No. 2 seed MSU heads into the weekend knowing it needs two wins to claim its fourth CCHA Tournament title in five years. The Spartans (26-7-5) just don’t know who they’ll have to beat to win the Mason Cup, named after MSUhead coach Ron Mason. Six teams still are alive as the second weekend of the CCHA Tournament starts today - up from the usual four.
Junior goaltender Ryan Miller found out Tuesday he missed the cut for the 72nd annual Sullivan Award - the highest honor for an amateur athlete in the nation.Miller, who is widely regarded as the best collegiate goalie in the nation, was one of 14 semifinalists for the Amateur Athletic Union’s Sullivan Award, but he wasn’t included in the list of five finalists released this week.The five finalists are: Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan, former Southern Cal pitcher Mark Prior, world champion gymnast Sean Townsend, high school track star Alan Webb, and California swimmer Natalie Coughlin.
Utility players are a rarity in hockey.The capable-at-all-positions players are better known in baseball, where fielding principles from second base to left field are similar.Hockey generally doesn’t lend itself to position-hopping, partly because players are taught to station themselves on the ice for offensive attacking and defensive coverage based on their assigned position.But don’t tell MSU junior forward Troy Ferguson there’s no place for a jack-of-all-trades in hockey.
Plenty of Spartans were honored by the CCHA during spring break, including junior goaltender Ryan Miller and junior defenseman John-Michael Liles making the All-CCHA first team. Miller leads the CCHA with a 1.75 goals against average, .937 saves percentage, 25 wins and eight shutouts.
After a solid performance Saturday, the fifth-ranked Spartans are moving on in the CCHA Tournament, and MSU head coach Ron Mason is moving on in his career. No.
Brian Maloney is as tough as anyone on the Spartan hockey team.The junior left wing from Bassano, Alberta is MSU’s enforcer on the ice - methodically antagonizing the other team and administering bone-rattling body checks.
Ron Mason’s last game at Munn Ice Arena ended just the way he wanted - with a Spartan win. The retiring MSU head coach guided the fifth-ranked Spartans to a 4-2 victory over Bowling Green in the first round of the CCHA Tournament in front of 5,896 fans Saturday night. The game wasn’t even as close as its final score, as the Falcons tallied twice in the last four minutes.
Fifth-ranked MSU was pushed to its limit by Bowling Green on Friday night, but the Spartans stormed back for a gritty 4-3 overtime victory in front of 5,408 fans at Munn Ice Arena. Senior right wing Adam Hall notched the game-winner 4:57 into overtime, giving MSU a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three CCHA Tournament first-round series.
While many MSU students escaped to sunny beaches, snow-swept ski slopes, or the familiar sights of their hometown during spring break, the fifth-ranked Spartan hockey team kept plugging along in its quest for a national championship. “Spring break?
For a minute or so Saturday night, 6,983 fans at Munn Ice Arena had their eyes fixed on Nathan Shopbell.Shopbell, a 22-year-old electrical engineering senior, isn’t used to being the center of attention.
Fifth-ranked MSU did what it could to win a share of the CCHA title Saturday - the last night of the regular season - but the second-to-last night came back to haunt them.The Spartans had to battle for everything Saturday and eventually muscled their way to a 2-0 win over Ferris State in front of 6,983 fans at Munn Ice Arena - the largest crowd at Munn this season.But MSU missed out on the CCHA title when archrival Michigan beat Western Michigan 6-2 in Kalamazoo on Saturday.
Big Rapids - Playing in one of its biggest games of the season, fifth-ranked MSU laid an egg at Ferris State on Friday night.The Spartans (23-7-5 overall, 17-6-4 CCHA) jumped to a 2-0 lead in the second period, but the underdog Bulldogs came back and stole a 3-2 win at Ewigleben Ice Arena.The loss darkens MSU’s league title hopes heading into the last game of the regular season.
For weeks, MSU head coach Ron Mason said he wanted the CCHA title race to come down to the last weekend of the season. He got his wish. The fifth-ranked Spartans (23-6-5 overall, 17-5-4 CCHA) enter this weekend’s season finale against Ferris State deadlocked atop the league standings with archrival Michigan. MSU and U-M both play tonight and Saturday with championship implications weighing heavily on every shot, save and goal. Both teams are favored to sweep their home-and-home series - U-M plays sixth-place Western Michigan - but if either team slips up even a little bit, it could pave the title road for a hated rival.
Maple leaf pride was burning within the 10 Canadians on the MSU hockey team after Canada beat the United States 5-2 for the Olympic ice hockey gold medal Sunday. All eight freshmen on MSU’s team - five Canadians and three Americans - watched the contest in the Wonders Hall dorm room shared by freshman left wing Kevin Estrada and freshman center Ash Goldie. The game was a tense, close battle until a decisive third period lifted the Canadians to victory - much to the delight of rookie left wing Brock Radunske, who’s from New Hamburg, Ontario.
After the Spartans’ top forward line produced impressive statistics in Saturday night’s 4-3 win over Miami (Ohio), MSU head coach Ron Mason was thinking the same thing as many Spartan fans.“It’s about time,” the longtime MSU foreman said.The three players that comprise the top line - junior left wing Brian Maloney, freshman center Jim Slater and senior right wing Adam Hall - weren’t really slumping.
Oxford, Ohio - With fifth-ranked MSU’s league-title hopes hanging in the balance, its talented top line carried the Spartans to a dramatic 4-3 victory over Miami (Ohio) on Saturday at Goggin Ice Arena.Junior left wing Brian Maloney tallied the game-winning goal with 50.9 seconds left.
To say Miami (Ohio) has struggled to score in recent contests against MSU is quite an understatement - the RedHawks’ last four games against MSU have been exhibitions of complete offensive futility. Never before, in 60 years of MSU hockey, had the Spartans shut out the same opponent four times in a row until thwarting Miami the past two years.
Most of the talk in MSU’s locker room this week centered around the team’s impending series against Miami (Ohio). But a close second in conversation material has been Olympic hockey, which started its medal round Wednesday.Many Spartan players are rooting for a United States versus Canada matchup, which won’t happen until Sunday’s gold or bronze medal games - if at all.
MSU recruit Corey Potter, upon returning from Siberia, both verified and discredited the mental image most Americans have about the frosty central Russian region. “It was really cold, but it wasn’t that bad,” said Potter, who signed a National Letter of Intent with MSU in November.
In the next few weeks, hockey recruit Shane Hynes plans to decide where to continue his career - with the two finalists being Cornell and Denver. The bad news for the Spartans is they were originally the third team on Hynes’ short list of schools, but he crossed them off when 23-year MSU head coach Ron Mason announced he was stepping down after this season to become athletics director. “I didn’t want to go into a school where they weren’t going to have a coach until the summer and the new coach had never even seen me play,” Hynes said.