Saturday afternoon at Matthews Arena the Husky Invitational continued
with the Concordia University Stingers blasting the University of New
Hampshire Wildcats 3-0.  Concordia was able to turn it on at will and
skated and passed their way by UNH.  The Wildcats were unable to absorb
the surge and their less than clean play had no effect on the Stingers.
 
There was no scoring in the first period.  Cammi Granato (Laurie Cartman,
Erin Leslie) opened the scoring in the middle period when she drilled
home a weak side rebound after tons of Concordia pressure.  UNH had been
able to only mount some counter-attacks up to that point.  The Stringers
made it 2-0 when Karyn Bye (Carrie Barkley, Nancy Deschamps) finished a
break in play with the Wildcat defense backing in on their goalie.  In
the final period CU polished off the game with what was probably the best
goal of the weekend.  Granato pulled off a lovely oh-la-la move which
found her driving past and around her defender and then cutting by the
goalie before tucking the puck in at the far post.  Exquisite!
 
USA Hockey has done a great disservice to women's hockey by decreeing the
UNH coach the Team USA Women's national coach for the foreseeable
future.  The resulting privileged position is unfortunately being
misused.  UNH is behaving as a bully.  No one feels they can do anything
about it for fear that some player they would like to see make the
national side won't get considered.  The junk style of play leads to poor
hockey in the ECAC, and I would add doesn't make it at the World
Championship level either.
 
The woman of the match for UNH was goalie Dina Solimini.  She kept the
Wildcats in the game.  She is an excellent goaltender who made many tough
saves.  On defense, Kelley Roberts had another good match.  Her strength
helps hold the side together.  Wendy Tatarouns had a fairly good match,
but I felt could have lifted her play.  Tricia Dunn showed off some good
speed.  Overall, the current UNH style is incapable of handling a team
that can really skate on them.
 
Concordia had its moments, and overall dominated play, but again was not
as good a team as I was hopeful for.  There were some glorious individual
efforts, but the team play was not clicking.  The woman of the match had
to be Beth Beagan.  Her smart play and leadership on the ice was
marvelous to watch.  When she starts flying out there, look out,
wonderful things will happen for her team.  Granato had some excellent
shifts.  Her power rushes are thrilling stuff.  Her touch rates up there
with the best players I have ever seen.  Bye had a strong fore-checking
game showing tons of hustle.  The defense was again led by Michelle
Johansson who makes every situation look like an easy play.  What a
smoothy!  Leslie also played well on the blue and demonstrated her shot
blocking skills.  Overall, Concordia proved that a great skate and pass
team can take it to a team defense/"tough-guy" team any day.
 
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 good shooting
 rhun
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