USU Hockey Home-and-Home with BYU

Brendan MacDonald's hat trick helped USU obliterate BYU, 10-3, in the second game of a home-to-home series on Saturday night at the Eccles Ice Center.

MacDonald's first goal was also the first of the game, and it came at the 13:50 mark in the first period. Matt Hamilton controlled the puck on the left side of the BYU zone in the power play and passed it low to Kyle Soder. Soder drew the BYU defense to him, which effectively left MacDonald wide open in front of the goal. Soder split the puck between two defenders, and MacDonald one-timed it home through the legs of both the BYU defender and the BYU goaltender.

MacDonald's second goal was the goal that busted the game wide open for the Aggies. Once again on the power play, MacDonald took the pass from his linemate, Hamilton, and buried it. The goal was the first of three in a two-minute stretch in the second period that gave USU a hefty 7-1 lead and the win. Head coach Jon Eccles said he was pleased with MacDonald and USU's overall effectiveness on the power play.

"Our power play was clicking all night long," Eccles said. "They couldn't really stop us. For the most part, I was happy with the way they played. We got a couple stupid penalties again, but for the most part we cleared things up."

MacDonald's hat trick goal was icing on the cake for the Aggies. With 13:24 remaining in the game, MacDonald scored his only goal not scored on the power play. MacDonald took a pass from Kent Arsenault and went on a fast forecheck. BYU's defense couldn't recover, and MacDonald left no doubt. USU led at that point 9-1 and was able to tack on one more before time expired.

Saturday's game came in the wake of part one of the home-to-home. Friday night's game was a 9-5 Aggie beatdown of BYU at the Peaks Arena in Provo. Brendan MacDonald managed to get a hat trick in that game as well. Also notable from the Friday night game were Billy Gouthro's three assists and an unassisted Tyler Mistelbacher goal in the second period. With that goal, Mistelbacher's 40th of the season, he continued his campaign for offensive player of the year in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) western region. Mistelbacher, a freshman, only trails UNLV's Michael Zenzola by three goals but has played three fewer games than Zenzola.

With the pair of wins, USU improves to 25-6 on the season and extends its season-long home undefeated streak to 12 in a row. USU's last home loss was against the University of Denver in last year's regional tournament. During the second game, USU clinched the season sweep against BYU, winning all six games against the rival Cougars from Provo. Eccles said he would prefer to schedule more talented teams to effectively prepare USU for the regional tournament.

"As far as being a strong match," Eccles said, "there's not a whole lot there. It was just a game for us and for the fans. We would have much rather played a stronger team to prepare us. We play Denver next weekend, and regionals are the week after DU. We want to be playing strong teams, because that's what we're going to be playing at regionals. We're not going to be playing teams like BYU."

Despite the lopsided results USU-BYU hockey has provided this year, Eccles said the series is still a rivalry as far as the teams and the fans are concerned.

"I love that intensity out there," Eccles said. "The fans love it. When the U of U, Weber or BYU comes in, it's a big rivalry. You can see the fans and how they help out, especially when they start saying, 'Hey goalie, goalie. You suck.' It's just fun to hear that stuff."

The degree to which BYU and USU hockey dislike each other was in full display in both Friday and Saturday's games. On Saturday, the Aggies were booked for 22 penalties – by far the most this season for USU. Likewise, BYU was booked for 18. The climax came near the end of the first period on Saturday when Jeff Sanders and a BYU Cougar started tussling, wrestling and pushing each other around, after a USU shot was saved by BYU's goaltender, Brent Taylor. While Sanders was venting his frustration and drawing all the attention of the officiating crew, USU's Matt Ferris took the opportunity to lightly crosscheck BYU's Tanner Billingsley, while Billingsley was off-guard. BYU's Todd Jaramillo, who was standing just behind Billingsley and had full view of Ferris's crosscheck, reacted in defense of his teammate by putting Ferris in a headlock and dragging him to the ice. The situation, obviously, did not improve from there. When all was said and done, 10 players were booked into the box at the same time for the altercation – five for BYU and five for USU.

Matt Hamilton, USU's starting center, was disqualified and ejected for facemasking in the third period of the second game. Hamilton, according to the ACHA rules, must sit out the game against the University of Denver for his actions. Also, Billy Gouthro, one of USU's three assistant captains, was given a 10-minute penalty and effectively ejected, for slashing and misconduct at the 9:31 mark in the third period.

While Eccles said he recognized the need for his team to maintain its composure, he also said much of the 22 penalties may not have been as necessary as the referees insisted.

"The ref," Eccles said, "there's probably been a bit of bad blood in the past and so he's not going to put up with any type of harassment or any type of abuse. He told us right up front, 'If you guys start doing that, we're going to start giving 2's and 10's and start kicking them out of the game. Bottom line, some of the guys couldn't quite adjust to that, so that's why they were sent off the ice early."

On a further note, I would like to take a shot at BYU Hockey fans.

With just under 10 minutes remaining in the game on Friday in Provo (Yes, I was present), a group of BYU fans began heckling an Aggie who had been sent to the penalty box. I responded on behalf of the player by yelling out, "Scoreboard!!!" So, naturally, the fans started heckling me.

First, they asserted that USU cheated. I ignored that one because of the stupidity of the argument and continued to repeat the score (9 to 4 at that point) until one BYU fan asked me if I wanted to fight him. At that point, I saw that the situation was getting a bit out of hand, so I waved him off and shut up. The BYU fan continued by asking me if USU had any other sport besides Hockey. I had great pleasure in informing him of the success our Men's Basketball team had against BYU this year. I again began to ignore him, and eventually I heard someone mutter, "You've got to have some class, man. You've got to have some class."

I bit my tongue. I was so tempted to make a strong reference to a certain former BYU quarterback who epitomizes class, but I restrained myself and bit my tongue.

Bottom line, I lost a lot of respect for BYU last weekend. A lot of respect.

I'll link my article to this post as soon as it is placed on the web.
Landon