Some Notes

Last Saturday, Michigan State won the 2007 NCAA National Championship in St. Louis, MO. It was quite a weekend of hockey, with Michigan State beating out heavily favored Maine in the Semifinal, and Boston College (unfortunately) eliminated North Dakota, for the second year in a row, to advance to the title game. When it came down to it and I had to pick a team to root for on Saturday, I had to choose Michigan State, and here’s why: Jeff Lerg. He has such an inspiring story that I couldn’t help but hope he could win a national championship. In case you hadn’t heard, there’s really nothing about Jeff Lerg that screams Hockey Player. He’s 5’6”, 150 pounds, and has fairly severe asthma. Doesn’t exactly sound like a recipe for goalie success…However he beat all the odds and found himself in the National Championship game in his sophomore season. Overall, the game was quite boring, I’m not gonna lie. However things got interesting in the second period, when Boston College scored the first goal of the game. Brian Boyle, the overly hyped forward turned defenseman Captain of BC, scored on a power play. It only got better from there…Michigan State went on to score 3 unanswered goals, on an empty netter, to win the national championship, their first in 21 years. Congrats to the Spartans!

The NHL playoffs kicked off last night with a bang! I had the opportunity to see Ottawa host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Versus. As I expected, the Senators handled the Penguins with ease, winning 6-3 on goals from Andrey Meszaros, Chris Kelly, Tom Preissing, Dany Heatley, Chris Neil, and Mike Comrie. Penguin’s goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was chased with 8 minutes left in the third, which resulted in Pittsburgh scoring two goals to make the loss a little less embarrassing. Sid the Kid’s playoff debut didn’t go exactly as he planned, having scored only one goal on three shots and ending minus-1. There was however an apparent Crosby goal disallowed; as it was determined he pushed the puck into the net with his hand. The Senators played a solid game with great fore-check. Quite honestly, they manhandled the Penguins resulting in a very chippy end to the game. At 19:22, there was a small scuffle around the Ottawa bench as Jarkko Ruutu took exception to a check. He was assessed two minor penalties for Roughing. “Toilet Paper” Tom Preissing was also assessed a minor for roughing and, probably one of the best penalties I’ve ever seen on a boxscore, the Ottawa bench was assessed two minutes for Abusive language…seriously?

The second game on Versus last night was Vancouver hosting Dallas. It was a battle of two goalies I hate…Luongo with his greasy man mane and Fat Ass Turco with his, well, fat ass…This one was way to boring to watch the whole way through. I turned it off at 9:30 MST, which ended up being a very good thing as it went into 4 overtimes! By all accounts it was a great game for Vancouver fans, who spent nearly 5 and half hours watching their team. The astonishing stat of the game: Luongo faced 76 shots in the 138 minutes he played, while Turco faced a mere 56. Canucks won this one 5-4 on a (surprise surprise!) Sedin from Sedin goal, Henrik being the scorer.

There were two other games: San Jose at Nashville and Minnesota at Anaheim. In Nashville, Matt Carle scored the first goal of the game, which ended in a 5-4 2OT win for San Jose. Jonathan Cheechoo could be lost for a few games after a nasty knee-on-knee check from Scott Hartnell. The Sharks have said that Cheechoo is being evaluated and his return timeline is uncertain.

In Anaheim, easily the most boring playoff tilt, so boring in fact that only one of the games will be shown on national television in the US and that’s only because there aren’t any Eastern Conference match-ups to show before the Canucks/Stars game…But I digress…Anaheim beat Minnesota 2-1 on goals from Teemu Selanne and Dustin Penner.

Tonight’s Versus schedule will feature the Calgary Flames visiting Detroit. Other series playing tonight:
Islanders @ Sabres (Go DUBIE!!!!! GO DUBIE!!!!! But really I hope the Sabres win the series, just not beat Dubie!)
Lightening @ Devils (I have a soft spot for former UND players, so good luck Parise and Zajac!)
Rangers @ Thrashers (I could really care less what happens here…)

In Avalanche news, the Avs have signed TJ Hensick…I’m less than thrilled. Yes, I know Hensick is an amazing player, however I REALLY HATE his attitude…He’s immature and whiney. This was shown in the West Regional when he was given a 10 minute misconduct…He claims the ref was “chirping” at him the whole game, however I noticed he was approaching the ref after every play with some complaint. I’ve also heard that he had no interest in signing with the Avs because, having spent his entire life in Michigan, he really wants to play for the Red Wings…We’ll see how things pan out there…..