For the first time in a decade, Oregon’s hockey team (10-11, 4-7 Pac-8) won’t participate in the conference’s postseason tournament. The Ducks were eliminated from playoff contention last weekend after dropping a pair of games to Washington (17-6, 12-0 Pac-8) in Seattle. @@http://www.oregonduckshockey.com/@@ @@http://www.pac8hockey.com/standings.htm@@
The Ducks miss out on postseason play because they will not finish in the top four in the conference, but head coach Rich Salahor says that’s simply unfair. @@http://www.oregonduckshockey.com/?page_id=15@@
“The thing that’s not fair about it is that both UCLA and USC had really weak schedules this year,” Salahor said. “We’ve played (Pac-8 leaders) UW four times, UCLA’s only played them once and USC’s only played them twice, so right there that’s a big difference in what’s winning and losing.”
The Ducks lost 4-1 on Friday night, as the Pac-8-leading Huskies clinched the I-5 Cup for the second consecutive year. Oregon entered the second period within striking distance, down 1-0, but Washington struck three times in a span of five minutes to all but secure the victory.
Saturday’s game was much more competitive, with the Ducks scoring twice in the third period to tie the game, but Washington responded with a power-play goal on an odd bounce.
Freshman netminder Danny Cockriel said that as a goalie, he has learned to not to beat himself up over fluke bounces. @@http://www.oregonduckshockey.com/?page_id=11@@
“I just gotta do my best to put it behind me and try to stay focused on the game and move to the next shot,” he said.
The Ducks continued to be haunted by the same penalty troubles that have affected them all season; however, Salahor said that, unlike previous games, the Ducks’ penalty troubles in Seattle were not a sign of lacking discipline.
“Refereeing was a little suspect,” he said.
Salahor said he talked about the officiating with a supervising referee who watched the game from the stands, though the discussion didn’t go as planned.
“I had a talk with that supervising referee and he had the nerve to tell me that we were an embarrassment because our guys were diving and embellishing penalties,” Salahor said. “And I’ve never heard anything so freaking crazy in all my life.”@@watch out; that referee might just cut your funding if you gossip too much@@
Senior Jeff Kraus was ejected from Saturday’s loss to the Huskies, and Salahor said that the ejection was unwarranted. He explained that Kraus was trying to talk to one of the officials at the end of the second period about the course the game had taken and the other referee threw Kraus out of the game.
“After a season like last year where I had a lot of penalties, I tried to tone things down and be polite,” Kraus said. “But it got to the point that they didn’t want to hear anything from us, just a simple complaint was enough to warrant a DQ and get me kicked out of the game.”
Kraus said that the benches had been warned about complaining to the officials, but as a team captain he thought he had the right to have a discussion with the officials at the end of a period, as he had in previous games.
“I said to the guy, ‘Your calls are starting to dictate the outcome of this game,’ and that was enough,” Kraus said. “No cussing, no swearing. It was just a bad group of officials.”
Heading into this weekend’s series with USC, Salahor said that the Ducks are focused on showing that they are the better team, even though USC will play in the Pac-8 tournament. @@http://www.oregonduckshockey.com/?page_id=6@@
“We’re going to go out there and kick USC’s butt,” Salahor said, “just to show everyone that we deserve to be in that tournament, not them.”