Too bad for us Omahans this game wasn't cut short at the 30 minute mark,
cause that's when things turned really bad for U of Nebr. @ Omaha. It's
really too bad there isn't a stat called goals allowed by defense, cause I'd
say at least 1/2 of New Hampshire's goals, probably more, were not Jason
Mitchell's fault but the defense's. Of course the best defense is a good
offense, and UNO had zippo offense in the third. Not to criticize UNO Coach
Mike Kemp, cause he has done a remarkable job for a 1st year team, but I
think now he needs to work on conditioning this team to last 60 minutes, not 40.
 
Of note, UNO had lost 2 defensemen prior to this game, Purcell dropped out
of school because of a family crisis, the other, Jesse Saarinen got homesick
and signed a contract with a team back in Finland. Saarinen leaving might
have hurt the team, but Purcell was gone for half of the played season anyway.
 
And not to start a flame war, but the ref was a big fan of equalizing. I
think there were maybe 3 powerplays the whole game, and could have been a
lot more. Right before UNH got their thrid goal, it appeared from my side of
the ice that a UNH player had a UNO player pinned to the net, yet the ref
called holding on our guy and roughing on the Hampshire foe. So instead of
having a UNO powerplay, it was 4v4. Again, this may be a biased view, but I
really think he "equalized" penalties at least 4 times.
 
UNO fan favorte Tortorella had an assist but got burned twice trying to play
defense. Why he was playing defense at all I don't know, but he got burned
twice and 2 goals resulted.
 
Maybe it was the free new years noise makers they handed out, but the crowd
was extra loud after UNO's two goals tonight. I think we were pumped that
the Mavs were actually making a game of it. Anyone know what the radio
announcers(either UNO's or Hampshire's) were saying? Course we(the crowd)
were practically dead in the third due to zippo UNO offense and Hampshire
getting 3 goals.
 
enough rambling.
Happy New Year!
 
Ben F.
U!N!O! U!N!O!
 
HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey;  send information to
[log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.