Cardinal Ice Hockey Splits Weekend Games
This past weekend, the Stanford ice hockey team faced off against two Utah teams at home, winning the first game against Weber State by a score of 8-5 but losing the second to Utah State 7-5. With the previous weekend's victories over UCLA and USC, the Cardinal record now stands at 3-1. Stanford dictated play in the first game, hosted Friday night on the Cardinal's home ice at Ice Oasis in Redwood City. Weber State did not present much of a challenge to Stan ford's offensive abilities, but it did provide a physical challenge to the Cardinal constitu tion. "Put simply, they were a dirty team," said winger Brian Browder. "They were all hack, slash, trip, clutch and grab. They play a very
old-school Canadian brand of hockey, and it helped them compensate for a lack of defen sive ability." By way of contrast, the Cardinal faced a much more talented team on Saturday night. After jockeying for position the whole game, Stanford found itself down by one goal in the closing minutes of the third period. Coach Ernie Ferrari tried the classic strategy of pulling the goaltender with one minute left in the game, but the extra player seemed to con fuse the team more than it added to its offen sive puissance. In the remaining seconds of the match, Utah State scored on an empty net to clinch the victory. "I don't like to lose," Ferrari said, "but that game was a good learning experience for us. Utah State is the kind of fast-skating, high caliber team that Stanford is going to have to
continue to play as we generate more atten tion across the nation." One decidedly negative outcome of the weekend series was an injury to Cardinal defenseman Matt Blythe. With a stress frac ture to his left shin, Blythe only managed to play a part of the second contest, and that against his doctor's orders. "Matt is a key member of the defensive corps," said teammate Kevin Weitske. "Our other guys are good, but not so good they can play without him. We can try to convert one of our versatile centers to compensate, but they'll never have Matt's good-natured ebul lience." With or without Blythe, the ice hockey team will host traditionally competitive Northern Arizona State this Friday evening in the Lumberjacks' season opener.