Friday, November 17, 2000

  1 2 3 Final
Providence 0 2 1 3
Northeastern 0 1 0 1

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Last season the one team that dogged the Huskies more than any other was the Providence Friars.  In a year in which the Huskies won three games against the number one team in the nation, the little school that could topped Northeastern three times, sweeping the season series.  It wasn't so much that the Friars beat NU three times, but that the Huskies never really looked good against them.  Now the Huskies traveled to Schneider Arena in front of 2,758 people for the only meeting in the Coffin as it has come to be know.   Sadly, this series would open in much the same way that the last series closed.

After a scoreless first period the Friars got onto the scoreboard at 4:15 of the second when Peter Fregoe scored on Mike Gilhooly with assists from Devin Rask and Jon DiSalvatore.  Then at 05:20  J.J. Picinic would begin a weekend of dominance over the Huskies as he tallied his fifth of the season (Regan Kelly and Marc Suderman).  Northeastern would get on the scoreboard with it's lone goal of the game from Joe "Maestro" Mastronardi at 11:25 when he scored against PC's Nolan Schaefer from Trevor Reschny and Brian Cummings.  The dogs looked good in the second half of the first two periods.  We had hoped that they could continue their second period play into the third period and tie things up.  It was not to be.

At 15:02 of the third period  Peter Fregoe beat Gilhooly one last time from DiSalvatore and Jay Leach to put the game out of reach for the Huskies.  Providence out shot the Huskies 19 to 8 in the third period, a foreshadowing of things to come.  The defensive breakdown in front of the net coupled with the lack of offense generated by the Huskies sealed their fate midway through the third.  Schaefer brought his record to 5-1-0 while Gilhooly's fell to 2-2-1.

The game was marred by poor officiating from the very beginning of the game.  Referee Jeff "Thanks Dad" Bunyon called a total of 29 penalties including a 5-minute major for but ending and 10-minute misconduct against Devin Rask of Providence and a bizarre 2-minute minor against Brian Cummings for delay of game.  Two centers were thrown out of the face-off, so Cummings (not one of the centers thrown out) had to serve the penalty.  Northeastern DogHouse members began the "Bunyon, Bunyon, Bunyon.  You suck" chant, but a PC fan with a diesel air horn (oh man, I have to get one of those for Christmas) would drown out the latter half of the chat.  Bunyon was so bad that air horn guy not only stopped blasting out the NU fans, but actually joined them.  It were as if Bunyon was incapable of keeping an eye on 10-men at the same time, so he had to put one or two in the box to actually do his job.  Someone needs to send him to that same dark hole where they sent Doiron two years ago.

The Huskies got their opportunity to even the series Saturday night.  More to follow.

Let's go Huskies!