Michigan 3, Miami 0

If it wasn't already there, I'd like to think that Shawn Hunwick thrust his name right into the thick of the Hobey conversation with another sparkling performance--this one a 29-stop gem that led the Wolverines to a sweep of Miami. Lee Moffie scored twice, Chris Brown added as pretty of a goal as you'll see all season, and the CCHA officials peed down their legs once again. All in a day's work.

If you don't like 5-on-5 hockey, you loved the first period of this game. Of the first 14 minutes, ten of them were played with one team up a man. Usually it was Miami. Pateryn, Hyman, Brown, and Wohlberg were all called for infractions in the first 12 minutes of the game (and Miami got whistled for too many men).

The RedHawks weren't able to generate a shot on their first power play of the game. On the second, Hunwick made a sparkling stop on either Vogelhuber or Murphy, sprawling to the ice and somehow managing to keep the puck out of the net. While shorthanded, Kevin Lynch started a Michigan rush with a great breakout pass that led to a 3-on-1 for the Wolverines. Glendening went cross-ice to Moffie who sniped one past Connor Knapp to give the Wolverines a 1-0 lead.

Miami nearly tied it up right away, but Hunwick made a great stop on Murphy. The penalty killers kept up their good work. Brown hit a player from behind and the RedHawks managed two shots and nothing more. Then Wohlberg threw a shot toward the net after the whistle, got violently cross-checked in the back by Weber, a scrum ensued and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Wohlberg ended up being the difference there. Once again, the Wolverine PK was stellar, holding Miami without a shot and managing two of their own.

So after the first 13:50 of the game, the RedHawks had had nearly eight full minutes of power play time. In that 7:57 span with Miami up a man, shots were 5-5 and goals were 1-0 in favor of the Wolverines. That is some penalty killing!

Hyman nearly scored on a wraparound shot that bounced around in between Knapp's legs, but stayed out. The period ended with Michigan leading 1-0.

Early in the second, Vogelhuber was called for hitting Wohlberg from behind. Michigan's best chance on the PP was Guptill backdoor, but neither team was credited with a shot on goal during that power play. Just six seconds after the penalty ended, however, Moffie was at the right point and went down low to Moffatt. Moffatt sent it to Treais in the middle of the ice, who laid a pass perfectly for Moffie who was cruising into the slot. He buried it for his second of the night, and Michigan led 2-0. Really, really pretty play there.

Hyman set up Moffatt for a good look and Knapp made a great save. Then Hyman fed Sparks, who rung one off the post.

Pateryn was called for high-sticking late in the period, but Michigan held the RedHawks to one shot, and took a 2-0 lead into the second intermission. The Wolverine penalty killers had to come up big again in the third, this time on a bench minor for too many men. They held Miami without a shot on a power play that was abbreviated when Brian Paulazzo hooked Kevin Clare. Clare went hard into the boards very awkwardly, but luckily he was okay.

That power play led to the turning point in the game. Jon Merrill took a slapshot and broke his stick. While he went to the bench to get a new one, Miami was able to break the puck out and spring Matt Tomassoni on a breakaway. Hunwick made a nice save and Moffie was able to clear the puck away as it inched toward the goal line. After play continued for a couple of minutes, there was finally a stoppage and Brian Hill reviewed the play. The replay showed that it was about as close as it could possibly get. We didn't have access to the overhead look, but it appeared that Moffie cleared the puck out when it sat right on the goal line. It was probably more over the goal line than not, but you couldn't see any white space. Hill waived the goal off and Blasi, who was able to see the replay on the Megatron, went bonkers.

After Blasi's rant, Hill went back into the penalty box for another look. The commentators commended him for taking another look to make sure he got it right. I feel the exact opposite. Going back to take another look completely undermined his credibility. All it said was, "I didn't do a good enough job the first time and I'm not confident in my ruling." If the video was inconclusive, it was inconclusive and it's no goal. If it showed the puck in the net, call it a goal. If it didn't, call it no goal. You already made the decision that there was no angle that showed the puck in the net. Tell Blasi to STFU and let's play.

Shockingly, no new video evidence surfaced from the last time he stepped into the penalty box, and Hill again ruled it no goal. I have a feeling the roof would have blown off of Yost if he had changed his mind after being argued into taking another look. Even if the puck did go in, we're still about 499 missed calls against Miami in our favor away from making up for the hose-job in Fort Wayne. Just saying. But that puck wasn't in the net. I whole-heartedly support a verification line. Or lasers.

Michigan then iced the game on as pretty of a goal as you'll see this season. Brown took a pass from Wohlberg and brought it into the zone one-against-two. He puck the puck through Will Weber's legs, stepped around him, and ripped it past Knapp. Brown Tebowed. Weber broke his stick over the net, much to the delight of the Children of Yost who had serenaded him with "Weber sucks" for much of the game after his fairly dirty play this weekend.

Then all hell broke loose. Spinell planted Bennett with hands to the face and was ejected for contact to the head. Almost immediately afterwards (like, 20 seconds), Pateryn was ejected for contact to the head. The RedHawks pulled their goalie down by 3, and after a defenseman made a save on Travis Lynch, Reilly Smith was called for charging.

The Wolverines got another shot on goal and Alex Guptill took a light poke at the goalie after the save. Three RedHawk players went after him and Guptill slashed at one. A melee ensued that resulted in Chris Brown and Will Weber dropping the gloves. When the penalties were sorted out, both Brown and Weber were given DQs for fighting, Guptill was called for slashing, and four other players were given roughing minors. We were treated to some rare 3-on-3 hockey, and the game ended with a 3-0 Michigan win.

After the game, Red Berenson opened his press conference by instruction reports to not ask him about the officiating. He later criticized Blasi for not controlling his players, and suggested that Miami took some liberties, knowing that they've got a pair of games against the worst team in the country next weekend.

All in all, it was what I've come to expect when Keith Sergott is officiating a series. There will be dangerous plays that go uncalled, wildly inconsistent officiating, a couple periods that are almost entirely power plays, and he'll ultimately completely lose control. Luckily we got out of this one without anyone being assaulted. Add in Hill's complete unprofessionalism by allowing a coach to badger him into re-evaluating a judgment ruling that he had already made, and you've got a duo that really doesn't need to be calling any more important games this year. Or ever. There's a reason that things blow up every time Sergott is around. He can't handle heated rivalries and he shouldn't be calling these type of games.

The wins, combined with OSU's continued struggles, and surprising losses by Notre Dame (to BGSU) and WMU (to Alaska), jumped the Wolverines up into 3rd in the conference. They now sit just 3 points behind CCHA-leading Ferris State and just one point behind Western Michigan. The top 8 in the conference are separated by a mere 6 points, though Miami and Ohio have played two more games than everyone else (they both have 36).

It was also a very good weekend for the Wolverines in the PWR. Minnesota-Duluth plummeted after a loss to Alaska-Anchorage and the Wolverines moved into a tie for second behind BU. They edge out the surprising UMass-Lowell (who now has the best record in college hockey) in the RPI tie-breaker.

Miami is in 18th in the PWR. Good.

Lost in the fisticuffs was the fact that Red Berenson moved into 5th place all by himself on the all-time wins list.

Hunwick moved into 4th place in the history of the program with his ninth-career shutout. He also now ranks second nationally in wins, is fifth in save percentage, and ninth in goals-against. Hobey. Seriously.

Of the eight guys in front of him in GAA, four come from minor conferences (Union, Niagara, RIT, Quinnipiac), and he's played twice as many minutes as Knapp and CJ Motte. Only Douglas Carr from UML and Kent Patterson from Minnesota are from major conferences, have played around as many minutes, and have a better GAA. And Patterson is only .01 ahead.

The four guys ahead of him in save percentage play for Niagara, Union, RIT, and Robert Morris. And none of them are within 225 saves of him.

The PK gave up 6 shots on 6 Miami power plays. Once again, the RedHawks spent more than a half-period's worth of time (11:05) on the power play and came away with -1 goals to show for it. Michigan has now killed 31 of 32 penalties since Jon Merrill has returned, and, with the short-handed goal, is actually net-even when killing off penalties over the last eight games. They're up to 16th now, and are within .7% of cracking the top ten, which is remarkable.

The Wolverines will now head to East Lansing to take on FYS in a road/Joe series. Chris Brown will have to sit Friday night due to his suspension. BTN and Fox Sports Detroit will carry the games.

Michigan 3, Miami 2...errrrr....Miami 3, Michigan 2

Before I get into the fact that, yup, it happened again, I have one image running through my head over and over. It's a scene from Mystery, Alaska--for my money, the greatest sports movie ever. After a crushing defeat in which the team from Mystery put a shot off the post in the waning seconds and the Rangers scored one goal thanks to a BS no-call, the silence is broken by Burt Reynolds--the coach of the team--clapping. One by one, the heartbroken fans stand up and slowly clap along with him, until the crowd is cheering so loudly you would think the team had won.

So Michigan Wolverines:


(The clip I'm thinking of is at the thirteen second mark.)

So yeah, it happened again.

Michigan has been plagued for at least a couple of seasons by replays gone wrong, quick whistles when the puck is loose, slow whistles when it's not, pucks kicked in, and it happened again.

In the first overtime session, Carl Hagelin wrapped the puck around the net. Connor Knapp spun in a circle because he had no idea where it was. Kevin Lynch got to the loose puck and slammed it into the n........TWEEEEEEEET! Roughly a tenth of a second before Lynch put the puck into the goal, the whistle sounded. Play's dead. No goal. What made it even more agonizing was the fact that on Miami's second goal, the puck sat underneath Hunwick's pad for at least a second before Cannone chipped it out from under him into the net. The ref darn near touched his toes in an effort to see the puck. Not this time. TWEEEET! Maybe he was tired too.

Michigan continued to dominate the first overtime, outshooting the RedHawks something like 20-6 and outscoring them 1-0. Usually that's enough in sudden death overtime, but tonight it apparently wasn't. Anyone who has watched playoff hockey for any amount of time knew how this one would end. When one team dominates an overtime session and doesn't score, they typically don't win.

Sure enough, just a couple of minutes into overtime, someone named Alden Hirschfeld corralled a loose puck and slipped it past Hunwick for the game winner.

It was the type of game that we've seen so many times before. Outshoot the other team badly, have a goal waived off for no reason other than sheer incompetence, lose in the most heartbreaking way possible.

That said, this one doesn't feel as bad as some of the others (e.g. 2003 Frozen Four in Buffalo). Part because I had all but said goodbye to this season three months ago. Part because we were playing with the house's money just to make the tournament. And part because it was just so goddamn predictable that we were going to lose after the goal was waived off.

It was an amazing effort out of these Wolverines, however. David Wohlberg had a great individual effort for our first goal--to answer Miami's power play tally very quickly. He was a man possessed in the early part of this game. In addition to his goal, he had 2 or 3 breakaways that he just couldn't convert. He also made one of the defensive plays of the season in one of the overtime sessions, though at this point I couldn't tell you what it was if my life depended on it. Just that it was really darn good.

Carl Hagelin seemed like the only player on either team with any jump in his step as the overtime dragged on, and he darn near won the game on three or four different occasions. Matt Rust rang one off the crossbar in the first overtime. Shawn Hunwick made several incredible stops to save our season. Chad Langlais and Louie Caporusso each had huge blocks in the extra session.

Rust, Hagelin, and Lynch combined for 21 shots in the game.

You've got to give credit to Connor Knapp, who was stellar between the pipes for Miami. He stopped 55 of Michigan's 58....err...57 shots, many of which were at point blank range. He stopped 20 shots in the first overtime alone.

In the end, Michigan had plenty of chances to put this one away and just couldn't quite put that third puck past Knapp. They had two uninspired power plays at the end of regulation and during the first overtime (that was our consolation prize for the game-winning goal being waived off....a power play).

That being said, it was a phenomenal effort and it was really enjoyable to watch this team come together through the stretch run. They realized how to "play the right way" (to use a Larry Brown term) and they just may have found themselves a goalie in the process.

Had we won tonight, this is the section where I would be blasting the hell out of those incompetent boobs that were officiating the game. Having lost, it would sound like sour grapes, so I'm not going to complain about much else other than the fact that I really wish they had called a penalty when Hagelin was hauled down right in front of the ref about 20 seconds before Miami scored their second goal. With the way they were calling the second period, you have to make that call. There are a lot more things to complain about, but...whatever.

I will say this. If you're an official, there's only three things that I ask: 1) Call it both ways. 2) Don't decide the game. 3) Don't lose control of the game and let Andrew Conboy assault somebody. This pair massively failed on two of those three requests.

It wasn't a great season. But the last month sure was one heckuva ride. They came up a little bit short, but it was completely unexpected that they ended up making it as far as they did. In January, I can't say I would have complained if you told me we'd be in double OT with a shot to go to the Frozen Four on the line--or that we'd have a chance to get screwed on yet another quick whistle with a regional championship on the line.

Thank you, Shawn Hunwick.

MSU 4, Michigan 3...ERRRRR, MSU 3, Michigan 2

I can give you two reasons that Michigan isn't going to the NCAA Tournament this year and why they don't belong there anyway:

1) Our goaltending is horrifically inconsistent. Yes, as a whole Bryan Hogan played well tonight. You can't fault him on the first goal, and he gets a pass on the second goal because it sure looked like it hit Brandon Burlon's stick. Yes, he made some great stops when it was 0-0. Yes, he even made some great stops when the game was 3-0. But that third goal....it was the type of goal that's been killing us all year. 2-0 you've still got a chance. 3-0 is going to take a minor miracle--and a miracle that we almost got--to win on the road. It's not going to happen very often. The third one tonight was a shot that dribbled off his pads to the right, getting back to Tropp's stick just in time for him to slide it into the net before he went behind the goal. You can't leave that rebound. It's that type of goal--or the shorty against FSU last weekend--that are going to keep us out of the tournament. We're not winning CCHA's because there's no way in hell Hogan's keeping it together for four out of five games. No way.

2) 3 games, 3 goals, 3 points, 2 game-winners. Those are Captain Douchebag's numbers against the Wolverines this season. The fact that the Green Bay Packers let Brett Favre tear them up twice this year--including once in their house--told me everything I needed to know about the 2009 Packers. The fact that Michigan has let Corey Tropp beat them twice--once in their building, on a play against Steve Kampfer of all people--tells me all I need to know about this team. You can't let that guy do that to you twice. I don't care if Andrew Rowe beats you. I don't care if Dustin Gazley beats you. I don't care if Chris Summers shoots the goddamn puck into his own net six times or if Bryan Hogan Statue of Libertys the game winner. You can't let Corey Tropp beat you. And you definitely can't let him beat you twice.

Now, let's talk about the officiating. I'm not sure I have the words to describe what went on in the last three minutes of that hockey game. I think my buddy Kevin might have put it best in a text to me: "What is this clown show?"

I do know one thing: If you ever need a prime example of why Steve Piotrowski needs to lace up the skates again, it's the fact that the ref who is widely regarded as the best ref in the CCHA blew a call like that in a game as big as that.

But let's back up.

With just a couple of minutes to go in a 3-2 hockey game, Michigan State came down on a 2 on 1 that turned into a 3 on 2, after a Chad Langlais turnover in the MSU end. Rowe spun around Summers and sent a pass into the slot. Hogan made the initial save, but despite having it hit him in the chest, the rebound popped into the air and Hogan flailed to try and recover. Summers was in the crease and tried to bat the puck out of the air with his hand. As he was attempting to do that, Andrew Rowe came in and drilled him in the back. The puck hit the ice and Rowe jammed it in.

The official right on the play--Mark Wilkens--pointed goal. Chris Summers had his arms out asking for a hitting from behind call even before he stopped sliding. He immediately got up and went bonkers on Wilkens.

They go to the replay (at least I think they did....maybe the four blind mice just got together and "replayed it in their heads") and there doesn't appear to be anything to overturn the goal on. At best you're hoping they rule the puck left the crease so Rowe didn't have a right to be there anymore, or something. Yes it was a penalty, no the goal shouldn't count, but the ref on the ice called it a goal. There's no goalie interference to overturn it.

They waived it off. Not only did they waive it off, they gave Rowe a penalty! I would love to hear the explanation for that one. Surely we're going to get some line of bull that the back referee--Shegos--was trying to make a call and it just got overlooked. Spath's article indicates that Shegos blew it dead from center ice. And if that's the case, fine.

(This assumes they looked at the replay) But then why look at the replay? To determine if the puck was in before the call? It couldn't have been. They may be saying Shegos blew it dead at center. I can't say I ever heard a whistle. At this point, it sure looks like the CCHA just went to replay, overturned a goal, and assessed a penalty.

(If they didn't go to review) If they didn't go to review, then what took so long? Either someone blew it dead or they didn't. This isn't the NFL. You don't get to discuss plays with the whole crew and then retroactively make a penalty call--even if it ended up being the correct one.

Let's be perfectly clear. They got the call right. Rowe deserved a penalty and the goal shouldn't have counted. I just don't have the foggiest clue how they justify making that call after either going to the replay or discussing it amongst themselves. Either someone made the call live or they didn't. If they did, great. If they didn't, they're all blind, but it should still be a goal.

So now Michigan has a man-advantage with just over two minutes to go and a chance to pull off a huge comeback on the road. Just after the penalty expired, Chris Brown was standing in the slot. The puck hit him and bounced down, through the legs of Drew Palmisano, and into the net. Like, straight through the legs of Palmisano. We're not talking pinballing. We're not talking the puck died between his legs but was still loose and someone jammed it in. It hit Chris Brown, bounced down, went right through Palmisano into the net.

Shegos somehow missed this and blew the play dead within milliseconds of the puck going underneath Palmisano. The whistle may not have gone until the puck was in the net (I'm not sure), but thanks to the most retarded rule in sports--the play is dead when it's dead in the referee's mind, not when he blows the whistle--you can't review it.

That's a missed call. You can see from the behind-the-net cam that the puck was never even remotely covered. And the guy who is widely considered the best ref in the conference--as if that's not like saying someone is the prettiest ugly girl (by the way, there were options in the crowd tonight....for as many good-looking girls as there are supposed to be at Michigan State, they must have found every fug in the bunch during the crowd shots tonight....holy buckets)--completely blew it.

I'll say this once again, Miami fan: You can bitch all you want to about Matt Shegos officiating Michigan games even though he's a Michigan alum. We'd gladly ban him from doing our games as well. You can't waive the "favoritism" banner around ever again when you see something like that. That blown call might have put the final nail in our tournament chances. (Though to be fair, that just gets us to OT.)

It's too much, especially on the day the NFL said "Oh, yeah, about that NFC Championship? Yeah, we completely effed that one up." I'm sick of games getting decided this way. I'm sick of quick whistles (I'm thinking of Scott Hansen yet again, thank you Shegos), I'm sick of kicked-in pucks counting, I'm sick of good goals not counting.

This one was big. If Michigan comes back and wins that game, they've got a chance to flip the comparison with Michigan State tomorrow and it's a HUGE boost to the tournament chances. We're running out of chances, but we probably don't belong in The Dance anyway.

What else can you really say? Some quick hitters:

-The power play put in a couple, but one goal was a two-minute 5 on 3 and the other was kind of off a nothing play. They passed the puck well on a couple of PPs, but never had a lot of chances and there were at least 3 or 4 of those power play opportunities that completely went by the wayside without a hint of a scoring chance. Up until our fifth power play chance, I don't think we had one that you could even consider decent. Even the four minutes we had left on the five-minute major after the first goal...we didn't get a whole lot going and that was a chance to really turn the game.

-Hogan did make some very good stops in the first half of the game. That third goal was just a head-scratcher though.

-A few silly penalties when we certainly didn't need them. Greg Pateryn took a needless one about 30 seconds after MSU killed off a Michigan power play, so you know they're looking anyway. Dumb penalties by Tristin Llewellyn got Pateryn into the lineup. You don't want to find yourself back in the press box because of the same thing. Kampfer took a dumb late run at somebody in the third period. Unless it's Corey Tropp you have to be smarter. He didn't even get his money's worth. It was a cheap call, but you can't give them the opportunity to call it, especially when they've shown they're calling everything.

-Over half the game was spent with one team on the man advantage. That's way too much. Michigan had 19:23 in power play time. MSU had 13:20. Aside from the Gazley/Treais kerfuffle, I didn't even think it was an overly chippy game. Definitely not one that warranted 33 minutes in power play time, which would've been 36 without penalties ending on power play goals. You're talking almost TWO FULL PERIODS of man advantages in that game. I sure am glad we have the two ref system, so they can call literally everything but miss the most obvious call of the game: that Drew Palmisano never covered that puck.

-The goal on the 5 on 3 was quite nice. Moffie at the left point down to Lynch on the left wing. He centers for Rust, who one-touches it to Hagelin back-door for the goal. That's the way to do it when you've got two extra men.

-A lot of odd-man rushes. And a lot of odd-man rushes both ways.

I really don't know what the hell else to say. The officiating in this league is a complete joke, and it's a complete joke that Corey Tropp's able to touch the puck without getting drilled into next week, let alone the fact that he's scored two game-winners on the Wolverines this year.

Hockey Links!

I may not have a lot of content, but I sure do have a bunch of interesting links to pass along!

HSR and MGoBlog break down the PWR rankings and comment on how the screw-jobs against OSU and ND might come into play.

Brian takes a look at people who are better at their jobs than Kevin Langseth is at his. I would include my Dish Network installer on that list. Douche.

The Ann Arbor News gives us some fantastic news: Mark Mitera is expected to play this weekend against Ferris State. Talk about a boost heading into the postseason. It'll be interesting to see how the team handles the "letter" situation. I gotta believe Mitera and Summers both wear C's.

Also, according to the Ann Arbor News, Piotrowski said the the officials determined that it was Vaughan's skate that created the contact with the puck. Clearly that was the wrong decision being that the goal has been credited to Severyn and OSU's official site even says the puck went in off Severyn's skate. Great group you got there, Pio.

MHNet's take on Saturday's game made me laugh. Very fitting, and a commercial that I always thought was funny.

WCH weighs in as well. I'm not sure I completely agree that all goals off skates should be allowed to count--I don't think you really want to encourage guys to start trying to kick the puck--but I 100% believe that unless there's a distinct kicking motion, the goal should count. If you're skilled enough to turn your skate and deflect it in, more power to you. It's really not that hard to figure out if a guy kicked the puck. Especially if you let them look at more than one replay that may or may not even have the puck in the frame when it's propelled toward the net. I can't say I remember ever being pissed at the NHL over a call when the puck was kicked into the net. They might be good at screwing things up when the goalie is pushed into the goal. They might not be able to get calls in the crease correct (especially when we play Anaheim). But I don't remember ever complaining too much about kicked pucks. Then again, the NCAA refs are incompetent enough that even with what essentially amounts to a no-tolerance policy on goals going in off the skate, they're still getting it wrong at an alarming rate, so maybe we shouldn't be putting trust in them to get judgement calls correct.

Dwight Helminen was involved in a scary incident over the weekend. The Albany River Rats' bus crashed, sending several team members/employees to the hospital. Ex SCSU Huskie Casey Borer broke his neck (thankfully it sounds like he'll be able to resume his career) and told his story to the Times Union. He was sleeping and woke up while he was flying through the air. Borer said Helminen was cut up in the crash. It doesn't sound like Dewey was seriously hurt though. Thank God everyone was (relatively) okay.

Jeff Lerg is about to become the all-time save king in NCAA hockey. With the way they inflate his shot totals at Munn, I'm shocked this didn't happen by his sophomore season. Regardless, congrats to him. At least something good has come out of the fact that his team can't play defense.

Last, but certainly not least, Mike Spath talked with Red Berenson about the calls Saturday night and Red is more than slightly upset about it.

He also took about five minutes to rip the hell out of the replay system and the CCHA officials. He's very aware of what the two games (ND and OSU) could end up costing his team in the long run. But while he wants to see wholesale changes to the replay system he doesn't know that it will change because enough programs (ones that don't get TV often) probably wouldn't benefit from introducing new technology.

Spath said he'll post some quotes in the near future. That should be a really good read.

Some people might view it as sour grapes, but I'm glad Red is speaking out about this stuff. The more attention drawn to what jokes the officials and the replay system are, the better the chance that something will be done about it. The conference deserves all the negative pub it gets for this one. In Michigan games alone, their officials have inexcusably stuffed up four goal calls in the last month. With the benefit of video review, albeit a flawed video review system. This goes so far and beyond missing blatant penalties, or failing to DQ someone for an attack that would eventually get him kicked off his team. These are calls directly awarding goals scored by illegal means and disallowing perfectly legit goals. It's happening way too often. It's cost Michigan two games against Teams Under Consideration and it needs to be fixed. I don't want to hear about a $50,000 replay system. All it takes is a freaking cable TV jack, a cable TV subscription, a coax cable, and a TV for the officials to get a better view than what they've got now. Hell, I don't even have that in my condo right now and I still had a better view of Severyn's kick in than what the officials apparently saw. I had a laptop, an internet connection, a Slingbox, and more than half a brain--unlike the numskulls working the game.

Edit: Oh, I meant to pass this along awhile ago. A reader wrote in with the details of what must be the ultimate place to get your Michigan jersey personalized. The hockey team gets their jerseys made at Exclusive Pro Sports in Rockford, IL and they'll do jerseys for fans as well. They've got a huge database of the lettering styles and colors. And I guess it's only like $65 plus postage to get it done (and that was for 3-colored numbers).

Also, if anyone has a team photo from this year that would be suitable for printing into a decent size (I'd guess at least 8 x 10) could you let me know? A reader wrote in looking for one. All I could find online was a tiny one from the GLI.

Edit #2: Also, Andy Baggot reported a few days ago that "All signs continue to point to the Wisconsin Badgers men's hockey team hosting Michigan in an outdoor game at Camp Randall Stadium in February of 2010." The announcement has been pushed back to March, but they don't anticipate anything jeopardizing the game. Nice to hear, since it seemed like this game fell off the face of the earth. Tickets are reported to be around $15 for the game. Bargain.

This is Getting Absurd

Since our Dish Network installation was an epic fail, I didn't get to see any of the game tonight. I returned from moving boxes just in time to fire up Slingbox and see a grainy shot of the game-winning goal. My immediate reaction was, "Wow. He totally kicked that in." Keep in mind, this is seeing a replay for a split-second on a grainy picture. The text message I got immediately after confirmed it. The thread at The Wolverine was further confirmation.

And yet somehow Langseth managed to stuff it up again. For the second time in about a month, Michigan lost a hockey game 3-2 when they had a goal waived off due to a premature whistle, and the opponent had a kicked-in goal allowed. That's pretty impressive, Pio.

This really is the worst replay system ever. I didn't think it was possible, but it seems like CCHA refs get replay rulings correct less frequently than their Big Ten Football counterparts. They're handicapped by the fact that they aren't allowed to use all the angles at their disposal, but how do you keep missing the puck getting kicked in in the first place?

That's all I saw of the game. I guess the defense had some major lapses and Hogie gave up some soft rebounds. Failing to score on a 2-minute 5-on-3 probably didn't help matters either.

So in splitting with OSU, we lose the ability to control our own destiny for second place heading into the final weekend of the season. Miami got another shootout point (awesome), so they're two ahead with two games to play. Without looking into the numbers, we still seem to be in really good shape to be a top seed in the NCAA Tournament.

At some point, I'll actually be able to start seeing games again...