What a thrilling game last night!  And we luckily had our contributing field reporter, John McLean in attendance, so he could provide his first-hand account, insight, and commentary.

John McLean writes:

The University of Minnesota Duluth won their first national hockey championship since joining Division One hockey in 1961, on Saturday night at the Excel Energy Center in St Paul, Minnesota. By doing so, they become the first ‘first time’ winner since the Maine Black Bears did so in 1993.

Senior winger Kyle Schmidt scored the winner at 3:22 of the first overtime off a feed from linemate Travis Oleksuk. Schmidt would not even be playing hockey today had he accepted the track scholarship that was offered to him by the University of Notre Dame out of Hermantown High School in 2006. That and he missed significant time this year for the Bulldogs with a shoulder injury.

It’s been a big sports year for the Bulldogs with this win following their recent D2
National Football Championship.

Early on UMD struggled with face offs giving up the only goal of the 1st period
directly off a draw. UMD would draw even and then take the lead in the 2rd period
off a Travis Oleksuk goal followed shortly by home grown Duluth East freshman winger
Max Tardy’s very timely first ever collegian goal on the power play.

Former walk on Wolverine goalie Shawn Hunwick was again outstanding in net for
Michigan making several key saves throughout the game including one late in the
third off the stick of Mike Seidel.

Michigan made a very good showing; especially taking into consideration that they
were playing in front of a 75%+ UMD ‘home’ crowd.

A key factor in the game was Michigan’s continual underestimating the speed of
Bulldog freshman winger JT Brown (son of former great  Viking running back Ted). In
the third period alone, Brown got partially behind the Michigan defense 3 times
including a semi open break that resulted in a penalty and negated a fresh Michigan
power play. Brown’s efforts resulted in his being named the outstanding player of
the Frozen Four.

A significant area of concern for the Wolverines was staying out of the penalty box
which they were unable to do. However, they were able to kill off all but one of the
their 9 penalties as they held the vaunted Mike Connelly/Jack Connelly/Justin
Fontaine line off the scoreboard.

The flow of the game was disrupted by ECAC linesmen Bob Bernard and Chris Aughe who continually delayed the drop of the puck so as to seemingly try and line the teams
up in a ‘line of scrimmage’ as perfect as a Tom Shymanski prepositional phrase. This
compared to Thursday’s Michigan-North Dakota match which featured a seven minute
segment of uninterrupted ‘fire wagon’ hockey.

The overtime was dominated by the Bulldogs who forced an early turnover that went
over the net, followed by an excellent Justin Faulk opportunity in close soon
followed by the excellent pass from Oleksuk and quick release from Schmidt.

The final session was played in front of 19,222 which was the 4th largest crown in
NCAA Frozen Four hockey history.

Hats off to the Red Baron (Red Berenson) who this writer sat at the next table to
on Friday night at JD Hoyt’s in Minneapolis. At 71 years old his passion for the
Wolverines is no less than it was in September 1959 when he first joined the
Wolverines as a member of their freshman hockey team.

— Thanks, John.  We will all have to wait until John’s next report to get the lowdown on JD Hoyt’s.  What a great end to the 2010-11 season:  A first-time winner takes the NCAA tournament!  New blood at the top is great for college hockey!

Our Pool

This year’s winner is Michael Bettendorf, who had ten picks out of fifteen possible; he was followed closely behind by Dave Ramsey and Stu Ryan.  Michael, your official NCAA Frozen Four Hooded Sweatshirt is on the way, and you will now spend your life dodging the paparazzi, along with the other members of the College Hockey Update Hall of Fame.  The final standings in our pool are:

MBettendorf   10/15   10 points   Winner

9: Ramsey, Ryan

8: Huberty, Krajan, GgSchreader, JSchreader

7: BBettendorf, Breen, Bremer, Fairbrother, Hollywood, Ide, McLean, BMichela, MMichela, Pastor, Rodewald, OSchreader, DShymanski, Slaughter, Smigielski, Sweeney

6: Holte, Sell, TShymanski, Speare, Stier

5: Bogosian, Peterson, Wienbar

4: Cruz, GfSchreader, Shimshock

3: Carlisle

And that’s it, the end of another season.

But we’ll be back, so stay tuned.  And go Terriers!