Wisconsin football fans will have to wait until September to get their first glimpses of the Badgers in action. Due to the ongoing renovation of Camp Randall Stadium, the team will not hold its annual spring game in 2004.
“The construction in the south end zone has extended onto the playing surface and prevents us from having a full field to play on, but I know we all are going to love the finished product in the fall,” head coach Barry Alvarez said.
Renovations of the south end zone seating have left the field without goal posts or an end zone on the Field House side of the stadium.
While they will not be playing a spring game, the Badgers will still hold 15 spring practices. The spring practices are currently scheduled to run from March 4 through April 10.
Wisconsin begins the 2004 schedule with back-to-back home games against Central Florida and UNLV in the new-look Camp Randall.
Tucker listed as day-to-day:
UW sophomore forward Alando Tucker’s return to action has received no official timetable as of Friday, according to team officials.
Tucker was sidelined with a broken right foot for Wisconsin’s first five games of the season. He received his first game action of the year in the Badgers’ 73-57 victory over UW-Green Bay Dec. 10 and started in UW’s matchups with Marquette and Ohio. Tucker re-injured the same foot in the Ohio game, and he has sat out each of Wisconsin’s past five games.
In the four games he has played this season, Tucker has averaged 14.0 points and 4.5 rebounds while shooting .576 (19-33) from the field.
As a true freshman in 2002-2003, he set a UW record for offensive rebounds (86) and was an honorable mention All-Big Ten selection by the media.
He is still eligible to sit out the season as a medical redshirt, but neither he nor anyone affiliated with the team has publicly discussed the possibility that he will opt to do so.
Women’s hockey ties Northeastern twice:
The No. 5-ranked UW women’s hockey team (12-4-2, 8-4-0 WCHA) earned a pair of ties against Northeastern (7-5-6, 1-3-2 HE) Jan. 10-11 in the first NCAA women’s hockey series played at a venue west of Colorado.
The milestone series, which took place at the Glacial Gardens Ice Arena in Lakewood, Calif., was sponsored by the California Selects Amateur Hockey Association.
“It really gave us an opportunity to promote women’s hockey in a different part of the country,” women’s hockey coach Mark Johnson said. “We had a chance to speak to groups after our games, and as we left the rink yesterday, I think a lot of people were impressed with Division I college hockey.”
In the first game of the series, the Badgers out-shot the Huskies 57-12, but Northeastern goalkeeper Chanda Gunn, who played for Wisconsin before transferring to Northeastern, posted a school-record 56 saves to earn a 1-1 tie.
In the second contest, Gunn came up with another impressive performance, recording 47 saves in a 2-2 tie. Both of Wisconsin’s goals were scored by defenders, as Molly Engstrom and Bobbi-Jo Slusar managed to knock a pair of goals past Gunn.
Playing in front of her hometown fans, Gunn, who grew up in Huntington Beach, Calif., recorded 103 saves in the series, earning player of the week honors.
“In both games we played extremely well,” Johnson said. “We just ran into what we call in the hockey world ‘the X factor’ — Chanda (Gunn), who’s playing in front of her father, playing in front of her friends and her peers.”
— compiled from staff reports
