The Blue-Gold intrasquad srimmage was held tonight at Merrimack with the
Blue team defeating the White, 7-6. You figure out why it's called
Blue-Gold. :-) It was a tight defensive battle at 3-2 Blue after two until
the 3rd and 4th string goalies came in to play the third, and each team
scored four more goals for the 7-6 final. Asst. coaches Brian Daccord and
Scott MacPherson led the Blue and White teams respectively.
Consensus three stars were:
1) Matt Adams, Blue. Adams, a sophomore who was highly-touted last season
and struggled, finishing with 2-3--5 in 29 games, scored three goals and
seemed more confident with the puck. He'll be needed to break out this
year if the Warriors are to increase their scoring output.
2) Mike Doneghey, Blue. The senior netminder stopped 19 of 21 shots in two
periods and looked pretty good. Merrimack's goaltending is a question mark
with Doneghey the only returner who has seen any action, and that was mainly
as a backup to Steve D'Amore and Yannick Gosselin the past few years. Again,
a solid season from him will be very important to the Warriors' 92-93 season.
3) Cooper Naylor, White. The junior forward had a goal and two assists and
played his usual strong checking game.
Other multiple-point scorers were Rob Atkinson (1-1--2), Quentin Fendelet
(0-2--2), Dan Gravelle (2-0--2), Martin Favreau (1-1--2), Guy Ragault (0-2--2),
and Wayde McMillan (0-2--2). Matt Gallo, Mark Goble, Rich Beauregard, Dean
Capuano, and Matt Hayes also added goals.
The starting goalie for the White team, Dan Millar, stopped 16 of 18 shots
over two periods and also looked good. Millar is a freshman and will
challenge Doneghey for the starting job this year. He should be called upon
quite a bit as next year, he is the man. Some of his saves had onlookers
wondering if we were seeing the second coming of Jim Hrivnak. Millar is
wearing Hrivnak's #35 (which was also worn by Yannick Gosselin). He is big
like Hrivnak as well.
Line combos were:
BLUE
Teal Fowler (jr) - Dan Gravelle (sr) - John Barron (sr)
Rob Atkinson (jr) - Matt Gallo (so) - Ryan Mailhiot (fr)
Matt Adams (so) - Jamie Brown (fr) - Guy Ragault (sr)
WHITE
Cooper Naylor (jr) - Wayde McMillan (sr) - Mark Goble (fr)
Jim Gibson (jr) - Martin Favreau (fr) - Matt Crowley (sr)
Quentin Fendelet (jr) - Derek Fosberg (fr) - Rich Beauregard (so)
Defensive pairings were:
BLUE
Tom Costa (fr) - Dan Hodge (so)
Mike Kelleher (so) - D.J. MacPhail (fr)
Greg Mondello (so) - Jason Pagni (jr)
WHITE
Mark Cornforth (so) - Alex Weinrich (sr)
Bryan Miller (sr) - Don MacLeod (sr)
Dean Capuano (so) - Matt Hayes (sr)
Capuano is a transfer from Providence and is the cousin of Maine's Capuanos,
Dave and Jack. All three are from Rhode Island.
It's still early, so no use going into any heavy analysis other than to say
the goaltending looked solid, the forwards struggled against the better
goalies and the defense showed its experience. 9 of the 12 Ds who played
have at least a year of college experience under their belts and 2 of the 3
rookies are highly-touted. Ron Anderson will have his work cut out for him
in determining a set of six who will dress, and I expect the others to
rotate in and out of the lineup as the situation warrants. It's definitely
a great position for a coach to be in. Meanwhile, 11 of the forwards have
extensive experience with Merrimack and at least three of the freshmen showed
that they can step in and play right now. With a total of 11 seniors on
the team, experience will be something Merrimack hasn't had for a while and
will have to enjoy while they have it.
On the lighter side, the national anthems of Canada and the US were sung
a capella by the new players from both countries. Favreau, Goble and Millar
offered a superb rendition of "O Canada" that got a rousing round of applause
from the crowd of a couple hundred. "The Star-Spangled Banner" was then
butchered by Mailhiot, Brown, Fosberg, Capuano, MacPhail, and Costa. :-)
All players wore gold socks in what may be a new style for the Warriors this
year.
Next scrimmage is scheduled to be Sun, Oct 18th at 2 pm against the
University of Ottawa at the Volpe Complex. Admission is free. The Warriors
will then open up with two game at Western Michigan Oct 23-24 before
returning home to host Alabama-Huntsville Oct 30-31.
Also, it appears that UNH SID Eric McDowell has accepted a job as head SID
at one of the Univ. of California schools, and his last appearance with UNH
will be at the Hockey East Media Day next Wednesday on the campus of UNH.
This is sad news as Eric is one of the more respected and well-liked SIDs
in college hockey and certainly in the East, and we will miss his wit and
experience. Eric was very good friends with late UNH coach Bob Kullen and
wrote a superb column for a NH newspaper following Kullen's death. Best of
luck to him and Hockey East won't be the same without him.
Finally, I got hold of a copy of a newspaper column from the American
Israelite that was lying around the skybox, and it is a feature on former
Warrior Howie "The Hatchet" Rosenblatt. Howie now skates for Cincinnati of
the IHL. As a Warrior, he led the team in penalty minutes and was up there in
scoring as well. I think he had about 1/5 of the team's total PIM as a senior.
The article says that Howie now has his own fan club in Cincinnati, headed
by a woman who teaches first grade in Ohio. Here's one of the classic
paragraphs from that article by John Fox:
"He has been thrown out of two games this year [article dated 2/27/92], once
for high-sticking ('The rule says intent to injure, but it was accidental,'
he pleads); and once for, as he puts it, mouthing off to the ref: 'He told
me to shut up, so I told him to shut up. I gotta learn to keep my mouth shut.
Sometimes you get carried away and mouth off. You'll never win an argument
with the referee. I've taken too many dumb misconducts for mouthing off.'"
Some things never change... :-)
---
Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors
(Any opinions expressed above are strictly those of the poster.) *HMN*
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