Nantes gains sweet revenge

Le Havre and Nantes today went head to head at Le Havre's Stade Jules Deschaseaux in a battle to pull away from Ligue 1's relegation zone. Those who have been following along will know that Le Havre and Nantes were rivals last season in Ligue 2. Before that season most observers expected the bigger city, bigger stadium, Ligue 1 tradition rich Nantais to forge their way to the top of the league and to eventually take home the league championship on the way to promotion back to the top league.

It didn't happen that way. Nantes was a superior team against most of the league but came a cropper in the head to head with Le Havre. Le Havre won both the early season game at Le Havre and the late in the season match up at Nantes, each time by a score of 1-0. Le Havre won the league and Nantes came second, the two teams joining Grenoble in promotion to Ligue 1.

Le Havre chose to bring substantially their Ligue 2 championship side to Ligue 1 even though considerably weakened by the signing away of its best player and Ligue 2 leading goal scorer, Guillaume Hoarau, to Paris Saint-Germain. Nantes took another tack, chosing to rid the roster of many of the stalwarts of Ligue 2, stalwarts whose main playing credentials had been established in Ligue 2. Instead Nantes aggressively signed new players, players deemed capable of competing immediately in Ligue 1.

Both promoted sides have struggled in the top flight. Going into the game they were level on 12 points from 15 games played to this point in the season. They found themselves hovering just two points above the bottom three relegation zone. Further the league's bottom five in places 16 through 20 have been set adrift, with 15th placed Nancy standing seven points clear of 16th place. With rock bottom Saint Etienne expected to find their form under new coach Alain Perrin, one of Le Havre or Nantes have been expected to drop into the relegation area over the next month.

With all of this on the line Nantes have taken the victory today and have at least for now separated themselves from Le Havre and the bottom three.Nantes had the better of chances in a scoreless first half and continued to press after the break. Early in the second half Aurelien Capoue controlled a clearance on the edge of the area before unleashing an effort which came back off the crossbar. Les Canaris finally went ahead in the 69th minute when Filip Djordjevic volleyed Guillaume Moullec's free kick past Le Havre keeper Revault from close range.

David De Freitas, who had come off the bench midway through the second half, made the points safe six minutes from time when he shot home after receiving a pass from Capoue.

The points were extremely important for Nantes as the game next week is against seven time defending league champion Lyon, a match in which Nantes will certainly struggle to achieve any points in the table.

Later in the day we went to another hockey game. Yesterday Minnesota wore white and Harvard wore crimson as Minnesota won 3-1. Today Minnesota wore gold and Harvard wore black, Minnesota 3, Harvard 2.

After this one, only two to go.

I was just scanning through Bike pictures 2007 again. I ran across the series on pictures of water towers. I admit to having forgotten nearly all about that series. Here is a water tower on the farm campus, only a couple of blocks from my friends, the cows.I thought the University water tower and the University logo were both particularly appropriate as TOPWLH and I just returned from our other lives as season ticket holders for Gopher women's hockey.

It was an exciting game, not only for the hockey, but also for TOPWLH as she got hailed by and then engaged in conversation with the mothers of two different players both of whom are likely to be members of the next US Olympic women's hockey team. TOPWLH is incorrigibly gregarious.

I hereby for the first time in the blogging context reveal that I have yet another alter ego that most of you are not aware of. Here is what that alter ego posted about today's hockey game in yet another place on the internet where I sometimes leave my thoughts. Many of you are not going to understand the references and I am sorry if you do not. But when I write about hockey I am writing for hockey fans, all of whom DO understand all of the references. So here goes:

Minnesota 3, Harvard 1.

An excellent, high tempo game between two quality teams.

Minnesota (MLam) got a goal after 32 seconds. Other than that single play the first period was very even, ending at 1-0.

Harvard outplayed Minnesota in the second but it remained 1-0 going to the third.

Minnesota's fourth line got a lot of ice time. Harvard played its fourth line some but that line seemed to me to get a lot less time than Minnesota's fourth. By the third period Minnesota got the most of the best of the play. It was 3-0 before Harvard got the game's final goal.

Attendance was 1,226, a very nice crowd for the day after Thanksgiving.

I pronounce myself satisfied with the JLam, MLam, Marvin experiment. I have seen enough, let's move on. In this configuration Gigi does not have the puck enough. Minnesota has several wings who can perform the functions for the Lams that Gigi is performing with this line configuration. The second line tonight was Schoullis, West and Francis and I would now like to see Schoullis and Marvin switch places. I would like to see them go back to the configuration they displayed in the very first games of the season, Marvin, West, Francis, then JLam, MLam, Schoullis.

The fourth line played a lot and was actually very good. They got caught out against Harvard's top line two or three times but even that was not catastrophic. At other times they held their own and even created chances.

Grogan is very good.

Vaillancourt is every bit as good as her reputation, always one of the best players on the ice every time she was out there.

Ludwig and Perrault refereed. Those guys are NOT very good. In addition, AR Langley made a key clear of the zone for Minnesota while Harvard had a 5 on 3 power play, letting a Harvard pass hit her in the skates and redirecting the puck to center ice, thereby killing off most of the remaining time with the 2 player advantage. It was not a banner night for the team in the striped shirts.