Friday Quick Hits: Wisconsin Invites Michigan to Outdoor Hockey Game

By Sean · Friday, February 27, 2009 · 1:49 AM |  Share | 2 Comments 

• There is finally some concrete news on the long-rumored outdoor hockey game between Michigan and Wisconsin. The news is that Wisconsin has formally invited Michigan to play at Camp Randall Stadium on February 6, 2010, in a game that could set a world record for hockey attendance. Michigan is expected to accept the offer, setting up a very exciting matchup between the Wolverines and Badgers next year. What is even more exciting is that tickets are reportedly only going to cost $15, hopefully meaning that this game will have no trouble filling the 80,321 seats in Camp Randall Stadium.
• Although nothing has ever developed, there have been some discussions in the past about playing a hockey game at Michigan Stadium. You would think a hockey game at the Big House is inevitable considering it would shatter the attendance record, but there aren’t any substantial rumors (to my knowledge, at least) floating around right now about a future game. I expect the momentum for a game to pick up once the stadium renovation is done, but that is only a year and a half or so away. Ideally, I would like to see an event where the Red Wings and Michigan get to play a game in the Big House. The marketability would be remarkable, and the event itself would be awesome.
• Michigan’s final series of the regular season gets underway tonight. Ferris State will host the Wolverines in an untelevised game that starts at 7:05 p.m. On Saturday, Ferris State will come to Yost for Senior Night in Ann Arbor. Travis Turnbull, Tim Miller, Danny Fardig, Brandon Naurato, Billy Sauer, and Mark Mitera will be honored as part of Senior Night festivities, and Mitera is expected to play his first game at Yost since the first game of the season. I also expect Sauer to be in goal since this will likely be his last chance to play at Yost barring an injury happening to Bryan Hogan. The puck drops at 8:05 p.m. for Saturday’s game, which will be shown on CBS College Sports.
• Don’t forget, prior to Saturday’s game Gordie Howe will be autographing pictures featuring him and Red Berenson. Berenson has said that he hopes to have Howe do a ceremonial puck drop right before the game, so that is also something to look out for.
• The baseball team is now 5-0 following their 9-8 win over North Florida.
• Ryan Mallett was interviewed by the Sporting News’ Matt Hayes, and the current Arkansas QB had this to say about why he left Michigan:
  

  Q: You left Michigan after Rich Rodriguez replaced Lloyd Carr. How did that go down?

  A: We met after (Rodriguez) was hired, and I think we both realized his offense wasn’t the right offense for me. It was a mutual thing. After we felt each other out, we knew it wouldn’t work. There were no hard feelings.

  Many still believe Rodriguez “ran off” Mallett, suggesting that he pushed him to leave. Although Mallett’s answer to the above question doesn’t necessarily dispel that rumor, it does confirm that Rodriguez didn’t actively recruit him to stay. The most common thing I’ve always heard about the whole Mallett situation is that Rodriguez wanted him back but wasn’t going to beg or go out of his way to get Mallett to stay. Whether or not that is true we probably will never know, but Mallett’s response above suggests that he wasn’t necessarily pushed out and wasn’t recruited, either.

• U-M Flint is looking into starting an athletics program that could begin competition by fall 2010.
• SI.com’s Andy Staples wrote an interesting article on oversigning in college football. The article mainly looks at SEC schools (and North Carolina, too), but it also explores the possibility of the NCAA regulating oversigning in the future. Personally, I’m in agreement with Georgia head coach Mark Richt’s take on oversigning.
  

  Georgia coach Mark Richt refuses to oversign for two reasons. First, he wouldn’t want to run out of scholarships for qualified players. Second, he would not want to run off current players who have eligibility remaining to keep the Bulldogs under the 85-scholarship limit. “We could always get into a situation where we oversign, but there’s no way I could look at a kid and his parents and say, ‘We had some room, but now we really don’t.’ I just think you have to be careful,” Richt told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Signing Day. “I don’t want to oversign, then tell one of the kids we’ve already got, ‘You’ve got no value to us’ and toss him aside. I’m not going to do that.”

  Oversigning has become so common and extreme (Troy signed 40 recruits this year! 40!) in some cases that regulation is becoming more and more necessary as time goes by. I doubt there will ever be a rule prohibiting oversigning, but there needs to be nation-wide regulations that either limits it or does something to make it a tad more ethical, as hard as that may be.

• Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen finally got married.