USA Women’s Hockey Ices Finland at Kenyon Arena

12 hours after the witching hour on Halloween, the U.S. Women’s National Hockey team flew past Finland by a score of 5-1 in Middlebury’s Kenyon Arena.  If any of the trick-or-treaters in the crowd stayed up late eating candy, the rush of seeing Olympic stars spray up ice before their eyes proved enough to rile them from their seats. The United Way raised over $1,800 on the day from voluntary donations in lieu of entrance fees, and in turn the fans reveled in the world-class abilities of the touring USA women.

Finland scored a quick powerplay goal less than two minutes into the game that wound up the game’s energy as the American silver medal winners from the 2010 Winter Olympics sought to reestablish the natural order.  However, Finland stood its ground and maintained a one-goal lead into an anxious first intermission.

Some sort of Halloween beast stirred awake while the Zamboni cleaned the ice, and the second period became an offensive field day for team USA, who punched nineteen shots on the Finnish cage while allowing only one. Megan Bozek sprung a wrist shot past the blocker of the Finnish goaltender to tie the game at one.  Then, two minutes later, Annie Pankowski broke down the right wing and fired a bullet just inside the left post.  USA would light the lamp a third time, when Hilary Knight curled at the top of the faceoff circle and tucked a fully corked wrist shot with tremendous accuracy into the top-right corner.

“We had a lot of momentum and we really came at them full speed, we didn’t let them do anything they wanted to do,” Pankowski told Channel 5 reporters.

The American dominance continued in the third period, as Knight deflected a shin-high shot past the shielded goalie. In the final minute, Jocelyn Lamoreaux stuffed home the fifth and final goal off a firm centering pass from behind the goal line that created the opportunity.

Beneath the unified attack, Team USA played with the intensity of a squad whose individual players are still competing for a limited number of plane tickets to Sochi, Russia for the upcoming Olympic games.  One player vying for a spot is prodigious sixteen-year-old Jincy Dunne, who would be the second-ever sixteen year old to skate with the U.S. Womens Olympic team. The final roster of only twenty-one players culled from the current forty-one will be decided in December, according to the official Team USA Olympic website.

Amazingly, Dunne could even overlap at college with some of the tittering youth hockey players who flocked to Kenyon to watch the game.  By chance, the town of Middlebury scheduled parent/teacher conferences on Friday, freeing up the youngest segment of Panther faithful for the international affair.

Another corner of the rink brimmed with about thirty baggy red jerseys on pretzel-munching, nacho-selecting kids playing hooky for hockey.  The Chittenden South Burlington Youth Hockey club transported a whole troupe of youth hockey players, mostly girls, from the ages eight to twelve to see their idols play.

Middlebury’s Athletic Director Erin Quinn marveled at the impact of the game on the many pint-sized hockey players in attendance.

“If you’re a kid that age, wearing your jersey, watching the women of this caliber play right there on the other side of the glass — that’s pretty cool,” Quinn said. “If you’re someone my age watching these women play — it’s pretty cool too.”

The Sochi Olympics begin this February, and Middlebury can cheer proudly for the familiar faces of U.S. Womens Hockey as they perform their quadrennial metamorphosis from hard working hockey players into American heroes on the world’s icy oval stage.