On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> It must have been a wild night at Achilles as Union opened their league  play
> with a 6-5 win over St. Lawrence before a crowd of 1,998.

It was a pretty wild night.  I thought it was going to be a long night
when SLU scored two quick first-period goals, but Union came back then
had to hold on at the end as their 6-3 lead became 6-5 with 45 seconds
to go.

The game was obviously a great start for Union in league play,
knocking off a nationally ranked team and picking up two ECAC points
right away.  Union played easily the most aggressive game I've seen
them play this season, and they took advantage of some St. Lawrence
mistakes and turned them into goals.

There was some very good back and forth hockey at times, but the game
had very little flow most of the night, with each team getting a
ridiculous 12 power play chances.  Referee Jack Dunn called a total of
26 penalties for 55 minutes (See
http://www.collegehockeystats.com/0405/boxes/mstluni1.n05).

I know the referees are calling things tight, but this was too much.
Can the coaches and players adjust to this, or are we in for a whole
season with the majority of the game spent in special teams play?  Are
the referees going too far with this?  At least tonight, half of the
calls on both sides seemed to be things away from the play that just
aren't normally called, since they had little effect on the game, or
they were things that looked like regular, good hockey.  Referee Dunn
was consistent, I thought, but he did have both coaches, the players,
and the fans frustrated with so many penalty calls.  At what point
will these new refereeing guidelines be called a failure so we can go
back to the game we remember?

With all of the power play chances, it's Union's penalty killers and
goaltender Kris Mayotte who have to get the most credit for this win.
Union killed off 11 of SLU's 12 power play chances, including about
1:45 of 5-on-3.  Union's most impressive power play lasted just 5
seconds, when they won a faceoff, passed back to the defense, down
low, then to a wide open Scott Seney who put the puck in the net.

The crowd at Messa/Achilles was the biggest and best of the season so
far.  With all of the penalties coming one after another, the best
chant of the night was for Dunn: "We want Murphy!"  It should be the
first sellout of the season Saturday night for the Clarkson game.

--
Jim Teresco - [log in to unmask]
http://www.teresco.org