Jinxed!

I wrote about it on Thursday, and it has happened again.

Remember back to last December, when the Icers took the opener of the home-and-home with a 3-2 shootout win at the Greenberg, before being handed a 6-4 loss at the Ice Line in West Chester.

The main rink at the Ice Line has not been a fun spot for the Icers over the years, going back to Rhode Island's national championship win in 2006. It's long past time to end the curse!

Unfortunately, it didn't happen this weekend as Penn State split the home-and-home series with the West Chester Golden Rams.

The weekend got off to a good start with a 7-1 victory at the Greenberg Ice Pavilion. It was a game that Head Coach Scott Balboni praised as a full 60-minute effort by the team.

Solid goaltending by Ted Hume, good special teams play and four strong lines helped the Icers dominate at home. However, Saturday night would be a different story.

The Icers came out flat, trailed 1-0 after 20 minutes and were down by 2 midway through the 2nd period. Domenic Morrone narrowed the margin to 2-1 with his 6th goal of the season in the middle frame before Tim O'Brien's 3rd of the season tied it up at 3:35 of the 3rd.

Ryan Paradis gave the Icers their first lead at 15:38, but just 30 seconds later Steve Meade tied it up as Penn State ran around in their own end, winding up with Meade banking the puck into the net off the leg of Ted Hume.

The teams couldn't decide it through overtime, with no last second heroics a week after Steve Thurston scored with 1 second left in OT at Ohio, so it was on to the shootout.

Both teams counted twice in the first four rounds, but Eric Steinour missed before Ted Gilbert won it for the Golden Rams -- final score West Chester 4 Penn State 3.

West Chester goalie Matt Murnane was the first star one night after getting yanked in the Icers win. The freshman netminder stopped 43 of 46 shots through the overtime, while Ted Hume was 23 of 26.

Scott Balboni blamed the loss on a lack of effort and a lack of preparedness by the coaches, but the bottom line is -- the curse of the Ice Line continues to haunt the Icers.

Despite the loss, it was fun having my good friend Steve Zodtner in the booth. Barb and I were supposed to play golf with Steve and Nina. Instead, we enjoyed their hospitality watching college football before heading to the arena.