Saturday, January 20, 2001

  1 2 3 Final
Northeastern 0 3 2 5
New Hampshire 1 2 0 3

The Northeastern legacy on Fox television continued with another win over a nationally ranked opponent at Matthews Arena, #5 New Hampshire. The previous night the Huskies suffered from an anemic attack and a powerful UNH presence. Tonight, the Huskies evened the season series between the two teams.

New Hampshire scored first in the first period. At 18:18 Matt Swain (David Busch, Lanny Gare) beat Mike Gilhooly and put the cats on the scoreboard as the dogs played a rough and barely inspired period.

In the second period things would open wide. Joshua Prudden (Corey-Joe Ficek, Colin Hemingway) put UNH up by 2-goals at 2:02, and things could have gotten ugly. But, Willie Levesque (Mike Ryan, Graig Mischler) answered for the home team at 3:16 by beating UNH's Ty Conklin. Then, at 7:45 Brian Cummings (Mike Jozefowicz, Kevin Welch) scored his first goal of the season, slipping one past Conklin who had no chance on the score. Eric Lind (Jeff Haydar, Kevin Truelson) put the cats up for the final time at 15:58. Then things turned for NU. At 18:27 Jim Fahey received a pass out at the point (Graig Mischler, Willie Levesque) and fired the mother of all one-timers to beat Conklin and tie the game at 3-3 going into the second intermission.

In the third period, Referee John Gravalesse displayed the type of heads up officiating that sports all too often lacks. Joe Mastronardi to a shot at Conklin that was stopped and bounced off of Scott Selig's knee. The puck crossed the goal line, but Conklin disputed the call. Gravalesse consulted with both assistant referees to make sure that Selig did not intentionally deflect the puck into the net. Then he consulted with the goal judge to verify that the puck crossed the goal line. The crowd of 4206 waited with baited breath until he made his call: the goal stands. Willie Levesque added an empty net goal unassisted at 19:38. Northeastern thus tied the series with UNH at 1-1-0, and won their first game of the George W. Bush administration on inauguration night.

Kudos to the DogHouse members who came up with the best sign in a long time, "Dick, we Umile-ated you on FOX Sports New England." In honor of UNH coach Dick Umile. We here at the unofficial fan page enjoyed that more than our own Whine 2K sign at Shawn Walsh's expense last year.

The DogHouse was featured during the second intermission of the game on Fox Sports. Justin "Hardcore" Harriman received ample face time, but probably not enough to satiate his gluttony. Nice job Justin.

Let's Go Huskies!