What if the Rocket had used a curved stick? How many goals would he have scored? How many goalies’ heads would he have taken off?
What if Bobby had even one good knee, much less two? Would there be any point in arguing about who was the best of them all really was?
If you were picking your team for a game of shinney, who would you take first? Super Mario or the Great One? Sid or Ovi? Angela (you have a couple of those to choose from) or Cammi?
Of course, these are arguments that can always be debated, but never settled. That’s part of the fun of being a hockey fan. It comes with the DNA and the Hockey Bill of Rights.
Which brings us to the query offered by Bob of Ohio, who is one of the most rabid supporters of women’s hockey you’ll ever find. Bob became an uber fan of the sport about a decade ago, when he lived within a slap shot of UNH and started watching the Wildcats at the Whit for five bucks a pop.
“From then on, I was hooked,” he says.
So his perspective is very well informed when it comes to the accomplishments of Mercyhurst’s Meghan Agosta, who recently became the NCAA’s career scoring leader.
And he ponders “…not to dispute her abilities as a hockey superstar in the least,” Bob writes, “I have to wonder that had she had played for another school in a competitive conference such as WCHA, for example, where the majority of the schedule is against serious competition, do you think she would have been able to chalk up her NCAA record-breaking achievements? I think her being MVP for Women’s Hockey in the 2010 Olympics is a valid and unbiased testament of her abilities…so my comments are not intended to cast aspersions otherwise.”
A valid, aspersion-free question indeed, and of course, one that can never be truly answered, but certainly debated.
On the one hand, you have Mercyhurst’s unchallenged status as the behemoth of the five-team College Hockey America, the 800-pound gorilla in the middle of a tiny rink. At least in the scheme of women’s hockey.
Is Agosta’s knack for scoring and setting up goals at record levels merely an offshoot of that?
Or maybe, just maybe, Agosta, who won Gold with Canada in the Vancouver Olympics, would be just as prolific if she was toiling in any of the three other leagues.
What if she was a Badger? A Terrier? A Big Red or a Crimson? Lord knows that she’d still be playing in leagues that have upper tier and lower tier teams. Plenty of chances to fatten up the point totals, there.
And while we’re at it, let’s see how Agosta did this year against upper-level teams. In two games at St. Lawrence, she racked up seven points (3 grapes, 4 apples). And against top-ranked Wisconsin, Agosta registered a goal and an assist in a 7-4 Lakers loss. Now if she was trying to pick the corners against Minnesota’s Noora Raty four or five nights a year? Well, who knows.
However, three things in this debate are darned certainties.
For one, Agosta could skate on the top line of any women’s team, any day, in any era. For two, she didn’t choose to become a Laker five years ago so that she could someday set the scoring record.
For three, Agosta would no doubt trade that record and all those points (294 and counting) for a Women’s Frozen Four championship ring, especially with Mercyhurst serving as host for the event.
We can agree on all of those points.
Now, Bob, what do you think.
Checking or no checking?
