Last week were the ticket renewals; this week a nice note from Chris Summers, signed by the team.   Two key messages were found therein: 1. A Plea to Renew.  Sensitive to the economic conditions, included was encouragement from Summers to re-up this season, who acknowledged the situation out there: “We realize that in this economy many of you may be experiencing some stress financially.” 2. Getting Stronger.  Summers highlighted some activity from this spring: “We have just completed a very demanding voluntary off-season workout program.  I can safely say that all of our returning players have improved their strength…” The note was a nice touch.  Hockey fans are a dedicated bunch, but you’ve got to have a bunch of ticketholders out there facing difficult times and don’t view tickets as a must have.  Toss in the rise of the basketball team and a few fans might choose to take their dollars to Crisler. 

Check out highlights from last season’s Michigan-Minnesota tilt, the 91st time the teams played for the Little Brown Jug. YouTuber “akarpo” put this beauty out there in crisp HD:

That’s right.  Navigate to MVictors.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch and you’ll be presented with the tight iPhone style sheet by default.  (It might work on Blackberry Storm but I carry a Bold like a real man). You can even save it to your desktop with my snappy LB Jug icon.  Content is stripped down to the posts:

Looks like at least a few folks at the athletic department agreed with my analysis on the score of the 1909 game against Syracuse.  Back in March, I discovered (while researching a piece for Brian Cook’s HTTV 2009) that it appeared as though the official score of the October 30, 1909 tilt should have given Michigan forty-four points in the contest.  The Michigan Daily noted that the scorekeeper inadvertently failed to tally one of the Wolverines’ extra points. I just checked the Bentley Library record for the season and it’s been changed with a footnote: As silly as this seems, I love it.  It looks like the great archivist at the Bentley, Greg Kinney, took the research a bit further digging into the “Dope Books” and Michigan Alumnus.  Thanks to Kinney for following up on this.    It means much to yours truly. Here’s the entire original post, reprinted, explaining my take on the matter: I’ve made a couple trips over to the Bentley Library researching a story on the 1909 season. I’ll probably have more on that later. But in between digging through the Michigan Daily archives, letters and contracts from the athletic department, and of course the online records, I uncovered a little oddity concerning the ‘09 season. According to the Bentley web page for the 1909 season, and this link…

Check out this authentic jersey and pants from 1952: The seller claims the jersey belonged to center Wayne Melchiori came to Ann Arbor from Stambaugh, Michigan, a town just east of the Wisconsin border in the Upper Peninsula.  He went on to be a legendary high school football coach in nearby Ironwood and won quite a few honors: He also was Tri-State football coach of the year, Michigan-Wisconsin Conference Coach of the year three times, U.P. Football coach of the year twice, U.P. Athletic Director of the year, State of Michigan Area Athletic Director of the year, and a charter member induction to the Michigan High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame and the U.P. Sports Hall of Fame. The 1952 slate was an up and down one for coach Bennie Oosterbaan and crew, opening with a 27-13 loss to former M assistant Biggie Munn and his #1 ranked Michigan State Spartans.  The team then dropped a game at Stanford before winning five of their final seven games. I actually had a chance to catch up with Melchiori, who lives today up in Ironwood where he became a high school coaching legend. Melchiori told me that longtime equipment manager Henry ‘Hank’ Hatch used to make the jerseys himself.  “He would pick the numbers out and sew them on, right there…

Gordie Howe takes in old Yost.  Photo credit: me Sweet. One clarification, the application offers the opportunity to buy additional tickets to The ‘17th Annual College Hockey Showcase’ games at Yost against Minnesota (11/27) and Wisconsin (11/28) for $30/each. According to the U-M ticket office, these games are included in the regular season ticket packages, they are just offering extra seats (at a steep price) for those interested.  I don’t know where the extra seats came from, but since these games are right after Thanksgiving, perhaps they didn’t offer these as part of the student ticket package?

Another gem, this time published in the October 20, 1920 Michigan Daily.   Apparently a team of South American soccer players had to have some action on this American football-crazed campus.  Tellez somehow convinced the Daily staff to post this notice smack dab at the top of the Sports page: Early wagering line:  South American soccer team completely jonesing for a game: -7.

WTKA 1050AM morning show host Sam Webb phoned in for a rare afternoon segment today to talk about the commitment of hoopster Tim Hardaway, Jr., and the state of basketball recruiting vis a’ vis Coach Izzo. Here’s the audio (give it a few seconds to start): [display_podcast] Sam explains that Hardaway is not a chip off the old killer crossover; this version of Tim Hardaway is a shooter and a great fit for Beilein’s offense.  While he’s at it, Webb provides some other updates across the recruiting map.