Pink the Rink, Red Lights Flashing: Selects and Cudas Split a Texas Barn-Burner

Children's Health StarCenter, Mansfield, TX · Oct 24–25

Now THAT is how you open a home season, folks. Lights down, spotlights spinning, the Mansfield Barracudas skating out in pink trim for Pink the Rink. And the Israel Selects, a long way from home, came to spoil the party. Twenty-three goals over two nights. Twenty-three! Somebody check on the goal judges.

Saturday — Selects 5, Barracudas 3. The Cudas had this one. Up 3–2 heading deep into the third, the building buzzing, home opener in the bag. Then the Selects did what good teams do. They put their heads down and went to work, three straight goals, no answer, and walked out with a 5–3 win. That's not luck. That's sixty minutes of hockey, and the visitors played all sixty.

Sunday — Barracudas 7, Selects 6. You want a matinee? Here's your matinee. Thirteen goals at 2:30 in the afternoon, and the Cudas built enough of a cushion that they needed every inch of it. The Selects came roaring back with four goals in the third. Four! And they pushed it right to the final horn before Mansfield could finally exhale with a 7–6 win and a weekend split.

So it's one apiece. The Selects open their fourth season in North America with eleven goals in two games. The Cudas get their home-opener win in front of their own people on a night that meant something more than hockey. That's the way it ought to be.

Stats are pending the official score sheets. Goals, assists and penalties will be added as soon as they hit the league office.

— From the Office of the MHL