Superstitious Dawgs

Are you superstitious? Do you thumb your nose at people who toss salt over their shoulders? Will you laugh at someone who won’t walk under a ladder? What about breaking a mirror, how would that sit with you? If a black cat crosses your path do you continue onward as if nothing had happened? Do you knock wood or maybe hold your breath driving past a graveyard?

Am I the only one??

Today is the day all of us superstitious types fear. For those that haven’t realized, today is Friday the 13th. According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute (a real thing) in Asheville, North Carolina some 17-21 MILLION people are affected by fear of this day. People won’t schedule flights, don’t take trips or stay home from work. Going forward, I think you’ll be able to add the Huskies to the list of people who dread this date of bad juju.

Your Northeastern Huskies, the class of Hockey East; rolled into North Andover and threw everything they could at Merrimack College and left on the wrong end of a 1-0 game. We’re used to seeing Gwyneth Philips dazzle in the net, but tonight she was outdueled by MC goalie Calli Hogarth. When you have the success that Northeastern has had over the last 6 seasons or so, you know you have a target on your back. That was made readily apparent at the final horn when the Merrimack team celebration rivaled the Vegas Golden Knights dogpile after winning the Stanley Cup.

Wait a minute. I’m not a scary movie guy, but didn’t Jason from the Friday the 13th movies wear a goalie mask?? And wasn’t he tall? How tall is Hogarth? That checks out. And she wears #41… 4 minus 1 is 3 and there’s a 3 in Friday the 13th?? It’s all connecting now…

The Huskies dominated the first 40mins and doubled up Merrimack in SOG. Clean entries, crisp breakouts and long cycles in the offensive zone should have spelled disaster for Merrimack. Most nights it would have been over after the first, and I’d be typing about how the Huskies blew the doors off the rink and how Merrimack was taking dumb penalty after dumb penalty. But Friday the 13th is not a normal day. When I used to bartend, Friday the 13th was always a gong show. My suggestion for the Huskies is to chalk this one up to spooky season, burn some sage and move on to the Ice-Breaker Tournament.

Some observations from around the rink:

Taze Thompson, Holly Abela, Lily Shannon and Peyton Compton did some real work along the boards today. Some very tough shifts with some real physical play while fighting for and protecting the puck.
The Mayor of Kingston, Skylar Irving and The Premier Power Forward in Women’s Hockey Today Katy Knoll don’t just have top tier nicknames, they both had top tier games. These 2 beauties are JUST missing cashing in for buckets of Genos. It’s only a matter of time ladies, those will start going in and when they do, they’ll be in BUNCHES.
Speaking of beauties, Lily Brazis was out there doing her thing and multiple times forced Merrimack into turnovers and battled 1:3 or 1:4 during line changes. Big time play from Brazis, and with Philips pulled looking for the equalizer; who you gonna put in front of the MC cage to cause some havoc? The Nailgun, that’s who. The Pride of HockeyTown.
Speaking of Brazis: The diff combos of her with Mia Langlois, Ella Blackmore and Becca Vanstone were great on the fore-check and were frustrating the MC defenders trying to break out of their zone.
Taylor Guarino came off the bench and played well with Rylie Jones. Just goes to show you, always be ready for your name to be called.
Celebrity sighting tonight as Mia Brown was at the rink taking in the action with us pigeons.
The Huskies showed great improvement at the dot tonight, here’s hoping that is the beginning of a trend. Irving and Thompson led the way with Skirv going 10-14 and Taze at 6-9. Both won key face-offs in the closing minutes with Philips pulled.