HAMDEN — For women’s ice hockey goaltender Logan Angers, Saturday’s postseason win was a career-encapsulating moment.
In what was the final home game of her six-year collegiate career, the graduate student racked up her sixth shutout of the season en route to a 9-0 drubbing against Harvard in the first round of the ECAC Hockey Tournament.
And thanks to a post-game text from her mother, she was reminded of her full-circle performance.
“She said the first game here I played was a shutout, and the last game was too,” Angers said, her voice breaking.
The Winnipeg, Manitoba, native is certainly years removed from her first games played in Hamden, which were back-to-back shutouts against Sacred Heart on Oct. 25-26 in 2019. Now the graduate student closed that book with another perfect game, this one propelling the No. 5 Bobcats into a three-game quarterfinal duel with No. 4 Cornell next weekend.
Angers didn’t face much action — she only had to make 18 saves on the day — but when Harvard began to pressure the crease, she stood tall.
A two-on-zero breakaway from the Crimson gave the visitors their best chance at cracking the scoreboard. Yet the Bobcats’ netminder sprawled out to make not one, but two incredible saves on the doorstep.
“I’m as ready as I can be knowing that (the puck) might not get to me even, but just preparing myself for that moment,” Angers said. “Kind of taking it like, ‘this is my puck, I’m going to take care of this as much as I can.’”
That preparation is evident across the board for the Quinnipiac upperclassmen. That’s just another quality that head coach Cass Turner likes as the team continues its postseason trek.
“They have so much experience, that’s what it comes down to, they’re prepared,” Turner said. “They’re confident, they know what it looks like in the playoffs, they know what it feels like to win.”
“Knowing that experience, having a game-by-game (mindset),” Angers added. “We prepare all the time … It’s the same game we’re playing out there and (we’re) ready to attack.”
It may have been the last time Angers and the rest of the graduates skate on M&T Bank Arena’s ice, but the win made the tears a bit sweeter.
“Obviously, it’s a bittersweet moment,” Angers said. “You kind of look back at your time here and think about all the amazing things that’s happened.”
