Too Many Penalties doom Wild in ugly 6-2 loss to Detroit

Wild vs. Red Wings

Too many penalties doom Wild as they fall 6-2 in ugly game against Detroit

Written by Derek Felska
Friday, 26 March 2010 09:08

It is an end of an era back in the State of Hockey, as it has been announced that Frank Mazzocco and former Golden Gophers coach Doug Woog will not be apart of the Fox Sports Net-North broadcast for next season. Woog and Mazzocco have been the TV voice of the Gophers for over 10 years as a tandem, while Mazzocco has been doing the play-by-play since the late 1980's starting with the rogue network KITN-Channel 29. In those early days, Mazzocco was the play-by-play man and current Gophers radio play-by-play man Wally Shaver was his commentator and together they were high energy that reflected some of the best of the Doug Woog-era of Gophers hockey. I can vividly remember those early broadcasts from "the Barn" of old Mariucci Arena, and they were fantastic and Mazzocco's voice always helped add a bit more drama to Minnesota's "Pride on Ice." It will be sad not to hear his voice on the broadcast. Why was he replaced is sort of a mystery at this point, but there is speculation the move was due to some of the percieved 'favortism' the duo showed towards the Minnesota Gophers during their broadcasts. I must admit, the line of neutrality for Woog and Mazzocco was steadily being blurred the last few seasons as they were notorious for critiquing WCHA officials, especially in calls and non-calls going against the Gophers but if that's true why not just tell them to cut it out instead of replacing them? It has been said Woog will be retained as a part of the broadcast, but not in a commentating capacity. Replacing Mazzocco will be FSN's Anthony LaPanta who has some experience providing play by play for high school games, including some at the Minnesota State tournament and he is very capable broadcaster who has a good grasp of the subtleties of the game. They have not announced who will be a replacement for Woog, although I would have to believe Darby Hendrickson and Tom Chorske, two former Gophers who have been used on both Wild and Gopher broadcasts will likely get the job.

So how do I segue this to tonight's Wild game? Easy, when Mazzocco was still doing play-by-play for KITN-29, one of the Gophers' whose name he spent a lot of time saying was none other than Wild Head Coach Todd Richards who is still the all time leading scorer amongst Gophers' defenseman which is no small feat when you consider some of the other great blueliners that have donned the maroon and gold. Minnesota is hoping to recreate some of the persistence of 3rd period in last night's game against Philadelphia where they battled back from a 3-1 deficit to earn a 4-3 victory without its captain Mikko Koivu in the lineup. Koivu will be out of the lineup again for the Wild, so Minnesota will again have to find some inner strength as they battle in against a surging Red Wings squad. Will Minnesota find its inner "Rudy" and beat the odds and earn another win or will the Red Wings stamp another victory at the Wild's expense? (click on the link for the rest of the article)

I have a bunch of college hockey stuff in here too....