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. ;)

And The Winner Is...

Congratulations to the Michigan State Spartans, 2007 National Champions. After the woes your football program has been suffering recently, it's nice to see at least one MSU team do well, especially after being underdogs through it all.

That would be MSU's third title - Christ they're tied with Tech now. It's alright though, we're gonna win our fourth in the next two or three years. If State can break a 21-year titleless streak and BC can break a 50+ year titleless run (back in 2001), then MTU is due to end 38 years of suffering (as of 2008) soon. ;)

And with that, hockey is officially over for about the next six months...

*ahem*

...

So...is it October yet?