At long last! The greatness that I have been waiting for all season long has surfaced. Moments like these are why I am such a die-hard Michigan Tech fan. They are far and few in between, but when they occur, they're extra special and put me (and my fellow Tech fans) on Cloud 9 for days or longer. It's kind of like me golfing: I'll get one nice hit every nine holes that will keep me coming back to that game.
Well, we have finally swept Northern Michigan. I've only been following Michigan Tech since the 03-04 season and the last time the good guys swept was back in '94. Ah, the Jamie Ram days.
I must say... the underclassmen are AMAZING. While things are pretty rough this season, especially because of injuries, I'm a lot more optimistic about the future than I may have EVER been. The next two or three seasons are going to be pretty good.
But let's talk about this past weekend.
Both games we scored the first goal, including Friday's ever-so-RARE first period goal. In fact, it's only our FOURTH first period goal this season. I think the team should spend more time focusing on the first period during practices. For sure.
On Friday, especially in the second half of the game, NMU completely took over. As a fan in the stands at the rival game, when we have a one goal lead and the other team is completely dominating the game, it gets a little scary. Why does my team stop playing offense?? I'm sure our goaltender Josh Robinson wonders the same thing... but we'll get back to him in a minute.
So we swept NMU... and to that Coach Kyle said, "They absolutely deserve the wins. They did a great job and were able to score on opportunities when we weren’t. They were solid defensively on both ends of the ice and they beat us.” ... and to Coach Kyle I say... what a load of crap. Eighteen shots against in a single period on Friday? We only had 12 shots the WHOLE GAME on Saturday. We scored 3 times the whole weekend. The winner in this whole thing is Josh Robinson. HE deserved the wins. Michigan Tech was not the clearcut victor if you watched the games. I believe it was a mediocre effort for both teams.
Moving on...
Jordan Baker. Oh man, watching him this past weekend, I couldn't help but think of Chris Conner. He had some crazy moves to keep the puck away from the STD-infested Wildcats. Jordan had but one assist on the weekend, but he currently leads our team in goals and points. And if you watch him play, that fact is not all too surprising. We've got two beautiful seasons left of him. For such a small stature, he's such a physical presense on the ice. He had some massive Batty-like hits this weekend. I hope to see much more of that this season.
OH HEY! How about that Peter Rohn guy?! He might even be shorter than Mr. Baker, but he's definitely one of the hardest working guys on the ice. Much more to come on Little Peter later... including an overdue questionnaire. But for now, keep in mind that since he has been playing in games for the Huskies, we have not lost a game yet....
So for fun, I should comment on NMU goaltender Brian Stewart. Wow, what a TOOL. Although, this is not something new to me. He is the ROBBIE EARL of goaltenders. If you breathe too hard on him, he will flop all over the ice as if he has been shot. I swear, I thought he died about 4 times this past weekend. If I were an NMU fan, I would be EMBARRASSED about the terrible acting that Stewart does on the ice night in and night out. CUT THE CRAP. Just play HOCKEY. Your stupid games aren't fooling anyone, you idiot.
Well, it was quite the exciting weekend, but it's over... and the team is only looking ahead to the GLI right now. We'll be starting out with a rematch of last year's championship game against Michigan. Michigan is sitting in the middle of the CCHA right now. Hopefully we can pull through and take another shot at the championship game on Sunday. After all, this is OUR tournament, dammit. It's too bad that Michigan State has to be there this season though. They may prove to be a bigger cupcake than any of the invites to UMN's yearly crappy holiday tournament that they can't even win.
I'm going to go ahead and take a guess that Robo's getting the nod for Saturday at GLI. This is HUGE for him, as his hometome of Frankenmuth, MI is only a short distance away. I asked Josh about the GLI and who's coming to watch him. Here's what he said:
Well, we have finally swept Northern Michigan. I've only been following Michigan Tech since the 03-04 season and the last time the good guys swept was back in '94. Ah, the Jamie Ram days.
I must say... the underclassmen are AMAZING. While things are pretty rough this season, especially because of injuries, I'm a lot more optimistic about the future than I may have EVER been. The next two or three seasons are going to be pretty good.
But let's talk about this past weekend.
Both games we scored the first goal, including Friday's ever-so-RARE first period goal. In fact, it's only our FOURTH first period goal this season. I think the team should spend more time focusing on the first period during practices. For sure.
On Friday, especially in the second half of the game, NMU completely took over. As a fan in the stands at the rival game, when we have a one goal lead and the other team is completely dominating the game, it gets a little scary. Why does my team stop playing offense?? I'm sure our goaltender Josh Robinson wonders the same thing... but we'll get back to him in a minute.
So we swept NMU... and to that Coach Kyle said, "They absolutely deserve the wins. They did a great job and were able to score on opportunities when we weren’t. They were solid defensively on both ends of the ice and they beat us.” ... and to Coach Kyle I say... what a load of crap. Eighteen shots against in a single period on Friday? We only had 12 shots the WHOLE GAME on Saturday. We scored 3 times the whole weekend. The winner in this whole thing is Josh Robinson. HE deserved the wins. Michigan Tech was not the clearcut victor if you watched the games. I believe it was a mediocre effort for both teams.
Moving on...
Jordan Baker. Oh man, watching him this past weekend, I couldn't help but think of Chris Conner. He had some crazy moves to keep the puck away from the STD-infested Wildcats. Jordan had but one assist on the weekend, but he currently leads our team in goals and points. And if you watch him play, that fact is not all too surprising. We've got two beautiful seasons left of him. For such a small stature, he's such a physical presense on the ice. He had some massive Batty-like hits this weekend. I hope to see much more of that this season.
OH HEY! How about that Peter Rohn guy?! He might even be shorter than Mr. Baker, but he's definitely one of the hardest working guys on the ice. Much more to come on Little Peter later... including an overdue questionnaire. But for now, keep in mind that since he has been playing in games for the Huskies, we have not lost a game yet....
So for fun, I should comment on NMU goaltender Brian Stewart. Wow, what a TOOL. Although, this is not something new to me. He is the ROBBIE EARL of goaltenders. If you breathe too hard on him, he will flop all over the ice as if he has been shot. I swear, I thought he died about 4 times this past weekend. If I were an NMU fan, I would be EMBARRASSED about the terrible acting that Stewart does on the ice night in and night out. CUT THE CRAP. Just play HOCKEY. Your stupid games aren't fooling anyone, you idiot.
On the opposite end of the goaltender spectrum, we have Michigan Tech goalie Josh Robinson. What a guy! Yep, that's right, readers. My players wear halos on their heads 24/7. ;) Anyway, Josh Robinson, or Robo as he will be referred to from now on, is HOT right now between the pipes. He let only one goal in this weekend on 56 shots. He had a chunk of that goal, but not enough to stop it. After this past weekend, Robo now has an overall save percentage of 90%, the only Michigan Tech goalie that can say that right now. He also picked up his first career shutout as a Michigan Tech Husky on Saturday... I asked him how he felt after helping his team sweep NMU:
Not only did Josh get his first career shut out and help his team to sweep the Wildcats, but he will go down in the record books as the first goaltender from Michigan Tech to have shut out NMU! Here are his thoughts on that: "It was very exciting. Northern is our biggest rival and anytime you get a win, it's a special one; but when you sweep, it's an extra special weekend."
"It's pretty cool being able to be the first Michigan Tech goalie to shutout Northern. I don't think any of us knew that it had never been done until Marksy told me after the game. I'm excited that I was able to get my first shutout this weekend and it just adds a little more to it being against Northern."
Well, it was quite the exciting weekend, but it's over... and the team is only looking ahead to the GLI right now. We'll be starting out with a rematch of last year's championship game against Michigan. Michigan is sitting in the middle of the CCHA right now. Hopefully we can pull through and take another shot at the championship game on Sunday. After all, this is OUR tournament, dammit. It's too bad that Michigan State has to be there this season though. They may prove to be a bigger cupcake than any of the invites to UMN's yearly crappy holiday tournament that they can't even win.
I'm going to go ahead and take a guess that Robo's getting the nod for Saturday at GLI. This is HUGE for him, as his hometome of Frankenmuth, MI is only a short distance away. I asked Josh about the GLI and who's coming to watch him. Here's what he said:
"Well, the GLI is actually very close to my hometown of Frankenmuth. The Joe is only an hour an a half from my house too. I'm expecting to have quite a few people in the stands for the games. My list of people that are coming is pretty long so here it goes.... Mom and Dad, Brother, possible my grandparents, my goalie coach from back home and his son... and I have quite a few friends who go to State and Michigan who will be there cheering against me haha. Obviously, my goal is to win the GLI and have our banner flying all year in the Joe."Well, Josh... I hope you make your goal this season (and that you get new friends... like people who DON'T go to MSUcks). It is probably best achieved by letting in very few goals and making your team score more of them. It's going be hard to win a tournament by scoring only three goals all weekend. The rest of the Huskies need to step up and do their part.
