Forgotten Blue - Brendan Morrison

Submitted by mGrowOld on

Recently my new BFF It's Harambe took on the thankless task of asking his fellow MgoBloggers to rank the top 25 Michigan athletes of all time.  As the list was revealed it was clear to this reader that some of the most notable players who competed during the athletic stone age (pre-internet) had been forgotten about.  This weekly diary will take a look at the more notable players from our past to remind everyone of what they did and why they deserve to be honored and remembered.

 

BRENDAN MORRISON

Image result for brendan morrison michigan hockey OT

"He was the best Freshman, the best Sophomore, he was the best Junior, and now he's the best player in the country."

Michigan center John Madden

Like baseball, our storied hockey past was seemingly overlooked by pollsters when selecting the greatest athletes in Michigan history.  With many players to choose from I thought it was appropriate to lead with the player who scored arguably the most memorable single goal in Michigan hockey history.

 

After playing one year in British Columbia Morrison joined the team in 1993. He had also been approached by the Denver Pioneers and the  Maine Black Bears to join their school teams, but ultimately chose Michigan. Registering 48 points (20 goals and 28 assists) over 38 games as a freshman, Morrison was named the CCHA Rookie of the Year for the 1993–94 season. He played on a line with fellow freshman Jason Botterill; the two played together throughout their college career. In the 1994 playoffs, he helped the Wolverines to a CCHA championship. Playing in his sophomore year (1994–95), Morrison improved to 76 points (23 goals and 43 assists) over 39 games and received his first of three consecutive CCHA First Team All-Star selections.

 

With 72 points over 45 games in 1995–96, Morrison received his first of back-to-back CCHA Player of the Year awards. He added 15 points in 7 post-season games to capture his second CCHA championship with the Wolverines. Advancing to the 1996 NCAA Tournament, Michigan advanced to the final against the Colorado College Tigers. Morrison scored the championship-winning goal 3:35 into overtime to win the game 3–2.

 

Red Berenson, the Michigan coach, teased Morrison afterward, saying, "Brendan, what took you so long?" Bach had been moved to the other side of his goal by a quick pass, Greg Crozier to Bill Muckalt, followed by a pass from Muckalt to Morrison. The puck was rolling by then, and Morrison gave it a poke. The goalie could not get back in time to snuff the little shot that was Morrison's 28th goal of the season. It was the Wolverines' first national title in 32 years. In addition to receiving NCAA Tournament MVP honors, Morrison was named to the NCAA West Regional and NCAA All-Tournament Teams.

Image result for brendan morrison michigan hockey

Morrison was named team captain in his senior year. He totaled college personal bests that season of 31 goals, 57 assists and 88 points over 43 games, culminating in a Hobey Baker Award as the NCAA's most outstanding player; Morrison had been a finalist for the award the previous two years. The Wolverines repeated as CCHA champions, but lost to the Boston University Terriers in the NCAA semifinal. Morrison completed his four-year college career as the Wolverines' all-time points leader with 284, surpassing Denny Felsner. His points total also ranked seventh all-time among NCAA players.

 

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/31/sports/hockey-after-32-years-michigan…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Morrison

https://news.google.ca/newspapers?id=9_5JAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BR4NAAAAIBAJ&pg=…

 

 

Comments

stephenrjking

September 20th, 2016 at 12:03 AM ^

The only real question I have is how many hockey players you'll wind up including. Hard to get a feel for the qualitative differences in the Eveleth boys, whose era is in the relatively distant past, but Marty Turco and Red Berenson would be hard guys not to include. And of course there are a handful of recent guys.

Morrison's omission was pretty glaring, particularly since he didn't play that long ago relative to some of the players included. And he had a good NHL career.

GOBLUE4EVR

September 20th, 2016 at 8:57 AM ^

up in canada i'm still ticked that TSN (canadian version of ESPN) didn't do a piece (or at least say something) on Morrison when he won the Hobey Baker, especially because they dedicated a half hour to Paul Karyia when he won it... 

also are you going to do one of these on arguably the greatest hockey player to come out of south western ontario Brian Wiseman???

Mike90

September 20th, 2016 at 9:03 AM ^

Does anyone have his post game interview after he scored that goal?  It was a great tribute to the teams of the early-mid 90's that got so close to winning it but were snakebit in the tournament.  Those teams suffered a great deal, which made it so sweet to finally win one.

Wolverine In Exile

September 20th, 2016 at 10:25 AM ^

the 1997 team not winning it all after blasting everyone in their path up to that BU game was a damn tragedy, up there with the undefeated Patriots losing in the Super Bowl to the NY Giants. Funny thing was it set up the unexpected run in 1998 with all the freshmen.

MaizeInDC

September 20th, 2016 at 10:45 AM ^

I was at the championship game in 1996. It was amazing to celebrate a national championship in person.
I also remember a fan from Clarkson, which was in the tournament but not the Frozen Four, being the loudest pro-Colorado College/anti-UM fan in our section. Very strange.

stephenrjking

September 20th, 2016 at 6:25 PM ^

I've never seen that many UMD fans before or since and I live in Duluth. They don't sell out the arena all that often, though they draw pretty well.

So it was a rough couple of weeks for me, the leading Michigan Hockey fan in the worst city to be a Michigan Hockey fan at the time.

Still, the goal didn't anger me that much. I've seen a lot of flukey or unfair losses, and my read on the end of the game was that Michigan simply ran out of gas after two very hard defensive games. Rust was just stuck on the ice for too long. If we had managed to survive and get our feet under us, we still had a chance, but UMD earned what it got.

As opposed to, say, Miami in Fort Wayne. Minnesota in Buffalo. LSSU in East Lansing. Etc.

It hurts because it was the title. All it would've taken for us is one bounce.

Lou MacAdoo

September 20th, 2016 at 10:56 AM ^

I didn't read that countdown at all. I'm just trained to ignore countdowns after being tricked so many times. Top 25 cheerleaders in football, Best Albums of 2016, and so on. They're all filled with lies. The fact that Bendan Fricken Morrison was not in the countdown completely confirms this.

truferblue22

September 20th, 2016 at 3:26 PM ^

Yeah that top 25 list was great. However I didn't realize until after I had voted that it wasn't top 10 Michigan FOOTBALL players you had to name but 10 athletes from any sport. Otherwise both Jack Johnson and Brendan Morrison (and Phelps) would have all made my list. 

stephenrjking

September 20th, 2016 at 5:11 PM ^

Jack Johnson, from the hockey team? Terrific player, but... he's not even on the hockey program's Mount Rushmore, must less the school as a whole. I can think of a half dozen players I would rate ahead of him from the Michigan Hockey team just from his decade, not to mention the rest of the illustrious history of a program that has more national titles than any other in the country.

MGoPatio

September 21st, 2016 at 1:23 AM ^

...and I especially like your lead-off photo (it's one of mine)! I was a photographer for the team that year (and '96 and '98) and had the pleasure of photographing Red, in a rare smiling moment, while hugging Billy Muckalt.

SyracuseWolvrine

September 22nd, 2016 at 12:52 PM ^

Great writeup, and Morrison is deserving of all the honors and accolades. That being said, I would argue that his GWG in the championship was the 2nd most memorable goal in Michigan hockey histor,  behind the Mike Legg goal earlier in that playoff run.