.

Ekpe knows he doesn't have the greatest chance at making the NBA, but he does know that he wants to be seen by his family in Oklahoma. As much as it would pain me to see him leave the university, i would understand his reasons. I took a class with Ekpe and he is a respectful, classy, good guy, he doesn't do stupid stuff off the court, and he knows how to correct himself when he does it on it.

My faith in Bieline is shaky to begin with, if Ekpe goes i don't think it will remain there. Please stay Ekpe, for the fans sake, for your team's sake, for your school's sake, and above all for your family's sake, they will be proud of you even if you stay in Michigan.

my man papers

2008-04-16T21:14:00.003-04:00

I'm finally moving out of the dorms.

M-A-N READ IT.

In spite of that i feel like i'm going to miss things about the dorms, among them:

Food, yes it wasn't that good, but it was available and you don't have to pay for it.

Some of the people are really cool and have very interesting viewpoints and positions within the student body, marching band members, athletes, media, b-school folks, RA's, SOME ROTC folks.

Noise, yes it's a good thing, too much quiet drives me nuts.

Laundry in the building.

Things i'm not going to miss:

People going Jack Murray on the vending machines.

Forced hall activities.

Surveys.

Restricted eating hours.

RHA spam

RHA spam

More RHA spam, I just really hate RHA spam.

spring and summer policy

2008-04-16T20:43:00.003-04:00

I'm not going to stop posting in the summer, although i will be posting less frequently. I will probably have a job, and i probably won't have as much time to post either. From now until right before football season i will have probably post about whatever i feel like writing about. Most of it will be sports related, but as you will see today, not all of it.

Thank you, and i hope you continue to read this blog.

A Bitter End

2008-04-11T22:44:00.004-04:00

I had two papers due this week and i thought i would cover two games, turns out i would have too many teardrops for one heart to be crying.

Losing that game was the worst feeling i could have at a time like this man. Everything was going cool, and then they give up three goals in the first period. I guess we've learned our lesson, never play Billy in an NCAA tournament game against a team with the initials ND. Sure we made it interesting and forced overtime, but in getting there our team expended so much energy we could not get past there backcheck whenever we got into the Notre Dame zone.

It was a good season, we just came up short. Kevin Porter won the Hobey Baker Award, but it's no consolation for me. I hate losing, and i especially hate losing to Notre Dame. Second to Ohio State, Notre Dame is the team i hate losing to the most. In my opinion they're a bigger rival than MSU because normally i root for MSU when they're not playing Michigan but i can't ever think of a time when i've rooted for the Fighting Irish. Well as an act of vengeance for the hockey team the football team should go into South Bend this upcoming season and blow the Irish out and make them cry 96 tears.

P.S. This is the second time Michigan has left the NCAA tournament at the hands of a Jeff Jackson led team. The Wolverines lost to Lake Superior St. in the second round of the 1994 tournament and the Lakers went onto win the title that year as a fourth seed, coincidence???

Daily Broomball: PLAYOFFS PART 2 a.k.a THE END

2008-04-05T22:02:00.002-04:00

We lost.

We lost 8-1.

I picked out the equipment bag before the game. Turned out all the helmets were the wrong size. I don't care what anybody says, that had a factor in the game. True, we were very overconfident going into this game, that was a factor too. But the fact that all of our helmets were either too big or too small really really urked me.

That word urked has been coming up a lot lately in my life. More on that later.

Fact is the season's over and my competitive rage will have to find another outlet for a while now. The Tigers has been loosing without Grandy, Michigan football's not playing, i'm not sure i can count on the Pistons or Red Wings in the playoffs, and i desperately need to find a job soon.

Sorry i haven't posted in a coupl of days, it's a hectic life being a junior at the University of Michigan.

Daily Broomball: PLAYOFFS PART 1

2008-04-01T23:31:00.002-04:00

With Jose Bosch being mysteriously absent from the beginning of the game i had to start in goal. Initially i made two saves, and we jumped out to a 2-0 lead when Lindsey Ungar scored in the first minute of the game. Unfortunately in the first five minutes we played mostly in offensive mode, ignoring the fact that there was a girl for the opposing team up front trying to knock anything that came out in front into the net. Their other girl made a shoot in on net, because i was standing up i initially waited for the one in front of the net to make a move first, it wasn't until the ball was at my feet right under the net that it was in danger of going in and if i didn't do something soon it would. I dropped to the ice surface as fast as i could and tried to grab the ball, my inability to get a firm grip on the ball led to it going in the net.

I would spend my next shift on defense.

Ian took over in goal, did a decent job, but we really had to help him. The simple fact was he was not prepared to be in goal, and was sitting on his knees for virtually the rest of the game. Fortunately for us our opponents couldn't elevate their shots to save their lives. Also it didn't hurt that me and Mckenzie Rosman were in the back preventing all scoring chances from becoming fruitful and making sure Ian didn't have to make the save.

We won the game 7-4 with goals from Lindsey, Courtney, Andy Reid, and two from Jason Kohler. The last of which was an empty netter at the last second which i got an assist on, to register my first points of the season. I should have had two that night however. I took a shoot in towards the end of the first half, i somehow got the ball through a crowd of people to Kohler, who was right in front of the net to take a really solid slap shot on it that happened to be gloved by their goalie.

Oh well, we won, that's all that matters.

Michigan is in the Frozen Four + preview.

2008-04-01T15:27:00.005-04:00

Finally a Charles in Charge blog post about making the frozen four. What took me so long? Good question, the details of the answer are still being worked out, but if you email me or send me a message somehow you may receive an answer. But enough of that, let's hear it for the Maize and Blue for making it this far after the media picked them to end up on the bubble to make the tournament in the first place.

Frozen Four preview:

Michigan

How they got there:

After winning the regular season CCHA title and the conference tournament, the wolverines were seen as the team to beat coming in. They are considered the top team in the tournament as a whole, and faced competition that some would say was considerably less than what the other teams faced in the tournament. Nevertheless they won their games against Niagara and Clarkson, gave up one goal in them combined and was led offensively by Kevin Porter's five goals and one assist. The two catalysts for Michigan all year have been Porter, their captain and leading scorer, as well as Billy Sauer their goaltender who has made a remarkable comeback from last year's lackluster performance.

That being said it must be noted that in spite of having these two remarkable players, Michigan is arguably the most complete team in the NCAA this year, and that is remarkable considering they have over ten freshmen on the team this year. They've been able to get offensive production from just about everybody, they're fast, physical and when the going gets tough they get going.

Their Matchup:

Michigan will be playing Notre Dame in the semifinals, a team they swept in mid-January in a regular season CCHA series, in which Notre Dame didn't play at home. The hockey team has underwent numerous changes as well as various ups and downs since then, but at the form they are at right now, they are looking fairly similar to when they played them earlier in the year (albeit without Kevin Quick).

What they need to look out for:

Notre Dame just pulled off two huge upsets in the tournament without their leading scorer Erik Condra who went down with a knee injury before in the CCHA playoffs and will likely miss this game. When they played New Hampshire and Michigan State, the Irish just came out swinging desperately and they started hitting home runs, metaphorically speaking. The biggest problem for Michigan will be to find the right pitch to strike them out.

Notre Dame

How they got here: After finishing fourth in both the CCHA regular season and tournament, the Irish were in the same boat as the Wisconsin Badgers as well as several other teams. They were at the mercy of the tournament selection committee to give them an at large bid. As a four seed they took on the Hockey East regular season champs New Hampshire in Colorado Springs. The Notre Dame team that played in that game was unlike anything anybody could have expected, they played physical, offensively aggressive and it paid off, their fore check was tough and their back check (a traditional strength) didn't give the Wildcats any chances in the third period.

This combined with the strong play of Jordan Pierce in the Michigan State game really catapulted the Fighting Irish into their first Frozen Four appearance, and doing so on the highest note possible. Considering they were really struggling up to this point this is remarkable.

Their matchup:

While Michigan may be the most balanced team, Notre Dame is one of the most defensive minded teams in the CCHA and the NCAA as a whole. Normally their style is not as physical, they mostly depend on good shot blocking and goaltending than necessarily finishing their hits on the back check, but this has changed. Their offense has really been regenerated by Mark Van Guilder and Christian Hanson in the last two games. They filled the gap that Condra left open, and are filling it quite well. It will be interesting to see how Michigan matches up with these two if Condra does not return from the injury.

What they need to look out for:

Michigan's offense is so explosive it's scary, just ask Niagara, who held them scoreless in the first period only to see them break out for five goals in the next two. Needless to say it, Notre Dame will have to really step up their defensive efforts if they are going to beat Michigan.

North Dakota

How they got here: After winning the WCHA regular season title they finished third in the conference tournament and garnered a No. 1 seed in the tournament's Midwest regional. After a relatively easy game against Princeton, similar to Michigan's vs. Niagara, the Fighting Sioux had to beat Wisconsin in Madison in front of a hostile 10,000+ crowd. Not only did they do it, they came from behind a two goal deficit in the third period, and they won in overtime on a deflection. Considering that the Badgers weren't even supposed to be in the tournament, they really played their tails off.

North Dakota is going into their fourth straight Frozen Four, and they have never won in the NCAA tournament in that time frame. Along with Michigan they bring to the table one of the most balanced teams in the country, with scoring machines like T.J. Oshie, and last year's Hobey winner Ryan Duncan, who passed up a lucrative chance in the NHL to play his senior season. The Sioux also have JP Lamoureux who could be the only goalie that really gives Kevin Porter a run for the Hobey Baker award this year. Not only that, they're not too shabby defensively either.

Their matchup:

North Dakota will play Boston College in the semi-finals. They played once earlier this year at the beginning of the season to nil-nil draw in Boston that only lasted two periods because the ice surface was beginning to melt as a result of electrical problems in the arena. These two teams are so similar to each other, the only way to tell the difference between them is by their jerseys. They play the same style, they have high powered offenses with good goalies and have the ability to come back when down in a game. You are never sure when playing either of these two teams, which makes a matchup like this extremely hard to predict.

What they need to look out for:

Quick bursts of scoring, bad penalties, special teams in general, and road rage on ice.

Boston College

How they got here:

After a tight regular season in which the Eagles finished fourth in Hockey East in spite of having the best non-conference record in the conference, they really came out and handed it to the Hockey East conference sweeping right on through the Hockey East tournament to add to their hardware that they've won this year (i.e. the Beanpot). They took on the high flying ways of Minnesota in the first round and managed to repel them long enough to get a 5-2 victory. With about three minutes left in the second period against Miami in the second round the Eagles scored three goals in 1:58 against Jeff Zatkoff. They only got three shots off in overtime compared to Miami's seven, but they still won.

Nathan Gerbe was the only player in college hockey this year to overtake Kevin Porter's top spot in Inside College Hockey's Hobey Tracker. Freshman John Muse has played virtually the whole season in goal this year and has been really tough as of late, especially in the clutch.

Their matchup:

As i stated earlier BC and North Dakota are really similar. The only real difference in my opinion is the conference each of them plays in. NoDak plays in the competitive, extremely physical WCHA, where no team is ever counted out until the last week of the season. The Eagles on the other hand play in Hockey East which although just as competitive as the WCHA has more teams that play a more subtle soviet style of play, that emphasizes speed over physical play. Of course BC is one of the few exceptions to that idea and they play extremely hard.

What they need to look out for:

The same things i wrote for North Dakota, these teams are so similar they have the same weaknesses.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

FINALLY!!! SECOND ROUND!!!!!!

2008-03-28T23:20:00.007-04:00

Bring on the Golden Knights!

Michigan beat Niagara 5-1 in the first round in their first NCAA tournament win since 2005. The Wolverines got four goals from Kevin Porter and a rock solid performance from Billy Sauer who proved that he could perform under pressure by keeping the puck out of the net after not facing a shot for nearly 20 minutes.

If Kevin Porter doesn't get to the Hobey hat trick after tonight's performance, i will be personally offended. There was a post somewhere the other day saying that the leading Hobey candidate was RIT's Simon Lambert, while i have no idea if this is true or not, this is an outrage that Porter's not in first. Everybody who reads this blog needs to vote for Porter at the site right here. The Michigan hockey team wants you to vote for Porter at least 25 times by sunday.

I said on Overtime that Niagara ran a soviet style offense, and that they would play less physical than Northern Michigan. I guess i didn't think that the Eagles would play differently against Michigan compared to Bemidji State, i was clearly mistaken. Niagara played a very good game in the first period and put good pressure on Sauer preventing Michigan from getting a good rhythm going. It was clear that although they tried to use speed to compete with the Wolverines, they could not, Michigan was too fast and the Purple Eagles had to play quite physical in the end to try and stay in the game.

Seeing that Michigan is playing Clarkson there clearly can be no repeat of the skating cheerleaders incident. The Golden Knights won their first game in the NCAA tournament since 1996. They did so with the help of an amazing performance by goalie David Leggio an undrafted senior. The only goal he gave up came off of a deflection while Clarkson was trying to kill a penalty, nothing else had a chance of getting by him. The Wolverines will have their hands full vs. this second team all-ECAC goalie. Clarkson played a really physical game against the Huskies and i would expect them to do the same against the Wolverines. While they are not as big as Northern was, they will try to make up for their size somehow, which seems to be the theme for any team trying to beat Michigan the last couple of weeks. Play physical.

Michigan's strategy has to allow them not to get discouraged if they don't get the early goal or give up one. They have to be able to come back from mistakes and persevere, much like they did yesterday. They also have to be able to create traffic in front of Leggio before they try and create opportunities from the point. Play the box and they won't necessarily need to force it in. They also have to continue their great play on special teams that they've had lately. If they can do all that they should be able to punch a ticket to Denver, if they remember one more thing....

ONE GAME AT A TIME!!!

Purple Eagles, Golden Knights and.... Skating Cheerleaders?!?!?!?

2008-03-26T23:38:00.002-04:00

It's march madness time, hockey style.

I'm not going to make any predictions here or on the show seeing that two of my final four teams got eliminated in the second round (Pitt and Georgetown). I will say this, Michigan drew some teams that everybody is expecting them to beat, and anything aside from at least a frozen four appearance will be seen as a failure this year. Expectations have been growing all season long, the great start, the win in the College Hockey Showcase, the win in the GLI, beating Notre Dame, beating Miami, beating MSU at the Joe, winning the regular season and conference titles. This team has a target on its back right now and Niagara is hoping that they can hit it and knock off the maize and blue. Can they do it??

The Purple Eagles (how the hell does a team get a nickname like that?!?!?!) have the third highest rated offense in scoring, and they also have a really good goaltender in Juliano Pagilero who has a .929 save percentage according to Inside College Hockey. They finished second in the CHA before winning their conference tournament in a come from behind home win vs. Bemidji St in front of their home crowd. The best team they beat all season was Bowling Green, a team that gave Michigan all it could handle in a home and home right before the GLI. Niagara is no one to be trifled with, and Coach Berenson knows this, he went so far to say that he has reminded his players of the Holy Cross upset over Minnesota from the 2006 tournament, and he has told them that if they don't play hard they could end up the same way.

Playing hard seems to be the key for Michigan, the two teams have a big contrast in styles, Niagara thrives in a defensive, skating oriented, soviet style of play. Because of this they do not commit many penalties, Michigan has to be prepared to play a lot of five on five hockey, something coach has stressed all year. The thing the wolverines have to do is remember to bring their A game, because the Purple Eagles will definitely be bringing their's in Albany.

For the other two teams in the region, there's a contest between a local team known as Clarkson "Golden Knights" (another WTF name)and the St. Cloud St Huskies, the latter of whom we have an apparent history with because of a skating mascot and cheerleaders.

THOSE WHO STAY WILL BE CHAMPIONS

2008-03-23T01:16:00.006-04:00

I think Coach Berenson should paint that in the locker room at Yost, just like Bo did at the Big House, because today he proved it.

This team endured harsh criticism at the beginning of the season. The college hockey media picked them to be fourth in the CCHA and be a bubble team to get into the NCAA tournament. Just goes to show how much we know. Jack Johnson and Andrew Cogliano both left the team as sophomores to pursue careers in the NHL, and while they have already made a mark in the pros, the wolverines could have probably used their help at some point in the season.

But Kevin Porter and Chad Kolarik both returned for their senior years as opposed to signing contracts with the Phoenix Coyotes. Travis Turnbull the unfairly overlooked undrafted junior came back and proved his worth. Brandon Naurato also did so, and vastly improved his chances of getting into professional hockey as well. Mark Mitera returned and after scoring two very costly own goals in consecutive weeks, came back and really did a lot to keep the team going late in games (that's as much an apology for my previous remarks as i'm going to make). And who can forget Tim Miller, the man who was the MVP of this tournament for scoring four points combined in the semifinal vs. NMU and the final vs. Miami.

Billy Sauer, what more needs to be said about him. A real comeback kid. His first two seasons he went through all kinds of hell because of the fact that he gave up bad goals at crucial parts of the game. This culminated in the embarrassing 8-5 loss to North Dakota in the first round of the NCAA tournament. His previous game he gave up a really horrible goal to Notre Dame in the CCHA final that was a direct result of his misplaying it, the goal wound up winning the game for the Irish and Billy's confidence was destroyed just in time for the NCAA tournament.

When practice started heating up, the rumor around the hockey team was that Coach Berenson was going to rotate Billy in goal with freshman Bryan Hogan. Coach would later admit he was considering it at the time. Lo and behold, before the season even started Hogan got mono and Billy was expected to be the starting goalie. Not only was he not a sieve, he was phenomenal. Shutout both games in the GLI, made key saves to bail out the team in crucial moments, beat Minnesota, beat Notre Dame, there is not a team that Billy Sauer has played against so far this year that he hasn't beaten. He not only went out and proved that he is worth his weight in salt as a goalie, he defied everyone's expectations this year and he went out and proved to everyone that he was here to stay and be a Michigan man.

Normally I would write a game summary column, but this work of Mitch Albom-esque writing should suffice until we find out about Michigan's drawing in the tournament.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya.

PHEW!!!!!!!!! AND NOW....MIAMI

2008-03-22T00:54:00.006-04:00

The Northern Michigan Wildcats declared war on the Michigan Wolverines, and the Wolverines emerged victorious as few bouncing bombs managed to get past the supposedly impenetrable dam that was Brian Stewart.

Seriously though, Michigan is lucky they got out of this one with a win. The Wildcats backcheck was absolutely brutal, and Stewart was anything but a sieve. If we lost the game which before the start of the third period seemed like a genuine possibility, i would've probably titled this post "I F_______ HATE BRIAN STEWART"

The biggest positive that came out of this game was Billy Sauer's recovery from his god awful play in the first two periods, to really putting a stopper in the Northern attack in the third. Scooter and Rust looked really shaky and for good reason, they just came back from what could have been season ending injuries, and played against the most physical team in the CCHA. The first line played admirably in the absence of Max Pacioretty, who they really could've used to combat the physicality of NMU on the fore and backcheck.

Any who....

Michigan will be playing Miami who eked out a win against a Notre Dame team who lost their leading scorer. Ryan "the mullet" Jones, the Redhawks Hobey Baker candidate, was kept virtually a non factor in the game. The Irish also got plenty of good offensive chances against Jeff Zatkoff who, up until a few weeks ago, was still reeling from having to face Michigan's first line in its purest offensive form. Hopefully Max Pacioretty will show the same brilliance coming back tonight that he did last month.

But don't count Miami out, they fought off the same kind of team Michigan fought off, and they did it in style too. A true come from behind victory, and Zatkoff has looked pretty solid the last four weeks after the Ferris State series. It's going to be a real good match up with both teams wanting to make a statement.

Both of these teams have a No.1 seed in the NCAA tournament practically locked up, with the losses of North Dakota, New Hampshire, and Colorado College, the fact that the CCHA got both of their top two teams into their conference championship game shows the committee that they are Frozen Four calibre.

Whatever team wins will not only get the Mason Cup but the final No. 1 spot in the pre tournament rankings. They probably won't play North Dakota in their region either.

Daily Broomball part 3: VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-03-19T21:57:00.002-04:00

We Won!!! We Won!!! We shot the BB gun!!!

They lost!!! They lost!!!

We showed them who is boss!!!

Yes ladies and gentlemen the Michigan Daily newspaper's broomball team in the co-rec intramural league of the University of Michigan finally won a game. The final score was 6-2 because all of our goals were scored by women on our team and goals by women count for two goals. It was the first time all season we played physical and matched up well with our opponents. Not only that we fought off their forecheck and were able to execute pretty darn well on our own.

It took about five minutes for our first goal to come from our copy editor Lindsey Ungar to give us a 2-0 lead. We were so happy that we finally scored that we unfortunately got a little lax on defence especially in the blocked shots department. Something that we will have to work on before we go to the playoffs.

Don't talk about playoffs!!! Talk about the game

Anyways they came back aggressive, took a shot at our goalie Jose who made save but was run into by the opposing shooter and knocked on the ice surface. He would sit the rest of the half on the bench, but thankfully would return and pitch a shutout in the second. In spite of the fact that i took a nasty fall on the ice surface and bruised my elbows just a few minutes earlier my teammate Ian appointed me goalie in Jose's stead. I told him i wasn't ready, but he wouldn't listen. And nobody else volunteered so i had to, i promptly let one in, not intentionally, i just wasn't ready to play in goal. Thankfully, it was a guy goal so it didn't tie the game for them. But i had to come out. The problem was nobody initially came in for me, so we only had four people on the ice and none of them were a good goalie and the other team scored another one to tie it.

By this point there were 5 minutes left in the half and around then our offense got physical. We forechecked we thwarted all shot attempts and attempts to clear the ball, we didn't let them get any rushes on Ian, who was in goal at the time. Finally with about 30 seconds left in the half Courtney Ratkowiak put one in on a beautiful backhand shot that gave us the 4-2 lead at half time.

For another look at it i turn it over to my colleague Lindsey Ungar.

YOST ICE ARENA - Maybe it was "Call on Me" blaring from the speakers before the game. Or
maybe it was the new t-shirts, emblazoned with The Michigan Daily flag.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was that the Daily Brooms finally scored. Six points, to be
exact.

Courtney Ratkowiak popped in the game-winning goal before the first half ended, and MVP
candidate Bridget O'Donnell scored twice in a 6-2 win over the team known simply as
"Ch-Ch-Ch-Chyea."

"You know what my shirt smelled like afterward?" O'Donnell asked. "Victory."

Goaltender H. Jose Bosch turned aside all Ch-Ch-Ch-Cheyea shots, but was forced out of
the game after an unfortunate shot hit him down there. Ian Robinson and Charlie Clinton
split time before Bosch returned to celebrate the win from the crease.

But it wasn't just the shorthanded lineup - only eleven players suited up for the Brooms
- that somehow made this victory possible.

"Make sure to thank Nate (Sandals)," Ratkowiak said of the clutch Managing Sports Editor,
who rushed Ratkowiak and Mike Eisenstein to Yost just in time for faceoff.

Next up for the Brooms? Playoffs.

"I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight," manager Lindsey Ungar said. "With this win and
the character we have in the locker room, I know a championship is on the horizon."

Forget Terrelle Pryor, we have Justin Feagin

2008-03-19T21:42:00.003-04:00

As everybody knows now Pryor has committed to Ohio State. Now everybody is either saying either good riddance or we shouldn't have driven him to that school in Columbus. I personally take the former position, because we have a top level recruit at quarterback in our own right in Justin Feagin.

I recently found a video of Justin Feagin's highlights in the Florida high school football playoffs posted on youtube by the Michigan Sports Center blog. Once i get my computer fixed i'll post it on my site. The most remarkable thing that i saw on the video was that he made a 60 yard touchdown run, and a 60 yard touchdown pass in the same game!!! 45 of those yards on the TD pass were him, the other 15 was YAC.

Now i know he's an incoming freshman and expecting him to be able to do something like that would be completely unreasonable right now. But once he gets some experience and starts getting some experience eluding these big ten defenses that he's gonna be dealing with. Other schools are gonna be wondering why they didn't get this guy. This guy has gotta be one of the most underrated QB's of this recruiting class just judging from the video.

Personally i'll be surprised if the Pryor hype machine lives up to its expectations. Stuff this over hyped rarely ever does, anybody remember Kelly Baraka, look him up, you'll see what i mean.

And for those of you who doubt a Florida kid's ability to measure up in the midwestern cold, just remember these two Michigan greats, Anthony Carter and Brian Griese. Both came out of the sunshine state they both had great careers in the maize and blue, and they both had long pro football careers, case closed.

The only take i have on the Hagen article.

2008-03-18T12:21:00.003-04:00

A lot of fuss has been made about a recent Ann Arbor news article stating that at Michigan athletes have easier classes. Apparently a psychology professor Jim Hagen has been teaching an independent studies class that is apparently popular with athletes and said to be one of the easiest classes on campus.

While this may be true this is hardly indicative that athletes get no education and a free ride through college. If i recall correctly the policy towards student athletes who skip classes is that they serve a one match suspension for such action. The fact that there are such harsh penalties for skipping class would be a good reason to take easy classes in my opinion and the fact that our athletic department has enforced this rule on everyone from walk-ons in volleyball to all-Americans in football, is a pretty telling fact to me. Most schools with athletic programs gear their athletes towards easy classes from what i hear, this is no surprise, hell most students athletes or not are driven towards what they can learn and away from things that trouble them academically. What would be a real scandal to me would be if the athletic department preferred enforcing the no-skip policy in a preferential way for the scholarship athletes as opposed to the walk-ons.

P.S. i keep hearing people tell me that communications classes are relatively easy. I've taken two myself and i found them to be two of the hardest classes i have ever taken at the University of Michigan.

The Massacre and The Slugfest

2008-03-16T01:59:00.004-04:00

I'm not sure how to sum up this past weekend, but i do know this, Michigan has one of the deepest teams in college hockey. Oh yeah, and Carl Hagelin is the swede-ist shooter to hit Yost in quite some time. Chad Kolarik also picked up right where he left off.

The first game was really something i have to say, and once Tim puts the highlights up it should be very interesting to see how things looked out there. Normally you can remember the first goal of the game easily, not that day, i had to watch the highlights on mgoblue to remember what happened. To be honest the first two goals came and went so quickly i had a hard time figuring out what happened. The weirdest part about it was that none of the goals interrupted my sideline report. Although it would often be several minutes before i could go on, and i would often just be standing in front of the camera doing nothing, until the whistle blew. Which apparently got me some attention in both Michigan and Omaha circles. Most of it negative, i'll get some links tomorrow.

Back to the game itself Chad Kolarik was so impressive, i'd be surprised if he didn't overtake Kevin Porter in the Hobey tracker on Inside College Hockey this week. I was most impressed by the fact that a penguin suit ended up on the ice after the third goal, and that the "Water Buffalo" was actually the founder of WOLV.

As for Carl Hagelin, if ESPN cared, or had any contacts with WOLV they would've asked for footage of the goal. But seeing that the game was already in the bag by then and also that ESPN plain and simply doesn't care, it went by un noticed, for now.

Other idiosyncrasies: Friday's game was the first time i've ever witnessed the wave done at Yost Ice Arena. Also, in the photos posted on mgoblue, after the 10th goal the fans in the student section lifted a girl up and down ten times to symbolize how many points they had, like at the football games. I didn't actually see this, i was probably too busy grinning at the fact the refs didn't stop the game to let the opponents get off the ice for fear of further embarrassment. That being said i don't condone said action by the fans especially in a place like Yost, while i love their enthusiasm, that stuff is just plain dangerous, and she should be really glad none of the guys who threw her didn't drop her on the way down.

I didn't see the second game of the series because the cable Nazis at comcast local didn't want to stream their broadcast live over the internet, so basically everyone without digital cable was left in the cold. Not only that, but the stat tracker for CSTV was not working for this particular game, leaving me no choice but to follow the game via the Daily's live blog the game.

It must have been a really exciting game because the score was 2-1 Michigan, there was Brandon Naurato goal, and Max Pacioretty got into a fight. Unfortunately mgoblue didn't show the fight so for now i'm going to have to guess what it looked like. Hopefully somebody will post a youtube video of it eventually. So i can actually how bad a whooping Patch put on the guy to get a one game suspension.

Hopefully Patch's absence will not hurt the team, and they can replace him with somebody good. Right now Carl Hagelin seems like a good fit, but he's very much in tune with the line he's on now and has rarely ever played with Porter and Kolarik, if ever. But that's another matter. I also hope that Matt Rust and Scooter Vaughn will be able to play on the championship weekend, simply because Michigan's not a complete team without them.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Daily Broomball part 2: a.k.a. frustration

2008-03-13T11:47:00.004-04:00

If i were Kevin Borseth i'd be pounding the living crap out of podiums on this blog after this game. But i'm not so right now i'm just pounding the crap out of the keyboard here in the UGLI. What the hell man? Why can't we score a goal? We've got good players, a decent goaltending tandem, why haven't we scored? I know that this is supposed to be intramural sports and it's just supposed to be a fun activity.

...

Screw that, play sports no matter how minor or who it's against creates a release for my competitive impulses. In my previous post i talked about how i nearly killed my cousin in an informal wrestling match, if you think i get worked up on TV you should see me when i'm actually playing something. I once ran over a third baseman in a pick up game of softball at a church picnic, at work and right before the game and right after i'm nice and cracking jokes but once the whistle blows, or the ump yells play ball. GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Speaking of competitiveness please tune into WOLV TV or mgoblue.com to view the first game of what should be Michigan's ridiculously competitive series vs. UNO on Friday.

Stayed tune to the blog after taping on Thursday for my exclusive preview of the series.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! NOT SCOOTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-03-11T15:48:00.003-04:00

I regret to inform everyone that what the Michigan Daily said about Scooter Vaughn is true. Truly truly regrettable. He did not make the All CCHA Freshman team. What kind of blind idiot would not put this great man on that team. He's the best, he's got the speed, the toughness, the ability to do whatever it takes to get the puck out of the zone on defense, and keep it in on offense. He is the epitome of everything you want out of a college level defenseman. Yes he's a little unrefined in some ways more than others, but so is Max Pacioretty, who was the only one of Michigan's many fine freshman to make the freshman team this year.

Unfortunately this is the least of Scooter's or Coach Berenson's problems this week. He broke his jaw in apparently an incident with an unnamed teammate over the weekend and is unlikely to play until next week at the very least. There are two things that are interesting about this, first, instead of going through with having a wire in his jaw like a normal person would through this situation, he opted to have surgery and currently has nuts and bolts in his mouth (yes i mean literally, you dirty minded idiots). The second thing is the incident itself that interests me quite a bit at this time, I would think and hope that the incident was just the result of a bit of playful roughhousing that ended up getting a little carried away.

Sometimes that stuff will go way farther than it's intended purposes. I can think of a personal example when this happened, i was in Thanksgiving Day wrestling match up with my cousin Ben who was actually beating me well a few minutes into our unofficial match in his basement. He was trying to get me into submission when all of a sudden i got free and the tables turned and i put him in a choke hold so hard that had he not tapped out i could've killed him. AND THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY BAD!!!! I love my cousin Ben like a younger brother and the only thing he's ever done to get back at me for that is go to Michigan State (he he). I'm glad he never pressed charges against me for that

The other possibility, and i am in no way saying this is what happened, is that there was a legitimate argument that devolved into violence, or worse it could have been the result of racist remarks. If the latter is the case, the perpetrator of the incident should be thrown off the team. I highly doubt that was the case, because if it was we the public would know if somebody would have been thrown off the team. However we know that Red Berenson has a reputation for being tight lipped with the media and not revealing details about what goes on with players and suspensions or what the reasons are for why players leave or are kicked off of the team.

If the incident that led to Scooter's inaction leads to a loss in the series vs. UNO, Coach Berenson may want to think about rethinking this policy. But as of right now that's the least of his problems. He now has to find a replacement for Scooter on the back line who can play the point and the sweeper as well skate fast, whose name doesn't happen to be Kevin Quick. Good luck with that Red!

UNO y dos hombres

2008-03-11T15:15:00.006-04:00

Michigan will play Nebraska-Omaha in the second round of the CCHA playoffs this weekend in a best of three series all at Yost. UNO, as i like to call them, has one of the deadliest scoring combinations in the CCHA this year as well as in the NCAA in general. Bryan Marshall and Mike Lawrence both finished the season tied for fourth in the CCHA in scoring with Derek Whitmore of Bowling Green. Marshall has been out with injury for the past two weeks, which did nothing but hurt the Mavericks in their epic struggle of a series with Alaska this past weekend.

After squeaking out a 4-3 win in Thursday's game the Mavs got very little help from their offense as the normally offensively anemic Nanooks scored five goals en route to a 5-3 win on saturday. The Mavs then fought in a battle to the death on sunday in which neither side could get a leg up for two and a quarter of overtime while the score remained 1-1. Then junior forward J.P. Platisha scored about four and half minutes into the third overtime letting the few people that were still interested in the game know who was going to play Michigan in the second round.

Michigan swept UNO earlier in the year in Omaha, in the first game of the series Kevin Porter had his first hat trick of the year against the Mavs. That was also the game that would set the tone for the legthy stretch in which Michigan would dominate third periods in terms of scoring, Michigan scored five goals in the final stanza to get a 6-3 victory. The second game was a closer affair that was finished off by a late third period goal by Carl Hagelin for the 3-2 win for the Maize and Blue.

Both teams are coming in off of stretches in which they had somewhat tough stretches. Michigan split their last two series, and UNO went 2-3 in their last five, including getting swept by Northern Michigan.

For more info, tune into Charles in Charge on WOLV overtime later in the week.

Daily Broomball game 1

2008-03-06T17:14:00.003-05:00

Disclaimer: This game happened Wednesday @ 12:30 so i know this is kinda late.

The Michigan Daily played their first broomball game of the season this past wednesday, a game they quite frankly should've won. The Daily outshot their opponents 13-8 but lost on a goal in which two of the three guy players slipped and the goalie was out of the box cause he was trying to clear. Now for the details.

I started both halves in goal i probably played a total of about five or six minutes, the rest of the game was handled by Anthony Oliviera. His capable hands nearly got us through the game with a point. Unfortunately fate has ways of messing with you. With his Hasek like scary moves and his great stickwork he turned away anything that came his way when in goal.

Now for the offensive side of the story. For pete's sake Andy, Courtney and Lindsey learn how to elevate your shots, we would've won the game if we could've gotten at least two shots in the air, if we can do that we'll be able to win any game with Anthony in goal.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

We are the (regular season CCHA) champions, my friends!!!!!!!

2008-03-02T16:29:00.004-05:00

And we'll keep on fighting till the end. da na do do

You know i had to do it.

Anyways, Michigan clinched their first regular season CCHA championship since 2005 beating Ferris State in a wild one on Friday 5-3. A game in which Michigan gave up an un-Wolverine like three power play goals. Kevin Porter and Max Pacioretty both scored helping the maize and blue to a win on senior night.

The real story about that night should be about what happened after the game. Chad Kolarik skated onto the ice for the first time since doing the splits and injuring his hamstring against Lake Superior State two weeks ago. The alternate captain could return to action as soon as the second round of the CCHA playoffs.

The fact that he was able to skate out there seems to imply that when the appointed time comes he will be ready. If he is Michigan certainly needs him out there because the team has been executing very poorly on their penalty kill without him on the ice. Kolarik's ability and will to do whatever it takes to kill of penalties is indicative of how much this team needs him. Sure he scores a lot of goals, but so do a lot of guys on the team, he does more than that, he gets down and blocks the shots, he poke checks the puck away at key moments on other team's power play and he makes the extra pass when it needs to be made. He's as valuable a player to the team as Kevin Porter.

Another player of value to Michigan is Billy Sauer, this was demonstrated by Red Berenson benching him in Saturday's overtime loss in favor of Freshman Bryan Hogan (i seriously wonder how many chants of mono did he have to endure). Although the Wolverines hate to lose, one can't help but think that the game meant a lot more to the Bulldogs than it did to Michigan.

That being said the championship is nice and Michigan has stuff to work on over the week off. For starters, their penalty kill. Secondly they will probably have to re-integrate Chad Kolarik back to Michigan's top line. The Wolverines have to do this in order to get the magic back in time for the second round, because even if the team they're playing is no match for them, they want to demonstrate to the conference that they are ready to take on any comers at the Joe and that whoever's waiting in Detroit better watch out, the best college hockey team in the country is heading in your direction.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

A tale of two games

2008-02-24T22:12:00.003-05:00

Disclaimer: i know the title is ridiculously cliche, but this isn't a newspaper for pete's sake it's a blog.

All cliche's and things aside the two games were truly contrasting to each other. If anybody could take momentum our of this game, it was the maize and blue. Taking a loss like that against an arch rival like Michigan State was incredibly disheartening for the Wolverines. I wasn't in the locker room, and unfortunately for the purposes of this blog, my parents don't have cable, so i was unable to watch the first game. But from what i read on the Daily's blog about the game it was a very sad sight for Billy Sauer to give up five goals on 22 shots was enough to remind any observer of last year's letdowns. However Sauer proved once again that he is not the goalie he was last year.

In Friday's game the story was Jeff Lerg in the first two periods. By the end of the second period he had stopped nearly 30 shots on goal while only giving up one goal with his team clinging to a one goal lead despite having only 10 shots. It was tough, but like i said before he's the little goalie that could, which made me feel a little bit guilty singing along to the "Midget Goalie" chant that the Michigan fans in the Joe were chanting.

Despite the fact that most games the Spartans win are games in which they score three or more goals, they are not an explosive offensive team. The play their tempo and more often then not they are able to dictate the pace of the game from there and use it to their advantage. They were able to do that in Friday's game and in part of the second period of Saturday's but Michigan outplayed them towards the end.

Getting into what happened Saturday, Michigan did something in the first period they failed to do in their first three games against State, they scored. As a matter of fact my mom and i had only been sitting down for a few minutes when this happened because we had to walk halfway around the Joe from the Gordie Howe entrance to find our seats. It was worth the walk. We were a 1 1/2 sections away from the pep band and the overwhelming majority of fans in our area were wearing the yellow and blue.

Tim Miller scored his first goal of the season, taking a huge step towards earning back the alternate captain title he lost a few weeks ago to Mark Mitera. Aaron Palushaj scored the second in a fashion that reminded me that he might become Michigan's next offensive defenseman in the mold of Jack Johnson (could it be???? **gasp**).

Other impressive performances were turned out by Michigan's Travis Turnbull, who despite not having any points this past weekend proved once again that he's the fastest skater on the team. His draft stock will definitely be boosted by the way he's played this season. If he can acquire moves similar to the ones that Porter and Kolarick have in addition to the deadly speed that he already has should be a either a deadly force in the CCHA next year, or a first round draft pick, or both.

Michigan has several things to take positively out of this huge series:

No.1. They don't have to play MSU at Munn until next year
No.2. They finally proved that they can beat State, and not only did they do that, they beat them at the Joe, which is the only logical place they'll play them next.
No.3. The third period was the most physical period they've played in all year that they've won. Michigan doesn't have a ton of big men up front or in back, but on Saturday they showed a lot of heart on the fore and back check, their hits were hard clean, precise and they were not penalized during the period at all. (side note: it seemed the refs were letting both teams play in general, cause i don't remember there being a single penalty called on either team despite the fact that they were knocking each other over every chance they got.)

Things that Michigan can't take positively out of this weekend:

-Kevin Porter has never beaten MSU on the road in his college career equating him with a level of Chad Henne like frustration.
-Miami swept Western Michigan as expected, and Michigan still has yet to wrap up the CCHA regular season championship. (Though they are closer Saturday then they were on Friday.)

All in all, the icers have a week where they have no classes and nothing but time to prepare for their season finale against Ferris State. In the last couple of weeks the Bulldogs have been a team that has been equated with the phrase, expect the unexpected. After last year's last place finish, they didn't appear to make a huge improvement, then they took three out of four points against a stumbling Notre Dame team. Then a week later they swept Miami and were riding a huge hot streak before they lost to Bowling Green on Saturday. Ferris State was ranked on the Inside College Hockey polls last weekend, the top four teams in the conference are already locked up for their first round byes, and the Bulldogs want to take a bite out of the Wolverines going into the playoffs, that will be as much preview as i am going to give, because i highly doubt i'll see either game next weekend, barring some kind of divine providence or big paycheck, i don't see it happening anytime soon.

Sorry i don't have pictures right now, it's break, i had midterms and i'm feeling particularly lazy. Normally i write this blog as soon as the series ends, but not this week.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

THE COLDEST OF ALL WARS!

2008-02-22T01:04:00.005-05:00

Meeeeeeechigan versus Michigan State.

You know i had to do it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jdoKZP8AQi0

Last month around this time Michigan lost three out of four points to the Michigan State Spartans in a hard fought down and dirty hockey rivalry series. Both teams would get lucky that they came away with points. Michigan State got the lone goal of the Friday game on a shot that bounced off of Mark Mitera's stick for the Spartans first win at Yost in four years, and i'm still mad about it. Fortunately for the Wolverines, the Spartans would return Mitera's favor as one of their defensemen batted the puck into his own net with his HAND! That game would end in a 2-2 tie.

Since then Michigan tied Northern twice, whereas MSU has gone 3-3 with losses coming against UNO and a sweep by Northern. Michigan is coming off a very high note compared to State. They took three out of four against Miami. Both teams however are currently coming off of sweeps of CCHA bottom feeders in Lake Superior State and Western Michigan.

There are two major psychological advantages for Michigan going into this game. The first is the revenge factor; Michigan doesn't like to lose at home when they do it really pisses them off (pardon my french). The Wolverines are the number 1 team in the nation and the only team they've played so far this year that they haven't beaten is MSU their biggest rival. Secondly, the Wolverines are two points away from their first CCHA regular season title since 2005, i know that it hasn't been a long time for the team necessarily, but with the considerably low expectation level the media gave them at the beginning of the year due to the departures of T.J. Hensick, Jack Johnson, Andrew Cogliano and Matt Hunwick. Michigan's relative youth compared to the other CCHA elite teams is a big motivator when it comes to playing them. The fact that no one knew what level the large freshmen class would be at has proven to be a pleasant surprise for those in A2.

Michigan needs only two point against this Michigan State team, and i think they'll get at least two. If that's all they get, i'm hoping that it's at the Joe on saturday, because me and my mom will be there cheering on the maize and blue and doing our favorite dance. The moose.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QE-zKUSARm4

P.S. i don't have any of the youtube videos saved to my computer unfortunately, please just click the links.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya

Kevin Quick: Why??????

2008-02-21T16:05:00.008-05:00

The way Kevin Quick played was really helpful to the Michigan hockey team. Hanging back at the point, and when the offense couldn't hold it in and the opponents thought they had a chance at a rush for the goal Kevin Quick could be depended to hang back and stop it.

When Red Berenson announced that Kevin Quick was suspended from the team for "A gross violation of team trust..." that apparently, "hadn't been the first time that it happened." The first thing i thought was, "i wonder what Red means."

My initial assumption was drugs, either steroids or narcotics. But it was wrong, completely wrong as it turns out. The reason he was kicked off the team was because he stole his roommate's credit card to pay off his own debts. His roommate: Carl Hagelin.

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/02/former_um_hockey_player_charge.html

I can only imagine the scene after Hagelin after he found out.

setting: Yost locker room after practice, Hagelin recieves a phone call from the credit card company that his credit card has been used without his permission.

Hagelin: Hey roomie did you use my credit card
Quick: yeah, man we talked about that right?
Hagelin: yeah and i specifically told you, no.
Quick: yeah well i needed to do it anyways.
Hagelin: Kevin, Why do you feel the need to do this? Why don't you ask your mom for money? You know Sweden's just like any other place in the world, money doesn't grow on trees, just cause we got free health care doesn't mean we've all got a million bucks to lend out.
Quick: sorry man, i just thought we had an understanding.
Red: something going on fellas?
Hagelin: yeah, Kevin just stole my credit card again.
Red: Whaddya mean again?
Hagelin: he's always bagging on me for money, talking about how cause i'm Swedish i automatically get free stuff at Ikea, which i don't. And then he goes off and uses my card to pay off stuff anyways.
Red: Kevin, what the hell do ya think you're doing? Carl works just as hard as you do, but you feel the need to take from him? There's no need to have that attitude here at Michigan, pack your bags you're coming w/ me!

Like i said i can only imagine what happened. I'd be surprised if the two didn't go at it and Hagelin didn't try any of those super-secret Swedish army techniques on an unsuspecting Kevin Quick, not a good guy to mess with.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

C-ya

Spell this Buckeye fans: M-I-C-H-I-G-A-N

2008-02-17T16:40:00.000-05:00

M-I-C-H-I-G-A-N

WHAT DOES IT SPELL????????????????????

THAT SCHOOL UP NORTH

O-H-WHAT????????????????????????????????

Sorry if i sound a little carried away, i just rushed the court after the Maize and Blue's great upset over the hated overlording Buckeyes of Ohio State. Led by Manny "er-a er-a Fresh er-a er-a Fresh" Harris' 27 points, the Wolverines made it great to be in the state of Michigan for Big Ten basketball fans who don't root for the school in E. Lansing. An amazing game that just showed the possibility that this team can comeback and break the dreaded curse of Ed Martin. Let's go to the recap.

I bought two tickets to the game and was supposed to meet someone there, but they didn't show up, i went in anyway. It was back and forth throughout the first half with neither team able to get an advantage higher than five, with about 25 seconds left in the first half we took a 38-36 lead, ten seconds later they answered and we couldn't, the score at halftime was tied.

I was sitting in the section next to the Buckeye fans at Crisler, so i kept on hearing these four letter chants of some state to the south of us (you know the one i'm talking about). I retorted "How do you spell our school?"

Rich Rodriguez made a speech at halftime but i couldn't hear it cause the disrespectful buckeye fans kept yelling Tressel. We told em have some respect, you'll be working for us one day. All i heard Rodriguez say was "I'm not going to make a prediction." That was a bitter disappointment for me, my attitude towards that school in Columbus is if they if they start biting at you, bite back.

The second half started and we wasted little time in driving to the basket fairly consistantly and also making a concerted effort to contest all of the Buckeye shots. Thanks to the stellar defense of Ekpe Udoh, Manny Harris and Deshawn Sims the men in the maize and blue built a 58-48 lead before OSU made a 10-2 run. At this critical juncture in the game it was the freshest Manny of em all to drive to the bucket and draw the ever crucial foul, it was the second to last foul the nuts had to give, and soon enough the Wolverines were in the one and one and were looking to coast to a victory.

Fast-forward to about 10 seconds left in the game DeShawn Sims is about to shoot free throws. I'm still sitting in the upper level and suddenly a voice in my head tells me, "Charlie, you will rush the court." i promptly left my seat tried to get down the stairs as quickly as possible and eventually sidestepping at least three people i got to the floor where a security gaurd said, "Don't run me over." Politely enough i didn't.

It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine. It's great to be a Michiga Wolverine. It's great to be a Michigan Wolverine. It was like a rock concert everybody jumping up and down and going absolutely bonkers.

Now that i'm coming down off that high i now have midterms to do. Thank you for allowing me to ramble about basketball on what is primarily a hockey blog.

A bittersweet victory

2008-02-16T22:39:00.000-05:00

The story of this past weekend's series against Lake Superior State was Chad Kolarik. As a matter of fact he was the story of the hockey team this whole weekend, he played the girl part of Dirty Dancing in Mock Rock, which oddly enough suited him quite well. Then on friday he scored his second 4-goal game of the year, in front of my parents and myself.

Let's pause it right there and look at that particular game. The last of those goals was an empty netter and it put him one goal behind his Hobey front-runner teammate Kevin Porter, 24-25 respectively. When asked to talk about his own chances at winning hockey's equivilant of the Heisman Trophy he modestly stated that he did not want the award, that this was Kevin Porter's year, and he reinterated something he said at the beginning of the year when he told the media that one of his primary goals was to help Kevin Porter win the Hobey Baker. If that isn't a great teammate than i don't know who is.

In game two Michigan got the performance they desperately needed out of their secondary lines. Louie Caporusso scored a pair and Michigan was cruising through the third period when Michigan went down two men, and while Michigan was in the late stages of killing off the first penalty Chad Kolarik did the splits and couldn't get up. He could still move his arms, demonstrating that by trying to poke check the puck away to a teammate in a valiant effort to stay relevant on the ice while the refs looked for an excuse to blow the whistle to get him off the ice. It was remarkable that he kept playing reaching around trying to get the puck despite the fact that he couldn't stand up let alone skate. Hopefully he is not seriously injured.

Due to Kolarik's extremely eventful weekend, many other team and CCHA related events might get pushed aside in the process. Such as the fact that Michigan did a slight return to form in the third period on Friday outshooting the Lakers and outscoring them for the first time in two weeks. Coach Berenson has to be really pleased with the performance he got from his secondary line on Saturday's game. The fact that the #1 line didn't have to score and they still won shows the depth that this team has. Also the performance of Bryan Hogan was remarkable in the fact that he came in and shut down a team that had come in on a mini hot streak on saturday.

One more thing: if Michigan gets two points this upcoming weekend against that school up in East Lansing, Michigan will clinch their first regular season CCHA title in three years. If they do that against MSU someone should remind them to thank Ferris State the weekend after that for sweeping Miami this weekend. That's a huge thing for Michigan this year.

ahhhhhhhhhhhh

c-ya.

sorry bout the fan interviews

2008-02-16T21:46:00.000-05:00

I had every intention of doing the fan interviews but apparently, some circumstances dealing with the fact that the seasonal press passes are for the hosts of WOLV overtime only. This was something i was not aware of, and i was not fully aware of how this could be a problem. However i still hope to do fan interviews if not at a game, maybe elsewhere. I still think that getting the fans on the show will be very important and i would still like to do them. Please continue to leave comments or email me at cjclin@umich.edu, leave a tagline about FAN INTERVIEWS in capital letters.

i've got another post to do for the recap of this weekend.

Interviews at saturday's game vs. Lake St

2008-02-14T16:01:00.000-05:00

On saturday's game i will be doing some interviews of fans at this saturday's game. I will be trying to find out why the fans love college hockey, and i'm expecting any and all answers to be found. As a matter of fact i'm not gonna try and have any expectations other than that i'm gonna get interviews. I'm not just gonna ask students either, i'm gonna try some of the alum and the older folx to tell me what draws "respectable" people to a place like yost. lol

I will be posting the video in WOLV and uncensored versions (if they have to be seperated ;).

I also may indeed make a whole series of this if i can get enough people interested. If you wanna share your story about how much you love college hockey, but are unable to come to the game on saturday, leave a comment on this blog post and i will interview you for WOLV TV.

till then...

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

C-ya

3 out of 4 aint bad, but is it good enough

2008-02-09T22:49:00.001-05:00

Michigan came up with a monumental three points to take a lead in the CCHA standings, as well as undoubtably the National rankings. Michigan got some monumental performances from Max Pacioretty, Kevin Porter and Billy Sauer.

First i want to talk about Patch, i was originally gonna call this post "Goodbye Zatkoff, Hello Pacioretty" (**wink wink** Desmond Howard). Pacioretty scored four goals this weekend including a hat trick tonight, all of the goals came within at least ten feet of the goal with the exceptio of his last, a superfast wrister from the point on the power play. Another remarkable thing about the hat trick was that all the goals were scored in the first minute of each period in regulation. His goal on friday was just plain taking what was given to him a bouncing puck that came to him in front of the net, went five hole against Zatkoff and put it in!!!! A stick salute to Max Pacioretty.

A second salute is going to Kevin Porter. The goal he scored on Friday was just frickin amazing. If you didn't think that was enough to just give him the Hobey Baker on the spot you must be smoking something nastier than what got Kevin Quick kicked off the team (possibly). A stick salute for Kevin Porter.

Last but not least i gotta give it up for my main man Billy Sauer.

Yeah he gave up five goals in tonight's game, but he came through in the clutch getting the save to preserve the tie on the Redhawks last second shot from point blank range. Sauer came up huge on Friday too, killing off a two man disadvantage in the third period after giving up two goals in the period. Billy has earned his name back from Bilfy at WOLV and he's earned his manhood stripes too. A stick salute for the man in the mask in front of the net.

Although Red Berenson has to pleased that they didn't lose this weekend, he knows that there are things that this team has to seriously address. The top thing on that list now has shifted from playing D without Kevin Quick to getting their third period groove back. Ever since the Michigan State weekend the Wolverines have been outscored in four straight games in the final interval. This is not what the team was doing in the first half of the season, they would build up in intensity against their opponents in the first two periods, before turning on the heat in the third. The Icers will have a chance to get back to this against Lake Superior State.

On a side note i hope they do get back to the ways of third period dominance and back to the ways of consistantly winning. My parents are coming to the game on friday and i'm hoping their presence will be able to spark the team into a momentum that'll carry over to keep the Wolverines in first place, that way they'll be able to keep up the momentum and get the regular season CCHA title for the first time in three years.

All and all Michigan's really impressed me this weekend and i'm really looking forward to the last three weeks of the season with a first round bye already wrapped up.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

C-ya!

Things people should start giving up.

2008-02-07T23:09:00.000-05:00

Seeing as the lenten season is upon us I thought it would be fitting to talk about somethings that i think that other people should be giving up. Maybe we can reach our goals together.

Afterthought: i would've made this post on Ash Wednesday, but things were a little crazy for me that day so, it didn't work out. Also these are just suggestions i think are fitting or kinda funny.

Michigan Hockey team: giving up tie games and overconfidence.

Red Berenson: giving up keeping secrets from the media.

Jeff Zatkoff: giving up more goals than Billy Sauer in the series this weekend.

Mark Mitera: giving up putting the puck into his own net.

The United States of America: giving up the two party system and electing the Anarchy party.

Asterisk advocates: giving up chace on the steroid issue, you might as well put asterisks next to Ty Cobb's batting average, even he admitted that the only reason why he hit .367 lifetime was cause he scared the crap out of the infielders w/ his spikes.

Michigan athletic department: giving up the John Bieline offense.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

C-ya

THE BIG KAHUNA: MICHIGAN vs. MIAMI

2008-02-06T00:40:00.000-05:00

We've got ourselves a marquee matchup here this week. Hell, more than marquee this might just be one of the biggest regular season matchups in the history of College Hockey (I admit that's not saying much, but give credit where it's due) the Redhawks vs. the Wolverines

On paper this looks like Miami should win this one, albeit w/ a degree of difficulty, but still they look like they should win. They haven't lost in a month, they're 11-2 at there brand new home the Goggin Ice center, they haven't lost there since an embarrasing downfall to Alaska on December 8. They also have clearly the better goaltender in Jeff Zatkoff, quite possibly the best goalie in college hockey right now. The team has two 20 goal scorers already in Justin Mercier and Ryan Jones, to counter w/ Michigan's one in Kevin Porter, who hasn't played his best hockey against good goalies this season.

That's the way things look. However appearences can be decieving.

Sure Michigan's had to deal w/ the mysterious problems of Kevin Quick, and that seemed to come as a sudden shock to the team losing one of their primary sweeper defensemen. However this doesn't mean that Michigan is gonna be down and out in this series. Red Berenson has admitted to the press that he failed to keep the guys from getting focused on the Northern series cause they were looking ahead to Miami. Who can blame em, Michigan fans have been looking forward to Miami ever since it became clear Billy Sauer was gonna be good this season. Which brings me to the X-factor of the series.

Billy Sauer in the past two years had to be the most reviled goalie in Michigan hockey history, certainly the most since Red Berenson came here to coach. Most people including quite possibly Coach Red himself thought that it would be beneficial to rotate him w/ freshman Bryan Hogan. This of course was before Hogan caught mono and ended up sitting out the first 2 months.

Hogan actually started last saturday and looked kinda shakey at parts, especially on the penalty kill, it didn't help that the team committed a lotta penalties though. Sauer so far has a perfect 2-0 record in games coming off of being rested by Hogan, granted Hoagie won both of the first two, something he didn't do last saturday. For other reference he's also undefeated when playing games after a WOLV broadcast, seriously.

Oddly enough another thing that may help Michigan is that they're on the road. Michigan has yet to lose on the road this season, granted their game against Minnesota at the Xcel centre didn't count as a road game (can somebody please explain how that works?). The problem with that is that Michigan hasn't played a team like Miami on the road yet, and they're still adjusting to what'll happen w/o Quick, tune in for the next blog, when i predict what'll happen, reflect on Quick, and rant about Yost Ice Arena.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

C-ya!

A tied up weekend

2008-02-03T00:47:00.000-05:00

Michigan came up with two out of a possible four points at their series against Northern Michigan, and it couldn't have felt more disappointing for the Wolverines. I was covering Saturday's game for WOLV tv (highlights will be available on monday from youtube, courtesy of Sullivti) and let me tell you, the defense seem to really struggle without Kevin Quick.

I think it's weird that a guy who's only scored two goals despite playing the whole season, could have such an impact on the team. But hockey is often times like soccer in the fact that the real statistics aren't always the ones invovlving scoring, with Quick around the Wolverines rarely ever gave up breakaway chances or odd man rush goals, they seem to have done this in the past two games of the series, which is unacceptable and is probably making Coach Berenson a little "Red" in the face.

The other thing that's kind of weird about this situation is how Kevin Quick got kicked off the team in the first place. I've talked to both members of the Michigan Daily and my collegues at WOLV and it seems that Berenson and co. are keeping as airtight a lid as you can find on a potential sports scandal as you can find on this campus. More on this developing story as the information becomes available. BTW there are a few rumors that i heard with absolutely no proof or sources so i figured that as a good journalist i shouldn't print them.

To cut to the point Michigan can ill afford to play like this against a team as good as Miami next weekend. That being said i am looking forward to seeing a very good game on FSN this weekend. If Michigan can look at what they did wrong in the past four games and figure out a way to fix it, they will be reaping some benefits of at least two points against the Redhawks, however two points against the Redhawks will probably be less satisfactory to the Wolverines than two points against the Wildcats from this weekend. What Michigan needs to do to get out of this slump is to not think that they can win the game, KNOW THAT THEY WILL WIN THE GAME.

As Yoda once said, "Do or do not, there is no try!"