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Brass students came out in full force to support assistant professor Phillip Ostrander of the music department in the charity hockey match Saturday afternoon in Hobbs Ice Arena. The women's hockey team played a team made up of faculty and staff, including Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich, to raise money for the L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library campaign.

Women's hockey takes on 'Profs'

Varsity team routs faculty

By: McLean Bennett

Posted: 10/15/07

Lacing up a pair of ice skates and putting on shoulder pads was never part of Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich's job description.

But that's exactly what he and 12 other university faculty and staff members did Saturday when they participated in the first-ever match between the UW-Eau Claire women's hockey team and the "Hockey Profs."

"It's fun to play with some of the faculty and staff and get out and highlight the girls' program," Levin-Stankevich said after the game. "I think this demonstrates the close relationship faculty and students have."

Women's hockey coach Mike Collins said the game was intended to give his team an opportunity to simply have some fun and get some game experience before the start of the 2007-2008 season.

"It was nothing more than just some fun," Collins said after the game. "Everybody had a good time. We didn't approach it with anything more than just to have some fun and get a little skate in."

Saturday's match was primarily the brainchild of geography professor Paul Kaldjian, who said he and other faculty members began discussing the prospect of playing against the hockey team about four or five years ago.

Prior to this year, there was never enough interest among the faculty and staff at the university to allow for such a game, and Kaldjian said this year's team of 13 was still smaller than he would have liked.

"What happened this year is we had enough faculty and staff that play," he said. "We had really only two lines, so we still don't really have enough players."

The women scored early and often Saturday en route to a 7-2 win over the faculty. Freshman Christine Dickinson, who finished the game with a hat trick, scored within the first two minutes of play to give the Blugolds an early 1-0 lead.

Freshman Katie Lawler complemented Dickinson's three goals with two of her own, scoring a goal in each of the first two periods. Freshman Kelli Johnson and sophomore Nicole Heininger each scored one goal in the second period to round out the Blugolds' scoring lineup.

Lawler put the puck in the net a third time within the last 10 seconds of play and would have recorded a hat trick, but for reasons not known to Collins, the score was not counted by the referees and was not recorded in the team's final score.

The Profs didn't go down without a fight against the varsity squad. Men's hockey coach Matt Loen, playing for the faculty team, lifted the puck into the top of the net early in the first period to tie the score at 1-1.

Later in the third period, the Profs, down 7-1 at that point, pulled their goalkeeper and put in an extra offensive player. With the added strength on offense, Loen put in another goal for the Profs to put the score at 7-2, but the team was unable to dig itself out of the deficit.

Despite the loss, Kaldjian said the event was a big success for the faculty.

"I think we did great," he said. "It's sort of team-building among colleagues. We're getting to know people across different departments that we wouldn't have otherwise known."

Aside from pitting faculty against students, Saturday's match served as a charity event aimed at raising money to help expand and remodel the L.E. Philips Memorial Public Library, 400 Eau Claire St. Money was raised through entrance fees and an on-site silent auction.

Players on the women's team agreed that the game was a fun and unique event, but said the game brought to light some of their weaknesses.

"We need to communicate a lot more. We need to make crisper passes," junior Lauren Havard said. "Coach made the team on Wednesday this week, so as a team we've really only been practicing for three days."

But ask Levin-Stankevich what he thinks of the women's team and he'll give only praise.

"They looked smooth," he said. "They got some really good skaters; a couple of their freshmen are really fast - I know it because they went right around me."