The Sun Came Up Today

I was right. Last year when I lamented that I wish that for once Michigan could lose in non-heartbreaking fashion, because these OT losses, blown leads, etc. were killing me. Last night was much better.

Now, would I have preferred that our team actually showed the slightest bit of heart/fight last night? Sure. But at the same time, I'm not depressed this morning, I'm not thinking back to the what-ifs throughout the game. We got beat soundly by a better team...one that's probably going to end up winning the whole damn thing. I thought that analyst was crazy last week for picking UND to win it all, but he may have just hit it dead on. That's a very very good hockey team. Great goaltending, great defense corps, at least 2 great lines up front.

It was a fitting end to the season though. Leave it to that team to barely show up for a game of that magnitude. Yes we had a lot of shots on goal, but how many great scoring chances did we have? There weren't that many. They completely outclassed us in every aspect of the game, though there were segments that Michigan outplayed the Sioux, but Parise was there to shut the door.

At least this edition of the Michigan Wolverines is done for. It was hard watching games legitimately feeling like I cared more about what happened than anyone on the roster outside of Ebbett, Kal, and Johnson. Speaking of Johnson, I didn't notice it last night but he got a coincedental penalty with about 4 minutes left, which broke our all-time single-season PIMs record.

We just got off to a bad start and NoDak just kept coming at us. BTW, I thought the penalty calls that led to the first two UND goals were extremely weak. Not that it mattered. But it begs the question, is Dave Hansen any relation to TBTYB-arch-nemesis Scott Hansen of 2003 Buffalo and 2005 Grand Rapids fame? Just curious. Don't think for a second I'm blaming this game on the officiating though. Michigan could've had another 15 power plays in that game and I'm not sure it would have mattered.

I really enjoyed watching North Dakota play. Truth be told, I'd probably be rooting for them to win it all if that wouldn't put them within one title of us. That's a fun team to watch, and they're extremely talented.

Ruden had no chance on the first couple of goals, but again he didn't make the saves he needed to make to give us a chance. When it was 2-0, Parise makes a save at one in that was oh-so-close to going in, NoDak comes down and makes it 3-0 and the game is pretty much over.

I didn't think there was a great chance we'd win that game, but I at least expected us to keep it close.

At least we didn't lose to Holy Cross. Bwahahahahahaha!