I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season.
As we head into the second half of the college hockey season, which Atlantic Hockey players have excelled so far?
Here are our midterm awards. Will things change before the league names the actual winners in March?
Probably.
But these are our picks for the first half:
First Team
F Matteo Giampa, Canisius
F Will Gavin, Air Force
F Carter Wilkie, RIT
D Gianfranco Cassaro, RIT
D Brian Kramer, AIC
G Tommy Scarfone, RIT
Second Team
F Liam McLinskey, Holy Cross
F Jack Ricketts, Holy Cross
F TJ Walsh, Sacred Heart
D Mac Gadowsky, Army West Point
D Chris Hedden, Air Force
G Thomas Gale, Holy Cross
Third Team
F Kevin Lombardi, Sacred Heart
F John Lundy, AIC
F Dustin Manz, AIC
D Nick Bochen, Bentley
D Luke Rowe, Air Force
G Chad Veltri, Robert Morris
All-Rookie Team
F Matteo Giampa, Canisius
F Alfred Lindberg, AIC
F Boris Skalos, Mercyhurst
D Mac Gadowsky, Army West Point
D Tomi Leppanen, AIC
G Nils Wallstrom, AIC
Player of the first half: Brian Kramer, AIC
The senior defenseman, who transferred from Robert Morris when the school cut the since-restored program in 2021, is second on his team in scoring (9-8-17) and leads all defenseman in Atlantic Hockey. He has three game-winning goals to date and is a plus-13, also best in the conference.
Goalie of the first half: Tommy Scarfone, RIT
The league is packed with talented netminders like the tandem of Jason Grande and Thomas Gale at Holy Cross, Nicholas Grabko (Bentley), Chad Veltri (Robert Morris), Owen Say (Mercyhurst), Chase Clark (Sacred Heart) and Jarret Fiske (AIC). All have save percentages above .915.
But I’m going with Scarfone, who’s tied for first in save percentage (.924) and seeing about 30 shots per game.
Rookie of the first half: Matteo Giampa, Canisius
The first-year player from Virgil, ONT was a scoring machine in juniors and that’s continued through the first half of his rookie season. His 12 goals are more than twice as many as anyone else on the Canisius roster and ties him for third nationally among freshmen.
Coach of the first half: Andy Jones, Bentley
Jones, in his first year at Bentley, has the Falcons in the thick of things, currently all alone in fourth place. Bentley was picked to finish last in the league’s pre-season coaches poll.
We have questions
Some burning questions to be answered in the second half:
Will we have a race to the wire?
The past two seasons saw a team run away with the regular season title, essentially wrapping it up by January. AIC won the conference by nine points in 2022 and RIT finished 10 points ahead of the field last season.
This season looks to be more of a dogfight.
While RIT holds the top position by two points over Sacred Heart, the Pioneers have a game in hand. And AIC is just four points back.
The Tigers have already played their only meetings this season with the Yellow Jackets and Pioneers, splitting with SHU and taking four points from AIC.
AIC and Sacred Heart split a series back in early December and will square off again in early February.
Will there be a second AHA team in the NCAAs
In the sprit of my friends at the USCHO Weekend Review podcast, am I buying or selling on this possibility?
At this point, I’m selling.
RIT currently sits at No. 17 in the PairWise rankings, and AIC is at 22. If one of those teams manages to get high enough, probably 13th or better, and falls in the AHA Tournament, we could see two teams in the NCAA Tournament.
That’s a tall order. Either team would pretty much need to run the table from here on out, and the league’s non-conference winning percentage is below the .400 threshold I think it needs to be in order to significantly improve its teams’ PWR.
So there’s a chance…but not a good one.
How will the new playoff format go?
Nobody liked last year’s playoff format, which excluded the bottom two teams in the standings. This was to accommodate the semifinals and finals moving to on-campus sites, which could have added an extra weekend to the playoff schedule. Instead, the league eliminated the first round and any byes.
With Robert Morris back in the fold, the league is going back to a modified version of an 11-team playoffs, i.e. everyone makes it, first-round byes for the top five, etc. All rounds will again be on-campus. That condensed the schedule a bit because now the postseason is being held over four weekends instead of three.
There’s no doubt that the on-campus atmosphere last year topped the last few season’s neutral site setup, so I’m looking forward to an exciting postseason.
