The Men's and Women's UNH Hockey teams kicked off the 1996-97 campaign last
night/this morning with their first Midnight Madness.
The evening began around 10:30 with Wild E. Cat skating around and tossing
pucks and stadium cups into the dancing crowd. The crowd grew slowly as a DJ
from WERZ in a full tux took the ice on skates. He called out some raffle
ticket winners and one guy went down to the ice to do the crowd call.
(Blindfolded and on all fours, the crowd directed him to a prize envelope
located on the ice). The other raffle winner took a shot at 2 round trip tix
to Orlando like "shoot the puck" for the car. He missed that, but got to
shoot at the open net for a t-shirt and some other prizes.
At 11:00, the lights went out and the Zamboni took the ice as three spotlights
focused your attention on it. The Zamboni stopped, the front opened, and the
Hanson Brothers dropped out! That was cool. They grabbed water-ski tow lines
off the back of the Zamboni and performed various "stunts" as they were towed
around the arena. The lights came back on and a game between the Hanson
Brothers and local media took place.
The Hanson's, Wild E. Cat, someone else and goalie Alicia Roberts from the
Women's Team took on Barry Scanlion and Mike Wolflein from Foster's Daily
Democrat, Jason Grucel from The New Hampshire, someone else, and Pete "Five-
Hole" Webster from the Wildcat Sports network. Channel 9's Charlie Shermann
was a no-show. Friend of UNH Hockey Mark Houle was the ref. The Hanson's,
foil knuckles and all, took cheap shots at their opponents as they were
introduced and made comments like "nice helmet" as they cracked their sticks
across Grucel's face mask. :) The game began with the Hanson's breaking out
and scoring quickly.
On the next face off, Houle couldn't get them lined up and they had some
words. One of the brother's pulled Houle's pants down to his ankles and as
Mark tried to recover, a pie hit his face. Houle finally got his pants back
on, cleared his eyes and play resumed. The "Media" team broke in on Roberts
and everyone piled up beside the net as the puck squirted out in front.
Rather than cover up, Roberts took the puck the length of the ice to score.
(No one realized she was going in for the score until she was at center-ice).
After the goal, Grucel had some words for one of the Hanson Brothers, pushed
him, and then realized all three of them were looking at him. He took off in
a panic down the ice with the Hanson's in pursuit until he got stuck in the
corner and a melee ensued. Houle ejected the Brothers for fighting and
declared the game a forfeit as Grucel lay lifeless in the corner. Grucel's
teammates locked their sticks in his skates and dragged him off the ice.
After the game, the Hanson's mingled through the crowd, flirted with the coeds
and signed autographs.
At 12:01, UNH's hockey theme song "Black Betty" blared through the arena, the
approximately 1500 on hand stood and cheered and the Men's and Women's teams
took the ice. They did a quick skate around and then the lights went out.
The teams left the ice and then spotlights moved all around the arena with
anticipatory music. The spotlights then converged on the corner where the
women were lined up to take the ice once again. One by one, the players were
introduced. They skated to center-ice, paused, and lined up on the blue line
with the spotlights on them. The same was done with the Men's team.
After all the players were introduced, the music changed once again and the PA
directed everyone's attention to the West end of the arena. Still with only
the spotlights active, the Women's 1996 National Championship banner was
unfurled. The place went crazy and everyone was on their feet. That was
awesome! This was certainly a good way to start the year.
The men started practice after that. They had a blue vs. white shootout
(Matile makes it look sooooo easy to stop those pucks) and a couple guys had
some fancy moves that were real crowd-pleasers. Then they scrimmaged. The
fish flew for the first goal and the music played when each team scored. And
I thought it was particularly cool that they had a fish for both the first
white score and the first blue score. :)
1:00 AM rolled around and one more summer was officially declared "done!"
\_ \_ \_ Howard M. Quimby [log in to unmask]
\_\_\_ \_ Natural Intelligence, Inc. Tel (617) 876-7680 x1208
\_ \__ \_ Cambridge, MA Fax (617) 492-7425
\_ \_ \_
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