Ice Dawgs Miss Chances 

Hockey is a game of inches. And for the Glasgow girls' U19 Ice Dawgs this weekend, it was a game of seconds.

The Ice Dawgs traveled to Bozeman on Nov. 30, and played four games over the weekend against Missoula on Friday, Flathead and Utah on Saturday and Bozeman on Sunday. The girls lost three games and tied another. But they were one second away from turning that tie into a win against Flathead as they led Flathead 2-1 with less than a minute to go before the Flames pulled their goalie and scored with one second to go in the game to tie it 2-2.

"The girls were pretty disappointed that they let the tying goal in," said Head Coach JR Rasmussan.

The win would have been the first of the girls' season as they dropped to 0-5-1 through their first six games. However, they also know it's a long season.

"We know we're not here for the sprint, we're here for the long haul. We'll get another shot at them," said Rasmussan. "The girls played great all weekend. We were just outmanned. We had seven healthy skaters and three that were banged up. We just ran out of gas most of the time."

The girls have been dealing with injuries through most of the beginning of the season.

But the signs of improvement are there.

"The girls showed a lot of good hockey sense as far as anticipating passes and looking for where they need to pass the puck," said Rasmussan. "They played the ice real well."

That hockey sense will be a big asset once they get all their girls healthy and at full strength.

"All we need to do is get our conditioning up and our health back, and we'll be fine," said Rasmussan.

Both health and conditioning can only be addressed with time and experience on the ice. In the meantime though, Rasmussan has targeted a few areas for development.

"We need some work on getting [our offense] set up and shooting the puck where it needs to be shot," he said. "Putting the puck in the net is the biggest thing."

The girls had several chances over the weekend to score and keep up with their opponents but something little would go wrong and they wouldn't take advantage of their chances.

The Friday game was a bit of a bad game for the Ice Dawgs as they lost to Missoula 6-1. Sadie Sukut scored Glasgow's lone goal with an assist from Makenzie Wesen.

Their next game was the 2-2 tie against Flathead. Debra Griebel and Josey Uphaus scored the goals for Glasgow with Wesen grabbing another assist.

The Dawgs had several chances to put that game away, though, as they outshot the Flames 50-10.

In the night cap on Saturday, the Ice Dawgs lost to the Utah Grizzlies 5-0 but were only outshot 23-15. The story was the same on Sunday in their final game as they lost 3-0 but were only outshot 22-13 by Bozeman. Those chances need to be converted for the Dawgs to get where they expect to be by season's end.

Their next chance will come on Sunday at 11 a.m. as they host Crosby, N.D. Their counterparts, the boys' high school Ice Dawgs, will travel to Havre this weekend to play in a jamboree for their first contests of the season.