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Representing our WCHA league
In her first season as coach of the Minnesota ice hockey team, Laura Halldorson led the Golden Gophers to a fourth-place finish at the 1998 national championship. And in 2000, Halldorson led Minnesota to a 30-6-1 record and the national championship title. Check out Halldorson's diary every other week on CNNSI.com.
February 6, 2001
Since my last entry, we have played four games -- all on the road. We first traveled to the University of New Hampshire for a two game series. UNH has always been one of the best teams in the country, so we knew we had to play well if we were to come away with any victories. It was also our last trip out East against an ECAC opponent. We had gone 2-3 against ECAC teams before heading to New Hampshire, so we wanted two wins in order to finish the season with a winning record against the East. It was not only a matter of representing the University of Minnesota, but also representing our WCHA league. On Friday, we didn't score until halfway through the second period to make it 1-0. We had a lot of great chances to score throughout that second period, but could not bury the puck. Then late in the third period we got our second goal of the game on a 2 v. 1 to make it 2-0. Then came the UNH pressure. They fought hard in the third period and created some great scoring chances. Unfortunately for us, within 36 seconds at the end of the game we were called for two minor penalties. When UNH pulled their goalie we were facing a 6 on 3 situation, and New Hampshire scored to pull within one goal. We were able to hold on and win 2-1. Our goaltender played especially well. Even though we won the game I was not very happy with our performance. I knew that we needed to play at a higher level and with more consistency, and this was not our best game. Fortunately, we had a second chance against them on Saturday afternoon. We played much better in the second game. The first period was scoreless and both teams played pretty well. We were able to score early in the second and then again halfway through the period to take a two-goal lead into intermission. Our second score was a great one. New Hampshire was playing a type of "trap" forecheck, which had been very effective bottling us up in our own zone. But one of our defensemen hit a wing flying out of the zone with a pass and sent her on a breakaway. It was an awesome pass and a nice deke on the breakaway goal. The final score was 3-1 as both teams scored power play goals in the third. Unfortunately, the one we gave up was with only thirty-one seconds left in the game. It was too bad that we couldn't preserve the shutout for our goalie, but at least we came away with four big points on the weekend. Then last week we traveled to Bemidji, Minnesota, where we played Bemidji State twice. Every league weekend is important, and this trip was no exception. Bemidji has continued to improve each year and we couldn't take them lightly. In the first game we were up 2-1 after one period and then 3-1 after two. We added three more goals in the third to make the final score 6-1. The bad news is that we could have played better. The good news is that our power play was 3 for 4, which is a very good success rate. Our backup goalie played in Saturday night's game, and we didn't give her much help, defensively. Although the outcome was never in doubt, it was actually a pretty sloppy game for us. We scored a lot of goals, but we also gave up too many. Final score: Minnesota 8, Bemidji State 5. Now we have to prepare for the last four weekends of league play. Each week we will face tough WCHA opponents. Coming up over the next two weeks are St. Cloud State and Ohio State. I'll let you know how the games turn out!
-- Coach Halldorson
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