January 8, 1999

January 8, 1999, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Well tonight marks the first home game for the year 1999 and the first of three straight games against the Ferris State Bulldogs. The Wolverines ended 1998 by loosing to MSU in the finals of the GLI tournament and started 1999 by loosing to OSU in the first game played at OSU’s new Value City Center Arena. It goes without saying that putting together a two game loosing streak is not the way you want to end and start years. These two losses did impact the Wolverines in the standings. They dropped from 3^rd to 7^th in the national polls and gave up 1^st place to in the CCHA (MSU now sits in first with a one point lead). The mid season break seems to have been detrimental to Michigan this year. Just before the break it appeared that the Michigan offense was starting to find itself, but after the layoff the offense was gone. I hope we find it soon.

On the bad side of things Brian Fishman, the 29-year-old former Sports Information Director for the Michigan Hockey program was found dead in his apartment Thursday afternoon, the apparent victim of a faulty furnace (carbon monoxide poisoning). Brian had worked tirelessly to promote Michigan hockey in his time at UM and was part of the UM hockey family. He was with the team for both of their recent national championships. He left UM after last year’s championship to take advantage of an opportunity with USA hockey and was with team USA at the World Juniors. He apparently died after returning to Ann Arbor from this tournament. He was well known and well liked by many of the players on this team. His untimely death was a shock to all and he will be missed. Our condolences to Brian’s family.

On the good side of things our team is almost at full strength. We get Josh Langfeld back from his injury tonight. Josh suffered a nerve injury back in early December that hadn’t really bothered him until New Years eve when he suddenly suffered excruciating pain and spent the better part of New Years eve in the hospital undergoing tests (there’s a New Years to forget). He did not play against OSU and only joined practice on Thursday. We also get Jeff Jillson back from the World Junior tournament. Jeff might be a little tired, but his presence on the defense will be a good thing. We are still missing Mike Van Ryn who played for team Canada in the World Juniors. Mike was selected as the captain for team Canada and from all reports had a terrific tournament. This could be the first time that a Canadian playing college hockey in the U.S. has been selected as the captain for team Canada in this yearly tournament. Congratulations Mike. Canada took the silver medal, loosing to the Russians in overtime in the finals. Mike is a little banged up coming out of the tournament and went home for a couple of days to have Christmas and recover. He should be back in Ann Arbor for Saturday’s game against Ferris, although he will not play.

Going into tonight’s game against Ferris the battle in the CCHA is as tight as it usually is, with four teams really fighting it out at the top and the rest of the league not far behind. Michigan State and Ohio State sit at the top of the league each with 22 points. This is a bit misleading because OSU played last night (Thursday) so we’ll see how things go after tonight. Michigan sits in second/third with 21 points and Ferris is third/fourth with 18 points. As you can see these next three games are critical to the Wolverines (somehow I think every game is going to be critical for the rest of the year with the CCHA race as tight as it is). If Michigan can sweep all three games they put some real distance between themselves and Ferris. Even if they win 2 out of 3 they can get a bit of breathing room. However, if Ferris should sweep Michigan they would move ahead of Michigan in the standings and could really put Michigan in a bad spot, needing a lot of help to move ahead of Ferris in the standings as the season progresses (we play all three of our games against Ferris in the next 8 days). If Ferris takes 2 of 3 they would get a lot closer than is comfortable. Lets see how tonight’s game goes.

I have to tell you it was a brutal drive from Grand Rapids over to Ann Arbor Friday night. So brutal in fact that I missed all but one minute of the first period. But don’t despair. I was listening to the game as I slowly made my way to Ann Arbor. Let me sum up the first period by saying I didn’t miss anything. It was a defensive, slow moving, penalty based period. As I was driving in for about 6 or 8 minutes it was penalty, penalty, penalty. One team would get a penalty, kill of the opposing teams power play, then the other team would get a penalty, and so on. A pretty sloppy game all the way around. At end of this period the score was zero to zero and Ferris had the edge in shots on goal, 7 to 4.

Well the second period started out much the same way as the first had with Ferris being called for a penalty about 1-½ minutes into the period, putting Michigan on the power play. Michigan worked the puck around and got a power play goal from Mike Comrie just over three minutes gone in the period. Assists were given to Jillson and Kosick. There were again very few real scoring opportunities by either team as this was really a defensive struggle. About midway through the period several Wolverines were coming into the Ferris zone. The puck was over the blue line with Berenzweig slightly behind the player with the puck (sorry I forget who was moving the puck into the zone). The puck was moving into the zone just off to left center of the goalie (if you were the goalie standing in net). The puck handler made a nifty drop pass to the trailing Berenzweig who looped around, using the first player as a screen, and got a great shot off without any Ferris player harassing him. Bubba tried to top shelf, but the shot was blocked. It’s hard to give it justice with words, but this was one sweet looking play and was one of the few highlights of this period. The next real highlight of the period came with about 3 ½ minutes left in the period. Justin Clark intercepted a pass at center ice and got a break away. He moved in on the Ferris netminder all by himself and got off another great shot, which was turned away by the Ferris net minder. This would be one of the other highlights of this period. This was again a very sloppy period, the hitting was getting harder, and you could tell a few tempers were starting to fray. I’m not sure what was going on with the officials in this game. At one point two players were going at it at the end of the ice where the puck wasn’t, an official actually went down there to break them up, but there were no penalties. A couple of minutes later a UM player barely touches a FSU player and we end up in the penalty box. Anyway, the penalty calling seemed to be very inconsistent. This period came to an end with Michigan leading one to nothing and leading in shots on goal 19 to 13.

For the sake of consistency the sloppy play continued as the third period began. Michigan had about 3 seconds left on a power play from the end of the second period, which of course was not nearly enough, time to do anything with. Just as this power play ended Michigan was called for a penalty putting Ferris on the power play. About midway through this Ferris power play Justin Clark was again in the right place and got a clean break away. It was just him and the goaltender and again the goaltender won. The end result of this power play was a goal by Ferris to tie the game. About five minutes later Ferris got the go ahead goal and now led 2 to 1. There was another 4 or 5 minutes of ugly hockey until we got to about the mid point of the third period. I have to tell you that until this point in the game this had been a pretty ugly hockey game. Bad passing, missed scoring opportunities, bad penalties, you name it, it happened. It is what I would call sleepy hockey as was shown by an unusually subdued crowd in Yost. I can’t fault the desire or the work that the players were putting in, but nothing seemed to be working. Up until this point it looked like five players going all out, rather than five players working as a team to generate scoring opportunities. I don’t know what started it, but with about ten minutes left in the game we were suddenly watching a completely different hockey game. The crowd started to get loud, exhorting their Wolverines to put things together. Suddenly the passes we crisper, the offensive intensity was higher, and our five individuals were playing like a team. They were still going all out, but they were playing together. With just over nine minutes left in the period, just as a UM power play expired, Langfeld got the tying goal with assists going to Jillson and Blackburn (that’s right the goalie gets a point for an assist). The offensive pressure being mounted by UM continued with no letup. It seemed with each offensive attack an additional two or three shots on goal would go up on the board. With just under seven minutes to go in the period Jillson got the go ahead goal (which turned out to be the game winner) with assists going to Rominski and Kosick. While there were no more scores in this period the offensive attack by UM continued. With about five minutes left Koch got two fantastic chances to get another goal. Both were turned away, but the effort was great considering that UM was shorthanded at the time. Well the game ended with Michigan winning 3 to 2 and Michigan winning the shots on goal battle 30 to 18.

Well we’ll see if the last ten minutes of this period were an indication that the offense is starting to come back to life or not. It was certainly good to have both Langfeld and Jillson back in the lineup. Jillson comes back from the World Juniors and gets 3 points his first night back in a UM uniform. Langfeld gets a goal, Kosick gets 2 assists, and Comrie gets another goal. Comrie is the only UM player listed among the top ten point getters in the CCHA and continues to make a strong case for rookie of the year. A lot of players worked very hard in this game and perhaps they are getting back into the groove so that hard work leads to wins. Michigan plays Ferris again Saturday night in Yost. It should be a great game and lets hope they really light up the board. Until next time – C-ya!!