B3

Bill Hunt

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Another scheduling nightmare for the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds: Battle of the Hill Part II - and can you still call it a "battle" when one of the teams has won 20 in a row? - is up against the grand old man himself, Santa Claus.

Yes, it's St. Matthew (Stairs) in the morning, St. Nick at night, both on the north side, and you wonder if folks are going to want to whisk the kids home, battle the traffic and bolt for a Battle in which one of the teams is unbeaten in 11 and the other is winless in five entering weekend play.

The good news for STU fans is that goaltender Charles Lavigne, the key if the Tommies hope to keep it close, is probable to play and ready to start stealing points for the Tommies again.

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Stairs, incidentally, will be on hand to drop the ceremonial first puck before the Battle of the Hill, the last official act in a couple of busy days at home for the former World Series champion.

More popular than Santa Claus?

We'll see, I guess.

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Of course, if you can't make it to the rink, the game will be on not one, but two local radio stations.

Depending on which version of the truth you like, the Daves, Ritchie and Kilfoil, will be on 97.9, CHSR-FM. Randy Corey gives it to you in Tommiespeak on 95.7 FM, The Wolf. Not sure why it's on two local radio stations when you could just drive up the hill to see it if you were that curious, but lo and behold, it is.

CHSR-FM will be Hockey Central this weekend, with the broadcast of the UNB game from Moncton tonight, and then a twinbill tomorrow - the St. Thomas women on the air from the LBR at 4 p.m. against the Universite de Moncton Aigles Bleues and The Battle of the Hill on the air at 6:30 p.m. from the Aitken Centre.

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The play-by-play voice for the St. Thomas Tommies women's team is STU grad Jon Pickett, who also does the Varsity Reds Game Day pregame show on CHSR-FM. The Tommies' game in Moncton a couple of weeks ago, a 3-2 shootout victory, was his first foray into play by play, and no less an authority than Dave Morell gave him good reviews on his performance.

"I thought it was going to be a little nerve-racking and I wasn't going to be able to get excited enough for it," Pickett said.

From what we hear, it wasn't a problem.

"They said they could almost hear me on the ice in Moncton," he said.

"For people who think women's hockey is boring, Jon can make it sound really exciting, let me tell you," said CHSR-FM station manager Tom Richmond.

It was under trying circumstances too: technical difficulties meant they had to rig up a system where Pickett and his broadcast partner, Preston Payne, had to put a Blackberry in the headset and broadcast through it - sort of the 2009 equivalent of Foster Hewitt broadcasting from a phone booth in Maple Leaf Gardens back in the day.

The shootout went seven deep before the Tommies prevailed.

"It was a blast," Pickett said. "I didn't realize how excited I would get until after the game. I was a little hoarse and a little tired."

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Saturday's game will be the final game of the first half for the women's Tommies, but Richmond says they plan about 10 games in total, giving the team a solid presence. Only a handful of teams in the CIS broadcast women's university hockey.

Richmond felt with the Olympics coming up, there would be considerable interest in women's hockey, "and there are a lot of good stories on that team," said Pickett.

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Rob Hennigar, recalled by the AHL's Albany River Rats on Wednesday, made a good first impression in his season debut. He had a pair of assists and an apparent goal that was called back in a 4-2 win over the Syracuse Crunch.

He had two shots on goal, was a plus-2 and was named the game's first star. Former teammate Darryl Boyce, in the early stages of his return from surgery on his hand, had a pair of assists for the Toronto Marlies. He was the game's second star.

Bill Hunt can be reached at 458-6443 or hunt.bill@dailygleaner.com. His column appears each Friday.