Icebreaker I thought Michigan played a pretty good game in the first game. It was a much scrappier effort than I've seen out of their team the past couple years. They struggled to get the puck out of their zone for long stretches of time, but had a great defensive effort and managed to keep the amount of shots Billy Sauer faced down.
At the same time, there's absolutely no reason for a defenseman to get caught up the ice with a one goal lead in the third period, or in any close game. Michigan's defenseman remain a pretty huge question mark.
I'm glad I get to plead ignorance on the second game. I left after two periods to go eat at Cossetta's before it got too crowded, and ended up going back to the X for about the last 30 seconds of the game. I thought the officiating was fine for the first 40 minutes, and have no clue what happened in the third period. Minnesota didn't look great in the first two periods, but seemed like they were a just a little bit off in their timing. I still think they should be a very good team this year.
Lefty McFadden Wisconsin beat Notre Dame 4-1, which kind of surprised me. It was a tie game heading into the third period, when Wisconsin scored 3 goals on 8 shots. Wisconsin seems like a poor match-up for the Irish because the Badgers tend to play pretty conservatively, and don't make many mistakes, while Notre Dame is a team that loves to sit back and capitalize on mistakes.
Ohio State scored twice in the third period to win 2-1 over Mercyhurst. The Buckeyes fired 48 shots at former Maine goalie Matt Lundin.
Superior Cup Northern Michigan beat Michigan Tech 3-2, which was a bit of a surprise. I think people may have underrated Northern a little bit, and overrated Michigan Tech a little bit.
Lake Superior tied Minnesota-Duluth 2-2. Pat Inglis showed he could take over for Jeff Jakaitis, making 37 saves on the night.
Nye Frontier Classic Anchorage got their season started off with a win over Wayne State by a score of 5-2. The Warriors only had 13 shots on goal. All of UAA's goals came from freshman and sophomores.
Boston U lost to Robert Morris in the biggest upset of the night. The Terriers had a 2-0 lead in the third period before giving up 3 straight goals.
Misc.
St. Cloud scored a touchdown against Canisius. It's not every day that a team comes into St. Cloud and says, "Man, this place is a total upgrade from our campus"
Denver knocked off Maine 2-0.
Miami beat Vermont 2-1 to open up their season.
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I like to call myself a Gophers fan, but the refs, or ref I guess, was awful. The Gophers had like 6 consecutive powerplays in the late portion of the 3rd to help them to the win. One of the refs called a checking from behind major on Lord with about 4 minutes left.
When Mazzacco and Woog are complaining about the refs and the calls are going FOR the Gophs, you know it's bad.
That was a crazy game. Once the crowd got going, however, it seemed to become an avalanche of gophers. RPI almost got a very nice win...
I did enjoy the announcers discussing the advantage RPI enjoyed having played one game already -- think how he Ivies feel when they're opening their season against a team who's on their 3rd or 4th or 5th game.
What a great tournament to open the season, and with 2 wild finishes. Hockey is finally here.
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