NEW HAVEN — Quinnipiac women’s ice hockey head coach Cass Turner will tell you she doesn’t believe in so-called perfect games.
But there’s an exception to every rule. And in the Nutmeg Classic Championship, Logan Angers was quite the exception.
The graduate student goaltender played hero in Quinnipiac’s 3-0 win over Yale Saturday night, posting a 36-save shutout in the Bobcats’ fourth consecutive Nutmeg Classic Tournament victory.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Angers said. “It’s a good feeling.”
The second the game’s final buzzer sounded, sophomore goaltender Tatum Blacker was on the ice and in Angers’ arms.
“Normally, she’s the one running to get the puck,” said Angers, the tournament MVP and one of ECAC Hockey’s three stars of the week. “But today, she was so excited that she got to come down and hug me first, so that was pretty awesome.”
But with 64 shots between them, the Bobcats and Bulldogs fought like cats and dogs (literally) to that final buzzer.
“It’s never easy to win a championship at Yale,” Turner said. “They battled so hard.”
After all, the in-state rivals — meeting on Saturday for the 54th time since 2001 — know each other better than most teams know themselves.
And as far as Turner was concerned, this might very well have been to Angers’ advantage.
“She’s been here before,” Turner said. “She knows what it feels like. She knows how Yale plays.”
For everyone else, though, the Battle of Whitney Avenue rivalry seemed all but impossible to ignore.
Each team took every opportunity to get on the other’s nerves — sometimes legally, other times not so much. Between interference, tripping and hooking, the two top-15 teams combined for seven penalties on the night.
But with both the No. 7/9 Bobcats and the No. 13/12 Bulldogs playing like a shiny silver trophy depended on it — because it did — neither team ever quite managed to find an offensive rhythm.
Bobcats graduate student defender Kate Reilly opened up scoring as time wound down in the first period, blasting a one-timer past Bulldogs junior goaltender Pia Dukaric with under a minute to play in the frame.
It would be almost 20 minutes until senior defender Kendall Cooper sailed a backhander into the net late in the second period, and another period still until senior forward Nina Steigauf notched the empty-netter.
But as though the visible tension in Ingalls Rink suddenly lifted, it was all smiles for Quinnipiac when the game clock hit double zeros.
Gloves, sticks and helmets lay scattered across the ice as the players gathered around the Nutmeg Classic trophy for the fourth time in as many years.
“We take a lot of pride in the Nutmeg,” Turner said. “It’s a lot of fun and nice to see our group win it again.”
The Bobcats will take the trophy back to Hamden, where they will face Union on Friday, Dec. 1. Puck drop is set for 6 p.m.
