Page 14-Friday, October 26, 1979-The Michigan Daily ICHG 0 ICE 4 U Offense:r By JON WELLS It is often said that the formula for winning hockey requires such in- tangible elements as team spirit, momentum, and the innate knowledge of where your teammates will be at any given moment. Whether or not the 1978- 79 Michigan hockey team possessed these ingredietis is up for debate, however, the fact remains that tp win 5 t Dan Lerg you must score, and this they did not do. Last year the Wolverines were last in the WCH A in goals scored (117) and last in the standings. Through their last twenty games, during which time they were 1-18-1, the Blue icers averaged only 3.30 goals per game while their op- .ponents tallied an average of 6.40 THE WEIGHT OF this deficiency Ialls primarily on the shoulders of the forwards. As a group they mhust over- eome both last year's scoring slump Vnd the injury factor which hit them so ;ard in '78-'79. , According to 'coach Dan Farrell, Michigan's recruiting was aimed primarily at adding scoring punch. "We had to find some forwards who could score," said Farrell, "and I think. we've got some. We've shown in a few ejuvenation in order scrimmages that we can score - and that's a good sign." w Perhaps the most promising newcomer is freshman center Bruno Baseotto, who Farrell has slated as a winger on the power play. The other potential goal-scoring freshmen are wingers Billy Reid, Ted Spears, Brad Tippet, Julio Van Biesbruck, and Joe Milburn, and center Terry Manning. Eaves, 12 goals and22 assists in only 23 games, was checking in with torn car- tilage in his knee. DUE LARGELY to these untimely in- juries, the Wolverine offehse never really got untracked. But with the usual pre-season optimism, Farrell is con- fident about this year's attack. "If our forwards stay healthy, we will have a lot more firepower." IDefense, By GARY LEVY For the Michigan hockey team's sake, 12 months time has done more than just tack another year onto its defensemen's ages. Hopefully, one year's time has brought a combination of experience and confidence which will result in a much improved defense. This will have to be the case if the icers intend to improve on 'their : a year of in Blum and Mark Perry and senior Dave Brennan. FARRELL IS optimistic that his defense can and will be better than last year. "The defense is more mature than a year ago. It's now just a matter of seeing how they react in a game situation,".said Farrell. Aside from Farrell, the players themselves seem to think that last "Nor, Tim Manning John Blum naturity compared to the 132 goals the icers netted themselves. UNLESS THE Wolverines improve on the lowest scoring offense in the WCHA, the defense will be relied on heavily to keep the team in the game. According to the Wolverine defen- semen, their primary concern in im- provement is clearing the puck out of Brian Lundberg r We have to be able to get the puck dut of our own end and get it to the forwar- ds," said Manning. "It's the most imn- portant thing we havie to do, and its the hardest thing we have to do." Michigan's 'defensemen will once again be counted on to provide a bit of offense as Mianning was last year's third leading poin getter' (34), but scoring is secondary for the defer- semen. "The coach would. like to see us score a few goals, but defense if our fir- st priority," said Blum. Call. it 52 weeks or 364 days. Whatever, one year's experience may prove invaluable to the Wolverines' defensive corps in improving on las~t year'sdlisappointing season. Doug Todd THE BULK O the responsibility, however, still remains with the core of nine returning Wolverine scorers, for according to Farrel, "The WCHA has never been a freshman league." Left-winger Doug Todd, the team's' captain, summed it up when he said, "The big guns have got to produce," citing that his own point production of twenty-four last year (12 goals, 12 assists) must improve. The Michigan centermen were a bat- tered battalion last season, losing both Terry Cullen and Dan Lerg in the early going. Cullen was put out for the year with a severe neck injury and has since retired from hockey, while Lerg (12-19- 31) returned in January. Unfortunately, just as Lerg checked out of sick bay, standout freshman center Murray The most important "if" appears to be centered around the condition of Eaves' knee. He strained the cartilage again this summer while working out with the Canadian Olymnpic team and is now near the end of a summer-long rehabilitation program. According to Eaves, the knee is "95-100 per cent" and he is looking forward to "a full and productive season. The Wolverines will also need a much more productive season from 6-3, 210 left winger Gordie Hampson (six goals, six assists in 36 games). Hampson, one of the nation's most heavily, recruited players in 1977, has yet to play up to his potential. Other forwards that the Blue offense will rely on are juniors John Olver (10- 18-28) and Jeff Mars (8-10-18). disastrous 8-27-1 record of one year ago, since coach Dan Farrell recruited no freshman defenseman for the '79-'80 season._ Why? The answer is simple. "We had more important priorities than recruiting defensemen," said Farrell. THUS, FARRELL has rested his hopes on last year's returning defen- semen, led by alternate captain Tim Manning. The 5'-11", 180-pound junior from Dearborn Heights led the team in assists (27) last season and was the first winner of the' Vic Heyliger Trophy as Michigan's Outstanding Defenseman. Other members of Michigan's defen- sive corps are sophomores Brain Lun- dberg, Paul Brandrup, Dave Richter and Steve Richmond, juniors John year's experience will pay off this season. "A year of experience is going to help us out a lot," said Brennan, a 6'-3", 185-pound veteran defenseman from Weston, Ontario. "We won't make the mistakes we did last year. We used to choke a lot. This year we're going to create more opportunities for the offen- se to score." "We have a lot more experience and confidence in each other. That's the main thing," said Blum, a 6'-2", 200- pound defenseman from Warren. "We're all pretty confident; we think we can get the job done." One area where the icers must im- prove is in the number of goals allowed to the opponent. Last year, the Wolverines gave up 210 goals Improvement in goal a must for Michigan RECRUITS EIGHT FRESHMAN: Farrell plays summer plumber By MARK BOROWSKI As the Michigan hockey team skates :into the frozen battleground, a lonely ole glides to one end of the area. Clad n his bulky padding, he is prepared for Rcombat, and come flailing sticks, -hurling bodies, or flying skates, he is out to stop the whizzing black disc that his enemy will skillfully rifle at him. The goaltender is the last bastion of defense for his unit and a year ago Michigan coach Dan Farrell's nets were protected as well as Pearl Harbor when the Japanese bombed it in 19441. The trio of Rudy Varvari, Bob Sutton, and Peter Mason tried fruitlessly to stop the puck in giving up nearly six goals per game. made 15 appearances for Farrell. His major problem was inconsistency. In his debut he turned away 56 Bowling Green shots and picked up his only win of the year. He had two other games in which he stopped over 50 shots but his 6.39 goals against speaks for the rest of his performances. THE OTHER returning netminder is sophomore Mason who saw action in only six games last year, but he had the best goals against average at 4.85. The most promising prospect in the '79-80 crop has to be freshman Paul Fricker. If Fricker's past performan- ces are any indication of how he will, perfor m for- the Wolverines he may very well help the team into the WCHA playoffs. The Vancouver native was named the goalie of the year in the Pacific Coast junior league and was a Pacific League All-Star the last two years. And in the opening series against Bowling Green this year Fricker turned in two fine per- formances.-He allowed five goals in his debut, but that can be expected from a freshman in his first outing. The next r Paul Fricker night he settled down and stopped all but two of the Falcons' shots. But more importantly he looked sharp and made some nifty saves when there was no one between him and the opposing forwar- ds. ONE THING THE goalies have working in their favor is the addition of graduate assistant goalie coach Don Boyd. Boyd played for Bawling Green and was named to the second team All- Central Collegiate Hockey Association in the 1972-73 season. This is the first time Farrell has had a goalie coach sin- ce the 1976-77 season when his team lost in the NCAA finals to Wisconsin. Although last year was disastrousefor the Wolverine netminders, so was Pearl Harbor for the U.S. in 1941 and they still won the war. By GARY LEVY Between seasons, a hockey coach is more like a plumber thanda coach. Because of graduation and obvious weaknesses, he has to repair the leaks in his hockey club. The only way a coach can go about fixing those leaks is through recruiting. But recruiting the cream of the crop can be difficult when you team finished last in its league with a 6-25-1 record. THIS PAST YEAR, Michigan head "plumber" Dan Farrell had the ar- duous task of repairing the leaks in his offense (the WCHA's lowest scoring of- fense in '78-'79). His patchwork resulted in seven of the Wolverines' eight recruits being forwards. The other recruit was a goaltender, netminding being another area of concern last year. Among the recruits Farrell is hoping will plug some holes are right winger Bruno Baseotto, goalie Paul Fricker and center Terry Manning, brother of junior defenseman Tim Manning. Will these and the other newcomers be able to contribute immediately? "They all can play and make a con- tribution, but you can't say how much a freshman is going to contribute right away, because this hockey is better than any hockey they've ever played before," said Farrell. "THEY'LL ALL SEE some action, but it's not fair to say that a freshman will come in and be a star," Farrell continued. "This (the WCHA) is not a' freshman league. It never has been." Nevertheless, the freshmen think that they'll be able to lend a hand. "I think I can contribute," said Baseotto, a 5'-10", 170 pound right winger from Calgary, Alberta. "I think I can provide leadership. All I have to do is practice and work hard. It's all up to myself." According to Farrell, one plus about this year's freshman class is that they are more mature and older than in past years. "We have 19 and 20-year-old fresh- nan, instead of 17 year olds. It makes a difference," said Farrell. Six of the eight freshmen recruits are either 19 or 20-years-old. OTHER MEMBERS of the Wolverine freshman class are left wingers Joe Milburn, Brad Tippet and Julio Van- Biesbruck, and right wingers Billy Reid and Ted Speers. Speers and VanBiesbruck are Michigan natives, Speers a hometown boy from Ann Arbor Pioneer High School, and VanBiesbruck out of Detroit. The freshmen don't seem to be worried about the 'competition either, despite the talent being better. than anywhere they've played before. "If you start worrying about the competition when you're a goalie, you'd might as well pack it up," said Fricker, the only lefthander in Michigan's goalie corps. "The competition is much better than anywhere I've even played before. Everyone can do everything well. The skaters are faster and the defense is the Bruno Baseotto KEY PLAYERS LOST Olympics pare WCIArosters Rudy Varvari But this year Farrell is cautiously op- timistic. "I feel our goaltending will be a little better and our defensemen are more mature, and that will help out." SO WHO WILL be the number one goaltender this year is anyone's guess. "Right now we are looking for who will stop the puck and whoever can stop the puck best will play the game, and if we can find two that can stop the puck, they will both play," said Farrell. Not a bad philosophy, but one that may be hard to follow with four net- minders vving for the position. Varvari By ELISA FRYE Every four years a plague sweeps the country, emptying college hoekey teams of their prime athletes, and undoing years of recruitin with the potential to upset the standings. This "plague" is the rush for the Olympics, and the extent of its devastation to a team depends on how many players were lost-if any. This year six teams from the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA), Minnesota, North Dakota, Minnesota-Duluth, Wisconsin, Michigan Tech and Denver, lost players to the U.S. and Canadian Olympic teams, and these losses were apart from the expected losses due to graduation. Minnesota was second in last year's WCHA stan- dings, not to mention the winner of the NCAA cham- pionship, and would probably have a good shot at a top spot in the league again this year except for the through the ykar with a young team. "I think the kids realize the effect (of losing players). They've come a long way; they're rising to the occasion," said Buetow. However, Buetow would not speculate on the up- coming season. "I don't know if there will be much of an effect," he said. "Certainly we lost in numbers. We lost close to ninety percent of our goal produc- tion.' John Gasparini, of last year's number one North Dakota team, which lost Dave Christian to the U.S. and Kevin Maxwell to the Canadian Olympic teams, commented that, "(Minnesota) lost the nucleus of a championship team. Their circumstances are greater than ours in terms of numbers, but I'm sure they have adequate personnel." And as for the Sious' own losses: As a coach you can't worrv habout a nls .nyo havet n worrv abni tthe ture. "He was our leading scorer and our key man in the power play." "We're still trying to regroup," Hendrickson add- ed. "We have a long way to go." The exception to the doubtful attitude held by most coaches is Michigan Tech's John Macinnes, who stressed the positive aspects, both for the team and the individual. The Huskies lost top defenseman Tim Watters to Canada. "It's a great experience for him (Watters), and it's great exposure for the university, and I'm all for it," Macinnis declared. "We'll miss him,'' Maclnnis added, "but I think the players feel it's an honor, and they'll play better because of it." Other players lost in the league were Wisconsin's Mark Johnson, and Ken Barry and Glenn Anderson of Denver who went to the Canadian team. Johnson was WCHA's second leading scorer last year, with 28 galns and 41 asists. Brad Tippett