aTilE MICHIGAN DAILY _m ucksters A im To Top List ear Stell areort 4" * * * *. * * tl Xl+ 8 t L i1 Burford Heads List of Point-Getters; eemen Shoot for NCAA Championship By JIM PARKER tained the magic 20 victory figure paign that a Wolverine puck squad ic Heyliger, Michigan's genial in the two preceding seasons, but exceeded that mark. key coach, celebrated his sixth it wasn't until the 1949-50 cam- * * * r at the reigns of the Wolver- * * * THE BIGGEST disappointment u u c nof the season came in the third puck squad by chaslking up one annual NCAA hockey champion- h sship playoffs held at Colorado Blue's history of the ice sport. iSprings, Colo. The heavily favored nder the direction of the for- Wolverines, nationally regarded as tWolverine and Chicago Black- the top college hockey team in rk star, Michigan skated to new the United States, dropped a heart- brds in total games won in a breaking 4-3 decision to a power- ;le season and in goals scored ful Boston University sextet in one game. - the opening round of the four- * * * team tournament. NDIVIDUALLY, wingman Gil But Michigan found itself the ford erased the former one following night and swung into on scoring mark of 61 points high gear against Boston College Ld by Gordie McMillan of the to cop the consolation game on 8-49 team) and, oddly enough, the long end of a 10-6 count. three of these records were.It was only in NCAA tourney ttered in the same contest -play that the olverines failed 7-1 rout of Michigan State's to surpass the performance of one rtans in the newly enlarged ice of its predecessors. In 1948, the seum in Ann Arbor. iaugural year of the NCAA tour 'he Michigan State game < nament (participating teams are rked the 21st victory of the f<>::-<:>'Tchosen on the basis of their sea- r for the rampaging Wolver- son's records), Heyliger's first 20 s and by, the end of the sea- g :>:<3ame-winning squad downed Bos- ithe %Maize and Blue sextet..: -<:{...:r:>=::->>::.::_<.:> <.-::.> ton College and Dartmouth to win ad posted 23 wins as against the official title as the best in t four setbacks. GIL BURFORD American college hockey. :eyliger-coached teams had at- ... ice Captain * * * AT THE START of the 1949 season the Michigan coach could hardly have been criticized had the crying towel been seeing serv- ice, since graduation losses had been a severe drain on the talent from the ranks of the previous year's squad. Om'sS tore Gone was the fast skating, Sam sf Storehigh scoring forward line of Mc- / Millan, Al Renfrew and Wally el CO res you o nn i O "s Gacek and gone were the dev- astating defensemen, Connie Hill and Dick Starrak. I' Matmen Faced by Tough Battle for Conference Crown * * .* HARD AND FAST -One of the roughest and fastest spirts at Michigan is hockey. The Wolverines have one of the finest teams in the country, with an enviable record of wins to their credit. Above, Wally Grant, All-Star center for the Maize and Blue, f ihts for the puck with Colorado College iceman, Bill Lawrence. Michi- gan whipped Colorado twice on home ice, but the ien from the west took the NCAA Chanpionship in the tnurnament last Meat<. By CY CARLTON In about four months Michi- gan's wrestling team under the tutelege of Cliff Keen will begin another season of combat, in one of the oldest, fiercest and most basic of sports. Eight men will go forth one at a time to subdue their opponents in hand to hand combat in which brute strength takes a back seat to agility, speed and resourceful- ness with a liberal dash of pure courage. * * * COACH KEEN'S teams have up- held the noblest traditions of this ancient sport, and win or lose have always fought to the utmost, cleanly and fairly. The 1950-51 season will be Keen's 26th as coach of Maize and Blue grapplers. During this long term of service, he has added laurels to the great tra- dition of Michigan sports and has won himself a place as one of the geniuses of his chosen p~rofessioni. The current squad is still an. unknown quantity but should give a good account of itself, if highly egarded but untested Sophs come 1; irougi a veteran performers live up to their potentialities. CAPTAIN of the squad is Bill Stapp, a rugged 155 pounder from Sausolito, California, who was runner-up in his division in last year's Western Conference Cham- pionships. Stapp, a surprise last season, his first of competition, dropped only one dual meet match and is expected to spark the cur- rent Wolverine grappling aggre gation. Stapp is a serious wrestler, devoting full time and energy to the sport, with the result that he is always in perfect condition and is quick to re- WHY PAY MORE? U.S. NAVY "T" SHIRTS 45c FIRST QUALITY most a sure bet to take a Con- ference crown in the big meet next March. A young man, who as a Sopho- more compiled an enviable dual meet record and who should, be even better this season is Iarry Nelson, weighing in at 128 pounds. * $ * NELSON, hailing fron Milwau- kee, was a state high school chamP in Wisconsin in 1948 and won the 128 pound title in the Michigan state AAU tourney in 1949, while a freshman at Michigan. HAN ES FIG LEAF BRIEFS j Brightening the picture con- siderably, however, was the re- turn of the almost equally potent line# of Burford, team-captain Wally Grant and Neil Celley and the small but deadly Ross Smith was back for his final year of mak- ing his defense position a thing of constant peril to Michigan op- ponents. GOALIE JACK McDonald was returning for one more semester and at the start of the second se- mester, when the veteran net tend- er had exhausted his athletic eligi- bility, Jack MacInnes proved a capable replacement. A bumper crop of sophoi'res combined with the returning lettermen to form the 1949-50- pace-setting crew. Rookie forwards Bob Heathcott and Paul Pelow along with de- fensemen Graham Cragg and Ed- die May measured up admirably in plugging up graduation leaks. THEN, WHEN the second se- mester rolled around, two more sophomores, wing Earl Keyes and defenseman Lou Paolatto, became eligible for intercollegiate compe- tition and both moved into the lineup to help in the drive for Michigan's third bid to the NCAA tournament. Keyes more than lived up to the high expectations that his play in practice had predicted. The flashy Detroit product prov- ed a great crowd pleaser with his skating wizardry and was equal- ly adept in goal productioi, reg- istering his first three goal "hat trick" in his second game in a Michigan uniform. As the season entered the home stretch, NCAA tournament fever began to hit the Ann Arbor cam- pus. A crucial two-game series with Colorado College, one of the main contenders along with Mich- igan for one of the two tourney bids as teams representing the West, ended in an overwhelming sweep of both games by the Maize and Blue. THE NEXT weekend' Michigan clinched its third straight bid to the championship layoffs by wrop- ping Minonesota on both ends of a two-game series. The Wolverines posted their 20th win of the year with the taking of two games from Mich- igan Tech's -Huskies, the only American college that had been able to beat the Wolverines - the two squads had split a series earlier in the season. Michigan's two other lbsses to lt tinehad resulted from split- ting two game series to two of Canada's top college hockey teams, Toronto and Montreal. AFTER THE Michigan State slaughter and the season finale, a 5-4 victory over Western On- tario, the Wolverines left for Col- orado Springs and the NCAA play- offs. Colorado College, having ral- lied after 5-1 and 11-1 defeats at the hands of the Wolverines to win the remaining bid as the other Western representative, bounced from its underdog rat- ing to beat Boston University in the championship game of the palyoffs. Following the tourney, Michi- gan's great defenseman, Ross Smith was honored by being se- lected to all the all-tournament teams and by being elected as the Wolverines' most valuable player by his teammates. SMITH WILL BE greatly m isedr on this year's sextet. His aggres- siveness and cunning established him as a deadly competitor and as a great favorite of the crowd, which never ceased to delight in the fancy capers he cut in elud- ing his opponents after stealing the puck from than. To succeed the fast sk ating pl-ay- I maker, Wally Grant, the members of the team chose Gil Burford as captain of the 1950-51 team. Bur- ford continued to burn opponent's goals after the MSC game and finished the season with a total Af 69 points scored. KEEN. WRESTLING COACH- Cliff Keen, Michigan's mat men- tor, starts his 26th season in that position this year. cover' rom injuries. In addition to duties as mat captain, he is president of the "M" Club, famed winners at Michigan. Another stalwart of the squad will be Dave Space, who as a sophomore last season, dropped only one dual match and finished second in the Conference meet, in the 136 pound division. * * * SPACE is another example of Keen's ability to develop young wrestlers with little or no exper- ience, quickly. A native Ann Ar- borite, he did little wrestling in high school, learning most about the fundamentals of the sport in his freshman year at Michigan, with the frosh squad, and in wrestling classes in the physical education department. Barring injuries, Space is al- In the Conference meet, Nel- son did not fare well, being eliminated in the, first round by Alan Rice of Minnesota, an experienced veteran who had ben champion at 136 pounds the previous year. Nelson, with a winter of combat in back of him should be a top contender for Western Conference laurels this season. * * * COACH KEEN is doubtful -as to team strength in the heavyweight divisions but is hopeful that Ju, T Powers, who was champ of the Big Ten at 165 pounds two years ago and finished third last year will return for another season, despite the- fact that he needs only eight hours towards graduation. Joe Planck, an experienced junior, will wrestle at either 75 pounds or in the unlimited divi- sion this year. Planck was fair- ly successful at both weights last season and showed pro- mise of future development. There is a gap to be filled in the heavy weights either at 165, 175 or heavyweight (unlimited) if Powers returns at 165, which he wrestled in the Conference championships, or wrestles at 1'75, as he did through most of the See WRESTLING, Page 8 ,a '+ nySr9 . ,. . s,' :$ :0 s y . r 'S.z. z'tk W "; '' i" .; s y+r . 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