I’ve been meaning to swap hosting companies for a while now, I’ve seen latency loading pages, got complaints from readers (one guy said he likes the site but couldn’t take it anymore) and this weekend the site pretty much died.  Anyway, I’ve moved to a new host aptly named Bluehost. I’m still working out a few kinks but I’d appreciate any feedback on site performance. Many thanks to those who posted or notified me directly of the problems this weekend.

For those (delightfully) scratching their head on how the story of the Michigan hockey run made it to Wall Street Journal, check this out.  WSJ writer Darren Everson penned that fine piece and hasn’t stopped dropping maize and blue nuggets as evidenced by this note in today’s column running down the Final Four coaches: Mr. Izzo’s sixth Final Four appearance in the past 12 years—a feat that only UCLA’s John Wooden and Duke’s Mr. Krzyzewski have ever accomplished—has triggered an outpouring of admiration for the Michigan State coach. One reporter this week quizzed him on whether he is the best coach in the history of the state. (Somewhere, Fielding Yost, Michigan’s football patriarch of the early 20th century, is wondering how six semifinal appearances trump the six national titles he is credited with.) Love it.   It looks like Mr. Everson was graduated from U-M in 1996 (B.A. English).  A few more M hockey and Fielding Yost references in the Journal and he’ll be coming back to pick up his honorary doctorate.

Maybe hit Carribou on Stadium then finish up with a cigar at Smokey’s? Support Michigan athletics and beat Cancer.   There are several auctions right now on my beloved eBay (HT: mgoblog), 100% of the proceeds of which go to fight cancer. The hottest?  How about a sit down with coach Lloyd Carr over coffee?   Get in there and bid.  The coffee with Carr auction is currently fetching north of $200 and it’ll certainly fetch more than that.  Maybe you can buy it and apologize to him. Other sweet stuff: Sideline passes for the Spring Game.  Hey, you might even meet your favorite bloggers?!  (Price drops suddenly). Jamie Morris signed football?  Nice.  Maybe James Walter will finally accept my Twitter follow? You can see all of the auctions here.

Join me in scouring the Ann Arbor memorabilia black market for the missing piece of Michigan Stadium turf.  It’ll surely lead right to the culprit. I noticed this mildly suspicious auction on eBay last night, but it has since been pulled: (I must say that shipping price was a steal!)

On Monday, May 11, 1959, the Midwest was hit with a raging windstorm and Ann Arbor was drilled.  One person in the Burns Park area was killed by a downed power line and at least two houses were set ablaze.  The city was declared a disaster area and the Red Cross was deployed to lend a hand. Yost Field House was nearly destroyed:

A few random notes from last night’s game, still groggy after getting home at around 3am: Game: I haven’t seen the replay of the overtime no-goal and it was almost instantly clear Michigan got jobbed.  We sat near a bunch of Miami fans, the most rabid of which were these three guys on the glass behind the RedHawk bench.  When the ref initially waved it off (and you could clearly hear the whistle and it looked like everything happened afterward) those guys looked over and just shook their heads, practically apologizing. I don’t know what happened in the third period but Miami just dominated and I thought it was just a matter of time.  But in the overtime Michigan found another gear and were bouncing shots off that beast goalie Knapp who couldn’t seem to cleanly cover anything. There was a great moment midway through the game when Wohlberg chase a puck near Miami’s bench.  Several RedHawks were leaning over the boards and Wohlberg swung and caught three of them up high, sending their coaching staff into a rage. Speaking of the Miami bench, one of their assistant coaches caught a deflected puck in the jaw and it came through pretty hot.  The tough SOB just shook his head a bunch of times, seemingly pissed that he didn’t get out…

Just a follow-up on my post from this weekend concerning the discovery that the Michigan and Minnesota tennis teams play for a Little Brown Jug.  Good news, Ann Arbor is now the home to all known traveling Little Brown Jug’s: Above are Michigan standouts Chris Madden (junior) and George Navas (senior) holding the precious pot, shortly after their 5-2 win over the Gophers.   Unconfirmed whether they spent the night taking long pulls off of it. Thanks again to Brad Rudner of U-M Media Relations for the info and the photo.