This Soup was Pretty Good

It has been a rather rough sophomore season for Max Campbell (2007 5th) and his Western Michigan Broncos. The Broncos are having a struggle of a season after the unexpected loss of their two top scorers from last season.

Campbell at one point this season found himself a healthy scratch from the Bronco lineup but that was then and this was now. Campbell scored his team leading 8th goal of the season at 1:11 of overtime as the Broncos upset 18th ranked University of Alaska Nanooks 3-2 on Saturday evening.

It was a fitting way to send the hard luck Broncos on their holiday break with just their 3rd win of the season. The Broncos with a bounce here or there would have a much better record than their 3-11-4 indicates.

For Campbell, the goal was his second game winner of the season and broke a 6 game losing streak for the Broncos. The Broncos have played 8 straight games against teams ranked in the college polls and have gone 2-5-1 during that period.

In addition, Campbell (the game's first star) also had the primary assist on the Bronco's first goal of the game (just his third of the season) as he moves up to 4th among Ranger prospects in goals scored and ties Evgeny Grachev for game winners.

Seeing Campbell scoring a big goal like that rewards our faith in him as the Rangers can use as many natural goal scorers from the prospects as they can get. Campbell still has some growing to do as a player (we want more balance in his offense) and physically (get that upper body bigger Max) but his desire and "never quit" attitude is why we think Campbell is going to fool his critics.

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The Rangers will have only 2 prospects playing in the World Under-20 Championships as the games get underway on Friday in Ottawa but there will be exhibition games played leading up to the opening night.

On Sunday, Tomas Kundratek and his Czech Republic team will play Slovakia in Kitchener and Evgeny Grachev will lead Russia against Kazakhstan in Oshawa.

We of course will have reports on the games once they are finished.

(Max Campbell courtesy of WMU)