College hockey's last official on ice event of the season just ended with the Blue Squad (ECAC, et al) defeating the White Squad (Hockey East, et al) 11-9 in the Eastern All Star Game at Durham, NH. It was 3-2 before 6 minutes were gone, then it settled down until the second half (two 25 minute halves were played). There was defense, but it wasn't the bone-jarring checking kind we tend to expect in the regular season. The closest analogy I can think of is it was kind of like the women's game at its best, but faster. It was still better than the NHL All Stars. Personal highlights: - White Squad MVP Brad Purdie from Maine, 2 goals, 2 assists. Not bad for someone advertised as not playing! I may be a little biased, but he was definitely one of the more enthusiastic ones out there. - Blue Squad MVP Chris Maybury from RIT, hat trick (and assist(s)?). - Hearing Christian Sbrocca sing the Canadian (bilingual) and American national anthems...and doing a wonderful job of it. - Watching the 4-out-of-5-Lowell-players line (and defense). You could see how they got as far as they did. They were fun to watch. - Seeing Joe Marsh pull goalie James Konte with 1.7 sec left in the first half and a faceoff in the White zone. No they didn't score, but it's good to see a little flair! - No penalties! - No ice problems! (Hard to believe it's been a week already since the final.) Personal lowlights: - J.P. McKersie giving up an awful lot of softies. Not that the defense was what it could have been in this game (when is it ever in an All Star game), but I had to groan at a few of them. He has to have had better nights than this. - Middlin' attendance. Didn't hear a count, but there were lots of seats left. Oh well, hopefully that won't kill this series too. - Not getting to see these guys again. All in all an excellent game. Dave Reusch UMaine '86, UNH 'D95G HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.