The only take i have on the Hagen article.

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

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

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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

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

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!!!!!!!

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