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Grand Forks, ND – All good things must come to an end.
Last night, I came home after the men’s game between UND and BSU and told my wife that I couldn’t miss today’s game between the UND women and Minnesota State Mavericks.
The reason I wanted to go to the game today – this was going to be a historic event – this was going to be an end of an era, sort of.
It was the last chance for me and 1259 in attendance to watch Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux play hockey at Ralph Engelstad Arena, ever, barring an unforeseen meltdown and the UND hockey team would send their fans home with something to cheer about.
That meltdown did not happen, as the UND women ran around and through the Minnesota State Mavericks out of the Ralph Engelstad Arena 8-1.
During their time in the green and white the Lamoureux twins have racked up a lot of goals and gave goalies around the WCHA fits.
The twins paced UND with 10 points among them, leaving the sister tandem ranked 1-2 all-time in the WCHA for points Jocelyne Lamoureux (125g-158a—284pts) and Monique Lamoureux (112g-152a—264Pts). Today, with her (2g-4a—6pts) Monique also passed former Wisconsin Badgers forward Hillary Knight (143g-119a—262pts). That’s no small accomplishment since Monique is a defenseman and Hillary Knight is a forward.
If you haven’t watched them play, the twins are worth the price of admission. They’re electric, dynamic and they’re world class players that are part of an exciting line-up that comes to work every day and gives their best effort.
Like yesterday, the UND women came out with a bit of an edge and it appeared as if they had something to prove and pushed the lead to 5-1 after one period of hockey outshooting the Minnesota State Mavericks 23-10.
And of course, UND chased Mavericks goalie Erin Krichiver at the 15:40 mark of the first period, after putting four goals past her, Deanielle Butters replaced her in the Maverick net and she received roughly the same treatment from a UND hockey team as well, as she let in four goals as well.
After the game, Jocelyne Lamoureux came out to the postgame press conference still wearing her game jersey, and you could tell that the senior forward was taken back by the moment.
“It’s pretty sad you know,” Jocelyne said. “We took the last lap as seniors together. It’s sad that it’s over, we found our parents in the crowd, gave them a wave. It’s hard to believe that it’s over, here, at the Ralph. I haven’t taken my white jersey off yet, we’re going blacks (jerseys) the rest of the way, were going to be away for the rest of the season. Hopefully we can make some good things happen, but right now we’re going to take it all in and appreciate everything that I got here, while I’ve got it.”
Jocelyne’s sister Monique came to the press conference after and she was also affected by the moment as well.
“You can probably see that I was crying 10 minutes ago,” Monique said. “I am usually the first one out of the locker room. There were three or four of us that just sat there in our equipment for a little bit. It’s sad that it’s over here, but hopefully we have five more games left [NCAA Playoffs].”
The irony is, UND is known for taking penalties and at times playing undisciplined hockey and having a parade to the penalty box. Today, UND had one minor penalty called against them, after the game, UND head coach Brian Idalski was asked if he ever thought that he would see his team only get called for one minor penalty.
“No, honestly, what do we average 14 minutes a game,” Idalski said. “You talk about Jocelyn and Monique and I think they get a bad rap, but they’ve been great and very disciplined here down the stretch and penalty free. A solid effort, that discipline goes a long way.
UND will now travel to the Minneapolis to play in the Final Face-Off next weekend at Ridder Arena. With the win, UND remains in the eighth position of the pairwise ranking of the pairwise rankings
