He's absolutely pissed about the way that game Saturday night went down, and who can blame him? This isn't quite, "Brian Aaron needs a big red nose and floppy feet" but it's close.
The Wolverine has had lots of good stuff from Coach Berenson and the CCHA the last couple of days. Here are some choice words about the waived off goal at the end of the game:
On the explanation given to Berenson during the game: "He told me on the ice the net was off. The net didn’t even budge. The net didn’t even shake. It’s a bad call. They know it. They’re going to hear about it from the league. It’s too bad. Whether or not those officials were good enough to handle that series is a question but that’s a league situation. And the league is very good about it. [Head of officiating] Steve Piotrowski is very good about discussing it but we can’t turn it around."
There's a lot of other good stuff from Red in that post, including the fact that he clearly feels the kicked in goal was a blown call and that Brian Aaron really screwed up.
The day before, they had stuff from the CCHA. Basically both the calls were blown, but they're not overturning the game (not that anyone thought they would or should). The gist of it is that Brian Aaron is a complete fool.
CCHA sources admit that the neutral-zone referee should not have blown his whistle when he did, remarking "You have to trust your partner and the deep-zone referee, in this case, was in the proper position to make the call. You only act in that manner if your fellow official isn't in position, if he fell down or is racing down the ice." So essentially, the official on top of the play did not blow the whistle and was rendered useless when the neutral-zone referee blew the whistle prematurely.
Other stuff: As linked in the post below, it appears that Nick Cousins hasn't committed to Michigan after all, and may have, in fact, decided to be our Little Brother. If true, hopefully he works out as well as Leveille has. And if it turns out he's maize and blue after all, hopefully he's Gretzky part 2 :)
WOLV-TV has a great view of the Maday goal. My favorite part is how every Wolverine player on the ice immediately reacts about the puck being kicked in. Pretty unlucky that five or six Wolverines saw it get kicked in, but the four blind mice didn't. MGoBlog weighs in as well.
Most of my content this weekend will be over at MGoBlog. Brian is taking a well-earned vacation and is turning the keys to the kingdom over to various Michigan bloggers for the week. The LSSU post-game wrap-ups will be over there and the guys from Hoover Street Rag invited me to participate in their Cover It Live broadcast of Friday night's game (which will also be at MGoBlog). Ten Things will still be here.
Mitera's recovery is coming along, and he still is shooting to get back for at least one more game at Yost. He's been skating with the forwards in practice so he can get in some more puck touches. I'm really excited that it looks like we'll get to see #17 back on the ice in a Michigan jersey. I'm sure this isn't how he pictured his senior year, but I think they're going to be in the mix to send him out in style.
Showing posts with label officiating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label officiating. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Notre Dame 3*, Michigan 2*
I signed for a condo yesterday. If any of you are looking for any housewarming gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Brian Aaron and John Philo, the refs, brought right here. With big ribbons on their heads. And I want to look them straight in the eyes and I want to tell them what cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sacks of monkey shit they are. Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?
What. The hell. Was that?
I freely admit that I bitch about the officiating a lot. But I try my hardest to at least be somewhat balanced. If the officiating sucks and we win, I'll complain as much as I do when it sucks and we lose. If it sucks both ways (see the game at Munn earlier in the year), I'll call them out. I'll even freely admit it when we get a huge break on a call (though I'll admit my blue-colored glasses sometimes cloud my judgement on those). Usually it's not the main focus of my post. Usually you don't have two calls that incorrectly award/disallow goals. Sadly, tonight we did.
Early in the third period, I actually praised the officiating in my notes. Yes, the Maday goal was inexcusably allowed. But aside from that (and a missed hit from behind yesterday) I thought they were doing a good job. And hell, one screwed up goal in a weekend? That's not so bad for the CCHA, all things considered. At least they were letting two great hockey teams play hockey, and not turning it into a special teams battle like so many other guys just have to do. Even with the disaster this game turned out to be, I do appreciate that the teams were allowed to play.
And yet I concluded the night by having a slightly more profane reaction than the one above.
For those of you who didn't have the privilege of watching the CCHA officials ruin yet another series, a recap:
In the first period, Tim Miller has a horrible giveaway. The puck goes onto the stick of Ridderwall who makes a very nice feed to Maday. Maday kicks the puck into the net. Four officials looked at it, several with unobstructed views. Four officials thought to themselves, "Yeah, that was a good goal." Travis Turnbull, who was out by the blueline, looking through a screen, immediately started signaling that the puck was kicked in. But the refs had already called it a good goal, so the replay had to be conclusive to overturn it. No problem. There are 4 camera angles showing the guy kicking it in at best, directing it in (still illegal) at worst. But, oh wait, he was by the faceoff circle when he kicked it in. The asinine replay rules only allow for the overhead camera to be shown to the official, because God-forbid we use everything at our disposal to, ya know, make sure the calls are right. So Brian Aaron went into the penalty box and was shown a lovely shot of the puck going in the net, with no indication as to how it got there, because they weren't in the frame. Goal.
Notre Dame goes up 3-0. Michigan mounts a comeback and gets it to 3-2. With like 30 seconds left, there's a goalmouth scramble. The puck sneaks out to the side of Jordan Pearce and Steve Kampfer bangs it in. Tie game. Not so fast, my friend. They go to the review and rule that the net was off the moorings. It wasn't. I assumed the ruling was that the whistle had blown. And if it had, I'm pissed off and I'm asking how John Philo lost sight of the puck when he was standing all of two feet away from it, but it's at least understandable. Brian Aaron blew at least 3 plays dead prematurely tonight. It happens. But don't make shit up. Your official was standing right there. He didn't blow the play dead for the net being off. No replay shows the net being off. The overhead cam sure as shit didn't show the net being off. To make matters even better, Alton pointed out at MGoBlog that Brian Aaron appears to have been the official that blew the play dead. Not the guy who was standing right over the puck. The guy out by the blueline. (Note that Aaron was the one who went into the replay "booth" to review it.) Good thing we've got two refs. That really makes the game better, right? No goal. Notre Dame wins, and we're all but eliminated from contention for the CCHA title.
This is what happens when you hire stupid people. Steve Piotrowski. Please listen to me and listen to me good. You need to put the skates back on. It needs to happen. We watched Brian Hill butcher the series with Miami down in Oxford, we watched Sergott and Hall lose control of the MSU series and play a role in Kampfer getting attacked, McInchak and Aaron were laughable in the first series with MSU (remember how much of a joke that game at Munn was?), now you've got a crucial series between two of the best teams the conference has to offer and Brian Aaron is the best official you can come up with? Are you kidding me? If he's the best guy around, Steve, you're doing the conference a disservice by not being out there. I may not have always been in love with the games you'd call, but I never would worry that a series or a game would get butchered like this one did, or that the game would get completely out of hand like the MSU game last week. You're 100 times better for the conference being on the ice rather than in a suit. Get it done. Or at least find some officials that aren't complete numskulls.
Not a whole lot of exciting stuff in the first period. Wohlberg and Lebler both got poke-checked by Pearce on rushes. They should file it away that he really likes doing that. That was at least 4 this weekend.
Hogan made a few nice stops, including a couple on Condra--one when Condra absolutely walked Burlon.
Notre Dame went up 2-0 on a penalty shot goal by Thang. He got behind Kampfer, ND hit on the pass, and Kampfer had to grab him. On the shot, Thang made a beautiful shot fake, Hogan thought about going for the poke-check but never fully committed to it, and Thang was able to go top shelf.
Not too much later it was 3-0. That was a gorgeous feed from Deeth to Ridderwall, who is becoming a real dagger in our side.
Summers had a fantastic defensive play to prevent a scoring chance late in the period. A pass got through Langlais's legs, but Summers got back, dove, and swept the puck away without taking out Hanson's legs and committing a penalty.
At the end of 2, we were down 3-0 but outshooting them 24-19.
The third was all Michigan. At one point late, we were outshooting them 10-3 and had a 9-1 lead in scoring chances.
Michigan made it 3-1 off a possession created by an offensive zone faceoff win. Lebler caused some havoc in front, and prevented Pearce from covering the puck. Palushaj dug it out and shot it in.
Robbie Czarnik finally got on the board again with a pretty power play goal. He fed it to Palushaj and shot down the wing. Palushaj put a perfect pass back to Czarnik, who buried it as he was falling down. It was hard to tell if the team was more excited to be back in the game, or more excited that Czarnik scored. They were going bonkers after that one.
Palushaj darn near set up another goal. He brought it into the zone 3 on 2. The defenseman on the left initially went with Hagelin but Palushaj carried it in far enough that he had to commit to Palushaj. When he did, Palushaj fed Hagelin who looked cross-crease for Rust, but the pass didn't connect.
We then got offsetting penalties because Rust was pushed into the goalie and Pearce took a massive dive. Makes sense to me. #1, Rust was pushed into the crease. #2, he barely touched Pearce. #3, Pearce went down like he was shot. Have some balls and just call the embellishment. You wouldn't have called Rust for that if Pearce didn't go down like a soccer player, so why call it just because the goalie flopped like a fish?
Czarnik then had a couple of great chances to tie the game. On the first one, one of ND's defensemen tied his stick up, but on the next chance, he fanned with a wide-open net. Ugh. The play came back in front and Miller had an empty net to shoot at, but he was well tied up by the defense and couldn't get a stick on it.
Michigan pulled the goalie with a minute left and appeared to score the tying goal but evidently the net was off. Or Brian Aaron is just an imbecile. I'm going with the latter.
Red wasn't mincing words after the game:
As for Maday's goal:
The other way that I could have not been called a goal would have been if there was one competent official in the entire bunch. But that might be asking a little much for the CCHA. I always used to joke that when Brian Aaron was reffing, we might as well start down a goal because he was guaranteed to waive one of ours off. He did us one better tonight.
The officials pretty much ruined what was otherwise a really good hockey game. Notre Dame is a really great defensive team. That group of blueliners they've got is just stellar. They did a nice job of keeping Michigan to the outside and allowing only low-percentage looks in the first two periods. We had a couple of chances, but by and large most of our 24 shots on net through two weren't of the high-quality variety.
Those are two pretty evenly matched hockey teams. I'm a homer, but I think we're a little bit better than them, especially if we get Mark Mitera back, as it appears we're going to. With Mitera, Kampfer, Summers, and Burlon, we're every bit as good on the blueline as them. And that doesn't even mention any of the other guys, like Langlais who has been very solid this season (though I thought he struggled tonight).
Czarnik was flying again tonight, and it was great to see him put one in. Even though he missed an empty net later in the game, that goal really could get him going. He's been putting himself in good areas, maybe now the pucks will start going in for him. I also thought Lebler did some good things in the corners tonight.
It was also nice to see the power play finally click. We were 2-3 on the night with 7 shots on goal. ND has a good penalty kill and we were able to cash in twice. It'd be huge if those units could heat up a little bit.
Another really strong night from the fourth line. Fardig was just awesome and Glendening absolutely planted Minella when he jumped to glove down a puck.
One last highlight was the hit that Pateryn laid on an Irish player behind the Michigan net which led to a pretty nice rush for the Wolverines.
I don't think this will be the last we see of the Irish this year. I could easily see two more meetings taking place. The college hockey world would be lucky to see these teams meet twice more, because those were two darn entertaining hockey games between two great teams this weekend. Hopefully if we meet in the future, the teams will actually get to decide the outcome. That's a good, good hockey team right there. If it had stayed 3-0, I would've had no problem tipping my cap to them, saying "We'll probably see ya again. Great weekend of hockey!" and moving on to LSSU. But damn...those calls overshadowed an otherwise excellent series.
I don't understand why the officials are only allowed to look at the overhead camera. I get that not every game is on TV and not every team can afford to have multiple camera angles. But is the goal to have a system that is uniformly dysfunctional or is the goal to get calls correct? Isn't getting calls correct the whole point of replay? If the technology is there, why not use it? The current system doesn't allow for the review of pucks being batted in with a high stick. It doesn't allow for review of goals when the player happened to be more than 3 feet outside the crease. There were multiple camera angles that showed Maday's goal shouldn't have counted. But the ref wasn't allowed to look at any of them. That seems really stupid to me. Use what's available. I don't care if it's not uniform.
Lastly, I know some people were saying that the commentary seemed to favor Notre Dame (I didn't notice that, but then, they were also up 3-0 for awhile, so it probably should have) but I love listening to Dan Dickerson call hockey games. I think I commented on that the last time we had him as well. He's a great play by play guy. I could definitely stand for more of him.
Next up is LSSU, who will be fresh off their sweep of FYS.
What. The hell. Was that?
I freely admit that I bitch about the officiating a lot. But I try my hardest to at least be somewhat balanced. If the officiating sucks and we win, I'll complain as much as I do when it sucks and we lose. If it sucks both ways (see the game at Munn earlier in the year), I'll call them out. I'll even freely admit it when we get a huge break on a call (though I'll admit my blue-colored glasses sometimes cloud my judgement on those). Usually it's not the main focus of my post. Usually you don't have two calls that incorrectly award/disallow goals. Sadly, tonight we did.
Early in the third period, I actually praised the officiating in my notes. Yes, the Maday goal was inexcusably allowed. But aside from that (and a missed hit from behind yesterday) I thought they were doing a good job. And hell, one screwed up goal in a weekend? That's not so bad for the CCHA, all things considered. At least they were letting two great hockey teams play hockey, and not turning it into a special teams battle like so many other guys just have to do. Even with the disaster this game turned out to be, I do appreciate that the teams were allowed to play.
And yet I concluded the night by having a slightly more profane reaction than the one above.
For those of you who didn't have the privilege of watching the CCHA officials ruin yet another series, a recap:
In the first period, Tim Miller has a horrible giveaway. The puck goes onto the stick of Ridderwall who makes a very nice feed to Maday. Maday kicks the puck into the net. Four officials looked at it, several with unobstructed views. Four officials thought to themselves, "Yeah, that was a good goal." Travis Turnbull, who was out by the blueline, looking through a screen, immediately started signaling that the puck was kicked in. But the refs had already called it a good goal, so the replay had to be conclusive to overturn it. No problem. There are 4 camera angles showing the guy kicking it in at best, directing it in (still illegal) at worst. But, oh wait, he was by the faceoff circle when he kicked it in. The asinine replay rules only allow for the overhead camera to be shown to the official, because God-forbid we use everything at our disposal to, ya know, make sure the calls are right. So Brian Aaron went into the penalty box and was shown a lovely shot of the puck going in the net, with no indication as to how it got there, because they weren't in the frame. Goal.
Notre Dame goes up 3-0. Michigan mounts a comeback and gets it to 3-2. With like 30 seconds left, there's a goalmouth scramble. The puck sneaks out to the side of Jordan Pearce and Steve Kampfer bangs it in. Tie game. Not so fast, my friend. They go to the review and rule that the net was off the moorings. It wasn't. I assumed the ruling was that the whistle had blown. And if it had, I'm pissed off and I'm asking how John Philo lost sight of the puck when he was standing all of two feet away from it, but it's at least understandable. Brian Aaron blew at least 3 plays dead prematurely tonight. It happens. But don't make shit up. Your official was standing right there. He didn't blow the play dead for the net being off. No replay shows the net being off. The overhead cam sure as shit didn't show the net being off. To make matters even better, Alton pointed out at MGoBlog that Brian Aaron appears to have been the official that blew the play dead. Not the guy who was standing right over the puck. The guy out by the blueline. (Note that Aaron was the one who went into the replay "booth" to review it.) Good thing we've got two refs. That really makes the game better, right? No goal. Notre Dame wins, and we're all but eliminated from contention for the CCHA title.
This is what happens when you hire stupid people. Steve Piotrowski. Please listen to me and listen to me good. You need to put the skates back on. It needs to happen. We watched Brian Hill butcher the series with Miami down in Oxford, we watched Sergott and Hall lose control of the MSU series and play a role in Kampfer getting attacked, McInchak and Aaron were laughable in the first series with MSU (remember how much of a joke that game at Munn was?), now you've got a crucial series between two of the best teams the conference has to offer and Brian Aaron is the best official you can come up with? Are you kidding me? If he's the best guy around, Steve, you're doing the conference a disservice by not being out there. I may not have always been in love with the games you'd call, but I never would worry that a series or a game would get butchered like this one did, or that the game would get completely out of hand like the MSU game last week. You're 100 times better for the conference being on the ice rather than in a suit. Get it done. Or at least find some officials that aren't complete numskulls.
Not a whole lot of exciting stuff in the first period. Wohlberg and Lebler both got poke-checked by Pearce on rushes. They should file it away that he really likes doing that. That was at least 4 this weekend.
Hogan made a few nice stops, including a couple on Condra--one when Condra absolutely walked Burlon.
Notre Dame went up 2-0 on a penalty shot goal by Thang. He got behind Kampfer, ND hit on the pass, and Kampfer had to grab him. On the shot, Thang made a beautiful shot fake, Hogan thought about going for the poke-check but never fully committed to it, and Thang was able to go top shelf.
Not too much later it was 3-0. That was a gorgeous feed from Deeth to Ridderwall, who is becoming a real dagger in our side.
Summers had a fantastic defensive play to prevent a scoring chance late in the period. A pass got through Langlais's legs, but Summers got back, dove, and swept the puck away without taking out Hanson's legs and committing a penalty.
At the end of 2, we were down 3-0 but outshooting them 24-19.
The third was all Michigan. At one point late, we were outshooting them 10-3 and had a 9-1 lead in scoring chances.
Michigan made it 3-1 off a possession created by an offensive zone faceoff win. Lebler caused some havoc in front, and prevented Pearce from covering the puck. Palushaj dug it out and shot it in.
Robbie Czarnik finally got on the board again with a pretty power play goal. He fed it to Palushaj and shot down the wing. Palushaj put a perfect pass back to Czarnik, who buried it as he was falling down. It was hard to tell if the team was more excited to be back in the game, or more excited that Czarnik scored. They were going bonkers after that one.
Palushaj darn near set up another goal. He brought it into the zone 3 on 2. The defenseman on the left initially went with Hagelin but Palushaj carried it in far enough that he had to commit to Palushaj. When he did, Palushaj fed Hagelin who looked cross-crease for Rust, but the pass didn't connect.
We then got offsetting penalties because Rust was pushed into the goalie and Pearce took a massive dive. Makes sense to me. #1, Rust was pushed into the crease. #2, he barely touched Pearce. #3, Pearce went down like he was shot. Have some balls and just call the embellishment. You wouldn't have called Rust for that if Pearce didn't go down like a soccer player, so why call it just because the goalie flopped like a fish?
Czarnik then had a couple of great chances to tie the game. On the first one, one of ND's defensemen tied his stick up, but on the next chance, he fanned with a wide-open net. Ugh. The play came back in front and Miller had an empty net to shoot at, but he was well tied up by the defense and couldn't get a stick on it.
Michigan pulled the goalie with a minute left and appeared to score the tying goal but evidently the net was off. Or Brian Aaron is just an imbecile. I'm going with the latter.
Red wasn't mincing words after the game:
"I'm not here to discuss the officiating, but this was a big series, and obviously you want top officials here, but they were two great college hockey games. There's not much to choose between the teams. They've had a great season and to go unbeaten for 20 games is just unbelievable and that was going to come to an end. If we wanted to make a run at first place, we had to win this game tonight. "That's ok Red, I'm perfectly fine discussing the officiating. And they were terrible. Two inexcusable calls resulting in one good goal being waived off, and one illegal goal counting.
As for Maday's goal:
The one went in off his foot, the camera couldn't see it. If it would have been reviewable, it would not have been a goal.
The other way that I could have not been called a goal would have been if there was one competent official in the entire bunch. But that might be asking a little much for the CCHA. I always used to joke that when Brian Aaron was reffing, we might as well start down a goal because he was guaranteed to waive one of ours off. He did us one better tonight.
The officials pretty much ruined what was otherwise a really good hockey game. Notre Dame is a really great defensive team. That group of blueliners they've got is just stellar. They did a nice job of keeping Michigan to the outside and allowing only low-percentage looks in the first two periods. We had a couple of chances, but by and large most of our 24 shots on net through two weren't of the high-quality variety.
Those are two pretty evenly matched hockey teams. I'm a homer, but I think we're a little bit better than them, especially if we get Mark Mitera back, as it appears we're going to. With Mitera, Kampfer, Summers, and Burlon, we're every bit as good on the blueline as them. And that doesn't even mention any of the other guys, like Langlais who has been very solid this season (though I thought he struggled tonight).
Czarnik was flying again tonight, and it was great to see him put one in. Even though he missed an empty net later in the game, that goal really could get him going. He's been putting himself in good areas, maybe now the pucks will start going in for him. I also thought Lebler did some good things in the corners tonight.
It was also nice to see the power play finally click. We were 2-3 on the night with 7 shots on goal. ND has a good penalty kill and we were able to cash in twice. It'd be huge if those units could heat up a little bit.
Another really strong night from the fourth line. Fardig was just awesome and Glendening absolutely planted Minella when he jumped to glove down a puck.
One last highlight was the hit that Pateryn laid on an Irish player behind the Michigan net which led to a pretty nice rush for the Wolverines.
I don't think this will be the last we see of the Irish this year. I could easily see two more meetings taking place. The college hockey world would be lucky to see these teams meet twice more, because those were two darn entertaining hockey games between two great teams this weekend. Hopefully if we meet in the future, the teams will actually get to decide the outcome. That's a good, good hockey team right there. If it had stayed 3-0, I would've had no problem tipping my cap to them, saying "We'll probably see ya again. Great weekend of hockey!" and moving on to LSSU. But damn...those calls overshadowed an otherwise excellent series.
I don't understand why the officials are only allowed to look at the overhead camera. I get that not every game is on TV and not every team can afford to have multiple camera angles. But is the goal to have a system that is uniformly dysfunctional or is the goal to get calls correct? Isn't getting calls correct the whole point of replay? If the technology is there, why not use it? The current system doesn't allow for the review of pucks being batted in with a high stick. It doesn't allow for review of goals when the player happened to be more than 3 feet outside the crease. There were multiple camera angles that showed Maday's goal shouldn't have counted. But the ref wasn't allowed to look at any of them. That seems really stupid to me. Use what's available. I don't care if it's not uniform.
Lastly, I know some people were saying that the commentary seemed to favor Notre Dame (I didn't notice that, but then, they were also up 3-0 for awhile, so it probably should have) but I love listening to Dan Dickerson call hockey games. I think I commented on that the last time we had him as well. He's a great play by play guy. I could definitely stand for more of him.
Next up is LSSU, who will be fresh off their sweep of FYS.
Monday, June 11, 2007
A Couple Offseason Comments
Neither of these items are all that new, but I've been out for a little while so I didn't get a chance to comment when they became public.
The Schedule: Michigan released their 2007-08 schedule and...well...ouch. Kicking off the season against Boston College and then Minnesota or RPI might not be the best way for a young team with a shaky situation in net to get started. Then again, the BC game a couple years back was quite possibly Billy Sauer's finest moment as a Wolverine. Worst case scenario is that we lose to BC and Minnesota plays their typical game against an inferior opponent and loses to RPI, setting us up to give up 12 the next night and start 0-2.
Red has talked before about how he likes to get a road trip out of the way early when he has a young team, so they can bond. He's gonna get his wish. 6 of our first 8 and 8 of our first 12 are on the road, and they're all fairly lengthy trips (Minnesota, Marquette, Nebraska, Sault Ste. Marie). Then we come home to play Wisconsin and Minnesota.
We could be in for a really ugly start to the season if they don't get the defense/goaltending situation figured out in a hurry. At least the home games are spread out this year. Another plus: the game against the NTDP is the only Tuesday game this year. None of that 6 games in 11 days crap.
I'm curious to see how many games I'll be able to get on TV in Madison. I've got ESPNU, CSTV, and all the Fox Sports channels, so I have to believe there'll be quite a few. Count on a lot of live-blogging this year, since I won't be at the games (for the most part).
Eventually I'll break it down and make a WAG at a record for next year. I ran through it in my head really quickly and came out at 22-14, 19-9 in the CCHA, but that puts us ahead of our point total last year in conference so I want to revamp things a tad. That'll have to wait for another day.
Pio Is Gone: The other thing that needs to be commented on: As Mike Spath brought to our attention, Steve Piotrowski has stepped out of the rink to become the CCHA's Director of Officials. As much as I hated seeing him 3 or 4 years ago, I'm sorry to see him go. He was the one guy that the CCHA could put out there who I truly felt knew what he was doing. Sure he'd screw ya sometimes, but by and large he called a pretty good game. His departure leaves the CCHA in a sorry state as far as officials go.
Who would you even consider to be the CCHA's best official at this point? It's gotta be Kevin Hall or Mark (gulp) Wilkens now doesn't it? Last year convinced me that Matt Shegos belongs nowhere near the top of that list. Brian Aaron is a flippin' moron. Steve McInchak doesn't have a clue. The games Scott Hoberg called were a complete disaster. The first game Barry Pochmara called at Michigan was a good one, but he threw it away the next night. Then you've got Sergott, Kotyra, Lisko, and Murphy who don't usually do our games so I can't comment. I've never liked Hall, but he just might be at the top now. And with Wilkens, at least you know that the incompetence will be consistent. You're both getting 5 on 3s. There'll be a stream of players to the box. Deal with it.
Unfortunately, based on his hometown on Clinton Township, MI, I have to believe this means Michigan fans will be seeing a lot more of Scott Hoberg next year. We got Pio an awful lot, and at least part of that had to be due to the fact that Yost is the closest arena to Troy, MI. Clinton Twp. is out that way as well. I wonder if the Sun-Belt has anyone they aren't using......
The Bottom Line: I had to edit this post to add in one more comment. I was watching the IRL's Bombardier 550 from Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. The race was on tape delay by a half an hour, which I actually was unaware of at the time.
It was a great race. Lots of wheel-to-wheel action, an incredible camera shot out of Tony Kanaan's onboard camera when he threaded the needle between a spinning car and a loose tire, and in the closing laps Kanaan (my favorite driver in the series) was closing in on Sam Hornish Jr. (Who I happen to really dislike) for the lead of the race. Then, with about 15 laps remaining, what do I see crawl across the bottom line during the race telecast? "Sam Hornish Jr. wins the Indy Racing League's Bombardier 550 at Texas Motor Speedway"
Are you fucking kidding me, ESPN?
Since I was flying through the race on my DVR, I actually had a giant WTF moment until I realized that No Tim, it's not possible for the bottom line to have updated during your taped race. It was only at that moment that I even realized the race was on tape delay.
Seriously though, if it's a game being shown on tape delay on another network, and I just happen to stumble upon the score when I'm flipping channels at commercial, then shame on me. But there is absolutely no reason that I should see the results of the event that I'm watching on the bottom line, when you're showing the original telecast of the event.
It completely spoiled the end of what turned out to be an excellent finish. I had no interest in watching the last 15 laps after I knew what was going to happen. What made it especially infuriating was that this is at least the third time this has happened during an ESPN tape delayed event. It's inexcusable. And it's too bad, because ESPN's telecasts of auto races are typically very good, IMO.
While I'm complaining about ESPN, let me yell at Barry Larkin for a minute. After Gary Thorne went specifically out of his way to NOT say the words "No hitter" at the top of the ninth inning ("Look at the top line. That's all I'm going to say."), Larkin proceeded to say it roughly 17 times in the next 3 minutes. And he went to MICHIGAN! He should know better. I'm surprised he didn't go all the way and put a ladder above our dugout exit, and throw a black cat in front of Putnam.
How much of a heartbreaker was it to lose that game though? To give up one hit--a single to boot--and come away with a LOSS? Ugh. You had to know that was coming though, when Michigan kept failing to capitalize on opportunities. Once that first guy in the top of the 9th walked, I was pretty sure we were going to lose. By the way, did you know that the guy who drove in the winning run was ALSO the guy that stopped that throw at first base that was headed into right field?! I think he also boxes in the offseason and is dating Brady Quinn.
My favorite past-time during our game was to glance up into the upper-right hand corner to see if Oklahoma State was changing pitchers again in their game against Louisville. I swear that it said "Pitching Chg" more often than it was indicating there was action going on in the game. 20-2? In an elimination game? At least they came to play for that one! That game started at the same time Michigan's game did. When our game ended, Louisville was batting in the bottom of the 5th.
Also, if you think Oregon State's field turf baselines are weird, you should've seen the UCI/Wichita State game. The Shockers have an Astroturf infield, grass outfield. I'm really not sure how that came about. Or how people don't fall....
The Schedule: Michigan released their 2007-08 schedule and...well...ouch. Kicking off the season against Boston College and then Minnesota or RPI might not be the best way for a young team with a shaky situation in net to get started. Then again, the BC game a couple years back was quite possibly Billy Sauer's finest moment as a Wolverine. Worst case scenario is that we lose to BC and Minnesota plays their typical game against an inferior opponent and loses to RPI, setting us up to give up 12 the next night and start 0-2.
Red has talked before about how he likes to get a road trip out of the way early when he has a young team, so they can bond. He's gonna get his wish. 6 of our first 8 and 8 of our first 12 are on the road, and they're all fairly lengthy trips (Minnesota, Marquette, Nebraska, Sault Ste. Marie). Then we come home to play Wisconsin and Minnesota.
We could be in for a really ugly start to the season if they don't get the defense/goaltending situation figured out in a hurry. At least the home games are spread out this year. Another plus: the game against the NTDP is the only Tuesday game this year. None of that 6 games in 11 days crap.
I'm curious to see how many games I'll be able to get on TV in Madison. I've got ESPNU, CSTV, and all the Fox Sports channels, so I have to believe there'll be quite a few. Count on a lot of live-blogging this year, since I won't be at the games (for the most part).
Eventually I'll break it down and make a WAG at a record for next year. I ran through it in my head really quickly and came out at 22-14, 19-9 in the CCHA, but that puts us ahead of our point total last year in conference so I want to revamp things a tad. That'll have to wait for another day.
Pio Is Gone: The other thing that needs to be commented on: As Mike Spath brought to our attention, Steve Piotrowski has stepped out of the rink to become the CCHA's Director of Officials. As much as I hated seeing him 3 or 4 years ago, I'm sorry to see him go. He was the one guy that the CCHA could put out there who I truly felt knew what he was doing. Sure he'd screw ya sometimes, but by and large he called a pretty good game. His departure leaves the CCHA in a sorry state as far as officials go.
Who would you even consider to be the CCHA's best official at this point? It's gotta be Kevin Hall or Mark (gulp) Wilkens now doesn't it? Last year convinced me that Matt Shegos belongs nowhere near the top of that list. Brian Aaron is a flippin' moron. Steve McInchak doesn't have a clue. The games Scott Hoberg called were a complete disaster. The first game Barry Pochmara called at Michigan was a good one, but he threw it away the next night. Then you've got Sergott, Kotyra, Lisko, and Murphy who don't usually do our games so I can't comment. I've never liked Hall, but he just might be at the top now. And with Wilkens, at least you know that the incompetence will be consistent. You're both getting 5 on 3s. There'll be a stream of players to the box. Deal with it.
Unfortunately, based on his hometown on Clinton Township, MI, I have to believe this means Michigan fans will be seeing a lot more of Scott Hoberg next year. We got Pio an awful lot, and at least part of that had to be due to the fact that Yost is the closest arena to Troy, MI. Clinton Twp. is out that way as well. I wonder if the Sun-Belt has anyone they aren't using......
The Bottom Line: I had to edit this post to add in one more comment. I was watching the IRL's Bombardier 550 from Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. The race was on tape delay by a half an hour, which I actually was unaware of at the time.
It was a great race. Lots of wheel-to-wheel action, an incredible camera shot out of Tony Kanaan's onboard camera when he threaded the needle between a spinning car and a loose tire, and in the closing laps Kanaan (my favorite driver in the series) was closing in on Sam Hornish Jr. (Who I happen to really dislike) for the lead of the race. Then, with about 15 laps remaining, what do I see crawl across the bottom line during the race telecast? "Sam Hornish Jr. wins the Indy Racing League's Bombardier 550 at Texas Motor Speedway"
Are you fucking kidding me, ESPN?
Since I was flying through the race on my DVR, I actually had a giant WTF moment until I realized that No Tim, it's not possible for the bottom line to have updated during your taped race. It was only at that moment that I even realized the race was on tape delay.
Seriously though, if it's a game being shown on tape delay on another network, and I just happen to stumble upon the score when I'm flipping channels at commercial, then shame on me. But there is absolutely no reason that I should see the results of the event that I'm watching on the bottom line, when you're showing the original telecast of the event.
It completely spoiled the end of what turned out to be an excellent finish. I had no interest in watching the last 15 laps after I knew what was going to happen. What made it especially infuriating was that this is at least the third time this has happened during an ESPN tape delayed event. It's inexcusable. And it's too bad, because ESPN's telecasts of auto races are typically very good, IMO.
While I'm complaining about ESPN, let me yell at Barry Larkin for a minute. After Gary Thorne went specifically out of his way to NOT say the words "No hitter" at the top of the ninth inning ("Look at the top line. That's all I'm going to say."), Larkin proceeded to say it roughly 17 times in the next 3 minutes. And he went to MICHIGAN! He should know better. I'm surprised he didn't go all the way and put a ladder above our dugout exit, and throw a black cat in front of Putnam.
How much of a heartbreaker was it to lose that game though? To give up one hit--a single to boot--and come away with a LOSS? Ugh. You had to know that was coming though, when Michigan kept failing to capitalize on opportunities. Once that first guy in the top of the 9th walked, I was pretty sure we were going to lose. By the way, did you know that the guy who drove in the winning run was ALSO the guy that stopped that throw at first base that was headed into right field?! I think he also boxes in the offseason and is dating Brady Quinn.
My favorite past-time during our game was to glance up into the upper-right hand corner to see if Oklahoma State was changing pitchers again in their game against Louisville. I swear that it said "Pitching Chg" more often than it was indicating there was action going on in the game. 20-2? In an elimination game? At least they came to play for that one! That game started at the same time Michigan's game did. When our game ended, Louisville was batting in the bottom of the 5th.
Also, if you think Oregon State's field turf baselines are weird, you should've seen the UCI/Wichita State game. The Shockers have an Astroturf infield, grass outfield. I'm really not sure how that came about. Or how people don't fall....
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