Throngs View Ice Dawgs' Sweep of Ole Miss

     In what would have been a perfect item for Sports Illustrated's old weekly feature, Sign of the Apocalypse, the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State hockey teams drew a whopping 4,600 persons to a two-game series Nov. 20 and 23 in the birthplace of Elvis. The site was Tupelo's BancorpSouth Arena.
     The Nov. 20 match-up was the rubber game of the first-ever on-ice battle for the Egg Cup, usually associated with the annual showdown between the schools' football teams. The Ice Dawgs and Ice Rebels had split the first two games in late October. This time, before some 2,500 mostly Mississippi State fans, many of them clanging a cowbell, Mississippi State ripped Ole Miss 10-0, with Chris Pinnelli stopping 41 shots for his first collegiate shutout and Will Walker notching his first hat trick as an Ice Dawg.
     Seventy-two hours later, on Monday evening, 2,100 were on hand as Mississippi State completed a sweep of the weekend series, going up 1-0 three minutes into the game on a Josh Miller backhander and prevailing 6-2. Walker strengthened his grip on the team scoring lead with a goal and two assists. Mississippi State's record is now 3-4-0; Ole Miss is 2-4-2.
     "The Ice Dawg nation proved to the entire SEC that they now have the biggest and most intense crowd support in the entire conference of SECHC hockey," boasted Patrick Swartz, secretary of the Mississippi State hockey club, in an e-mail message to HockeyYall.com.