The UNH Wildcats continued their winning ways tonight by defeating Merrimack College 9-0 at the Volpe Complex in North Andover, MA. UNH netminder Sean Matile picked up his first shutout as a Wildcat. UNH improves to 12-2-0, 9-0- 0 in Hockey East. The two teams face off again in Durham tomorrow night. I'll defer to Mike Machnik for complete game details, but I wanted to offer some thoughts from the UNH side of the rink tonight. With one minute to play in the first and UNH leading 2-0, Merrimack was really putting on some pressure. UNH fan Tom Rowell said, "Come on Blue, let's bear down" and the Wildcats proceeded to notch two quick goals to end the period up 4-0. Talk about bearing down! Three minutes into the second period something happened that I've never witnessed before in Volpe -- Tom took off his jacket. For those of you not familiar with Volpe, it's usually a few degrees warmer in Antarctica than it is inside the Volpe Complex. By the end of the game it was downright balmy in there. I don't know if it was the large contingent of UNH fans contributing to increased gate reciepts, but for some reason the "Toasters" were on for the entire game. Whoo Hoo! But the disappointment of the evening came with less than a minute to play in the second. UNH was up 7-0 at this point and a Merrimack player decided it would be wise to take a blatant run at UNH goalie Sean Matile. But the funny part is that Merrimack reacted like it was UNH taking a cheap shot at them. Another Merrimack player proceeded to fight with UNH's Filipowicz while Flip did his best to just hold back the player. I don't know what happened when they were at the bottom of the pile, but in the two or so minutes that the referees let this continue and while they were in plain sight, Flip never threw a punch or retaliated in any way. Filipowicz ended up with a game DQ for fighting and will miss tomorrow night's game. But the worst part involved UNH's Captain Eric Boguniecki. According to Merrimack AD Bob DeGregorio, UNH Coach Dick Umile sent Bogey on to ice to tell the UNH players not to retaliate or fight. But Bogey went to the ice from the bench while the fighting was still going on. Boguniecki also picked up a game DQ. The rules are the rules and we must abide by them, but talk about an ironic twist. UNH has spent the last two games being victimized and brutalized by the thugs of Maine and Merrimack, but it's UNH that has the players sitting out. I know people love to hate that "infuriating catalyst" Boguniecki, but he was a class act tonight. I wasn't at all impressed with the lack of control referee Drew Taylor had on the game tonight. He should really take a cue from referee Frank Cole who set the tone for the third period of the UNH-Maine game last week by telling the players to cut the crap and play hockey. And I really wish someone would tell asst. referee Jones that he can call penalties. I found myself wishing that he had had beans for dinner because his whistle was clearly lodged firmly in his butt. Here's hoping that we don't have a repeat of tonight's debacle tomorrow night in Durham. If any of you Merrimack players aren't interested in playing hockey, might I suggest you not even step on the bus tomorrow afternoon. You may have lost the game, but it's unfortunate that you lost your class and dignity at the same time. Congratulations to the UNH players on another well played game. And kudos to the Merrimack fans who were cheering "Let's go Michigan!". That was pretty good. :) H Howard Quimby - [log in to unmask] |\ ( ) Natural Intelligence, Inc. _________|_\_________________________ Tel 617.876.7680 x1208 ----- -_-_ Fax 617.492.7425 -- - - HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.