Boston College ends North Dakota season, 2-1
MADISON, WIS.—
Michigan State scored a controversial power-play goal with 1:40 remaining Sunday afternoon, then scored again 32 seconds later to beat Colorado College 4-3 in the first West Regional quarterfinal at Dane County Coliseum, to snatch a berth in the NCAA hockey final four.
Michigan State (29-5-7) will face New Hampshire in Thursday’s semifinals, a reward that seemed only justified for Colorado College to achieve, after a season of catastrophic injuries such as broken legs, broken arms, broken tailbones, and assorted major surgeries.
But after surviving all the adversity, the Tigers (29-12-1) were ultimately brought down by a few simple toots on a whistle. Referee Tim Benedetto didn’t beat the Tigers singlehandedly, although his whistle-tooting could have passed for an audition with Michigan State’s lively pep band. The selective nature of his calls, however, took the best drama of the day out of the hands of the players.
Andrew Hutchinson tied the game 3-3 with a power-play goal from the right point at 18:20. And Adam Hall broke in on the left side and fired a shot that goaltender Jeff Sanger blocked with his glove, only to have the puck pop up high and land behind him, where it trickled in at the right edge at 18:52.
The crucial power-play goal occured when Benedetto, a motorcyle policemen from Everett, Mass., called the fifth interference penalty of the game on the Tigers, sending Paul Johnson to the box at 16:59. For the game, CC was penalized nine times to Michigan State’s seven, which isn’t a big difference. But the fact that the Tigers, a small, swift-skating, finesse team, would get five interference penalties to none for a Michigan State team that is skilled but committed numerous acts of what looked like interference — including on the game-tying goal — was at best curious, even if purely coincidental.
On a corner faceoff during that power play, the Spartans got the puck back to the right point where Hutchinson wound up to shoot, as a BC forward shoved CC defenseman Dan Peters into his own crease in front of Sanger, who never saw the screened shot that went in.
“I got pushed into the crease, and I know Jeff couldn’t see it to save it,” said Peters, a junior from Cottage Grove.
That, of course, would also qualify as interference, but the Spartans seemed to be immune to that call, even though Benedetto, at the urging of his linesmen, called to have the goal verified on video replay. They could only look for any MSU players in the crease, however, not for MSU players pushing CC players in.
“As much as refs don’t like to call penalties late in the game, he did it today, and we were fortunate enough to get a power-play goal on it,” said Michigan State coach Ron Mason. “Then he gave them a chance with a later call.”
True, after Hall’s tie-breaking goal, and with Sanger on the bench for a last-minute attack, Benedetto called a meaningless call on Michigan State with 28 seconds left.
The distasteful finish ended a fiercely fought game. The rested Spartans, who had the No. 2 bye in the West, jumped ahead 1-0 on Joe Goodenow’s goal at 1:56 of the first period. Spartan star Mike York was penalized for a heavy check from behind when K.J. Voorhees tied it on the rebound of Jesse Heerema’s shot off the crossbar at 14:43.
Cam Kryway scored on an alert play in the second period after goalie Joe Blackburn dived to poke-check the puck against Heerema but couldn’t recover to guard the open net, and the Tigers held the 2-1 lead into the third period. Another disputed penalty to the Tigers helped Adam Hall backhand in a rebound for a Spartan power-play goal at 9:14, but the Tigers immediately responded to the lost lead by reclaiming it at 3-2, as Trent Clark, a freshman from Superior, broke up the right side and blasted a 40-footer that slid through after Blackburn partially blocked it.
That set up the final, cruel twists. When it was over, CC coach Don Lucia made sure his players held their frustration inside. “I’m really proud of out players to go through what we’ve had to go through to get here,” said Lucia, taking the high road and refusing to comment about the officiating.
Scott Swanson, a senior all-WCHA defenseman from Cottage Grove, said: “There were some other factors involved. We’ve had injuries, and we haven’t gotten key bounces or calls all year. Today, we feel we deserved a little better than what we got.”
Gophers-Huskies kick off wide-open WCHA Final Five
MINNEAPOLIS, MN.
There is no question that the University of North Dakota is the No. 1 college hockey team in the WCHA, because the Fighting Sioux also are No. 1 in the nation. However, that hardly guarantees success in the WCHA Final Five tournament, which runs Thursday through Saturday at Target Center.
UMD didn’t make it to this year’s Final Five, but there will still be a strong Up North flavor to the event.
In fact, because the Fighting Sioux, coached by International Falls native Dean Blais, are a cinch to make it to the NCAA’s 12-team tournament, which will be announced on Sunday, they might fall into the same trap as numerous previous league champs, who haven’t won the Broadmoor Cup as WCHA playoff champs because they lack the all-out incentive of some other teams. It almost struck the Sioux last weekend, when they were upset 3-2 in overtime by Minnesota State-Mankato, then rebounded to win 3-2 and romp 10-0 in the deciding game on Sunday.
The No. 2 favorite is Colorado College, which has never won the trophy named for its Broadmoor heritage, even though the Tigers were league champs three straight years right before North Dakota won its three straight titles. The Tigers would be a likely favorite, but they are without star junior Toby Petersen, who broke his left leg in Saturday’s 5-4 victory that ended UMD’s season.
Petersen, from Bloomington Jefferson, had missed 17 games earlier this season with a broken right ankle, and he apparently caught a skate which being bumped in an inconsequential-looking sandwich between two Bulldogs in the second period Saturday, and when he twisted, he broke both the tibia (large bone) and fibula (small bone) in his left leg. He had surgery Sunday morning, during which a rod was installed to stabilize the tibia, and a plate was fastened onto the fibula.
“These new skates are so rigid, they’re like ski boots,” said CC coach Don Lucia, a Grand Rapids native. “They give you great support, but when you’re hit or get twisted, something has to give, and it won’t be the skate.”
That puts Petersen out of the lineup, where he joins Darren Clark from Superior, the first-line winger he replaced after his previous injury. Clark was to have further x-rays on his broken arm this week. “I hope I can play by regionals,” he said.
Colorado College also is certain to be invited to the NCAA party, being ranked among the top half-dozen teams all season, and as high as second in the country. But the Tigers, after surviving UMD’s spirited challenge for 3-1 empty-net and 5-4 overtime victories, must play archrival Denver in Friday’s 2:05 p.m. semifinal, and CC split four regular-season games with DU, which reached the Final Five with 2-1 and 4-2 victories over Michigan Tech last weekend.
The toughest challenge at the Final Five will fall to Minnesota and St. Cloud State, which face off Thursday at 7:05 p.m. in the unique first game, between the teams seeded 4-5. Their winner must come right back and play rested and ready North Dakota in Friday’s 7:05 p.m. second semifinal.
Minnesota is trying to make up for a second straight sub-.500 season with an unusual twist. Amid continuing rumors that coach Doug Woog would be replaced, that issue has been put in the background by the current explosion from last week’s St. Paul Pioneer Press’s well-researched blockbuster story disclosing the scandal of as many as 20 basketball players having from 200-400 class papers written for them.
The focus on that has relieved some pressure on Woog, who had reportedly been informed that he needed to bring the Gophers in with a .500 record, get home ice for the playoffs, and make the Final Five. Ironically, with a number of players and their parents privately upset at their treatment by the coach, the players met on their own and created some unity of playing for themselves, and they now could save Woog’s job. Latest speculation is that Minnesota will give Woog one more year, which will be announced prior to next season as a sort of farewell tour.
The Gophers defeated Alaska-Anchorage 4-0 and 1-0 last weekend to reach the Final Five with a 14-17-9 overall record.
“We’re looking at it as though our year doesn’t start till now, anyhow,” said former Duluth East star Dave Spehar, a junior winger for the Gophers. “St. Cloud will be tough, they’ve got a good club, but of course it will be tough to win three games in three nights. But maybe that will be good for us.”
St. Cloud State will be stronger for the game than at any time since Jan. 3. The Huskies split two games with the Gophers, each winning on the other’s rink, then the two teams tied both games of their late-season set. Since then, however, the Huskies have gotten healthy, and went to Wisconsin as the WCHA’s sixth-place team to sweep 5-2 and 3-2 games from the fourth-place Badgers.
“We were able to dress four full lines for the first time since Jan. 3,” said St. Cloud coach Craig Dahl. “We got Jason Goulet, Matt Bailey and Ryan Frisch all back from injuries. Frisch had a sprained knee, Bailey and Goulet both had serious medial-collateral knee ligament injuries, and we lost Peter Torsen for the season with a knee injury. We also lost John Cullen for the season with shoulder surgery.
“So we had to play 14 games with only nine or 10 forwards. We went 4-2-4 with only three lines and five defensemen, until we ran into Denver and North Dakota, so we were 4-6-4 that way. But it was great to have four lines again, and we were fired up to go to Wisconsin. Our line of George Awada, Al Noga and Goulet scored five goals and got 11 points out of the eight goals in the two games. And this is our fourth straight trip to the Final Five.”
UMD fans will remember the heart-wrenching Final Five preliminary last year, when goalie Brant Nicklin was injured after the Bulldogs had beaten Minnesota to make it, and St. Cloud State ruined a heroic effort by Tony Gasparini with a tying goal in the closing seconds and a victory in overtime.
The Final Five schedule at Target Center:
THURSDAY: Minnesota (14-17-9) vs. St. Cloud State (16-17-5), 7:05 p.m.
FRIDAY: Semifinals — Colorado College (27-10-1) vs. Denver (24-12-2), 2:05 p.m.; North Dakota (31-4-2) vs. Minnesota-St. Cloud winner.
SATURDAY: Third-place game, 2:05 p.m.; Championship game, 7:05 p.m.
Sioux, Tigers miss final four with rest of WCHA
MADISON, WIS.
To some, it was an upset when Boston College beat No. 1 ranked North Dakota 3-1 in one quarterfinal of the NCAA West Regional hockey tournament. And some truly perplexing officiating calls stymied Colorado College in a distasteful turnabout that saw Michigan State beat the Tigers 4-3 in the other West Regional quarterfinal.
Meanwhile, the day before out East, Denver blew a 3-0 lead, and a 17-4 edge in shots, and lost 4-3 to Michigan, when the Wolverines outshot Denver 22-1 the rest of the way in their first-round NCAA game. It mattered little that Michigan, the defending champion, would lose 2-1 in overtime to New Hampshire in an East Regional quarterfinal. When Maine thrashed bye-seeded Clarkson 7-2 in the other quarterfinal at Worcester, Mass., the field was set.
When the four finalists convene at the Pond in Anaheim on Thursday, Maine will face Boston College in an all-Hockey East semifinal at 3 p.m. Minnesota time, and Michigan State of the CCHA will face the third Hockey East team, New Hampshire, at 8 p.m. The winners meet for the title on Saturday at 7:30. Three Hockey East teams, and Michigan State, the only one of four CCHA teams to reach the final four, while the WCHA and ECAC will be at home, licking their wounds.
The feeling that stings the most is that only one WCHA team has won the NCAA title over the past seven years. In fact, if you were to seek out the finalists over the past six years plus this one, only two WCHA teams have been among the 14 that have played in the championship game. Only champion North Dakota two years ago, and Colorado College’s runner-up three years ago reached the final since 1992, when Wisconsin lost to Lake Superior State in the final.
North Dakota (32-6-2, but only 3-3 in postseason play), seeded with a bye at Madison, saw its quick-striking offense halted by Boston College’s bigger, but nearly as quick, Eagles. The goals were bunched in the second period. First, Mike Lephart’s shot from the right slot ricocheted off the crossbar and gave Chris Masters the chance to beat North Dakota’s superb sophomore goaltender Karl Goehring on the rebound. Lee Goren tied it for the Sioux when he carried a defender from the blue line to the net but still got his hands free to snap a shot into the extreme upper right.
The winner proved it simply wasn’t North Dakota’s night. The Sioux defense was retreating for a puck that had been sent into their end, but the hopelessly choppy ice caused the puck to skip over a defender’s stick, and Jeff Giuliano bolted past them to gain possession and rip a shot that snared the roof of the net and popped the water bottle straight up.
The top stars on both sides were harnessed all night. The Eagles stopped Jason Blake, while the Sioux prevented Brian Gianta and Jeff Farkas from being factors. Gionta scored into an empty net with 15 seconds to go, but the game revolved around Boston College’s brilliant defense, and 30 saves from Scott Clemmensen.
“We couldn’t get to the net,” said Sioux defenseman Brad Williamson. Jay Panzer, one of nine Sioux seniors, added: “They did a great job of blocking out when we tried to get to the net.”
Coach Dean Blais said: “They kept everything to the outside; I don’t know if we had a 3-on-2 or a 2-on-1. It’s certainly hard to lose, especially when expectations were so high. But give them credit.
“The frustration the players feel is that we’ve just finished one of the best years in North Dakota history, but it leaves a shallow feeling to not get to Anaheim.”
It was the second year in a row that the Sioux were ranked No. 1 but lost in a regional quarterfinal. Last year they lost to Michigan, which went on to win the whole thing. This time they lost a championship-quality game to a team ranked No. 1 in several preseason polls, but one that struggled until the playoffs began. In fact, the Eagles had to get lucky to beat Northern Michigan 2-1 on a pair of power-play goals on Friday, just to get the chance to face North Dakota.
“This was a championship quality game,” said BC coach Jerry York. “We thought, going in, that it would be much more wide–open, a 5-4 type game. The forwards on both teams are explosive and highly skilled.”
For Colorado College, a heroic charge despite injury-filled holes in its roster wound up on the short end against Michigan State. The CCHA Spartans, left alone to take on three Hockey East teams at Anaheim, play a tough style, while the Tigers play a game based on quickness and finesse. It almost seemed as though referee Tim Benedetto got his pregame notes mixed up, and he called several marginal interference calls on CC, while some blatant interference infractions on Michigan State went uncalled.
The Spartans capitalized by using a pair of power-play goals in the third period to vault from a 2-1 deficit to a 3-3 tie. Rubbing salt in the wound, Andrew Hutchinson’s tying goal, with 1:40 left, came after one of five interference calls against the Tigers, and Tiger defenseman Dan Peters said he was flagrantly pushed into his own crease — blatant interference — and interfered with his own goalie, Jeff Sanger’s chance to play the long shot. Adam Hall came back to win it 32 seconds later with a shot that hit Sanger’s glove, popped out, and slid just inside the far, right post.
CC coach Don Lucia, from Grand Rapids, did a good job of keeping his players from getting to Benedetto after the game, or from commenting on the 9-6 edge in penalties his injury-depleted Tigers were awarded. With Darren Clark of Superior and Toby Petersen of Bloomington Jefferson out, and Jon Austin of International Falls having to quit playing on a sprained ankle, the Tigers couldn’t hang on in the face of a 17-5 edge in shots the Spartans compiled in the third period, aided by three power plays.
“We haven’t gotten any key bounces, or key calls, all year,” said defenseman Scott Swanson of Cottage Grove, one of four key seniors and one of eight Minnesotans dressed for CC. “But we feel we deserved a little better than what we got in this one.”
On their best days, both North Dakota and Colorado College were worthy of winning a national championship this season. Instead, they will watch at home with the rest of the WCHA teams as ESPN carries the final four from Anaheim.
NCAA hockey tournament needs an overhaul
The curious regional setup of the NCAA hockey tournament has outgrown what once was a novel idea. It needs an overhaul, and the sooner the better.
The NCAA continues to look upon the hockey tournament as sort of a nuisance child in the family of NCAA tournaments. The ruling committee selects 12 teams to play at two sites. This year’s sites were Madison, Wis., and Worcester, Mass. Madison should be fun, you figure, recalling all those nights of sellout crowds screaming and chanting.
Kohl Center has been built in Madison now, and the Badgers have to share it between their hockey and basketball teams. It is large, with over 15,000 or 16,000 possible. But Dane County Coliseum bid for the tournament, and got it with more like 8,500 capacity.
The Badgers weren’t in the tournament, and neither was Minnesota. Without two such noted draws, the first-round games drew 2,414 fans to see Boston College edge Northern Michigan, while Colorado College whipped St. Lawrence 5-2. The next day, 2,910 poured into the place. Where are those Badger fans? On spring break. But consider this: In the plush new Kohl Center, neither the Badger hockey team nor the basketball team sold out its 14,000-plus seats for even one game.
However, that total of 5,324 fans would have fit nicely into Engelstad Arena in Grand Forks, or even at the new facility in Colorado Springs, although it is certain that holding the tournament at any campus rink where its team is involved would easily outsell the paltry showing in Madison, where the question was answered once and for all that the crowds are Badger fans, regardless of the sport.
The current setup has a couple of glaring problems. First, it needs to be presold to fans more enthusiastically than this one was, with only 2,400 sold before the tournament began. Second, I don’t like a tournament where one team has a bye while its opponent is decided in a rugged game the night before.
My suggestion is to go to 16 teams, something the NCAA steadfastly has refused to consider. Then we do away with the ridiculous power-rating setup and simply advise the four leagues that they each can come up with four teams. Let the leagues decide who will be seeded 1, 2, 3, and 4. Submit them to the NCAA, then they can put the tournament together by the following formula:
* Pick four sites, one for each league. Hockey East could be in Boston, ECAC in Lake Placid, CCHA in Detroit, and the WCHA could rotate among the various capable buildings, or, better still, be held until the final week before being decided, based on the No. 1 seed.
* At each of the four sites, the host team is seeded No. 1, while a No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 — all from different leagues — will also be seeded in. Then you play 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 in the semis, with the winners going the next night for a spot in the final four.
Local fans would probably be more tempted to go watch the other teams play, in addition to their own, in this setup. And they play off to one winner. At Madison, there were a couple buses from North Dakota, but they left before dawn on Sunday, got in to see the game, then headed home after the game. While it’s tough for a team to have to play a good team for the right to play a rested, better team, it’s also unfair to the team seeded with a bye. And why should that team, or its fans, show up and spend money for games a day early when their team is scheduled to play just one game, the next day?
I envison the Lake Placid site having Clarkson, Michigan, Denver, and Boston College; the Boston site would have New Hampshire, St. Lawrence, St. Cloud State and Ohio State; the Detroit site would have Michigan State, Colorado College, Maine and RPI; and Grand Forks could host North Dakota, Northern Michigan, Providence and Colgate.
Next year, the WCHA host could be Denver, or CC, or St. Cloud, or Wisconsin, depending on who is No. 1 seed. If some arena is too small, think about last weekend, and how easy it would be to get more than 6,000 for each session.
Whatever, this formula would leave room so that if one conference is better — or luckier — in a given year, it would gain more than one berth in the final four. But it would be determined on the ice, not in a boardroom. This year, the committee weighed all the criteria carefully, and decided the CCHA was deserving of four places while the ECAC got two, and, since those two weren’t seeded very high, both were whipped quickly. But if the CCHA got four teams, only one made it, in Michigan State. The WCHA got blanked, while Hockey East got three teams — and all three made it to Anaheim. Does that mean the computer was bunk? Should it have given four spots to Hockey East and cut down the CCHA and WCHA?
Forget the politics, or even the computer. Let each league have four teams, and let those leagues decide how they want to seed and submit their four. Regular season? Fine. Playoff? OK. Just submit your own league’s 1-2-3-4 teams, by preconceived formula or by league vote.
Bulldogs thrive on hectic baseball schedule
It was a bright, fairly clear and fairly mild spring day in Duluth, but it would turn into typical Duluth spring weather soon.
By the time the UMD baseball team had whipped Bemidji State 11-4 and the second game of Tuesday’s Northern Sun doubleheader had begun, the clouds had swept in, the temperature plunged about 15 degrees, and the handful of fans who remained zipped their jackets up to the top and wished they had worn heavier ones.
It was a critical doubleheader for the Bulldogs, who had gone into last weekend with a 2-3 league record, and stood 6-8 overall. But they swept Minnesota-Morris 10-4 and 7-1 on Saturday, and took Morris again, 7-2 and 10-0, on Sunday. A rescheduled doubleheader at Carleton was played on Monday, with UMD winning 3-1 and 12-4.
So the Bemidji State doubleheader meant doubleheaders on four consecutive days — eight games in four days. Winning the opener was huge, as ace pitcher Chris Swiatkiewicz, who set a school record for career strikeouts on Saturday, struck out 11 more.
“Chris is a great pitcher, he’s something like 15-1 now,” said coach Scott Hanna. “The Dukes are looking at him, and the White Sox have scouted him.”
Robert Rothe hit a home run in that first game, while Dave Tafelski, Bryan Spaeth and Jed Meyer had two hits each.
The second game, the team’s eighth game in four days, became enormously important to the Bulldogs in the league picture, and Hanna started Jamie Swenson, a sophomore from Woodbury, on the mound. “He worked his way up from pitching relief to become one of our four starters,” said Hanna, who is in his 21st year as UMD coach.
Swenson had good stuff, chilly weather or not, as the second game stood 2-2 in the last of the fourth. With two out and a runner on third, Kiel Kreidermacher attempted a squeeze bunt that went foul. But two pitches later, Kreidermacher, a senior from Mendota Heights, lined a single to right-center to break the tie.
Matt Joesting, the team’s top hitter at .390, socked his fourth home run of the season in the fifth to make it 4-2, and Andy Dooley, a junior from Albert Lea, and another reliever who has earned a starting slot, relieved Swenson and finished off the last two innings of a 5-2 victory.
The back-breaking task of eight games in four days had resulted in eight straight UMD victories. The Bulldogs, once 1-3 in the Northern Sun, vaulted to 9-3, and from 6-8 to 14-8 overall.
It’s been a team effort, with Joesting (.393), Tefelski (.388), Kreidermache (.357), Ryan Skubic (.349); Steve Battaglia (.333), Rothe (.306), Bryan Spaeth (.302), and Marty Spanish (.300) leading the way offensively. As for pitching, Chris Swiatkiewic is 5-0, Swenson 3-1 and Dooley 3-0, seeing double-duty between staff rotations.
“It’s a stretch on the pitching staff, and it wears me out, but the players seem to thrive on it,” Hanna added. “It was tough, because we played at Carleton last night, then bused home late, and had to play Bemidji today. But it’s the same for everybody.
“Besides, next week we’ve got 10 games in six days. We play Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.”
Monday’s game is against Wisconsin-Superior at 1 p.m. at UMD; Tuesday is a return trip to Bemidji State; Wednesday, Mount Senario comes to Duluth for a 1 p.m. doubleheader; and Southwest State visits UMD for Friday and Saturday doubleheaders. Before that, though, UMD hit the road on Thursday to play doubleheaders at Northern State in Aberdeen, this Friday and Saturday.
As for the jammed-up schedule, Hanna described it best.
“It’s kind of like a fight with a muskie,” said Hanna. “It’s a short, violent fight.”
]That was one of the equalizers in playing Bemidji State, which is possibly the only school on the schedule with a shorter, less-predictable baseball season than the springtime in Duluth.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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