Women's College Hockey Represented at Tonight's Skate for LA Strong Charity Game

[Scott_TG]

There is a charity game (they're describing it as a singular game despite it looking like a tourney, probably mini-games) benefitting the LA wildfire victims tonight at Crypto.com Arena in LA that will be broadcast on ESPN2 at 6PM ET/3PM PT. The game will feature four teams made up of retired NHL'ers, some women's hockey players, entertainers, a couple members of the media and some LA first responders.

Representing women's college hockey (and USA Women's Hockey) are Cammi Granato (Providence) and Natalie Darwitz (Minnesota and Hamline).

Cammi will play on Team Black. Her teammates include Justin Bieber and Steve Carrell, and a mileu of former Kings including Jeff Carter and Jarret Stoll. She will also be joined by Fox Sports sideline reporter Jenny Taft, who played D1 Lacrosse at BU and is the daughter of 1976 Team USA men's captain John Taft. Does anyone know if she played hockey when she attended Edina?

Natalie's Team Red lacks the Hollywood star power of Team Black's Bieber and Carrell but is filled hockey luminaries like Ron Maclean, Jeremy Roenick, Alex Edler, Dion Phaneuf, Dany Heatley, Kevin Bieksa, Derek Armstong and Mike Donnelly. Actors include Terry Ryan (who was a first round draft pick for Montreal but only played 8 NHL games), Dean McDermott, Jay Harrington and Noah Lalonde.

Team Blue has one woman in Manon Rheaume who of course is a women's hockey trailblazer without having played women's college hockey (to my best recollection and research, she was very slightly before my time).

Team White doesn't have any women, but Tony Granato is playing for them so we could see Cammi and Tony face off.

Best of luck to everyone playing for a great cause! I'm personally hoping Natalie gets a chance to deke the Biebs out of his skates...

 

[Scott_TG]

And Team Red wins the event. Natalie Darwitz had the dagger goal sniping on the power play.

She didn't get a ton of great shooting chances in both games as there were a lot of NHL defensemen playing and she couldn't get space. But she was something of a catalyst in the final round against a stacked Team Blue. She almost had a breakaway but PK Subban blatantly (though without malice) hooked her to prevent it. She was part of the game winning goal as she was on a 2 on 1 with Mike Donnelly who posessed the puck. He used Natalie by doing a really well timed fake pass as she was overtaking the defender and the defender bit giving him enough space to snipe it home.

In the semifinal she had some good passing plays including a breakout to Ron Maclean who himself passed it to a third forward for a breakaway that got saved.

Darwitz also caused Snoop Dogg to show his @$$ on live mic. He was the celebrity coach for Team Black who they played in the semis. All the celebrity coaches including Snoop wore live mics to interact with the commentators.

Team team was already up big. Darwitz was set up in front of the opposing goalie's left post having set up the whole shift with a beautiful drop pass after making zone entry with the puck. Given her position her linemates were trying to find her with a pass. Snoop, already upset about being down 3-0 reacted to the multiple pass attempts to Darwitz by saying "now they're trying to give it to the girl so she can score on us too". Maybe he was joking but he sounded pretty bitter and his own "girl" on his team Cammi Granato was pretty much absent so he comes across pretty misogynist. But maybe Cammi didn't feel up to many shifts...

I've not been Darwitz's biggest fan after how she handled the postgame press conference after Hamline team lost the DIII natty to my alma mater, but she's a Hall of Fame athlete who repped her country at the highest level and she should not have been disrespected like that. She belonged on that ice as much as any of the retired players did.

 

[Lindsay]

And Team Red wins the event. Natalie Darwitz had the dagger goal sniping on the power play.

She didn't get a ton of great shooting chances in both games as there were a lot of NHL defensemen playing and she couldn't get space. But she was something of a catalyst in the final round against a stacked Team Blue. She almost had a breakaway but PK Subban blatantly (though without malice) hooked her to prevent it. She was part of the game winning goal as she was on a 2 on 1 with Mike Donnelly who posessed the puck. He used Natalie by doing a really well timed fake pass as she was overtaking the defender and the defender bit giving him enough space to snipe it home.

In the semifinal she had some good passing plays including a breakout to Ron Maclean who himself passed it to a third forward for a breakaway that got saved.

Darwitz also caused Snoop Dogg to show his @$$ on live mic. He was the celebrity coach for Team Black who they played in the semis. All the celebrity coaches including Snoop wore live mics to interact with the commentators.

Team team was already up big. Darwitz was set up in front of the opposing goalie's left post having set up the whole shift with a beautiful drop pass after making zone entry with the puck. Given her position her linemates were trying to find her with a pass. Snoop, already upset about being down 3-0 reacted to the multiple pass attempts to Darwitz by saying "now they're trying to give it to the girl so she can score on us too". Maybe he was joking but he sounded pretty bitter and his own "girl" on his team Cammi Granato was pretty much absent so he comes across pretty misogynist. But maybe Cammi didn't feel up to many shifts...

I've not been Darwitz's biggest fan after how she handled the postgame press conference after Hamline team lost the DIII natty to my alma mater, but she's a Hall of Fame athlete who repped her country at the highest level and she should not have been disrespected like that. She belonged on that ice as much as any of the retired players did.

What a great recap. This sounds like quite the hockey game. The only thing that could have made this better is if Martha Stewart was there, seeing as she’s pals with Snoop. And also if snoop didn’t say dumb things.