Paula C. WestonThe View From Below So, you’ve slept through your alarm and you’re running late for work. You’re the last one to the shower, and there is no hot water left. The coffee’s all gone, and you’re having difficulty locating a clean pair of anything. Last night’s snowfall adds another ten minutes to your morning routine, … Read more
It’s Lonely at the Top…and the Bottom Perhaps it’s the same every year, in every league. A couple or several teams stand out, look to make a run for the regular-season title, and leave everyone else in the dust. Then there are programs that can’t get their feet out of the mud, perennially anchoring their … Read more
Act I With a two-game sweep over Miami, Michigan moved into sole possession of first place last weekend, leaving Michigan State and Northern Michigan deadlocked for second, and once again the CCHA looks like a three-tier league, with three teams on top, a bunch of teams in the middle, and several teams struggling to grab … Read more
Relativity, Or Why Size Doesn’t Matter Popular sentiment about size is fairly split. Bigger is better. Good things come in small packages. When the Buffalo Bills benched Doug Flutie in favor of Rob Johnson for their playoff game against the Tennessee Titans (titan: one that is gigantic in size or power), the pro-Flutie contingency claimed … Read more
Checking the Calendar So, midnight 2000 arrived and you found yourself Y2K-compliant, and your computer didn’t explode, and the world didn’t end in some fiery mess, and the aliens were benign after all, and your debit card still provided the means with which to purchase gas and cold beer, and the center held, and the … Read more
Happy holidays, CCHA fans! In college hockey, the only way to celebrate the end of the calendar year is with tournament action. And to many Central Collegiate Hockey Association fans, there’s only one tournament worth mentioning. The Lake Effect, 35 Times Michigan Tech originally brought us the Great Lakes Invitational 35 years ago, a moot … Read more
Gifts of the Season You have to wonder about a weekend where so many CCHA fans got to see their teams win at home. Every single home team won this weekend, with the exception of the Wildcats and Lakers, who swapped a pair of road wins in a home-and-home series. The week before Thanksgiving, nearly … Read more
College Hockey? Never Heard Of It. Q: What’s the best-kept secret in Kalamazoo? A: The Western Michigan Broncos, of course. "We’ve got the league’s second-leading scorer, the leading freshman, and the leading goal-scorer on the power play, and no one here knows about us," laments Bronco head coach Jim Culhane. In a city where Culhane … Read more
Stock Options With a third of the season behind us, now is as good a time as any to take stock and make some less-than-bold statements. Who’s the best the league has to offer? Who’s the worst? And where in this league can you get what passes for a decent meal, anyway? Best Player: Hands … Read more
Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming Did you know that I’m a slut? Did you know that I’m a slut for Michigan State? Well, you did if you were one of the two people who recently felt compelled to email me, anonymously, to tell me that he or she sees me for what I really … Read more
The Bottom Look Like Up So, Michigan State tops the conference, followed by Western Michigan, Northern Michigan, and Bowling Green. Western Michigan? Bowling Green? While Notre Dame and Ohio State linger near the bottom of the standings, other programs more familiar with the cellar in recent years are seeing some daylight, and the team with … Read more
Reversal of Fortune Western Michigan’s in second place, and Alaska-Fairbanks is tied for fifth with #10 Northern Michigan. Ohio State has one win to its credit, and shares ninth place with Lake Superior. Notre Dame–with no league wins in four games–anchors the basement along with Nebraska-Omaha. A hole in the space-time continuum? A witch’s curse? … Read more
The NCAA and major juniors Hey kid–you wanna play hockey? You already play major junior? Not a problem. Just come south of the border and sign this letter of intent… The NCAA is considering passing legislation that will allow professional athletes to pursue careers at U.S. colleges. The sport this would affect most in Canada … Read more
Calling Dr. Kildare… Stop the presses! Hold all tickets! With one week of official play on the books, the CCHA looks a bit different than it did just ten days ago. When Josh Blackburn slipped on a Buckeye–at least according to the Michigan daily student paper–and tore ligaments in his left foot, Michigan’s defense took … Read more
Archrivals Michigan and Michigan State split the favorite’s role in the CCHA’s preseason polls, announced Tuesday. League coaches favored the Wolverines, while the media anointed the Spartans as the league’s best coming into the year. In the coaches’ poll, Michigan received 10 of 12 first-place votes and 140 points to edge Michigan State, which garnered … Read more
For Jason Krog, the road to the Hobey Baker Award and an appearance in the NCAA title game was a long one, literally as well as figuratively. Born in Fernie, British Columbia, the senior co-captain for the New Hampshire Wildcats and this year’s recipient of college hockey’s highest honor, was cut twice from junior teams … Read more
Ever drive 80 miles an hour on dangerously icy roads because you were worried that you’d miss the first drop of the puck in the Great Lakes Invitational? Ever risk losing your job to attend an NCAA Regional? How about attending the Beanpot on the same day as your wife’s grandmother’s funeral? Did you propose … Read more
It’s impossible to think of Mike York as someone who would intentionally hurt another person. The Michigan State senior forward — the CCHA’s Player of the Year and Best Defensive Forward, and a Hobey Baker finalist — is really just a soft-spoken guy from Waterford, Mich. “He’s kind of quiet and shy,” says Bob York, … Read more
Did you know that when the Spartans beat the Wildcats last weekend, they made a little bit of NCAA history? Wait a minute, you say — wasn’t it the Wildcats who beat the Spartans 5-3 in the CCHA semifinals? Yes, but there were two sets of Spartans and Wildcats playing that weekend: one on ice, … Read more
This weekend, three CCHA teams lived life on the bubble–and one was hoping that its hadn’t burst. The only team heading into the CCHA semifinals with a guaranteed NCAA berth was the Michigan State University Spartans, winner of the regular-season CCHA championship. Michigan, Ohio State, and Northern Michigan were the undecided cusp teams. Northern Michigan … Read more