Badgers go down in flames

What a week of hype and showdowns. This blogger used to be a tiger fan.....bad weekend to say that.....YIKES!

Coming into this weekend, CC had fire from the Cornell series and Wisconsin looked poised to end all things after dominating Duluth.


My weekend preview was that Joel Rumpel would take the pipes against Josh Thorimbert and possibly Joe Howe. Rumpel proved his worth in the Northern Michigan series after Petersen messed up big time.

It's slipping my mind (note for a later edit), WI had a player injured this week during practice. Not that it would have changed the outcome.


So then begins my thoughts.......

When WI went up 2-0 on Friday night I thought that my friend Lee Siewert and Tim Matteson would be the laughing stock of the WCHA. I laughed at the Kohl Center during the Tiger frustration. What I didn't know is the resilience of this Tiger team. They began to play like a team and more importantly, began scoring. Their work was a thing of beauty that had not been seen since the Boston College playoff game a couple of years ago.

Now, it was back.

With the scored tied 2-2 I was wanting Justin Schultz and Nic Kerdiles to be on the ice so badly. Both players had the same chance of playing on these nights. Schultz is now a pro and Kerdiles is suspended.

CC took over and never looked back. They did give up the lead once, but never really felt like they were down. I watched as my Badgers looked in misery.

My night ended with an AK-16 goal which for the first time, ruined my night.

Enter Saturday. It didn't get much better.

Now during my time as a Tiger fan I often gave criticism to Joe Howe. I gave honest critiques and never gave anything that I didn't feel was deserved. I never felt that I gave Joe a scolding just because he had a bad play. It just happened to be that his Junior year was not his best, and one of my most public as a Tiger fan.

With that being said, Joe looked like the Joe that I knew. The Joe who signed my goalie mask. The Joe who took the world arena from Colorado Springs and held it on his shoulders in St. Louis while the rest of his team dismantled BC. That same base lowered him to the ground when Michigan owned St. Louis for only a night. A costly one.

But tonight, Joe was back in form. He played well and really saw the puck. I was very impressed with his work, but more impressed with the defense. Last year, people saw the defensive problems which was such a poor outlet for that team. They did so many good things.

However, on this night the Tigers would not be denied their lineage. The right to say that they had Bob before the Badgers did. The right to say they didn't sell out for him.

My Badgers have an incredible amount of work. The offense did nothing on Saturday and the defense messed up on Friday. We need Kerdiles more than he needs us. Hopefully he'll be a force in Denver.

To all my CC friends: Fans of CC 1. Jim 0