marty turco

Previously: Part One, Part Two, Part Three

[West Regional vs NoDak, 1998/Kalmbach via Bentley Historical Library]

The story is almost too perfect. You expect the details of a hockey story to flow from odd angles, to be all jagged edges and shoulders and elbows and yet this story is writerly and neat and almost formulaic. It follows the kind of structure script writers teach in their intro film classes: the protagonist runs through the gauntlet and passes a test that changes them, then uses their newly girded spirit to pass the ultimate test and reap a reward barely fathomable at the start of the journey. From humble beginnings, etc.

The necessity of icing an unusually high number of freshmen dampened expectations at the start of Michigan’s 1997-98 season, but there were enough upperclassmen remaining—Marty Turco, Bill Muckalt, Matt Herr, and Bobby Hayes, to name a few—to keep them from falling off precipitously. Yes, skating four freshmen defensemen was different, but close games can be won with a Hobey Baker finalist, Muckalt, leading the offense and one of the best goaltenders in the country, Turco, as the last line of defense.

And close games—one-goal games, to be precise—soon became Michigan’s calling card. Entering the NCAA Tournament, sixteen of their 42 contests had been one-goal games, including two of the games that got them to the GLI final and two of the games that got them to the CCHA Tournament final. The GLI and CCHA finals against Michigan State and Ohio State, respectively, left their mark. Both were losses and both snapped long streaks for the Wolverines, who had won two straight CCHA tournaments and nine straight Great Lakes Invitationals.

Those losses, however, ended up helping Michigan in their NCAA Tournament seeding. Not only were they placed at the West Regional, which happened to be held at Yost this season, but they were seeded third. This put them on the opposite side of the bracket from Michigan State, the one-seed and no. 1 overall team in the nation, and Ohio State, the no. 6 team in the country yet somehow the four-seed. Two teams they’d had a problem with all year, their two in-conference archrivals, were on a collision course.

That didn’t mean that Michigan’s road to the Frozen Four would be easy, though. North Dakota, the defending national champion and no. 2 team in the USCHO poll, was waiting in the wings. Michigan would have to fight the temptation to look ahead to that game and first dispatch six-seed Princeton, which made the Tournament by winning the ECAC and was listed last in USCHO poll’s “others receiving votes” section.

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Mel Pearson, assistant coach: Weird game. It just seemed like we were either looking ahead or...there was something going on in that game and we just didn’t have it and there was nothing going right for us. I think part of that was Princeton but I don’t think we respected them enough as a team. They worked hard and they didn’t give us anything and I think we just thought we were going to come in and throw down our sticks and they were going to fade away and we’d blow them out and go into the regional final but it didn’t work out that way.

Innocent play from the sidewall down near the zamboni. I can’t even remember who threw it at the net but somehow it hit a couple guys in front and went right between the goalie’s legs. We didn’t even have a player in front of the net. I think it went off of one of their players and went in the net. Once that goal went in it just seemed like, Okay, here we go. The crowd got into it a little bit. Princeton had played an absolute great road game. They didn’t let the crowd into it for the most part but once that goal went in we started to play better.

The thing I remember is it was just a weird goal, literally. One of our guys backhanded it towards the net, it hits one of their guys, a defenseman, goes off a skate between the goalie’s net and it’s in. It’s like, there’s nobody there. It’s one of the weirdest goals I’ve ever seen. Did we have anybody in front? I don’t think there was. It’s strange. It’s just like an act of the hockey gods.

[After THE JUMP: The hockey gods have a field day]

Previously: Part One, Part Two

[Yost in the late ‘90s/Kalmbach via Bentley Historical Library]

Michigan’s heralded 1993 and 1994 recruiting classes began paying dividends immediately. The 1993-94 Wolverines had three winning streaks of seven games or longer in just a 41-game season, the longest of which reached 11 games. The 1994-95 team took something of a step back—their longest winning streak was only nine games—while still winning 30 games and finishing first in the CCHA.

The most dominant streak of the decade dovetailed with the vaunted recruits becoming upperclassmen. The nature of collegiate hockey scheduling left its mark on previous winning streaks; many took place across multiple road series with neutral-site games sprinkled in. In 1995-96, however, Michigan’s offense hit its stride just as the Wolverines returned home for a six-game homestand at the beginning of January. Their eight-game winning streak started with a GLI title that they took by a combined score of 9-2. They put up even gaudier numbers in front of their own crowd, averaging 9.6 goals per game over six home contests.

The season ended with Michigan’s first national championship in 32 years; before they got there, goalies were pulled, the wooden bleachers creaked and swayed, the crowd beyond the students got involved, and for opponents, the ghosts of Yost were growing louder.

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Brendan Morrison, forward (1993-97): That was an incredible stretch. I think we averaged that month or six weeks or whatever it was, we averaged something ridiculous like 8.7 goals a game or something like that. [Ed. A—They averaged 7.6 goals per game over the ten games from the GLI at the end of December through the end of January and the aforementioned 9.6 goals per game counting just the six-game January homestand.] Just absurd. I know every single home game we played, the other team’s goalie was pulled at some point. I don’t think it was a very fun place for other teams to come in and play. They knew they were walking into kind of the lion’s den there; we were rolling and scoring a bunch of goals. It was intimidating. I remember other programs coming out and verbalizing that it was a tough place to play. It was difficult. It’s almost like with our fans and playing in that arena, it was like you were up 1-0 or 2-0 before the game even started.

Marty Turco, goaltender (1994-98): For me, having us rolling teams, you look at the scores and you’re like rolling teams, yeah, 8-3, 7-2, 10-4. You’re like, Alright. Everybody else was happy except for Red because Red was like, “No one cares because we won and we dominated but how about those two you let in there?” I might not have been needed as much to have the game on the line early and mid-year, but he wanted to make sure I was the guy he thought I was at the end of the year. So it wasn’t all hunky-dory during that year [1995-96] for me in particular but it was huge in terms of growth.

Tim Carmody, student season ticket holder: It was exciting. It was definitely very relevant. People would go all the time. People would show up a little bit later for parties on hockey nights.

[After THE JUMP: the crowd’s creativity, the environment’s advantage, and the quirks of an old barn]

Marty sets the record. Via Michigan Hockey Net:

Juuuust a bit outside. Lake The Posts previews Michigan with a look back at a name that will live in Wildcat infamy:

Red Sox nation hoists names like Aaron “Effin” Boone and Bucky Dent up on the grand facade of ignominious moments in their history.  Well, when it comes to Michigan football, the name Wildcat fans will never forget when it comes to last year’s Hail Mary loss in the Big House is Ray Roundtree.

Will almost live in Wildcat infamy, I guess.

It's only fair, Wildcats. I still remember when Anthofy Thorbus furmbled the quail without being so much as touched.

Well, what do we think about this? Shakin' The Southland runs a study that attempts to see if there's any validity to the idea that running a fast offense will hurt your defense, and comes out with this table:

[Methodology note: teams were classified by plays per minute of possession, which you've probably just seized on as a pretty wobbly way to do things since the clock stops on an incomplete pass. This would make a Leach system look faster than it actually is in terms of seconds left on the playclock when you snap the ball.]

There is basically no difference until you get to truly sloth-like teams. (Of the 723 in the study, 97 qualify as "slow"—"normal" is the vast bulk of the sample with 516.) Ponderous offense does seem to be correlated with good defense in a real (ie, on a per-possession, not per-game) basis, but is the slow offense a cause or an effect? It's pretty easy to dream up the teams at the bottom of the survey: run-heavy, defense-first teams that try to win a game 17-10 and merrily plow into the line once they get a sliver of a lead, and probably before they do as well. Also in the slow sample: teams that run out to huge leads and spend large chunks of the game murdering the clock, like say Alabama.

If you ask me, the slow teams' better defense is the cause of the slow pace, not the other way around. We've all watched enough football to know when you're in the kind of game where defense and field position are the way to play—last year's State game—and when you need to tell the punter "sorry, but come back next week"—2011 OSU. When you have a boa constrictor defense it makes sense to lower the variance and pound out a win.

The other half of the equation does seem more meaningful. Fast teams play in games with more possessions and points on both sides, but once you put up some tempo-free stats the effect on their defenses is basically zero.

Oh come on man. 277 pound Frank Clark gets four FAKEs for his supposed 40 time:

CHICAGO -- Frank Clark played safety in high school and enrolled at Michigan weighing 217 pounds. Two years later, he's a defensive end who weighs 277.

And he can still crush the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds.

"That's pretty ridiculous," quarterback Devin Gardner said of Clark's time, which was clocked during an offseason workout earlier this year. "Huge guy, and he's able to do all the things I'm able to do, which is really frustrating for me. I like to think of myself as a premier athlete, and he goes out and does -- if not better -- close to what I'm doing.

"It's pretty amazing to see, and I can't wait for the finished product to be on the field. You guys got a glimpse of it last year, and I feel like he's going to be one of the best defensive players in the league."

If he went to Ohio State he'd be running a 4.3, because their FAKE 40 scale goes to 11. If Frank Clark explodes into all All Big Ten type player… I would like that.

You guys are lame. More like the NO FUN LEAGUE, amirite?

The NFL, they say, has a long-standing pace at which they do things between plays and the referees "aren't going to change just to accommodate someone's offense," said Mike Pereira, a former NFL vice president of officiating who is now an analyst for Fox Sports.

"We have to make sure teams understand that they don't control the tempo, our officials do," said NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino. "We're going through our normal ball mechanics, we aren't going to rush [unless] it's in the two minute drill."

Chip Kelly won't be allowed to ram his offense down the field at warp speed, because a man named "Dean Blandino" says so. That is the most NFL.

A much better idea. Instead of just booting guys for hits that you think may have sort of been illegal in the split second you had to observe it, borrow from soccer. Pat Fitzgerald suggests adding a yellow card to the 15 yard penalty, which is a much better idea than just booting some dude out or doing nothing.

Gardner: likeable. Our starting quarterback is a card.

"People ask me for my number all the time on Twitter. Sometimes I'll give 'em a fake number. Like a 555 movie number. One guy got so mad at me, like, 'I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU GAVE ME A FAKE NUMBER,' and I was like, 'You should know! It says 555! No number in the world starts with 555! You really tried to call that?'"

Etc.: Starting Minnesota receiver quits football to run track full-time, and… yeah, I totally feel you, Devin Crawford-Tufts. Tennessee attendance is collapsing.

I had missed the fact that Malcolm Gladwell compared football to dogfighting in 2009. Because dogs == football players, I guess? That's not a massively troubling comparison or anything? Malcolm Gladwell is still defending this position, because Gladwell.

Surprise! Basketball recruiting taking it real slow. Brandin Hawthorne has a Kickstarter for your consideration. EA sports tries to flee the Ed O'Bannon case.