What a weekend in Bemidji.  The Men's Hockey Program opened up with their
first ever win and first sweep at the D-I level by defeating Air Force 3-2
(ot) and 7-3.  The first ever Women's Hockey Game was played with the
Beavers falling to Gustavus 4-2 on Saturday.
 
On Friday, the Falcons came out flying and hitting hard.  It looked as if
they were going to try and wear the young Beavers out (15 Fr., 5 So. 6 Jr.
and 4 Sr.).  The Beavers took about a period to get the jitters out of
their system and then played very well.  In the second, BSU got power play
goals from Perrault and Chartrand while AF got a power play goal from
Gornick.  In the third, AF tied it up on a goal from Bradely.  In overtime,
Chartrand scored at the 1:14 mark to give the Beavers their first D-I
victory.  Adam Pavlatos stopped 29 of 31 shots in the game and looked
great.  Assists were given out to BSU's Searles (2), Usackis, and Stuart
while AF's Davies, Connelly, Anders and Kramer each picked up a point.
 
On Saturday Night, the Beavers looked a little more relaxed and skated
really well.  Again, it was a hard hitting affair and I haven't seen that
much hard hitting over two games since 96 when Mankato State (now Minnesota
State-Mankato) was in town.  BSU scored first on a goal from Stewart (Bina
and Stuart assisted) and AF answered right back with power play goal from
Bradely (Davies and Gornick).  BSU would pick up two more first period
goals, a power play from LaFleur (Ambrose and Bina) and one from Dickson
(Perrault and Matatall).
 
In the second, the teams traded goals, BSU's coming off the power play from
Pelletier (Kalbrener and Johnson) and AF's coming from Connelly (Gornick).
 
In the third, AF would strick first and make things interesting with a goal
from Grafstrom (Gornick) to make the score 4-3 Beavers.  BSU would score
three goals  in the final three minutes of the game, one from Matatall
(Chartrand) and two empty netters from Bina with one assist going to
Birkley.  Again, Pavlatos played excellent between the pipes, stopping 26
of 29 shots.
 
The Beavers unveiled some sharp new uniforms this weekend.  The greens of
the breezers, helmets and jerseys all match.  They went to a nice Bemidji
State crest on the front rather than just having Beavers across the chest.
The crowd was a little small (1897 on Friday and 1921 on Saturday), but it
was the opening of the deer hunting season and the Bemidji High School
Football team was playing Friday Night for a berth in the State Playoffs.
 
Next weekend, the Beaver men host UW-Superior while the Women host
Minnesota on Saturday afternoon.  I have to miss the games, but I will be
at the Sioux-Gophers series in Minneapolis.
 
Troy Mills
 
Bemidji State (96)
NAIA Champs:  1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1979, 1980
NCAA III Champs:  1986
NCAA II Champs:  1984, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997
NCAA I Champs:  ????
 
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