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University of Massachusets Athletics
Inside The Glass With Troy Power
October 29, 2014 | Hockey
This past weekend was again a successful and fun one to be apart of. As a team we completed our first Hockey East road weekend in Boston. With so many teams in the Northeast area, it is always cool to be able to stay at one hotel, yet play a variety of teams that surround the Boston area. In our case, we played the Northeastern Huskies and Boston College Eagles.
Although we did not play the best team game, we ended up getting the two points that we came there for on Friday night. This was primarily due to the stellar play of our freshman goaltender, Henry Dill. After the game we talked about the concept of "Winning Ugly" which means that there is going to be times that were not on our "A" game but we have to find a way to win. The past few years, we as a group haven't been successful at the concept of winning ugly and instead of finding ways to win, we've seen games slip through our fingertips. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel really good to win a game like this. I can recall a ton of games in the past where we have been the better team, and for numerous reasons, just didn't come out of the game with a win. In the future hopefully we won't have to win ugly, but having done it once before, we can reflect and look back on how, if things aren't going our way, we can still come together and find a way to win.
In our second game of the weekend, we ended up losing the contest to Boston College, 4-1, with an empty net goal. In this game, our compete level and execution were better than Friday night's, however we were unable to come away with a victory. It's funny how hockey works like that. Overall, as a team we got into penalty trouble at different parts of the game that ended up costing us chances to come away with points.
Overall, I was happy with the way our weekend went. It was good to see different guys step up every night and contribute in different ways. With injuries on defense, converted forward Emerson Auvenshine was able to hop back and give our team quality minutes on defense and ended up scoring the game winner in the third period on Friday night. In addition to that Zack LaRue added a multi-point night on Friday, which included a goal in the first period and an assist on Emerson's game winner. With scoring coming from all areas and great goaltending in net, I like our chances against anyone in the nation. Although we've only played five games, it is great to see us improve and continue to come together as a team. I think we can credit this to being on the road so much lately. This weekend, we complete our six game road trip by heading up to Maine for two Hockey East games. Alfond Arena is one of the coolest college hockey rinks around the nation and has a student section that is guaranteed to be loud on Halloween weekend. It will be a great test for our young team to see how we handle the pressure of the crowd in a hostile environment. Thanks for your support! Go UMass!
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Blog #6 - 10/21/14
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