WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. — Despite the fact that Friday’s MIAC contest between Augsburg and St. John’s was technically an Auggies home game, you would have been forgiven for not expecting a rabid home ice advantage for the Auggies. After all, it’s not like Augsburg’s West Bank campus in Minneapolis is particularly close to White Bear Lake. At the very least, it’s not quite the same as hopping on the light rail and heading to, say, Hamline, for another conference game.
As it turns out, anyone who was worried about the atmosphere for Friday’s festivities at Hockey Day Minnesota were proven very wrong.
Both Augsburg and St. John’s brought a healthy contingent of fans – so much so that when Johnnies’ sophomore forward Jackson Sabo scored, he was able to launch himself in front of a large number of red-clad Johnnies who were more scantily-clad than one would expect for a below-zero windchill.
“We had a lot of people bussing down from Collegeville, so we really appreciated seeing them,” Sabo said. “They made it a lot of fun.”
On the other side of the bleachers, there were an equal number of rowdy Auggies. Many of them were spotted pregaming in the parking lot well before the game started. Most of them wore more clothes than the Johnnies fans, but when senior forward Gavin Holland scored his third goal of the game early in the third period, it was the Auggie student section who threw their maroon-colored hats on the ice.
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“That was our baseball team,” Holland said. “They’re at every game, and they’re our biggest fans. We rely on them pretty well to keep the energy going, so it was good to see them here today and make us feel a little bit at home.”
The Johnnies ended up winning 5-4 in overtime, so it’s unclear if the Auggies fans whose winter hats made it onto the ice got them back and just how long they had to suffer with cold ears for their fandom.
“It was my first outdoor game, so it was quite an experience, even despite how the game turned out,” Holland said. “You couldn't ask for much more, overtime outdoors. It was a great game."
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