>From the pioneer press:
 
A moment after she was introduced to the crowd Sunday night, Laura
Halldorson was down on all fours on the Mariucci Arena ice, falling when
the rubber mat under her feet gave way.
 
It was a rather inauspicious beginning to the first game
of the inaugural University of Minnesota women's hockey team.
 
But it would be the only slip-up on a night that celebrated the boom in
women's hockey in the state.
 
Halldorson recovered nicely from her fall and took a bow, drawing an
enthusiastic roar from the gathering of 6,854, the largest crowd to attend a
regular-season Gophers women's event.
 
A few minutes later, Halldorson's players took over center stage. Unlike
their coach, they stayed on their feet and were dazzling in overwhelming
Augsburg 8-0, outshooting the visitors a whopping 64-11.
 
"If I had my skates on, I wouldn't have fallen," Halldorson said with a grin.
 
Maybe she had pregame jitters, which would be understandable, because
she has been on the job a year and a half and this was the first game.
 
Her players said skating onto the ice between periods of Saturday night's
Gophers-North Dakota men's game in front of a crowd of almost 10,000
helped ease their nervousness.
 
"I think we got the jitters out yesterday. But then I was thinking, 'Don't
fall don't fall,' " Gophers freshman center Nadine Muzerall said of her team's
official introduction to Minnesota hockey fans the previous night.
 
None of the Gophers fell. And they didn't fall flat in their debut, either.
 
"We've been preparing for this for a year," said captain Julie Otto of
Buffalo, Minn. "We all were nervous because we're not used to having
that many people in the crowd. It was unbelievable."
 
Otto, a wing and the Gophers' only senior, scored the first goal in the
historic first game. Sixty-five seconds into play, Otto tapped in a rebound
of a shot by freshman Laura Tryba of Blaine.
 
"I was wondering who would get the first goal. It's very fitting that it was
Julie," Halldorson said.
 
As captain and the only Gopher with college experience, having played
three years at Northeastern, Otto wore No. 1 for the first game. The No. 1
jersey, symbolic of the first season of Gophers women's hockey, will be
rotated among the players all season.
 
Shortly after the game, the significance of scoring the first goal still hadn't
sunk in to Otto. "I was just thinking that I was glad we scored first, that
finally we could breathe," she said.
 
"There was nobody better to score the first goal. She's our leader," said
Muzerall, a native of Mississauga, Ontario.
 
Muzerall might be the first Canadian hockey player to score a goal for the
Gophers since Lou Nanne in the 1960s. In trying to put together the best
team possible, Halldorson has not limited her recruiting to Minnesota, as
has Gophers men's hockey coach Doug Woog.
 
The No. 1 line of Muzerall, freshman Ambria Thomas of Fairbanks, Alaska,
and Marisa Pettiford of St. Bernard's High School was dominant against the
Auggies. They look as if they will be a handful for everybody this season.
 
Thomas had a hat trick, including two short-handed goals; Muzerall had a
goal and two assists; and Pettiford had a goal and an assist.
 
Tryba and freshman defenseman Tai Thorsheim of Stillwater scored the other
Gophers goals. And goalie Erica Killewald of Troy, Mich., had only a
couple of tough saves in posting an easy shutout.
 
"I wasn't really sure how we'd come out at the start, but we played well
right off the bat," Halldorson said.
 
Augsburg coach Jill Pohtilla, a former teammate of Halldorson's on the
Minnesota Checkers club team, couldn't believe what she saw, either, as
the Gophers jumped to a 4-0 lead in the first 13 1/2 minutes and outshot
her team 26-3 in the first period.
 
"I don't think anybody expected that," Pohtilla said.
 
"It was like rapid fire out there," said Auggies sophomore goalie Meg
Schmidt of West St. Paul.
 
And it's not as if the Gophers picked on the neighboring Division III
school.
 
Augsburg was the first college in the state to have a varsity women's
team.  In their third season last winter, the Auggies went 22-8-2 and were
15-0 in the Midwestern Women's Collegiate Hockey Alliance.
 
"Minnesota's a good team," Pohtilla said. "They'll do well against the
Eastern teams. They come out hard, they forecheck hard and their
penalty-kill almost was better than when they had five skaters out there.
 
"But the big thing is the step being taken to give more young women a
chance to see what they can do. This is another opportunity for players
and coaches."
 
The real test for the Gophers will come later this week, when they play
Harvard and Eastern powerhouse New Hampshire in the All-American Classic
in Mariucci Arena.
 
If they don't fall flat against them, you'll know they're for real.
 
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