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Dorn's hat trick puts dagger in Ice Devils' hearts

Much to the joy of more than 6,500 raucous and rowdy Icecats fans at the Tucson Convention Center, junior left wing Paul Dorn flicked the puck into an empty net, giving himself a hat trick and ending all hopes of an ASU Ice Devil comeback.

The goal, the seventh of the game for the UA Icecats, capped off a period of passionate hockey. With the score 3-3 after the second period, the Icecats scored four times in the final 20 minutes and put to the Ice Devils to rest with a 7-4 win.

ASU and Arizona reached a 3-3 tie the previous evening, with almost absolutely nothing separating the two teams.

The win and tie put UA's record at 10-1-2 and earned them a No. 5 ranking in the American Collegiate Hockey Association polls. ASU was ranked No. 8 and their record falls to 10-2-2.

The series was the last of the semester for the Icecats, who now look to heal their limping troops with a month's rest.

The injury list for the team is almost as long as the roster:

Sophomore's Kyle Neary, Pavel Jandura and Andrew Edwards all played with various injuries and were not at full-strength. The Icecats are also without junior Mike Graves, who may be lost for the season with a broken wrist. Senior center Hunter Cherenack is also out indefinitely with a broken knee cap he suffered in Saturday's contest.

Jandura, while playing with a knee brace on, was part of a brutal collision in the second period of Saturday's game and had to be helped off the ice. He returned approximately 15 minutes later to laser a shot from the blue line for UA's sixth goal of the evening, putting the Icecats up by two.

Jandura embarrassed ASU's sophomore goalie Dan Woog on Friday night as well, grabbing the puck out the air as ASU tried to clear it, dropped it, navigated around two defenders and sent the puck to the back of the net. The shot put the Icecats up 3-2 with only eight minutes remaining in the game.

But late penalties continued to haunt the Icecats.

Jandura was called for holding two minutes later and receive a 10-minute game misconduct for arguing the call.

The Ice Devils, who were already on the power play, capitalized on the two-man advantage, tying the game with a goal just seconds later.

The Icecats coaching staff was not happy with the call.

"It is the worst refereeing we are seeing," Icecat head coach Leo Golembiewski said. "I am really disappointed in it because it is just ridiculous that we go two men down with six minutes to go."

Icecats co-captain Marc Harris echoed those thoughts.

"I am not one to rip on the referees, but I don't know what they were doing tonight," he said.

Both teams had many chances to capitalize in Friday night's game, with countless saves by both the Icecats' goaltender sophomore Jason Morgan and ASU's Woog.

"Both goaltenders came up big when they had to," Golembiewski said. "We had a lot of chances, and they had some chances to. But the goaltenders kept both teams in the game."

Friday's tie seemed to leave a bitter taste in the mouth of the Icecats.

"It is frustrating to tie," Morgan said. "We wanted to win, we should have won Friday's game."

The discipline of both teams was a marked improvement from previous ASU-UA hockey match-ups. Although there was physical play, the fighting and dirty play was kept to a minimum. Both teams seem to focus in on the game and not let the hype affect their play.

"You know it is a big game, so you have a few more butterflies in your stomach" Dorn said.

The Icecats now have the break to rest and prepare for their match-up against the SUNY-Buffalo (3-10-1) on Jan. 7 and 8 at the Tucson Convention Center.