Umaine Hockey Player Is One Of The Nation’s Top Freshman Scorers

Ida Kuoppala laced up her first pair of skates, figure skates, when she was 4 years old. She grew up in Finland, where her older brother, Oskar, played hockey. “He was a goalie. So I tried hockey and stuck with it,” Kuoppala said. It was the start of what has already been a productive career for the left winger. The University of Maine skater is among the top first-year goal scorers in the nation and heads that category in Hockey East with 17 goals, including 14 in league play. “She is a sniper,” said UMaine senior center Tereza Vanisova, the school’s all-time scoring leader. The seventh-seeded Black Bears (13-13-8 overall, 9-11-7 HE) will need production from Kuoppala during their best-of-three quarterfinal series at No.