mn@dscvax2.UUCP (Matt Noah) (10/12/84)
Given last year's purging of the Eastern teams from the NCAAs it would appear that the EAST-WEST Super League may be WEST Super League. Ah, but this is a new season and everyone has their hopes high for their favorite teams. When does this league get started? I no doubt believe that fan interest will be high at these games and can barely believe this league got formed considering the pearing of the WCH from 10 teams to 6 just a few years ago. Remember, that pearing was done for economic reasons. Anyway, I heard that North Dakota had an outstanding recruiting year and should be very tough. Some of the Eastern teams should be good since they must have been rebuilding last year - no teams could be that bad with upperclassmen. What's the word from Minnesota, Duluth and Wisconsin?
oper@uwmacc.UUCP (Unix operator) (10/16/84)
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The Wisconsin hockey team this year seems to be a one of
great potential. Although they were swept by Boston Universty in
the opening weekend of the season (6-5,4-2), they showed a lot of
character in coming back from 5-2 and 6-3 deficits Friday night to pull
to within one goal. Deserving of attention was Wisconsin's power play.
They were something like 4-of-6 in man-up situations in the first game,
and a somewhat more sedate 1-of-5 or so in the second. The bright
spots for the Badgers (next to the power play) were the play of their
freshman forwards and backup freshman goalie Dean(?) Anderson on
Saturday. Their major shortcomings seemed to be a lack of defensive
intensity, particulary around the goal area, and very few 5-on-5 goals
scored (2 all weekend).
BU on the other hand seemed to have a fairly solid team put
together with only 9 days of team practice before this series. They
played excellent defense in front of their net, clearing out Badger
forwards and allowing them very few chances at a rebound goal. On
offense the Terriers were solid when both teams were at full strength.
8 or 9 of their 10 goals were 5-on-5. Their power-play offense appeared
to need more work together as several times they failed to even set up
their offense in the Badgers' end, although this could be credited to
fine power-play defense by Wisconsin.
It looks like it'll be quite an exciting season this year due both
to the expansion of the WCHA to 8 teams (Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan
'defected' from the CCHA), and also to the joint schedule with the new Hockey
East association. Teams will play (if memory serves) 32 league games this
season which will count in the standings. That's a lotta hockey (for college
teams) !!
Facts aside though, it makes very little sense for other teams
to even aspire to winning the NCAA title this year since Wisconsin has
won the crown every post-Olympic year since 1973 (:-)).
Steve Manning, Madison Academic Computing Center
...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,uwm-evax}!uwvax!uwmacc!oper