MVictors Interviews Former Hockey Player Dave Shand

(Note: Lots of cursing in this post, only a little of it is mine. Earmuffs!)

This deserves its own post, because it is one of the best things I've read on the blogosphere. Ever. MVictors did a four part interview with former hockey player/former WTKA radio host/one of the best fricken professors I've ever had, Dave Shand.

There's so much good stuff in there, the only way I could quote it all would be to C&P the entire thing. MVictors covers Shand's lawsuit against Bill Martin, the Ann Arbor News academic scandal story, the Rich Rod hire, the Ed Martin mess, and a slew of stuff about the hockey program, which was the best part (for me).

Shand was a fantastic professor. I loved a lot of my professors at Michigan, but he and Keith Harrison were special. The reason I've ignored every request for money from kinesiology thusfar is because neither professor was retained, which is absolutely criminal in my opinion. Someday I'll give to them, but I'm still kind of pissed about that.

That's getting off-track. I also loved listening to Shand on WTKA. He pissed a lot of people off, but he was entertaining as all-hell. I can't even tell you how many times I would be driving to work in the morning and I'd get a call from any one of about 5 of my friends asking me if I just heard what Shand said. He was a friggin riot. And the interview reads just like some of Shand's radio moments (tell me you can't picture Shand ranting about Michigan not paying "fuck all" to West Virginia).

Here are the links: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

My two favorite moments:

MVictors: Where’s the next coach going to come from? Are they going to do what Michigan State did and hire a seasoned, high profile coach?
Shand: I would really be shocked if Mel Pearson didn’t get it. Just because he was here before I was here, and he was my mentor. I knew nothing about recruiting college hockey and Mel taught me everything about it. I think he’s the best recruiter in college hockey. And I think he’s proven it year after year. Why he doesn’t have a head coaching job somewhere else….it just baffles me. I know he’s had a couple of offers but they weren’t good situations, it was coming in as a disaster rescue unit where your chances of succeeding are really slim. He’s the best guy in a living room I’ve ever seen; he’s the best evaluator of hockey talent.

He goes on to tell an anecdote about Mike Knuble, and how he was playing in K-Zoo and even Western wasn't recruiting him. He ended up being a pretty nice pick-up. Mel and Billy are still nabbing these kids. One look at the "Future Wolverines" list confirms that!

This next answer was actually to a question about Rich Rodriguez and how he reacts to a loss. Shand got off on a tangent, but what a great tangent!

Shand: You haven’t seen fuckin’ Red after a loss. There’s actually a story in John Bacon’s book Blue Ice. We’re up in Sault Ste Marie, and we’re playing Lake [Superior] State. I think the previous 27 times we’d played them we beat them twice. This was 90-91. Lake State were defending national champions. They were big, physical and they’d bang the shit out of you, especially in their own building. I think we lost 10-0.

It’s just Red and I up there–Mel’s on a recruiting trip. I thought Red was going to fucking explode. He comes into the locker room, throws shit around and he goes, “That was unbelievable. You guys are wimps and fucking pussies. You’ve got no fuckin’ guts and no fucking balls.” He stomps out of the locker room. I’m the assistant coach so I follow him out.

So the team’s getting on the bus to get back to the hotel, it’s about three miles from the rink and it’s 25 below zero. As the team’s getting on the bus Red goes, “I ain’t fuckin’ riding with those losers.” So we walk back from the hotel in a snow storm, at 25 below zero, I’ve got Italian loafers that I bought when I was in Europe. They were $250 shoes, they were ruined. I get back to the hotel and just throw the shoes in the garbage because they’re done. I had to go back to my room and run a tub of hot water because I thought I was going to get frostbite.

So Red calls and tells me to come down, he’s got the tape from the game. We looked at the tape ‘til 6 o’clock, 7 o’clock in the morning. For six hours, broke down everything. We have the morning skate, Red doesn’t say a fucking word. We have the pregame meal, normally we have a meeting right after. Red comes in, he goes, “If you are men, and I mean men…with balls and a fucking cock and some sense of yourself…then you will fucking play tonight.” He turned around and walked out of the room. We won 4-3 in overtime. It was unbelievable. The bus ride back from the Sault was like 20 minutes. Talk about people who hate to lose.

I'm not sure how much money I would pay to hear Red Berenson walk into the locker room and call the team a bunch of "fucking pussies", but it would be quite a bit. That might even top my favorite "Michigan Coach Being Pissed" story. I was sitting behind the Michigan bench at Crisler and Dom Ingerson jacked a three from about 3 steps behind NBA range, made it, and then celebrated so much that his man beat him down the court and hit a three of his own. Amaker immediately called time-out and got the team in a huddle. He started diagramming a play (no doubt something brilliant like "Pass the ball to LaVell Blanchard and have him dribble out the shot clock and brick a three") or talking to the team or something when, all of a sudden--and keep in mind it was dead silent in the arena at this point--he spins around, points at Ingerson and screams, "FUCK YOU!" It might not read as funny as it actually was, but it was hilarious. Though not as funny as Graham Brown's tomahawk layup.

So yeah, great job MVictors. Thanks for bringing that to us.

Other stuff: The story from the LA Times that I linked a few days ago has been updated and now indicates that Mark Mitera suffered a torn ACL. Not at all shocking but disappointing nonetheless, especially in light of a post that Spath made on The Fort earlier today indicating that he heard Kampfer is done for the year as well.

MGoBlue had a nice feature story about our revamped defense corps before the NMU series. I just noticed it, but clearly it still applies.

We dropped to #5 in both the USCHO and USA Today polls. Someone actually voted us #1 in the USCHO poll. I'd love to hear the rationale for that one. Not that we're bad by any means--actually I think #5 is pretty close to right, right about now--but #1? After an unimpressive pair of wins against a team picked to finish 8th in the EZAC and a split at NMU? Maybe if they're crediting us with degree of difficulty, having lost half our defense....

It's been a little while since I've had an update about our NTDP recruits:
The Under 18s have gone 3-0-1 against college teams (three of them D-1) since they faced the Wolverines, with wins over Union and RPI and a tie against Cornell. Chris Brown had a goal against Union, a pair of assists against RPI, and an assist against Cornell. Kevin Lynch had a big goal against RPI and an assist against Cornell. AJ Treais assisted on the OT winner against Oswego State.

For the Under 17s, Jacob Fallon had an assist over the weekend in a two-game sweep of Marquette and Jack Campbell made 31 saves (and was 3 for 3 in the shootout) in the second game of the weekend, a 3-2 shootout win.

Lee Moffie has a 1-2--3, +2 and 4 PIMs in four games for the Waterloo Black Hawks. They're 1-2-1 on the season.

As for Mac Bennett, it doesn't look like Hotchkiss starts their year until December.