Some sweetheart deal for Ruth. . .

Duty calls on V Day
By Tom Obert
Cub Reporter
As some of you may realize, next Tuesday is considered to be some sort of celebration of boy/girl relationships. Worse, for the cub reporter it is also his 5th wedding anniversary - and wedding anniversaries in Alexandria have always meant a fine dining experience at the corner table in the library of Old Broadway.

This year, however, a whole bunch of girls have thrown a monkey wrench into the works.

This afternoon, the Alex girls hockey team began defense of its 2-year reign as champions of section 2, hopefully enroute to its third straight state tournament appearance. After a slow start, the No. 1 seeded Cards scored 3 goals late in the second period to take a 4 - 0 lead over Litchfield -Dassel -Cokato into the third period. The final period was a continuation of their fine play at the end of the second, and they finished the game with a 7 - 0 victory.

Once again, our Bud Bruzek's Brittney had two goals (she's been on quite a roll lately), Abby Williams had yet another short-handed goal as she went end-to-end, Ashley Holmes had two goals, including a blast of a slap shot from the blue line (Abby calls Ashley their "power forward"), Andrea Toft had a goal, the 7th goal was scored by Ahna Olson, back from her knee injury in the Bemidji game. Sophomore goalie Danielle Justice "pitched" the shutout.

So the Cards now move on to the section semi-finals which will be played . . . next Tuesday, of course.

Keeping in mind my responsibilities as a cub reporter, Ruthie will now have the honor of receiving an all-expenses paid anniversary trip to St. Cloud for a high school girls hockey game. That must put her in some sort of elite minority, n'est-ce pas?
p.s. Although they will not be the next opponent, cub reporter-in-training, Bob Annen, was extremely upset when he discovered that the high school league put Totino-Grace in our section this year - believing it's just another effort to have only metro-area schools in the state tournament. Just another obstacle for our Cards to overcome - see everybody in two weeks at the "X"?

Addendum on Brittney Bruzek:
Brittney has become one of our favorite players this year. That shouldn't embarrass her father, Bud, because we've already told him so. She has had a terrific senior year and is a perfect complement to her two more notorious sophomore linemates, Abby Williams and Kathryn Del Zoppo, who have both played in state all-star games since they were 8th graders.
Brittney has a great feel for the game, always seems to be in the right place at the right time, is probably the team's best passer, and is her line's mucker (the one who does the dirty work) - she is always working in the corners and along the boards, usually trying to fend off two opposition players, and all the while Abby stands about 3 feet away from the scrum waiting for Brittney to get the puck out to her (we say she's like a cat waiting for a mouse to come out) so she can take off at about a hundred miles an hour.