It’s once again time for another Thursday Thoughts, and this week we’re going to just jump right into it…
Local Collegiate Hockey
On Friday in Men’s hockey, Anna Maria picked up its first win of the 2021 season with a 2-1 win over New England College at Lee Clement Arena in Henniker, NH. The AMCATS struck first with less than 30 seconds to play in the first period. Freshman August Bouveng scored his first collegiate goal to put Anna Maria up one. In the second period the Pilgrims tied things up 11:47 into the frame, but just four minutes later sophomore Cam Tobey beat NEC goaltender Spencer Kozlowski to record his first goal with Anna Maria to regain the lead 2-1. Julius Huset had 33 saves in the victory for Anna Maria. Also in men’s action, Holy Cross fell to Sacred Heart 2-1 at the Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut. All of the game’s scoring happened in the middle stanza. Holy Cross had a brief lead early in the frame, but Sacred Heart scored two quick goals to take the lead for good. Junior captain Matt Slick notched the lone goal for the Crusaders off an assist by senior Andrew Dumaresque. Sophomore goaltender Matt Radomsky made 34 saves for the Crusaders. Holy Cross went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill, with Radomsky stopping 10 Sacred Heart power-play shots.
In Women’s hockey on Friday, two power play goals lifted the Holy Cross to a 2-1 victory over Maine on Senior Day at the Hart Center. Allison Attea connected on the game-winner less than a minute after Mary Edmonds scored on a 5-on-3 to tie the game during the second period. Edmonds’ strike came with one second left on the two-man advantage, which allowed the Crusaders an additional 1:12 on the power play. The senior Attea would not disappoint as she scored her second goal of the season to give Holy Cross its first Senior Day win of its Hockey East era. Jada Brenon was outstanding in goal, making 41 saves on the night, including 15 in the final frame. She also withstood 1:26 of 6-on-5 action when Maine pulled its goalie at the end of the game.
Saturday in Women’s hockey saw Becker junior Clare Conway become the second player in program history to record at least five points in a single game, finishing with two goals and three assists as the Hawks defeated the Anna Maria AMCATS 6-1 at the Worcester Ice Center. Four of Conway’s five points came in the first period, matching a program record for points in a period by a player. Shrewsbury native Kylian Kelly had two assists for Becker in the contest. The stars for Anna Maria were their netminders, who made an astounding 74 saves in the game. Sam Dahill was the starter and had 46 in the opening two periods. Julia Smith played the third frame and was a perfect 28 for 28 in goal. The AMCATS gal was scored by freshman Annalise Reed in her first collegiate game.
Holy Cross tied Maine 1-1 at the Hart Center. The Black Bears would win the shootout by a score of 2-1 after five rounds, but the contest will be recorded as a tie in the Crusaders’ overall record. The Crusaders came out strong and scored the first goal at the 13:06 mark of the first period when Millie Sirum fired a shot home from the slot on a nice-looking play. Bryn Saarela and Antonia Matzka had the assists. It was the team’s third power play goal in two games. Maine answered back three minutes later off the stick of Olivia King. The period would end tied at one, as would the next two, which led to the Crusaders’ first overtime game of the season. After overtime ended without a game-winner, the teams went to a shootout. After two misses by both teams, Sirum connected, but Maine’s Ida Kuoppala answered right back. Two more misses by Holy Cross were followed by the decisive attempt by Elise Morphy, winning the shootout for the Black Bears, 2-1. Jada Brenon made 35 saves in goal, giving her 76 on the weekend and a save percentage of .974 over the two games. With their points Saturday tonight, Sirum and Saarela finished the regular season with 12 points each, good for the most by a freshman in program history during the Hockey East era.
For the men on Saturday, Anna Maria fell to New England College 3-2 at Horgan Arena in Auburn, Massachusetts. Down 2-0 going into the second period, the AMCATS came out firing on all cylinders tying the game. The ‘CATS first score came via the power play from Nick Kukuris as he was able to best the Pilgrims goaltender after receiving two rebounds from previous shots. The tying goal came at 13:44 from Jack Sitzman, who received a pass from Cam Tobey just above the right circle and sent a one-timer into the back of the net. The winning goal for New England came on a power play at 18:30 of the middle frame after the AMCATS were tagged with too many men on the ice.
Playing the second game in two nights at Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Connecticut the Crusaders were looking for a split against Sacred Heart, but it was not to be as Holy Cross fell 5-3 to the Pioneers in a back-and-forth, high-scoring affair. With the score tied at 3-3 late in the third, Sacred Heart got the game-winner with 5:26 to go in regulation and added an empty-netter for insurance in the final minute. Jake Pappalardo had a multi-point outing, recording a goal and an assist. Bobby Young and Michael Kane each tallied a goal for the Crusaders. Sophomore goaltender Matt Radomsky made 29 saves; freshman defenseman Jack Robilotti had four blocked shots.
Boston Teams This Week
Thursday
Bruins @ Islanders, 7pm
Friday
Bruins @ Rangers, 7pm
Indiana @ Celtics, 7pm
Sunday
Bruins @ Rangers, noon
Washinton @ Celtics, 7pm
Tuesday
LA Clippers @ Celtics, 7:30pm
Wednesday
Washington @ Bruins, 7pm
Worcester Hockey Alumni Highlights
Friday Nick Saracino OT goal
Friday Nic Pierog goal
Friday Matt Lane OT goal
Saturday Logan Couture two goals (two views of 1st goal, despite the tagging in the tweet the second goal is Couture’s)
Sunday Aaron Dell stickless save
Monday Logan Couture goal
Wednesday Barclay Goodrow goal
NHL made a huge foreseeable mistake
Before I go off on a rant here I need to point out that I’m all for the NHL, or any sports league, trying something new. I don’t need to tell you that in many ways I’m a curmudgeon, but pro leagues trying to change things up a little bit to attract more interest certainly falls within the bounds of fair play. That’s especially true when they don’t change the game in any real way and just fiddle with the visuals fans see. The key is not to rush into something, and to have a good idea of what to expect once your little idea comes to fruition.
And this past weekend, it showed that the NHL simply didn’t spend enough time thinking about what could possibly go wrong with one of their ideas.
It certainly wouldn’t have taken a genius to know that die-hard fans would be in an uproar over the league being so ill-prepared. Plus the nay-sayers, and with the NHL there are tons and tons of those, would immediately pick up on the situation and show it as more proof of an incompetent organization. To make matters worse, it’s starting to look like the NHL didn’t even have full control over the situation and allowed a third party to take care of the work and the NHL just rubber-stamped it. It appears like the league allowed money to get in the way of common sense.
Oh, no, I’m not talking about the sun causing changes to the two outdoor games at Lake Tahoe, I’m talking about the abominations that the Carolina Hurricanes were wearing as their Adidas Reverse Retro alternate jersey.
Now it doesn’t bother me that the Hurricanes were wearing the Hartford Whalers logo. They’ve done it before, and it’s part of their franchise’s history so I’m certain they’ll do it again. The problem is that absolutely terrible gray base color. That logo really should be worn on a green sweater. That’s the classic Whalers colors fans recall, and that’s what it should be.
They could have gone with the blue jerseys Hartford wore in the last few years of their existence and gotten away with it. In fact, given that Adidas wanted to change up the jerseys a bit would have made blue a decent choice, and it likely wouldn’t have caused many complaints. But in general, it should have been green.
To make matters worse, Adidas left many jerseys alone without making major changes. The Calgary Flames jersey is essentially just their home jerseys from the beginning of the century, and the Floria Panthers are wearing jerseys that look like their standard blue jersey they wore for over ten seasons. The New York teams aren’t wearing anything new. The Islanders are wearing jerseys that are from just before their Stanley Cup run and the Rangers have the “Lady Liberty” sweaters they had as a third jersey for many years.
Adidas seems to be in love with gray. It looks fine on the San Jose Sharks’ version, and the darker gray on the Winnipeg Jets’ jerseys looks pretty good too. The gray stripes on the Detroit Red Wings’ jerseys look OK because there’s not much to work with there, but there was no reason for it on the Toronto Maple Leafs when they could have used the St. Pats green instead. But all in all, that gray looks terrible on Carolina’s next to the great logo the Whalers used.
Green is the color they should have been, just like the color of my lawn I want you to stay off of.
Stuff you may have missed from 210Sports this week
Nothing But Shenanigans Podcast: The Shenanigans of winter football, overrated players, and car crashes
Not so big finish
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