Ice Hockey rocks Kenyon

With unlicensed referees and a player with a broken back, the ice hockey team, otherwise known as OC Plague, duked it out with Kenyon College for a 7-5 win.

The team didn't pay one referee last year and has since been blacklisted, making it hard to find refs. As a result, any injuries would have to be taken up by Oberlin's skating rink, and the refs came down on the teams for excessive physical play in the first period.

"The game started out very sloppy," coach senior Fernando Bretos said. "The referee told us to calm down. People were going for the licks instead of the puck. It was our first game and guys were just itching to hit people."

It was in this period that junior Ted Carleton flew hard into the boards and snapped two vertebrae in his back. Not thinking much of it, Carleton played the rest of the game. "After the game he was complaining of a sore back," Bretos said. "He went to the hospital and it turned out that he had broken two of his vertebrae."

The second and third periods were much tamer, though they exhibited the considerable talents of the Plague. "We cleaned up a lot in the second period," Bretos said. "We had much better puck control." The remaining two periods were also both five minutes shorter, as a result of the difficulty in enlisting refs to call the game.

Defensively the team played fairly well. "We had good defense," Bretos said. "[Senior] Jessica Pittman came in during the second period and basically won the game for us."

Offensively the team was on fire, with two goals apiece from sophomore Ben Bernard and junior Greg Scranton.

The team's game this weekend against Cincinnati University was canceled due to C. U's player shortage, so the team will spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday practicing fundamentals. "That way the guys can get some aggression out," Bretos said.

The next game will be on Nov. 21 against Case Western Reserve University. "They're not too tough," Bretos said. "But, on the other hand, club team players come and go and teams that suck one year could end up being really good the next."

Innovative technique: An Oberlin 1ce hockey player goes all out on defense. (photo by Laren Rusin)