Tradition was honored this year at the UAF Patty Center Ice Arena in the annual Blue-Gold Game between one half of the UAF Nanook Hockey team and the other. In this year's game, the Blue squad, coached by Danny Martin of the News-Miner was defeated by the Gold squad, coached by KTVF Channel 11's Andy Lynch.

The two 'teams' were mostly evenly matched through the first nine minutes of play, with Gold's Curtis Fraser scoring on an assist by Kyle Greentree and Nathan Fornataro at the 9:06 mark. This was the only goal in the period otherwise punctuated by a number of icing calls and a dropped stick. Gold continued to shoot well, but Blue's goalie Wylie Rogers kept them at bay, making several one-handed grabs.

Brandon Gawryletz, of the Blue team, had the dubious privilege of making the first penalty of the season, at 17:30, with one and a half minutes for tripping. This was the only penalty in the game for either side.

Gold dominated the second half.  At the 6:22 mark, Donald Johnson scored on an assist by Aaron Lee, adding a little insurance to Gold's lead. This forced Blue coach Danny Martin to get a little too creative. He pulled his goalie with about two minutes left in the game. Unfortunately for Blue, this allowed a pair of open-net goals, one by Curtis Fraser, assisted by Donald Johnson and Nathan Fornataro, and a second unassisted goal by Jordan Emmerson, giving Gold a solid four to zero lead at the end of the game.

At halftime, after the Zamboni had made its rounds, the players fiercely battled out with several competitions of skill: the Fastest Skater (1-on-1 races around the ice), the Hardest Shot (shots on goal clocked by a RADAR gun), and a Shoot-Out for the goalies.

Jordan Hendry was crowned fastest, after defeating Scott Vockeroth and T.J. Pettersson in the first two rounds, and Jason Grinevitch in a close final race.

The winner of the Hardest Shot competition was Fairbanksan Adam Powell, whose fastest of three shots clocked in at 100mph. Kelly Czuy was second, at 98 mph, Kyle Greentree was third at 97 mph, and Corbin Schmidt shot 96 mph.

The final skills test pit the team's finest shooters against the two goalies, Keith Bartusch and Wylie Rogers. Four of the five shooters on the Blue team, Ryan Muspratt, Troy Newton, Cramer Hickey, and Jared Sylvestre managed to score on Bartusch, with Sylvestre spinning around and shooting backwards to the delight of the near-capacity crowd. The Gold shooters were not as productive, with only Darcy Campbell and Nathan Fornataro getting past Rogers.

The Nanooks begin their regular season with a non-conference game at 7 pm on Friday, Oct. 8, against the Griffins of Grant MacEwan College at the Carlson Center. The first CCHA conference game is Oct. 15, at Western Michigan University. For more information about scheduling or the team in general, see www.gonanooks.com.

Ryan McLeod (20) and Nathan Fornataro (25) chase the puck during the Blue and Gold intersquad scrimmage Saturday Oct. 2 at the Patty Center.

photo by Dave Lokken/Sun Star

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