The Exeter Ice House

The NH Junior Freeze tangled with next door rivals Boston Jr. Blackhawks this past weekend for a home and home series in IJHL exhibition play. Saturday's game was played in Saugus during Hurricane Hanna's visit to the East Coast. The Freeze, plagued with injuries, had to do some line juggling and position shifts to stabilize their short bench and as a result found themselves on the downside of a 9-5 game. 

Considering that only two rostered defensemen were dressed, it could have been a lot worse. Jeremiah Dae, Dan Mackin, and Jason Aguiar were kept very busy defending the freeze net as they were outshout 54 to 40 in the game. Cody Blevins, Dave McCormick, Juho Kauppinen, and Oliver Jansson each talled 2 points and Bobby Meskell, DJ Tanner, Jarno Henriksson, and Kyle Reilly chipped in with singles. 

After a brutal drive home in the torrential downpours, the Freeze rested up, regrouped and took the ice on Sunday at home with some purpose. The Freeze returned the favor with a 9-1 convincing win over the Hawks. Cody Blevins, Bobby Meskell, Juho Kauppinen, Dave McCormick, Jarno Henriksson, and Oliver Jansson all lead the way with three points each. Kyle Reilly racked up two points and Chris Bauman notched his first point playing Juniors. Jason Aguiar stopped 31 of 30 shots in periods one and two and Alex Lambros closed the door turning aside all 13 shots he faced in the third. Check out the video highlights.

"This was a good win, the guys pulled together to get this one under their belt" commented head coach Dick Arpin. "We now have to get everyone healthy for next weekend's road trip to South Jersey" he added.

The Freeze head to Sewell, NJ to face the South Jersey Raptors for a weekend series on Saturday, Sep. 13, 2008. This will be the first time these two teams meet, the Raptors are coming off of a 3 game series with the Maine Moose where they took 2 of 3 games vs. the then undefeated Moose squad.