By David F. Pendrys

Bedford, MA- The Boston Blades of the CWHL took on the New England Eagles Saturday night in a charity event to raise funds for the Skate for the 22 Foundation. The foundation exists to lower the number of veteran suicides, and the hockey team is made up of veterans and active duty personnel.

The Blades picked up a 9-4 win in what was a three 17 minute period game of action.

Goal scorers included Kristina Brown, Kate Leary twice, Dakota Woodworth, Margaret Zimmer, Kayla Tutino, and Meghan Myers. (Note two: goals were unclear as to who scored at time of this posting.)

“It’s exciting this year, it’s going to be good.” Blades Captain Tara Watchorn said pontificating on the team’s prospects. “There’s so many colleges in the area, and Boston’s such a great city with a good hockey culture and I think that there’s a lot of girls that want to play and we’re seeing the benefits of that.”

The Blades put a ton of pressure on their opponents in the offensive zone sending numerous efforts into the Eagles end. Newcomers like first round draft pick Tutino and her former BU teammate Woodworth had numerous opportunities.

“They’re very strong forwards a lot of speed, and they’re strong on their sticks so they made some great passes today,” Kayla Tutino said of her line mates. Though that could have been applied to the entire forward corps it seemed.

“Obviously, we’ll have game where we don’t get as many chances. When you do get them try to make the best of them. I think that we did a good job capitalizing on some of our opportunities. Obviously we have stuff to work on when we go back to practice.” fellow forward Kate Leary said.

Watchorn from the point and Blades Assistant Captain Brown for the forward position set up numerous attempts on the night which to be expected. Watchorn and Brown were part of the group of veterans from last season and beyond welcoming in a large group of rookies to the fold.

For the first time in a long time Genevieve Lacasse was not the primary starter in goal for the Blades as she is now in Calgary. Lauren Dahm started the game in goal for the Blades and split time with Shelley Payne. Dahm gave up 3 goals and Payne 1.

“Obviously there’s no one like a Genevieve Lacasse But the nice thing is we got some more strength on front and on our back end for the defense. Our goaltenders are going to come in and I have real confidence that they’re going to stop that first shot for us, and it’s our job to get in there and help them out.” Watchorn said.

Noticed Plays. (Note I did not possess an Eagles roster so just compiled this short list for the Blades. It is not exhaustive.)

• Woodworth kept the puck in the zone which resulted in a shot. She was among many forwards that were incredibly active on the forecheck.
• Brown stole the biscuit in the zone which led to a teammate’s shot, and also kept it in the zone for another opportunity. This is likely one of very many times this happened.
• Watchorn poked the puck out of the goal mouth preventing the Eagles from getting an easy shot.
• Chelsey Goldberg disrupted two Eagles attempts to set up.
• Cassandra Opela blocked a shot and had at least two clears on the penalty kill.
• Sadie St. Germain clear had a clear on the PK from a central area of the goal and her sister Clara St. Germain cleared it from the goal mouth.
• Wendy Abramenko intercepted the puck in zone which led to shot and cleared it from the open side of the net during an Eagles attack in the Blades zone.

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