Postgame Quotes: Wisconsin vs. St. Cloud State
February 03, 2012 | Men's Hockey
Feb. 3, 2012
Wisconsin vs. St. Cloud State
Kohl Center – Madison, Wis.
Head Coach Mike Eaves
On John Ramage’s penalty:
“The referee’s explanation was the fact that it was an east-and-west hit. A year ago it would have been a fine hit, but it was unsuspecting, and by his judgment of the rules it was a penalty.”
On whether he thought Ramage’s hit was a penalty:
“I didn’t see it at the time. I was looking down the bench to see who was up next, and I still have not seen it on video. [Gary Shuchuk] was upstairs at the time, and he said it was a shoulder-to-shoulder hit. ”
On his team’s performance, and the impact of Ramage’s penalty on the game:
“The reaction of the building actually raised the level of intensity, I think, and gave us some life. We started pretty well—the shots were 7-2. I thought we had some good chances but Mr. [Mike] Lee shut the door. When we didn’t get rewarded for our efforts, we kind of lost our energy. We were talking about that on the bench. John [Ramage] went out and tried to get the guys going, but ended up taking the penalty and leaving the game. That was almost the beginning of the end. We’ve had two games that we’ve been out of all year. Both have been against Saint Cloud, the Friday night game there, and this game. It was just one of those games where we did not do very much right. I just can’t explain it. We did not see this coming as a staff based on the way we practiced and with what was at stake. It was quite shocking, how the game unfolded for us.”
On the team’s multiple penalties tonight:
“The end of the game hit [on Brendan Woods] was a silly penalty, and now he won’t play tomorrow, which is kind of his own demise. Ryan Little is an aggressive player; I don’t think he ran into their goalie just to run him down. My feeling in talking to the coaches was that we didn’t run out of control, we just had a poor game.”
On the Wisconsin’s shots-on-goal advantage:
“I chuckled to myself when I looked up at the clock and saw we had over 30 shots. Again, Mr. Lee did a nice job for them — he’s a very fine young goalie. He didn’t let us get into the game by getting energy by scoring. He played well, and I think we started to press. It was just a tough night all around.”
On [Joel] Rumpel’s performance:
“The only goal that I can fault him with was the wraparound goal. I think it surprised him and he was a little lackadaisical. The other ones I can’t fault him on. I thought he did some good things.”
Junior John Ramage
On his view of the five-minute major assessed to him:
“To be honest, it’s a judgment call for the ref and the ref thought it was a penalty.”
On what impact he felt his penalty had on the team the rest of the game:
“I think anytime you get a five-minute major it hurts the team.”
Junior Ryan Little
On if his view of Ramage’s penalty and if it hurt the team the rest of the game:
“Personally, I don’t think it hurt the team at all. I’d like to look at the video, but it looked like a clean hit from where I saw it. At that time in the period we were hurting for energy, so I actually think it gave us a little energy boost. It hurts to lose a guy like [Ramage] … but overall I think it provided a nice energy boost for us.”
On when the team lost track of energy in the game:
“I don’t think there was any one defining moment. I think we faced adversity and when we faced that adversity we didn’t respond well. We branched out and didn’t stick together as a team, and therefore we fell apart and embarrassed ourselves.”
On if it’s easy or not to ‘turn the page’ after that type of a loss:
“I’d say yes and no. We’re all going to go home tonight and it’s going to be tough to sleep. It’s tough to get over something like that but at the same time we talked after the game and said ‘thank gosh we have another game tomorrow.’ If we had to go a whole week with that loss on our minds it would be pretty brutal. We’ve got a chance at redemption tomorrow and that’ll be a good way to get [the loss] off our minds.”
Freshman Joel Rumpel
On how he felt he played:
“Honestly, not that well. It was probably my worst game all season. I need to do better for the team and I know everybody expects a lot more out of me. The second and third goals were completely my fault. I think that hurt the team and I have to be better.”
