COLUMN: Cape has a permanent place in St. Louis hockey

ST. LOUIS — A piece of Southeast Missouri has been permanently placed in St. Louis hockey.

Notre Dame tennis coach Pershard Owens performed the national anthem during the Blues’ home opener against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday, Oct. 15. The Blues lost 4-1 to drop to 2-2 on the season.

Owens has performed at the Enterprise Center before the start of numerous Blues games before, this was his first official performance as the team’s full-time singer. While Southeast Missouri State alum Jeremy Boyer has been a St. Louis staple as the organist for both the Blues and Cardinals, this addition to the entertainment is a little more personal, as Owen was born and raised in the SEMO area.

Owens went to Scott County Central High School and played tennis collegiately at Missouri Baptist despite SCC not having a tennis program. Owens is an independent artist who also sang the national anthem at Kansas City Royals games and tennis tournaments around the country.

Owens comes from a singing family and started singing in church. He made an appearance on "The Kelly Clarkson Show" in 2022.

As for Notre Dame tennis, the doubles duo of Caroline Galati and Mary Cox won the Class 2 District 1 individual championship and qualified for the state championship. Harper Raffety and Ella West finished second and also qualified for the state tournament.

The Notre Dame girls tennis team finished the regular season 9-8-1 and hosted the Class 2 District 1 Tournament. The Bulldogs defeated Melville 5-0 in the quarterfinal round and edged Farmington 5-4 to advance to the district championship game Wednesday, Oct. 16, where they lost to the Poplar Bluff Mules 5-2 to finish 11-9-1 on the season. It's their sixth straight season of double-digit wins.

Power plays give St. Louis the Blues

Whether the Blues had a power play advantage or not, St. Louis was constantly on the wrong side throughout the home opener.

"Sometimes the puck goes your way. Sometimes it doesn't," Blues defenseman Nick Leddy said. "There's luck involved in this game, too."

Minnesota was given a power play early in the first period after Alexey Toropchenko was sent to the penalty box for high-sticking. Within seconds, the Wild took a 1-0 lead on a snap shot goal from Ryan Hartman.

It’s one thing to give up a power play goal seconds after it begins, but it’s another to give up a short-handed goal seconds after getting a power play. Seventeen seconds after a tripping penalty from Frederick Gaudreau gave the Blues a power play in the second period, Jacob Lauko blocked Justin Faulk’s shot, went the other way and scored a wrist shot goal to give the Wild a 2-0 lead.

"There's still some areas in the game where we could have probably tightened it up and kind of put more pressure on them," Blues defenseman Justin Faulk said. "We were a little sloppy with the puck coming out of the zone."

Officiating has been a sore spot for Blues fans, who booed the refs throughout the second period after two potential Blues' goals were waved off. Ryan Suter’s shot at the net was a mere fraction of a second from counting as a goal.

Less one would think the Blues were going to stage a third-period comeback, Marco Rossi scored a snap shot goal 46 seconds into the third period to give Minnesota a 3-0 lead.

“For 40 minutes, we played some good hockey and then it seemed the goal in the third period took the wind out of our sails pretty quick,” Blues head coach Drew Bannister said.

Mathieu Joseph scored the Blues’ first goal of the game, but it was too little, too late. The Blues consistently took more shots than the Wild and won the faceoff 55.3 percent of the time, but only had one goal and two non-goals to show for it.

"We got to score, for sure," Blues forward Jordan Kyrou said.