Before giving the scores, let me publicly thank irish coach Ric Shafer (sorry
if i speeled it wrong) for the Notre Dame pin (now being worn by a USAFA skater
whose brother went to ND) and his positive comments on this mailing list.
 
after losing a closely contested game friday night, the irish, despite being
dominated through most of saturday's game, left colorado with a split.
first the stats
 
     friday                       saturday
 
USAFA   2 3 3  7                0 1 0  1
IRISH   3 2 1  6                2 0 2  4
 
AF saves  9 10   8   27          5  9  9   23
ND saves 11  8  13   32         16 15  6   37
 
AF power play  2 of 6           1 of 12
ND power play  3 of 4           2 of  8
 
St Cloud  2 0 2   4             3 1 3  7
CC        0 2 1   3             0 0 3  3
 
SC saves  8  8 12   28          6  8  9   23
CC saves  3  8  8   19          7  4  3   14
 
SC power play  1 of 2           0 of 3
CC power play  1 of 4           2 of 8
 
Friday
The cc game was close. St cloud opened up a 3 - 2 lead at 1:53 of the third
and moved to 4-2 with an empty net goal at 19:08.  CCs third goal came at 19:32
 
The Falcons FINALLY got a much deserved win as they kept fighting back and
eventually took the lead at 18:33 of the third.  The irish got an early power
play goal to take the lead.  It seemed like every time air force scored, the
irish would roar back and counter within a minute. When air force got the
equalizer at 15:20 it took the irish 12 seconds to regain the lead.  All 4
goals in the second were power play goals.  Air force tied it at 1:08 of the
third and the irish retook the lead 22 seconds later.
 
Saturday
the cc game apparently wasn't even close. The paper reported on CCs displeasure
with referee Bob ames.
 
The paper summed up the USAFA game with its headline "Notre Dame capitalizes on
its few opportunities, tops Air Force."  Air Force outshot ND 76 to 45 and had
a dozen power plays. The game wasn't that rough.  Air force's lost this game
mostly by being ineffective on the power play.  The ND third goal, set up by
an obvious interference on the USAFA defenseman was a big play, and took USAFA
out of the game.
 
Reflections
The USAFA IRISH series was well contested and featured good hard hitting play.
There was little if any chippiness and scrums after the whistle.  Referee Ned
Bunyon had an absolutely miserable weekend with at least 8 phantom fouls and
4 or 5 obvious missed calls.  He seemed to be well behind the play most of both
nights.  The friday night game could have gone either way, and was a tough loss
for the irish.  I felt USAFA outplayed the irish on saturday, but they came up
on the short end of the stick.  I believe air force is better than its last
place in the insotone computer rankings.
 
charlie shub  [log in to unmask]  -or-  ..!{ncar|nbires}!boulder!cdash
  or even     cdash@colospgs (BITNET)     -or-    just plain old cdash at uccs