They Say It's Your Birthday...

In a nutshell, I'd like to thank the Michigan Tech hockey team and staff for one of the best birthday presents I've ever had.

Tonight's Huskies perhaps took a little while to get going, but I was quite happy with their performance overall. I knew as soon as Nolan came up with a huge ass save within the first two minutes of the game that he would be fine. The defense came up pretty big too, with a lot of good blocks, a strong PK, and plenty of successful clearing attempts.

This having been my 21st, I will now commence with some celebratory adult beverages and begin to contemplate tomorrow's title game against a certain school from Ann Arbor. A school that I grew up cheering for. A school that I nearly attended. But that was then, and this is now.

My opinion is that Sparty was due for a rude awakening. They have played a lot of middle-of-the-pack CCHA teams, but have failed to defeat anyone with a record better than .500 at this point in the season. Beating Michigan will be a much taller order for the Huskies, especially since the Wolverines new lines (formed due to the temporary absences of some players to World Juniors) have now had a game to adjust.

{PROVICED played a decent first period against Michigan this afternoon, but the Wolverines eventually found their mojo and Sauer played well. Sure, a lot of shots were simply fired into his chest, but he made some good saves to preserve his shutout. None were as big as the shot that he stoned with a save against the side of his body, after he'd been caught wandering from the net. Bottom line - this is not the Billy Sauer that I saw against North Dakota in last year's NCAAs.

Sleep well Huskies, for tomorrow you must truly play to win.

PS. - Props to the Michigan Alumni Band for only playing "Let's Go Blue!" 8 times this year. In spite of the fact that I kept count, I felt that was reasonable. ;)

Jingle Bells

Two decently-played games, and almost nothing to show for it. We have GOT to score goals, or at least Stewart has got to stop making a career out of playing well against Tech. Although based on his embellishment Friday night, he might have a career in drama!

It was fun invading the BEC on Friday night, and I lost my voice as I intended to do. I may be biased, but I'd say we out-cheered the Puckheads. Oh, and Northern's hockey band does suck. But hey, at least they aren't the Michigan Alumni Band (*Let's Go Blue*...23...23!)

Frankly, in spite of the weekend, I'd rather be a winless Husky than any sort of Wildcat.

With that, it's time for an exam/holiday break here at tSBFitW. I'll be back with some GLI coverage after Christmas. 3rd place or bust!

Rivalry Week

Welcome to Rivalry Week here at tSBFitW.

Following a weekend off which saw SCSU slip into a tie for the rock bottom of the WCHA after a Denver sweep, and Wisconsin continue to languish in the bottom three after a 1-point weekend at Mankato (no tears shed by this blogger), we find ourselves almost at the midway point of the collegiate hockey season. Hell, even Minnesota nearly blew a 4-1 lead to earn a split with the Sioux and they remain in the bottom half of the league.

A look at the standings, however, shows the incredibly amount of parity within the WCHA at this point in the season.

Colorado College -------- 10-2-0 -------- 20 pts.
Denver ------------------ 9-3-0 --------- 18 pts.
Minnesota-Duluth ------- 5-6-3 --------- 13 pts.
North Dakota ------------ 6-6-0 -------- 12 pts.
Michigan Tech ----------- 5-6-1 -------- 11 pts.
Minnesota --------------- 5-7-0 -------- 10 pts.
Minnesota State --------- 3-6-3 -------- 9 pts.
Wisconsin --------------- 4-5-1 --------- 9 pts.
Alaska-Anchorage ------- 2-5-3 -------- 7 pts.
St. Cloud State ----------3-6-1 --------- 7 pts.

A mere four points separate 8th place Wisconsin from 3rd place UMD. That's a single weekend sweep folks, and a surprisingly tough UAA squad is now only another game behind that group following a three-point weekend at Duluth. There's no doubt that SCSU still has the guns necessary to get on a hot streak and improve too, with quite a bit of offensive talent.

At this point, the only thing certain is that CC and DU appear to be running away with the league's top-tier this season, but there's still plenty of time for that to change during the second half of the league schedule.

At any rate, Tech now has six non-conference games to prepare for, the first of which is coming up this weekend. It's the annual slugfest against Not Much Upstairs, eNeMa U, STD U, etc.

There really isn't a lot I can say about this series. As Jamie Russell himself has said, there is essentially no worthwhile pep talk you can give a Tech squad regarding the rivalry - if they aren't totally fired up to play their archrivals, words won't help. I would love nothing more than to pick up two, well-fought wins this weekend, and try to get some momentum going into the MSU game at the GLI. Besides which, we still have that loss from the beginning of the season to avenge, and I don't expect that the team has easily forgotten that either.

Regarding this stretch of non-con games, naturally I'd love to see a 6-0 record and a GLI championship. Realistically, I'd like to see 5-1 or 4-1-1. A win at the GLI, a sweep of Mercyhurst, and at least a win/tie against NMU. We need to use these games as a springboard for a good second half.

Notice

I realize that I've been slacking a bit lately, but I've been busy with finals projects, papers, and other end-of-the-semester BS. Expect a post on the upcoming eNeMa U slugfest at some point in the next few days. ;)