Oct. 23, 2004

Box Score

DENVER - In front of a sellout crowd of 6,087 fans, the University of Denver hockey team raised its sixth national championship banner and scored six unanswered goals in a 6-1 win over St. Cloud State Saturday night in Magness Arena. Senior Jeff Drummond (Leduc, Alberta) scored twice for the 13th-ranked Pioneers, who won their third consecutive game to improve to 3-2 overall, 2-0 in the WCHA. St. Cloud State drops to 2-3-1, 0-2-0.

The Pioneers honored the 2004 national championship team in a pregame ceremony in which members of the other five title-winning teams were on hand for the festivities. The University of Denver honored NCAA Championship teams from 1958, 1960, 1961, 1968, 1969, and the newest member of the group, the 2004 team that won a memorable championship last April with a 2-1 win over Maine.

"After that emotional pregame ceremony, I was hoping we would carry that energy over to the ice and we did that," head coach George Gwozdecky said. "With so many distractions this weekend I was concerned with how we would respond but I think we responded well and played great."

Denver scored its first goal of the season in the first period and jumped out to a 3-0 first period advantage and never looked back. Drummond got it started with his first goal of the season, a power play goal off a beautiful pass from teammate Gabe Gauthier (Buena Park, Calif.) that inched over the line past Husky goaltender Tim Boron. It didn't take long for the Pioneers to score again, as sophomore Ryan Helgason (Woodbury, Minn.) put home a rebound off a shot from Brock McMorris (Cherry Hills, Colo.) that gave the Pioneers a 2-0 lead. Drummond scored again less than five minutes later that gave the Pioneers a commanding 3-0 lead and its only first period lead of the season.

Senior Jon Foster (Suffern, N.Y) scored his team-leading sixth goal of the season to lead off the scoring in the second period and was followed by a tally from Ryan Dingle (Steamboat Springs, Colo.) and J.D. Corbin (Littleton, Colo.) that gave the Pioneers a 6-0 lead.

Denver goaltender Peter Mannino (Farmington Hills, Mich.) got his first career victory with 25 saves and he gave up just one goal as St. Cloud State scored its lone goal on an even strength tally from Justin Fletcher early in the third period.

Denver is next in action on Friday, Oct. 29 when it travels to take on sixth-ranked Wisconsin at 6 p.m.