You Now Have Plans for Saturday, Too

As Nick said, you all now have plans for Saturday. 6 PM, ESPN - UW-Madison vs. Boston College - national championship. Liz and I will be, conveniently, in Madison.

So I sure hope you all watched the game last night. You know, it's really been quite a while since I saw a hockey game that I literally couldn't take my eyes off of, but last night's matchup between Wisconsin and Maine was absolutely awesome. If you missed Ross Carlson's sorthanded goal early in the second period, you really missed out. Maine had all the momentum coming into the second and were playing really tough. Wisconsin took yet another penalty. The score was 1-1, but things weren't looking particularly well. Then, Carlson challenged the Maine defenseman at the blueline with a fast rush, nabbed the puck away on a dead run and had only one defenseman between him and the goalkeeper. Carlson kept his cool, got the defenseman to commit to a shot block and, with the defenseman sliding by on the ice, helpless, Carlson regathered the puck right in the slot and drilled a 5-hole blast into the back of the net. When that play happened, the neighbors might have been concerned for our safety. :D Absolutely brilliant.

Of course, the rest of the game was great, as well, with the Badgers finishing it off with a 5-2 victory in Milwaukee. That short-handed goal, though, was absolutely awesome and probably the turning point in the entire game.

So, Saturday night - the Badgers take on the Eagles from Boston College for the national championship. Brian Elliot, the Badgers' goalkeeper is up for the Hobey Baker award today (think Heisman trophy for NCAA hockey) - not sure that he'll get it, but he's certainly one of the best goalies to come out of Wisconsin - and that's saying something. The last well-known Wisconsin goalie was Mike Richter, who retired with a Stanley Cup championship in New York under his belt.

Okay - hockey lesson of the day...

Off-side

There are three major zones on a hockey rink - the offensive zone, the defensive zone, and center ice (or the neutral zone). They're pretty self-explanitory. The offensive zone is where you want to spend your time, peppering the opposing goaltender with pucks. The defending zone is where you'd prefer not to be, near your own goalkeeper. And center ice is...well...the middle of the ice. The two blue lines on the ice designate the cutoffs for these zones.

Let's say you're looking at a rink from left to right - your goalkeeper is guarding the net on the left and the goal you want to score into is on the far right. Everything from the left-most edge of the rink to the first blue line is your defensive zone. Everything from that blue line to the next blue line is center ice. And everything from the right blue line to the right end of the ice is the offensive zone.

Now that we know about the zones on the ice, we can talk about off-side plays. An off-side play occurs when any player from the offensive team is in the offensive zone before the puck moves into the offensive zone. If such a situation arises, the linesman (the linesman is the "ref" that stands on the blue line - there are two of them) whistles the play dead and you have a face-off in the center ice zone. Note that being called for off-side isn't a "penalty." No one goes to the penalty box for being off-side. Instead, you simply have a face off. So what's so bad about them? Well, if you were called for being off-side, that means you had control of the puck. Relinquishing control of the puck for a face off is not a good thing.

So, basically, off-side calls prevent "cherry picking." You can't have one guy standing down in from of the opposing goaltender waiting for a rink-long pass and an easy shot on net. Instead, the puck must move into the zone first, before any player.

To be considered off-side, a player must be completely across the blue line. If any part of the offensive player's body is touching the blue line or in the center ice zone, the player is on-side.

Because the off-side rule exists, there are various types of defenses set up to exploit it. When the puck enters the zone, the offensive team wants to bring other players across as quickly as possible to support the play. Many defenses try to deny this or take advantage of it. It's very similar to a full court press in basketball with a half-court trap. Or an off-side trap in soccer, in which the defending players rush upfield, putting the offensive players off-side.

For example, let's say you've got three offensive players rushing up ice and three defensive players waiting for them. The offensive players want to time things just right so that as soon as the puck carrier crosses the line, the other players are rushing into the zone. The defense knows that. So what do they do? They let the players rush up ice and just before the puck carrier reaches the blue line, they challenge him and force him to make a move. What does that do? Well, if the puck carrier needs to slow down to make a move, that means the other offensive players need to stop, as well. If they continue rushing forward ahead of the puck carrier, they'll be off-side. If that happens, the puck carrier has no choice but to drop back and try to regroup, allowing the off-side player(s) to come back on-side. If the puck carrier continues across the blue line with an off-side player, the play will be blown dead. Even if the supporting offensive players do manage to stay on side, the defense's hope is to slow their progress into the zone. By making them slow down, they can't penetrate as deeply into the zone as quickly as they want. That makes it easier for the defense to get the puck back out over the blue line, which is called "clearing the zone."

So that's off-side. Make sense?

Good. Now watch the game, tomorrow.