This Week's Obsession: Senior Sendoffs

Fuller

The Question:

Ace: Since Michigan just had a low-key Senior Day to send off Max Bielfeldt, this seems like a good time to ask: What's your favorite Senior Day memory? (Any sport may apply.)

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The Answers:

Dave Nasternak: Back when I was in school—while Football was just starting its decade+ of beatdowns to OSU and Basketball was...well, it was pre-Beilein (mostly)- the place to be for sports in Ann Arbor was Yost. My Senior Day story(s) come from the Ice Hockey team. Hockey in the CCHA was weird. Not bad, but weird. If you were good enough -and Michigan generally was- you hosted a playoff series at home after the regular season had ended. So, while there was Senior Day, there was also Last Game At Yost Day. In the 06-07 year, TJ Hensick's Senior Day came super early.

It was February 3rd. It was the back end of a home-and-home against Western. Michigan won 3-1 but...it was relatively uneventful and everyone knew we'd see the seniors for one last series. They somehow managed to play 3 more series of road or neutral ice games before finally coming back to Yost for the CCHA Quarters. After disposing of Western in Game 1 of a best of 3, we knew Game 2 would be it.

It was really bittersweet for me. I was also a senior and while I hoped to get into Grad School at M, I thought it could be my last game at Yost, as well. TJ Hensick might have been my favorite M athlete when I was in school. He burst onto the scene as a freshman, leading the team in points. He would end up leading the Wolverines in scoring 3 of his 4 years, finishing 2nd in his sophomore year.

After his junior season, I'd read that Hensick was close to signing with the Avs, but decided to give it one more go at Yost. While the year didn't end up the way any Wolverine dreamed, Hensick had another phenomenal year. In his Last Game At Yost, Hensick didn't disappoint. He tallied 4 points, 3 of them being goals for his only career hatrick at home (I'm pretty sure). Michigan won very comfortably, 8-3. While Michigan has had a handful of great players since -Porter, Kolarik, Hagelin, Hunwick, now Hyman- there hasn't been another Mighty Mite center (especially with that kind of puck control) since. I taped Hensick's Last Game At Yost (on VHS!!) and later converted it to dvd. I still get a little choked up, watching it.

A season later, Kevin Porter's last series at Yost was also a weekend to remember, including The Day That Yost Changed. My bronze medalist might be Chris Perry's Senior Day, as I made it onto the field as a wide-eyed freshman...but I'll leave those games for someone else.

[Hit the JUMP for Swedish flags, the one that preceded Molly, and some non-hockey we swear]

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Seth: Dammit Dave I was in the middle of a response that was pretty much the same post except change the names to Cammalleri and Ortmeyer and Komisarek and Shouneyia and Nystrom, none of whom were seniors, but it was near the last time the ka-tet would all be together. It was Senior Night 2002.

This was now into my very broke period, so I didn't get tickets that year and had only made it to a handful of the games. It was also stupidly planned during the first weekend of Spring Break. Most of my friends went someplace warm, and my family were all skiing out west (two siblings were still in high school and the last was there with MSU's ski club), so I wound up drunk by that afternoon with my Michigan Daily circle in a loft above the Stairway to Heaven store.

Murray, perhaps from that night. I remember it was a yellow night. [Phil Callihan]

A few of this group had their friends' extra hockey tickets, and one of the hockey beat guys (might have been Chris Burke) had never sat with the students, and neither had some other people, and this was horrible to my ears in the way a friend might tell you before graduation that he'd never been to Blimpy's. So I glommed on to an amorphous group that wound its way through various buildings and down State Street to Yost.

It was the drunkest I'd ever been at the barn, more sot even than the time we thought it would be a brilliant idea to throw crayfish at Minnesota-Duluth. The honorees were officially Blackburn, his backup O'Malley who won the CCHA Humanitarian of the Year Award then attacked a mascot, Murray, and Vancik (Comrie and Jillson left early the previous year). People my age were fans of Blackburn, who'd been the goalie as long as we'd been in school, set the Michigan GAA record, and nonetheless took a lot of crap from older people for not being Shields/Turco while State had Ryan Miller. Like how the class that graduated in 2004 felt about Navarre.

Unofficially it was "Scream so loud that Cam and Kom and Ortmeyer come back night." It was also the second game Cammalleri—Yost's consensus favorite thing to exist ever—was in the lineup after being injured (apparently it was mono) for awhile.

It wasn't a pretty game. Ohio State was hacking dudes so that we'd barely got to "dooouchebag" before another arm went up. Michigan was going the box just as quickly; the Wolverines came in with a legendary penalty kill streak that the refs were determined to break, and R.J. Umberger broke to make it 1-0.

We hated Umberger loudly. More students than not had stuck around—or sold their tickets to people who knew their chants. We convinced Betz he was the most sievey sieve to ever let matter pass through him until Michigan banked one in off of his pad. Then as if choreographed, Michigan scored again right when we got past the fourth "It's all your fault." Then they let us get through that and two "<---goalie, sieve--->"s before a third went in. Michigan won 6-3, the final tallies by Ortmeyer and two of the seniors.

It was the acme of an era I wouldn't know was legendary until Brian started saying so on this blog. But in the stupor of college after you've finally figured out college, with Nystrom and Ryznar the tip of a ridiculous freshman class (Gajic, Helminen, Rogers, Moss), it seemed like just another night at a Yost that would never change.

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Brian: This is turning into Yost Story Time. I'll continue, because I've got a Senior Day that hasn't been covered yet: Carl Hagelin's. Hagelin was monstrously good and yet still underrated during his time at Michigan. At least, he was underrated nationally. At Yost, Hagelin inaugurated the current era of having tifo-esque large things when some student's mom sewed him a battleship-regulation Swedish flag. That thing got waved for a lot for goals—not so much for backchecks, of which there were dozens per game.

By the time Hagelin reached his senior year I'd already broken the fourth wall of fandom during the Waterloo, Indiana game by exclaiming "CARL!" at some point in the overtime when he generated a golden scoring opportunity. It hit the goalie or whistled wide or hit the post, can't remember. In any case, it's never healthy when you're on an involuntary first name basis with a guy named "Carl." Denard, maybe. Denard is unique enough that the only other Denard I've heard of plays baseball. "Carl" is barely identifying.

Screaming "CARL" at a building reminds me of growing up in Denver with my mom, who was nominally a Broncos fan but mostly a John Elway fan. I still remember her exclaiming "GO JOHN!" when he did something good and sighing "oh, John" when he did something bad. Though she will invoke the time-tested 1000% Mom Denial about this, I swear to you that these exclamations were not 100% platonic. I knew this as a ten-year-old. To have this thing you are doing remind you of that period in your youth was somewhat awkward. But so it was.

Anyway, I was in the tank for him and the flag had become iconic over Hagelin's four years. Hagelin skated out to an enormous cheer for his final regular-season Yost game... and then scored with two seconds left in overtime to win the game on a shot that was lined up so I could see it inch-perfect. The student section signed the flag and gave it to him during the ceremony afterwards.

Also it was Shawn Hunwick's senior night. Pretty pretty good you guys.

by Seth

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Ace: This is becoming an unfortunate commentary on the football program, because... I'm going with a basketball game.

Recency bias be damned, last year's home finale against Indiana stands up there with any hoops event in what's been a remarkable run of success. Over the course of the season, Michigan fans fully came around to embracing Jordan Morgan—any stragglers certainly have by now—and his pre-game ceremony featured a few tears shed, both by Morgan and some in attendance. (I deny everything.)

It should have read "In THAT year." [Fuller]

Then the game started and Morgan, not exactly the focal point of M's offense, scored the team's first three baskets. "I'd done enough reminiscing and getting all soft," he'd say after the game, a perfect Morgan quote. He turned in one of the best performances of his career, scoring 15 points on 7/8 shooting with ten rebounds. It was impossible to watch this and not get caught up in the emotions Morgan wore on his sleeve, especially when remembering how a certain prior game against this same IU squad ended.

It wasn't just a sendoff for Morgan, of course. By that point, most everyone realized Nik Stauskas wouldn't be back; he poured in 21. There wasn't as much of a consensus on Glenn Robinson III's future, but just in case, he drilled a critical late three, finishing with 20 in one of his better games at Michigan.

Oh, and Michigan beat Indiana, then cut down the nets and paraded the Big Ten championship trophy around Crisler. Charles Woodson photobombed the postgame team photo. Fuller snapped this shot of Tom Crean. All in all, a pretty ideal Senior Day.

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Chillax, Bucky. I'm coming back. [old MGoBlue.com archives]

BiSB: In light of the previous responses, I will forego my plans to add my own "hey, remember when Yost was awesome?" story. And Ace already covered Jordan Morgan's sendoff, and I already put pen to paper on that anyway.

Football doesn't really have "senior day." This is especially true at Michigan, where exactly half the time the last home game is against the fiercest rival any team has on its schedule anywhere, so sentimental stuff tends to take a back seat to "HNNNNNNGGGGGAAAAAAAA URGE TO KILL RISING."

But 2003 was hell of a senior day for much-maligned John Navarre, he of the buffalo stampede and the blame for 9/11. He capped off a senior season in which he broke the Michigan records for most single-season completions (270) and passing yards (3331), most career passing yards (9254, since eclipsed by Chad Henne), and most career completions (765, also eclipsed by Henne). Michigan jumped out to an early lead, and Navarre threw two touchdowns to Braylon. Fellow senior and Heisman finalist Chris Perry scored a couple of times also. And it was the 100th playing of The Game. And we rushed the field. Yeah, that was a good day.

Once more unto the breach, dear frien—OWWW dammit JORDAN not there. [Upchurch]

I also wasn't at this one, but I'd throw Denard's final home game against Iowa in 2012 on the list. Superman may have been gone, and we probably knew that already. His hand and arm barely worked, and he'd been out of action for weeks. But we Michigan fans were just hoping for a glimpse of the magic once more before the sun set for good. And he delivered. Rest in peace, Tanner Miller.