Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Red's Sticking Around; Another Outdoor Game to Come?

No drama from Red. Michigan announced today that Coach Berenson will return in 2009-2010 for his 26th season behind the Michigan bench. I would fully expect him back in 2010-11 as well, because who could turn down the chance to coach that incoming class?

There was a video feature about Mac Bennett on a local news station out East. The same reader who sent that along also said that Mac was named "All New England", but it was a $ link so I didn't get to read the story about it.

The other big story is from The Ann Arbor News. If Michigan and Wisconsin break the attendance record set at The Cold War, it likely won't last very long. Michigan has expressed interest in hosting an outdoor game at....wait for it....THE BIG HOUSE in December of 2010. They're just now starting to put a plan together so no opponent was mentioned. One of the rumors I had heard in the early stages of the Camp Randall talk was that we were looking to do a home-and-home outdoor series with Wisconsin. Clearly FYS would be an option as well. I suppose they could invite OSU and play up the Michigan/OSU at the Big House thing, but I think I'd prefer to see a traditional hockey school. I wouldn't mind seeing one of the Boston schools. I like getting to play BC and BU.

It'll also be interesting to see if they end up having a Wings game there as well. I know Michigan has talked with the Wings in the past about Detroit playing at The Big House.

Matt Hunwick played forward for the Boston Bruins with Milan Lucic out with an injury and had a goal and an assist in his first game up front. NESN was pretty complimentary of his play as well.

David Moss is playing the Tomas Holmstrom role on the Flames' power play. He's playing alongside Mike Cammalleri. It seems to be working out well, as Mosser had his first career hat trick tonight, giving him 19 goals on the year.

The ex-Wolverines in the NHL have now combined for 162 goals this season, which is more than 6 NHL teams have. That's in 914 man-games. But when you consider that the average NHL team has played 62.9 games and dresses 18 skaters a night, the average NHL team has had 1132 man-games this season. Adjust for that, and the Wolverines would have scored just over 200 goals this year, making them the 8th highest-scoring team in the league. When you factor in that we've got more forwards than the typical team, and account for 6 defensemen and 12 forwards dressing a night, we'd have 177 goals, which would be good for 18th in scoring. Still not at all bad.

Jacob Fallon now has 15-20--35 in 44 games for the U-17s. Luke Moffatt has 17-13--30 in 47 games. Defenseman Kevin Clare has 4-5--9 in 46 games. Jon Merrill has 2-1--3 in 24 games. And Jack Campbell has posted an 18-5-1 record with a 2.08/.915, with four shutouts. Sparkling numbers for a goal on the U-17s.

For the U-18s, AJ Treais continues to lead the team in scoring (who saw that one coming?) with a 14-23--37 line in 40 games. He also leads the team in assists. Kevin Lynch has 12-15--27 in 46 games. Chris Brown has 13-13--26 in 45 games. He also leads the team in PIMs (96) and PPGs (8). Insert your own joke here about someone named Chris Brown playing rough. I'm not going there. That would be in poor taste, even for me.

Campbell gets a mention in this article about the Windsor Spitfires, who hold his OHL rights. Stay away, ya hear me?

Rychel hopes he can also add Johns and Campbell when their two years are up.

"We like to get them all," Rychel said. "It it realistic? No, but we'd like to bat .750.

"Campbell is the best goalie in his age group in North America and Johns is a defenceman who needs to come to the OHL to learn how to play in the NHL. It'll make him better and make for an easier transition and the OHL is the fastest route to the NHL."

Well there ya go. You can bat .750. Bring in Johns, Kenny Ryan, and Cam Fowler. Leave Jack to us. Works for me.

Lindsay Sparks's Oakville Blades advanced to the Division Final against the Georgetown Raiders in the OJHL Playoffs. It doesn't look like Sparks played in the deciding game in the series against Burlington. He has 2-9--11 in seven playoff games though.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Agreed re: tradiational hockey schools for an outdoor game. It'd have to be a program with a big enough following to travel well like BU, BC, North Dakota, Minnesota, Maine, or the Colorado schools.

I doubt that will happen and it'll likely be FYS but I guy can dream can't he?

Anonymous said...

Michigan State commits to play in the outdoor game. It will be on 12/11/2010 and will be the second game of the Michigan home series. The first game will be at Yost.

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2009/03/michigan_state_commits_to_play.html