Otters fall, Cards are Central Lakes champs!

Photo by Tom Obert


















Jubilant Cardinals celebrated conference victory. Seniors played in their last regular season game last night.

By Tom Obert
Cub Reporter, Die-hard Fan
Last night, on the last game of the regular season and senior night, the Alexandria high school girls hockey team defeated the Fergus Falls Otters (as some of you from the class of '65 may recall, our homecoming slogan that year was "Fergus Otter Fall" - we were an incredibly witty class!) by the score of 4 - 1, thereby winning for the first time ever, the championship of the Central Lakes Conference.

Never mind those earlier erroneous reports
Previous reports of this championship turned out to be erroneous as the cub reporter was misled by the voice of the Cardinals, Dave Harris, who would have never lived it down if the Cards had not prevailed tonight. As it turned out, the Cards lost their only conference game earlier in the week to River Lakes when several Cardinal players were battling illnesses, and St. Cloud Tech won its last two games - so the Cards had to win tonight to win the championship. Anyway, the cub reporter is pulling double duty tonight - reporting for both the class of '65 blogsite and for KXRA, at the request of Patty [Bratton] Wicken, who will be on the air at 6:00 am tomorrow.

Tears
Patty was at the game tonight as the announcer for senior night - in a darkened arena, each senior skated one at a time to a center ice spotlight where Patty read a hockey bio of each player written by the player's parents. Needless to say, when the ceremony was completed, there was not a dry eye on the team.

Patty sat with us for the first period and noted the Cardinals unusually flat performance in that period was probably the result of emotions spent during the ceremony. The first period ended 0 - 0, with Fergus probably having the better of the play.
The second period started much the same way as the first and the local fans were starting to get concerned. Here's where the cub reporter's aging memory proves to be a problem. As I recall, about halfway through the period, senior forward Michaela Carlson scored our first goal on a power play. That seemed to open the flood gates because we scored our next three goals in short order to take a 4 - 0 lead - one of the goals was by the senior Toft twins, Andrea and Sara, one had the goal, the other the assist, but which one had which I don't recall; superstar sophomore Abby Williams scored one of the goals on an end-to-end run; and, unfortunately, I can't remember who got the other goal.

Only score a giveaway
Fergus scored late in the period on a giveaway by our guys deep in our own end. The 4 - 1 score remained unchanged through the final period - at which time the cub reporter bolted down to the ice, camera in hand, to take the attached photos. See if you can find the Toft twins - they're identical.

Filling in the gaps: Sara Toft had 2 goals in the game; Abby, all 5-feet tall of her, wears pinks laces in her skates because she thinks it makes her look tough; my sources tell me Kat Del Zoppo has a lime green dress for Mid-Winter; the same source advised that in the first year of Alex girls hockey (only 7 or 8 years ago?), they scored one goal, ONE, in the ENTIRE SEASON - he said they were so shocked when it happened, they didn't know what to do or how to celebrate it - that's what's been so fun about being in the ground floor of a new sport, in just three years as a fan, there has been not only tremendous improvement by our team but also by the teams they're playing.

Dave Harris said that he and Wicken had talked about the support of certain "diehard fans" on KXRA the previous morning. Apparently, that airtime and previous promotional efforts by the cub reporter were enough to attract a pretty good crowd for tonight's game. We hope it continues into the sectional tournament which begins next week - but first, we have a scrimmage this Saturday against New Ulm, the hometown of fellow diehard fan, Bob Annen, so I guess we'll be there, camera and notepad in hand.