Re: NC$$ Title: Clarkson vs Wisconsin
Based on the USCHO headline - "Clarkson's Tiley dominates blue paint, women's championship game for Golden Knights" - I guess I'm not alone in my confusion. Clearly Tiley was merely adequate...
Are you telling me that you believe everything you read in the paper or see on the news? Don't forget those in the media are motivated to get people excited and interested just as the colour commentator was attempting to do yesterday after the game. Two or more wrongs don't make a right. All one had to do was pay attention to her throughout the game...which I did.
And just to be clear, if I wasn't clear enough yesterday, my saying that she wasn't "sensational" yesterday (as per the colour commentator's uber hyperbole) wasn't a criticism of her, it was just an objective observation with respect to what she was given to work with by UW...with the help of her team mates. Not separating fact from emotion/enthusiasm and lumping everything into the same pile doesn't mean it's accurate even if it feels good.
She had a regular, routine, ho hum, nothing to write home about (as far as difficult shots were concerned) day at the office because that's the material she was given to work with. And she did what is expected of goaltenders...she stopped the regular, routine shots and it worked out. Can you imagine how different the conversation would be if she had let in one or two of those routine shots that should have been routine no brainer saves? The adjective "sensational" would be nowhere to be found. I think most of us here equate the term "sensational" with the term "stood on her head". Do you really think she stood on her head yesterday? She didn't stand on her head because UW didn't make her do so...it wasn't a requirement for success yesterday. The bar was low and that's on UW (with the help of Tiley's team mates) not Tiley.
If we take your thinking to its logical conclusion then every shutout that a goaltender gets must mean that they stood on their head because...well...they got a shut out...nobody scored on them. Obviously, that just isn't so. I've seen tons of shutouts in the past 10 years where the goaltender didn't have to do much to earn it because that's just the way the game went...just like that's the way it went yesterday.
My only criticism of her was in her repeated failure to control and protect the pucks in front of her in her crease...with her glove and her stick...when she had plenty of time to do so. Again, all one had to be doing was to be paying attention to see that this was so. Luckily for her and CU, she didn't have to pay for it and it all worked out for them.
I was pulling for CU. I'm glad they won. I think they deserved to win.
But that's a different topic than the one that we have been discussing.