Jason Cugnet probably started out Saturday's affair as the most
unknown player in the Colorado College / North Dakota series.  However,
after his antics on Saturday, he may be the most remembered Tiger
player.  All of the problems for the backup goaltender started after
UND's fourth goal at five minutes of the second which gave the Sioux a 4 to
2 lead.  Cugnet obviously frustated at this point, shot the puck out of
the net at another CC player and then proceeded to skate after one of the
officials and spit his mouthpiece at the ref.  Four minutes later, Jason
Blake gave UND a 5 to 2 lead and Cugnet went ballistic.  He appeared to
do something akin to the Mexican Hat Dance in his goal and then he
raised his stick like a battle axe and smashed it down on the crossbar.
This caused the upper part of the stick to fly toward the boards.  Cugnet
then decided to finish it off by throwing the rest of his stick into the
boards.  To cap this display off, he then headed toward the lockerroom
and threw his face mask like a baseball into the walkway.  All in all, five
minutes of goalie antics which UND has not seen since the days of Wally
with DU.
        Yes, there also was a hockey game :-)  UND dominated the majority
of all three periods and capped off the night with a hat trick by Jason
Blake late in the third.  For Blake, the goal was justice due to him
getting speared a few minutes earlier and nothing was called.  Toby
Kvalevog also played a very good game.  Toby stopped several breakaways
for CC courtesy of defensive errors by the Sioux.  UND was also able to
capatilize on their first powerplay of the night with a nice deflection
shot by Panzer.  The Sioux also got a short-handed goal and scored on a 2
on 0 breakaway!
        UND gets three of the four points for the weekend and remains at
the top of the league.
 
QUICK THOUGHTS:
 
Penalties:
        First penalty of the game came with about 2 minutes left in the
first.  The second period ended with a large fight breaking out and 6
players getting 4 minute penalties and two getting game disqualifications.
 
Goaltending:
        CC appears to suffer from the Sioux syndrome of poor (or
inconsistant) goaltending.  Tonight, Kvalevog deserves a lot of the
credit for the Sioux victory.  He had a great game, and hopefully he has
turned his play around.  Lambert, IMO, looks to be the better of the two
goalies for CC.  Cugnet seems to have trouble stopping shots in the
five-hole.
 
UND defense:
        Once again the sioux are allowing attackers to get too far into
their zone, but unlike last night, UND was somehow able to stop them 9
times out of 10 before they got a shot off.  The Sioux defense did allow
30 shots which may be the most they have let in for three periods at home
this year.
 
UND offense:
        Much better!  The forewards were in positon to get the loose
rebounds.  The Sioux also had several stretches where the kept the puck
in CC's zone for an extended amount of time.  One time in the second
period where this happened lead to several great shots over nearly a five
minute stretch.
 
WCHA race?
        Should be fun to watch.  The big question of the weekend is
this:  is UND really that good, or is CC not as good as everyone expects
them to be?  Though call to say the least.  The UND/BU series should shed
some light on the caliber of the men in green.
                                                        charles
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http://www.aero.und.edu/~cbell
Two ways to the Babble!!!!!!!!
Look for a new hockey page soon!
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