It was a dark, rainy and foggy night. Actually, it was only foggy inside Conte Forum, as the moist, warm air and cold ice created a fog on the ice for the entire game. The referees stopped the game about ten times and had the players from both teams skate around to temporarily disperse the fog. That, combined with the penalties, icings and offsides lead to a 3-hour game. The game started off with a bang, as Martin St. Louis scored for Vermont just 1:02 into the 1st period. BC responded by playing very solid hockey and did not allow Vermont to take control of the game. Unfortunately, both teams started to take penalties, which continued the rest of the night. BC killed three Vermont powerplays, including a 5-on-3, while Vermont stopped BC on four powerplays, including a 5-on-3. Late in the period, when both teams were at full strength, Ryan Haggerty made a great rush down the left side and scored a very pretty goal at 17:57 for BC to tie the game 1-1. The second period consisted of a string of penalties and powerplays for both teams, but the lone goal was scored 5-on-5. Dominique Ducharme scored for Vermont at 10:54, after some nice passing by the Cats to set by the goal. I slew of penalties at the end of the second period gave Vermont a 4-on-3 powerplay to start the third period. Vermont controlled the puck, but could not score until it became a 5-on-3 when their player came out of the penalty box at 1:07. Just 11 seconds later Jason Williams scored for Vermont finishing off some great passing by the Cats to increase their lead to 3-1. The march to the penalty box continued for both teams and BC finally took advantage when Don Chase scored a powerplay goal at 10:11 to cut the UVM lead to 3-2. Only one more penalty was called the rest of the game, as the two teams played evenly until 1 minute was left in the game. BC pulled Taylor from the goal for the extra skater, but BC could not control the puck in the Vermont zone. Dale Patterson got the puck along the left boards at about the face-off circle and sent a perfect shot down the ice into the center of the empty net at 19:21, to seal the victory for Vermont. Random Observations: Vermont is a good skating and excellent passing team. Almost every Vermont pass was on the mark and ended up on the stick of the receiving player. Their penalty killing continued be great, but the powerplay took a nose-dive. UVM came into the game having killed 12 of 14 powerplays for a .857 success rate. They stopped 11 of 12 BC chances for a .917 success rate. The negative side is that they gave 12 powerplay opportunities to BC, only two less than they gave in their first two games combined. On the powerplay, Vermont had a power failure, going 1 for 10 a .100 failure rate, after coming into the game 6 for 13 for a .462 success rate. BC played poorly at even strength and on the powerplay, with occasional flashes of good play. Greg Taylor was BC's best player on the ice, as he stopped several pointblank Vermont shots. Almost every save he made was on a good scoring chance by Vermont, very few were of the easy variety. BC did manage to get several quality shots on Tom Thomas, but they were unable to put any prolonged pressure on him or the Vermont defense. Twenty-five penalties were called during the game. My wife started a new statistic: penalties called by each referee, per team. Jim Fitzgerald called 13 penalties (including the game misconduct), 7 on Vermont and 6 on BC. Bob Fowkes called 12 penalties, 7 on Vermont and 5 on BC. By period Fitzgerald called 5-3-5=13 and Fowkes called 2-5-5=12. Box Score Goals UVM 1 1 2 - 4 BC 1 0 1 - 2 Shots UVM 10 12 9 - 31 BC 9 9 6 - 24 Saves: UVM - Tim Thomas 8 9 5 - 22 of 24 0.916% 60:00 min BC - Greg Taylor 9 11 7 - 27 of 30 0.900% 59:10 min Power Plays: UVM - 1 for 10 .100% BC - 1 for 12 .083% Penalties: UVM - 14 for 36 minutes BU - 11 for 22 minutes Game Summary: (JF is a penalty called by Fitzgerald, BF is a penalty called by Fowkes) 1st Period 1:02 UVM - Martin St. Louis (Eric Perrin, Dale Patterson); 17:57 BC - Ryan Haggerty (unassisted) Penalties time? BC - Haggerty (2 min - interference - JF); 7;27 UVM - Eric Hallman (2 min - roughing - JF); 8:08 UVM - Mike Larkin (2 min - hitting from behind - BF); 12:21 UVM - Steve McKell (2 min - interference - JF); 14:07 BC - Tim Lewis (2 min- cross-checking - BF); 14:47 BC - Greg Callahan (2 min - interference - JF); 18:15 UVM - Matt Johnson (2 min - tripping - JF) 2nd Period 10:54 UVM - Dominique Ducharme (Johnson, Rob Pattison) Penalties 2:55 UVM - Matt Stelljes (2 min - hooking - BF); 4:39 BC - Don Chase (2 min - holding - BF); 7:58 BC - Callahan (2 min - roughing - BF); 15:59 BC - Lewis (2 min - interference - JF); 17:13 UVM - Ducharme (2 min - hooking - JF); 19:07 UVM - Brian Leddy (2 min - hooking - BF); 19:48 BC - Jamie O'Leary (2 min - tripping - BF); 20:00 BC - Ken Hemenway (2 min - slashing - JF) 3rd Period 1:18 UVM - Jason Williams (St. Louis, Ducharme) ppg; 10:11 BC - Chase (David Hymovitz, Tom Ashe) ppg; 19:21 UVM - Patterson (Larkin, McKell) en Penalties 2:18 UVM - Phil Eboli (2 min - interference - BF); 3:29 UVM - Eric Hallman (2 min - holding - BF); 4:18 UVM - Larkin (2 min - cross-checking - JF); 4:18 UVM - Tim Thomas (2 min - roughing - JF); 4:18 BC - Hymovitz (2 min - roughing - JF); 8:09 BC - Rob Laferriere (2 min - tripping - JF); 8:43 UVM - Ducharme (2 min - holding - BF); 9:18 UVM - Tom Quinn (2 min - hooking - BF); 9:18 UVM - Williams (10 min - misconduct - JF); 12:49 BC - Michael McCarthy (2 min - interference - BF) Referees - Jim Fitzgerald, Bob Fowkes Linesman - Andy Hennigar Attendance: sparse Points: UVM Martin St. Louis (1g, 1a), Dale Patterson (1g, 1a), Dominique Ducharme (1g, 1a), Jason Williams (1g), Mike Larkin (1a), Steve McKell (1a), Eric Perrin (1a), Matt Johnson (1a), Rob Pattison (1a) BC Ryan Haggerty (1g), Don Chase (1g), David Hymovitz (1a), Tom Ashe (1a) Everything is unofficial and may be wrong. Have a nice day. :-) Sean Pickett - Go BU Terriers, 1994 Hockey East Champions! [log in to unmask] P.S. I meant to send this Wednesday but I messed up and sent it to myself. :-) Sorry for the delay.