Saturday, October 2, 1999

Saturday, October 2, 1999, Yost Arena, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Well here we are again; it seems I just left here. Tonight’s opponent is Wilfrid Laurier and they come from Canada. There were some injuries from Friday night’s blue/white game. Captain Sean Peach was out with a groin injury and Andrew Merrick was also out (I didn’t catch what his injury was). Wilfrid Laurier played Notre Dame on Friday night where the Irish beat them, by a score of 4 to 1. This is interesting because the Irish put 52 shots on goal to WL 13. WL used two goalies against the Irish and neither of them will play against the Wolverines tonight. Apparently they saved their number one goalie for tonight. Again Brad Frasier appears to have made the team, but I will await official confirmation of this before adding him to the rosters. This would be good given the injury to one of top defensemen, Sean Peach. He is out tonight and may miss at least one game next week against Notre Dame. Let’s move on to the game.

As the players took the ice and prepared to play the difference in this years team, and the past couple of years became apparent. The Wilfrid Laurier team is big and quite a few of our players looked just plain small up against them. This period got off to a rousing start with WL being called for a penalty before even on minute had ticked off the clock. While WL was able to kill off the power play, the Wolverines applied a great deal of pressure. The WL goalie, at 6 foot 5 inches and 230 pounds (man that’s a lot of body in goal), stopped all the shots we chucked at him. With about 16 ½ minutes left in the period WL was called for holding giving UM another power play opportunity. While on the power play Comrie was back peddling into the Michigan zone. Right in front of Blackburn he gave up the puck with a kind of lazy pass, to a pressing WL player. WL got off a shot just trickled through Blackburns legs and into the goal to give WL the early lead on a short handed goal. This was simply not a good play by Comrie. With about 14 ½ minutes left in the period Langfeld was called for interference giving WL a power play. The Wolverine defense was up to the task and skated off the power play. With just under 12 minutes to go WL was called for slashing putting UM back on the power play. Again during this power play a lazy kind of pass caused the puck to be given up deep in the Michigan zone, but this time Comrie charged in and scraped the puck away before any scoring threat could be mounted (Comrie did not make the bad pass this time, if I remember correctly this time it was Jillson). WL was able to kill off the remainder of the UM power play. With just over 9 minutes in the period Koch was called for a charging penalty. In addition, Gassoff and Cory McRae for WL were both called for roughing after the whistle. Neither team was able to score any goals with this bunch of players off the ice. With about 7 minutes left in the period Mike Cammalleri was called for tripping giving WL a power play opportunity. With 46 seconds left in the power play Jeff Ambrosio of WL was called for a penalty. He dragged Hilbert down as he was driving for the WL goal. This evened things up, but again no goals were scored. With about 2 ½ minutes left in the period Kosick for UM and Al Stewart for WL were both called for slashing putting the teams at four on four. There were no scoring threats for the remainder of the period and the first period did end with WL holding a 1 to nothing lead, even though UM held a big edge in shots on goal with a 12 to 5 count.

After the penalty filled first period, I wasn’t sure what to expect as the second period got under way, but things would start to look up. About two minutes into the period UM again went on the power play. As this power play was beginning to draw to a close Comrie was able to bang a shot past the WL goalie to tie the contest at 1 apiece. Assists on this goal were given to Hilbert and Jillson. With 10:43 left in the period Vancik was called for a penalty putting WL on the power play. Seconds later, with 10:30 left Huntzicker and Andrew Hamilton (for WL) were called for cross checking. In addition, Gassoff was called for unsportsmanlike conduct (not sure what he was called for). The end result was that WL was skating with a 5 on 3 advantage for about 1 minute 47 seconds. In an impressive defensive stand Michigan was able to kill off this WL power play. With 1:32 left in the Gassoff penalty (and the resulting WL power play), WL was called for cross checking canceling out the WL power play. Then with 7:53 left WL was called for tripping (tripped Blackburn behind the net), putting UM on the power play with a 4 on 3 advantage. With 7:18 left in the period Langfeld gets a power play goal with assists going to Comrie and Jillson. This gave Michigan a one-goal lead. With just under two minutes left in the period Ortmeyer was called for charging putting WL on the power play to end the second period. WL was unable to mount any scoring threat as the period expires. Right at the 20-minute mark of the period one player from WL and one player from UM were called for slashing. At the end of two it was Michigan 2, Wilfrid Laurier 1, with Michigan holding an even larger edge in shots on goal with a 30 to 10 count.

WL started the third period with a short power play, which they were unable to take advantage of. With 18:40 left in the period WL was called for a penalty when one of their players elbowed Cammalleri right next to the boards. UM was unable to take advantage of the power play although they were applying tremendous pressure. With just over 14 minutes to go in the period a WL player was called for a double minor (roughing and tripping) giving UM a four minute power play. With just under 13 minutes in the period another WL player was called for charging giving UM a 5 on 3 advantage. With 46 seconds left in the power play Comrie got a power play goal with assists going to Kosick and Hilbert. At this time it appeared that UM was getting a little breathing room, but with about 7 ½ minutes to go in the period WL got their second goal of the night when UM made another lazy pass in their zone. The WL player got the puck past O’Malley who had come in for Blackburn with 10 minutes left in the period. With 6:51 left in the period WL was called for holding putting UM back on the power play. With just 2 seconds left in this power play Langfeld got his second goal of the night with assists going to Kosick and Hilbert. With just over 4 minutes to go in the period Vancik let fly with a booming shot from the blue line that beat the WL goalie to give UM a three goal cushion. The assist on this goal was given go Murray. With about 3 minutes left in the period UM was called for a penalty putting WL on the power play. Five seconds later a WL player was called for a penalty (right off the face off), that cancelled off the power play and leaving the teams skating 4 on 4. With 1:51 left in the period, while still skating 4 on 4, Matzka got the puck, blew past the WL defenseman and beat the WL goalie to give UM their sixth goal of the night. Assists on this goal were given to Jillson and Trainor. With 1:20 left UM was called for another penalty to give WL a 4 on 3 advantage for 16 seconds and then a power play the rest of the way. WL was unable to mount any scoring threat and the game ended with UM winning by a score of 6 to 2. UM ended the game with a huge edge in shots on goal with a 56 to 12 count.

Well this was an entertaining game with UM applying a great deal of pressure throughout the contest. While the WL players were bigger UM was quicker and it finally wore them out. While UM basically outplayed WL for the entire game they were only able to pick up 6 goals off 56 shots. This says volumes about the WL goalie. Consider that on Friday night Notre Dame put up 52 shots and on Saturday UM put up 56 shots against three different goalies on this WL team. Out of a total of 108 shots the three WL goalies only gave up 10 goals. That’s quite an accomplishment.

The team seemed more aggressive tonight than on Friday in the blue/white game (as could be expected I suppose). It was also very refreshing to see that the incoming freshman class was playing a big role in the game tonight. They were all over the ice, looking to make things happen. This looks to be a very good class all the way around. I just cannot say enough about Hilbert. He had another good outing and I’ll go out on a limb here very early in the season without seeing any other rookies in the conference. UM gets their second straight CCHA rookie of the year – Andy Hilbert. One other tidbit of information that I hadn’t gleaned for my CCHA season preview. UM freshman Mike Cammalleri is a youngster. He took an accelerated path through high school to complete his course work early so he could move on to this level of hockey. His birthday was just a couple of months ago in June when he turned a whopping 17 years of age. While he is certainly younger than everyone else is on the ice and a bit smaller physically he looks to be a player. Keep an eye on the youngster; he’s going to do some things this year.

Well the exhibition games are over. Next week we start the real season with two big games against the Irish of Notre Dame. Again because of the new scheduling system (to make room for the 12^th CCHA team) these two games are the only two we get against ND in the regular season. With ND expected to contend for the CCHA title these two games could be vital at the end of the year. Because of a home football game at ND these two games will be played on Thursday and Friday next week, NOT Friday and Saturday. In addition, Indiana is in a different time zone so they will start at 8:05 EST.

Well I hope my articles haven’t been to disjointed this weekend. I was quite busy between hockey, football, and the travelling back and forth from home to Ann Arbor. I also have to relearn this information gathering process since I seem to have forgotten it all since last year. Until next week when the CCHA starts with a bang, C-ya!!