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Hynes Leaves Wisconsin for USNTDP

USCHO Staff Report
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John Hynes has been named U.S. National Development Coach with the organization’s National Team Development Program (NTDP) in Ann Arbor, Mich. Hynes will oversee the NTDP along with fellow U.S. National Development Coach David Quinn (Ann Arbor, Mich.) while serving as head coach of the U.S. National Under-18 Team for the remainder of this season.

Both Hynes and Quinn are Boston University graduates.

Hynes fills a position left vacant when Moe Mantha announced his resignation Oct. 28. Prior to this appointment he was serving as an assistant coach at Wisconsin under former U.S. National Development Coach Mike Eaves.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for me and a significant step in my coaching career,” Hynes said. “It is a truly unique position in the sport because it offers so many different experiences through a schedule that includes international, college and Junior hockey competition. It really is a one-of-a-kind challenge that I’m looking forward to pursuing.”

Hynes began his coaching career at his alma mater, Boston University, in 1997 as an assistant under Jack Parker. That season he helped guide the Terriers to the Hockey East regular-season title and a berth in the NCAA tournament.

He now returns for his third stint as a member of the USA Hockey NTDP coaching ranks. During the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons, Hynes was a graduate assistant coach with the NTDP, working with both the U.S. National Under-17 and Under-18 Teams. During this time he served as a member of the coaching staff for Team USA at the 1999 and 2000 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) World Under-18 World Championships. In addition to his roles behind the bench, Hynes was responsible for the strength and conditioning regimen of both teams.

He spent the 2000-01 season at Massachusetts-Lowell as an assistant coach, helping the River Hawks reach the finals of the Hockey East tournament after finishing in last place during the previous year.

Hynes returned to the NTDP in 2001 as an assistant coach under Eaves with the U.S. National Under-18 Team. He served as a member of the coaching staff that guided the U.S. to a gold medal at the 2002 IIHF World Under-18 Championship in Piestany, Slovakia. It was the first gold medal for the United States in an A-Pool IIHF World Championship, excluding the Olympics, since 1933.

During his previous tenures as an assistant coach with the U.S. National Under-17 and Under-18 Teams, Hynes helped lead his squads to three gold medals and two silver medals in international competition. With Hynes’ help, 15 graduates of the NTDP were selected in the 2002 National Hockey League Entry Draft, including five in the first round.

Rejoining collegiate hockey, Hynes accepted the assistant coaching position under Eaves at Wisconsin prior to the 2002-03 season. Since then he has worked with both the Badgers’ forwards and defensemen, while coordinating the team’s strength and conditioning program.

On May 23 Hynes was named an assistant coach under Eaves for the 2004 United States National Junior Team at the 2004 IIHF World Junior Championship in Finland. Hynes’ role with Team USA will not change as a result of his new position when the team competes from Dec. 25, 2003 through Jan. 5, 2004. It will represent his second such assignment after helping lead the 2002 U.S. National Junior Team to a 4-1-2 record in the Czech Republic.

A 1997 graduate of Boston University, Hynes was a three-year letter winner for the Terriers as a forward and participated in four straight NCAA Frozen Four tournaments. The highlight of his college playing career came when BU captured the 1995 NCAA Division I National Championship in front of his home crowd in Providence, R.I.

Between the Lines: Weekend Wrapup, Nov. 9, 2003

By Adam Wodon
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• New Hampshire was off to a great start, earning the nation’s No. 1 ranking, but against a weak schedule to that point. Then it lost a game to Niagara when it had eight players sitting about because of a violation of team rules, and lost the top spot. That ranking should return after a weekend which saw the Wildcats win a road game at Boston University and a home game against recent No. 1 Maine. So far, the Wildcats have come through two-thirds of a brutal three-game stretch unscathed. In that stretch, they play three Top 10 opponents, a stretch which concludes Wednesday against Boston College. But when four of the nation’s Top 10 teams are in your conference, stretches like that are going to happen. Fact of the matter is, right now, New Hampshire is a favorite to return to the Frozen Four yet again.

• This thing with UNH’s Mike Ayers and Boston University is pretty ridiculous. He’s shut them out in a ridiculous four straight games. We know Ayers and his defense are great, but BU is not Sisters of the Poor. What is going on here? Most of the time, these kinds of trends are coincidences, a numerical happenstance. Like when a team is 1-4 on Saturdays and 4-1 on Fridays. Or when a team is 8-1 during a full moon. But this thing with Ayers and BU … I don’t know. There’s got to be something going on here. Ayers is good, but he does allow goals against other teams — at least, most of the time. Remarkably, as well, is that Ayers pulled off this four-pack in four different buildings — home at the Whittemore Center, at the Fleet Center in last year’s Hockey East tournament championship game, at the Centrum in Worcester in last year’s NCAA Northeast Regional final, and Friday at BU’s Walter Brown Arena. So we offer this theory as to why this is happening to BU … New Hampshire’s defense is so strong down low, and Ayers so good at not allowing rebounds, that you need pretty plays to score goals on them. Crashing the net and getting garbage goals doesn’t really work against UNH because their defense and goalie are so unflappable. And the Terriers simply don’t have the snipers, or the power play, to make that happen right now. … Hey, it’s just a theory.

• We have our first official Friday Night Hockey Game of the Week jinx. Boston College is 0-2 on CSTV this year, 4-0-1 otherwise. But this is just one of those numerical happenstances, right?

• Two of the best days in Colorado Avalanche franchise history: getting Chris Drury, hiring Bob Hartley. Two of the worst days in Colorado Avalanche franchise history: trading away Chris Drury, firing Bob Hartley. Buffalo and Atlanta thank you.

• CSTV’s petition drive to convince cable companies to carry the channel (currently it’s only carried on satellite) is something college hockey fans should be interested in. Of course, considering my contempt for the cable industry, what I’d really prefer is that 90 million more households just get satellite dishes. But with Fox News Corp. set to purchase satellite provider DirecTV from General Motors, it’s hard to know who the good guys are. So, until the FCC decides to do its job, we just live with it, and be happy that at least there are ways to watch more college hockey than ever.

• Who are the only unbeaten teams in the nation? Dartmouth at 2-0-1, and St. Cloud State, at 7-0-1. Every single year, St. Cloud loses big name players, and every year they are written off for having lost them. And yet every year, Craig Dahl manages to get his team rolling and finding new stars. This year, it’s junior Mike Doyle, breaking out with eight points so far. But most of all, the Huskies are doing it with defense this year. Ryan Lemere and Matt Gens are anchoring a defense that’s allowed barely two goals a game this season, and the goaltending, led by Adam Coole, has been superb. Coole is a transfer from Minnesota-Duluth and he got to head into his old building and sweep the Bulldogs this weekend. It must have been sweet for Coole, and also for St. Cloud, which knocked off a team that had been playing well and has its own NCAA tournament aspirations. The detractors come out of the woodwork every year when the Huskies lose in the NCAAs, but all Dahl does is manage to put together great teams, year after year, amid an ultra-competitive recruiting environment.

It is true, however, that it was much too early to say Maine was the nation’s best team. By the same token, it is much too early to say that about anyone. It appears we are in for quite a dogfight, and don’t count Minnesota out either.

• You know what I hate? When you swear to yourself that you are going to buy an embattled stock when it dips below $10, because you just love the company and know it will rebound. And then you chicken out the day it drops to $9.50, and then 12 months later, the stock is at $56. This is why I’ll never be a millionaire.

• It’s not time to panic in Crimson-land, but until there are clear indications to the contrary, Cornell is still the team to beat in the ECAC. Also until proven otherwise, there’s little optimism, nationally speaking, for thec ECAC this year other than those two teams again.

• Lake Superior State head coach Frank Anzalone said before Friday’s game that his team was getting better to the point where, at least, it wasn’t losing 7-1, 8-1 type games anymore. That night, the Lakers lost to Nebraska-Omaha, 7-1. Regaining past magic is taking a while.

• It’s OK to again root for one of my favorite people in baseball, Lee Mazzilli.

• Were we premature in our praise for Maine? The undefeated Black Bears became the next No. 1 team to fall from the top, losing twice this weekend. But there is hardly any shame in losing road games to New Hampshire and Boston College. It is true, however, that it was much too early to say Maine was the nation’s best team. By the same token, it is much too early to say that about anyone. It appears we are in for quite a dogfight, and don’t count Minnesota out either. I don’t care if the Gophers lose another pair of games next weekend. There’s too much ability for them to just disappear, and Don Lucia is not one to worry too much about his team’s record before December.

• That said, allowing 12 goals at North Dakota is a bit worrisome for Minnesota. The Gophers lost their goalie and top defenseman just before the school year started. And remember, too, that defenseman Keith Ballard — on my preseason all-America team — and Chris Harrington were both out with injuries. Minnesota has two games coming up at Wisconsin and at home against Michigan Tech. I’d be shocked if the Gophers weren’t at least 3-1 in those games.

• On the other hand, praise here is really necessary for North Dakota, which cast off a lot of demons in sweeping the Gophers at The Ralph. Brandon Bochenksi, for one, had just three assists in nine career games against Minnesota before finally breaking through on Friday. His goal also happened to be, remarkably, the first power-play goal of the season for the Sioux. And how about defenseman Matt Jones? He had one goal all of last season, but scored two Saturday against the Gophers to give him four now for the season.

• The United States’ Under-17 team just won a gold medal in another international tournament. With the success of this age group, and the Under-18s, why doesn’t this translate to success at the World Juniors? In other news on this front, Moe Mantha recently resigned as coach of the Under-18 team to become coach of Saginaw in the OHL. This is particularly noteworthy because Mantha recently railed on players who had committed to the U.S. National Team Development Program, from which the Under-18 team is drawn, only to withdraw and go to Major Junior in Canada instead. So, what did Mantha do? The same thing, of course. It’s good to see hypocrisy is alive and well. And who took over for the Under-18 team? Lou Vairo, former Olympic team coach and a key figure in USA Hockey, who nevertheless has been critical of USNTDP. Go figure.

• Have you noticed the leading scorers in the NHL? Of the top five, the first three are European and the next two are American — Bill Guerin (Boston College) and Keith Tkachuk (Boston University). Of the top nine point getters, there is one Canadian (Alex Tanguay) and eight Europeans. This is not a new trend, but it is more obvious than ever. What is Europe doing right and everyone else still doing wrong? By the way, of the top six goaltenders in save percentage, there’s one European, one Canadian and four Americans.

• Is it safe to say that Princeton has set the record for the most players with hyphenated last names on its roster? I’m not sure if there’s been much research in this field, but with Grant Goeckner-Zoeller, Neil Stevenson-Moore and Sharm Fouladgar-Mercer among their top 12 forwards, I think it’s a safe bet. This is probably the polar opposite of Yale’s roster from a few years ago, which featured an alarming number of last names four letters or less: Brow, John Chyz, James Chyz, Dart, Earl, Nam, Noe, Shea, Wax. Whoa! And then there was New Hampshire’s roster around the same time: Dzieduszycki, Sadowski, Shipulski, Corey-Joe Ficek, Boguniecki, Filipowicz, Bragnalo, Onufrechuk, Dellezay. What the…?!? Spooky. … By the way, for as bad as Princeton is right now, the sophomore and freshman classes have some real talent, and give the Tigers reason for hope. Goeckner-Zoeller is the most impressive freshman, and he plays on a line with a guy I think will be superb, sophomore Patrick Neuendorfer, who is already an assistant captain. They also have a goalie, who despite an 0-13 career record to this point, is a real keeper as well, Eric Leroux.

• All five home teams won their CCHA games on Friday. All but one road team won their ECAC game on Friday. Saturday, home teams were 2-2-1 in the CCHA, 3-2-1 in the ECAC. What does it mean? Nothing.

• Massachusetts’ two-game, home-and-home sweep of Merrimack isn’t incredibly impressive all by itself, but the upstart Minutemen held the Warriors to just 24 shots total the entire weekend — 12 in each game. UMass is the popular pick to make some noise this year, even make a run for the NCAA tournament. It’s Don Cahoon’s fourth season at the helm and a lot of pieces are in place, coming off last season’s impressive two-game sweep at Maine in the Hockey East playoffs. It is true, however, that UMass really hasn’t won any huge games. But at 7-1, including 4-1 in Hockey East, that’s certainly plenty to hang your hat on.

• I’ve got my three-year old on the path to hockey righteousness. I’ve got him going around chanting “Let’s Go Islanders” on a fairly regular basis now, and when watching games, he throws out a routine “Kvasha!” If he starts saying Czerkawski I’ll be really impressed. Even moreso if he can start saying Dzieduszycki.

This Week in the CHA: Nov. 6, 2003

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As trick-or-treats go, this was about as big of a trick as they come.

On Halloween, the University of Alabama-Huntsville announced the indefinite suspension of three of its hockey players, junior winger Keith Rowe, sophomore center Bruce Mulherin and freshman winger Chris Martin. The three players had been arrested and charged with third degree robbery, the details of which have not been made public.

The decision came down from the university’s athletic department and coach Doug Ross scrambled to replace the players, all of whom were expected to make important contributions to the staff. Not exactly the way to open a conference schedule.

But when it was all over, Air Force’s bag of Halloween treats — a depleted Charger lineup — proved stuffed with rocks. The Chargers swept the weekend, 5-1, 6-4.

“I challenged everyone to come together as a team and try and pull through this,” Ross said. “Players that did not get a chance to play before joined the lineup and came through.”

In order to compensate for the loss of the suspended players, Ross moved freshman Grant Selinger up to the top line with star Jared Ross and Craig Bushey. Handed the bulk of the ice time, the trio combined for five goals and nine assists.

The Chargers lit up the scoreboard for 11 goals total on the weekend, and a raucous Von Braun Center, spurred the home team to a pair of victories in adverse circumstances.

“Bushey, Selinger and Jared really stepped it up for us,” Ross said. “We were facing a little adversity and they performed.”

Even more encouraging for the Chargers was the play of its backup goaltender, senior Adam MacLean. MacLean was sharp between the pipes on Friday, turning aside 25 of 26 Falcon shots.

Still, not all was rosy for UAH. Two nights of playing with a shortened bench caught up to the team on Saturday. Air Force scored three shorthanded goals in a wild contest in which the Falcons jumped out to a 3-1 lead on the strength of two goals scored while killing a penalty. A final shorthanded tally midway through the third period made the game’s final minutes interesting.

Despite Ross’ protestations of team depth, the Chargers essentially rotated three lines, and that factored into Air Force’s ability to make Saturday’s contest much more compelling than it might have otherwise been.

“The weekend caught up to us a little bit on Saturday,” Ross said. “We had a little bit of a letdown while on the power play and they were aggressive and took advantage of the chances. We probably were tiring a little bit.”

This weekend will present a bigger challenge to Ross’ crew. Alabama-Huntsville heads for the road to face struggling Miami. If the team tires in its weekend set, the result against the RedHawks will be different.

The Ross-Selinger-Bushey line will need to be in top form once again.

“This is a tough trip for us,” coach Ross said. “First, we have to take a seven-to-eight hour bus ride to get there and face a good team. However, last year we went to Ferris State and knocked them off when they were one of the best teams in the country. You can’t take anyone lightly.”

The Chargers get some good news in the debut of freshman center David Nimmo. He was finally cleared to play and the top recruit looks to make a good debut.

Still, the best thing that could happen for UAH is the legal process to take care of itself and its players get exonerated. Until then, it will have to come up with a few more tricks.

Where’s the Power in Bemidji?

The preseason favorite to win the CHA has run into an unexpected problem: offense. Through four games, Bemidji has scored just six goals. The Beavers have been a pillar of consistency, scoring three goals in a loss and a tie in its weekend sets against Clarkson and Minnesota State.

“We have to start putting some pucks in the net,” said Bemidji coach Tom Serratore. “We don’t put pressure on any one particular guy, everyone on the team has their role. However, everyone is expected to contribute.”

Most distressing has been the Beavers’ utter failure on the power play. Bemidji is 0-for-22 this season with the man advantage and Serratore does not have an easy answer.

“We are getting enough shots on the power play,” Serratore said. “However, we have to get more people in front of the net to create some traffic. We also need to get a little more puck-lucky.”

“So much of power play offense is setting everything up and the puck just finding its way through,” he added. “We’ll get back to basics this weekend and see what happens.”

The games get a little easier for Bemidji as it travels down to Findlay to face the Oilers. Bemidji played significantly better on Saturday against MSU in order to earn a 2-2 tie. However, it will need more offense to play a Findlay squad which has had a surprisingly good showing in early play.

“This weekend is a good test for our level of preparation,” Serratore said. “We will learn how our team responds to conference play and how our team responds to being on the road. The games are different under both circumstances.”

While the games may be different, if the Beavers don’t score any more goals, the final result will be the same.

Return Match

Wayne State is getting a league monopoly on early season rivalries. Already the Warriors have played a brutal home-in-home with Findlay spread over two weeks. This Saturday, WSU finishes a pair with Niagara.

Last Friday, the Purple Eagles smothered the Warriors, limiting them to 22 shots on goal. Only freshman Jason Baclig found the back of the net, and even then, the shot had to deflect off a Niagara defender.

“We are finishing a double-header and we have to play much better this week,” coach Bill Wilkinson said. “We didn’t have the same intensity as Niagara did. We have to match their spirit if we hope to have a different result.”

The win was the first for the Purple Eagles over Wayne State in Michigan. WSU gets home ice again this weekend, and it will welcome back sophomore defenseman Steve Kovalchik and junior center Billy Collins.

The other thing that may help out Wayne State is that after defeating the Warriors, Niagara’s bubble got burst a little in the following game at Michigan, losing 6-2. The Purple Eagles had been riding high since defeating then-No. 1 New Hampshire.

Still, Niagara has just as much incentive to want to get back on the winning track. These matches could get heated as the two squads continue to play each other.

Since the CHA has only six teams, most squads get used to frequent engagements with one another. However, the schedule is particularly homogeneous for WSU. After finishing off Niagara this weekend, it gets Findlay again the following week.

Random Walk

With deep apologies to ECAC correspondent Juan Martinez because it’s not my turf, big props to former Harvard captain Dominic Moore for his debut with the New York Rangers this past weekend. Hope that there can be many Moore battles between him and his brother Steve, who was up with the Colorado Avalanche.

Caught Matrix Revolutions on Wednesday night, and the words “confused” and “disappointed” come to mind. Why can’t they ever give a pure machine a pleasant sounding voice? The countdown is officially on now for Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King.

Fan Challenge

Chris Brown of Alabama-Huntsville has proven an adept prognosticator, nailing all of his predictions except one last week. He has earned a third opportunity at this space. However, before getting to Brown’s predictions, allow me to introduce this week’s participant, John from Minnesota.

The invitation is open for anyone who wants to make predictions in this column space. All you need to do is send an email to [email protected]. You certainly have little to fear about showing me up, I just elevated my season record over .500.

Here’s John’s predictions:

Friday

Bemidji State 2 Findlay 1

Both offenses will continue to struggle, but Bemidji gets a boost from Luke Erickson and pulls out the win on the road.

Air Force 6 Bentley 2

Air Force’s talent will prevail in this contest. As a result, all four lines contribute in a high scoring effort.

Bowling Green 4 Niagara 2

The Falcons will use good blueline pressure to get some quality shots on net while limiting Niagara’s chances. The result will be a hard fought Bowling Green win.

Miami (Ohio) 6 UAH 1

The Chargers will find a better RedHawk team waiting for them in Oxford than the one Air Force tipped up in Alaska.

Saturday

Findlay 4 Bemidji State 1

On Friday night Findlay discovered they are just as good as Bemidji. The confidence translates to some second and third line scoring and an Oiler victory on Saturday.

Air Force 2 Bentley 1

Bentley comes out clutching and grabbing and almost pulls out the win, but USAFA’s Spanky Leonard is a little too strong and scores the game winner.

Niagara 4 Wayne State 2

Niagara’s second line outplays the Warriors’ second liners, and offensively WSU’s Derek MacKay can’t win the game singlehandedly. Niagara pulls out the big sweep of the weeklong series.

Miami (Ohio) 4 UAH 3

The Chargers learn their lessons from Friday night, but don’t quite have the endurance to pull out the road win. A couple missed opportunities and hit pipes leave UAH wondering what might have been.

And for the master himself, Mr. Chris Brown:

Friday night:

Bemidji State 3, Findlay 1

The sole conference matchup on Friday will go the way of the conference favorite, but as usual for BSU it won’t be a blowout.

Niagara 3, Bowling Green 2

Niagara is still enjoying their non-conference success, and they’ll pull out a nail-biter against an average BGSU team.

Alabama-Huntsville 4, Miami 2

It’s hard to decide which night UAH will decide to come out and play each weekend, but they will get a solid win over an up-and-down Miami team.

Air Force 3, Bentley 1

Air Force will continue to dominate Atlantic Hockey foes, even on the road.

Saturday night:

Bemidji State 2, Findlay 1

Findlay will play hard, but Bemidji wants those all-important conference points and they will get the sweep on the road.

Niagara 5, Wayne State 4

Niagara dominated the Warriors last week for the first time ever in Michigan. The young Wayne State team will play better this time around, but Niagara will take home the points.

Air Force 3, Bentley 2

A sweep two time zones from home is a tall order, but Air Force will deliver in a hard-fought game.

Miami 4, Alabama-Huntsville 3

With Keith Rowe and Bruce Mulherin suspended the Chargers won’t have the magic for a sweep at a CCHA rink.

This Week in Hockey East: Nov. 6, 2003

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You Can’t Win With A Sieve

If you’ve ever been behind the bench, you know how deflating it can be to allow a bad goal. Or two. Or three.

If one gets past an otherwise dependable goalie, you might hear, “C’mon guys. Suck it up. He’s bailed us out before. Let’s bail him out this time.”

But when it happens on a regular basis, it’ll test the resolve of even the most resilient of teams. The shoulders slump, the heads bow and the expletives fly. The air grows heavy and the wind goes out of the sails.

It’s bad enough if the rest of the team is sufficiently dominant to overcome the adversity, but in a league like Hockey East that features tough opponents night after night, the rest of the team can suck it up time after time after time and still not survive. Like salmon trying to leap waterfalls to reach the spawning grounds, tenacity alone won’t get the job done.

The lower reaches of the standings are littered with good teams boatanchored by poor goaltending.

There may be no better example than UMass-Lowell last year. The River Hawks were outshot in only four games all year yet escaped the cellar only via the tiebreaker to finish 4-16-4 within the league and 11-20-5 overall.

No, that’s not a misprint. They were outshot in only four games.

A save percentage of .866 would be considered very sub-par goaltending in most circles. Yet in games in which the Lowell goaltending met at least that minimal standard the team posted a 10-2-4 record. In the games below the .866 line the record was 1-18-1.

Again, no misprint. 10-2-4 above the mark; 1-18-1 below it.

Still think you can win with poor goaltending?

It happens even to the perennial powerhouses.

In 2000-01, Boston University stumbled out of the gate after losing Ricky DiPietro, posting a 2-8 record in the first two months in part because of poor goaltending. The Terriers would eventually finish 14-20-3, a very un-BU-like season. Eventually then-freshman Sean Fields would emerge and become a prominent netminder, but in 2000-01 BU’s goose was cooked.

In 1996-97, Maine struggled in the early going as Alfie Michaud was thrown to the wolves following All-American Blair Allison’s sudden departure. By midseason Michaud’s save percentage stood at .832 and he had interim coach Greg Cronin complaining in the post-game about Michaud “flopping around like a fish out of water.” Like Fields, Michaud would become a very strong goaltender, but the growing pains were painful indeed.

Or take New Hampshire in 1995-96 or Lowell in 1994-95, the year between its two NCAA quarterfinal appearances.

Poor goaltending sinks ships.

Which is what has been happening so far this year for Northeastern. Off to easily the worst start among league teams, the Huskies are 0-5-1 and aside from the opening game tie with Colgate don’t even have a one-goal loss to hang their hats on. In all six contests, the NU goaltending has fallen below the .866 save percentage mark that proved so pivotal for Lowell last year.

“You need that position to be playing well in this league to be successful,” NU coach Bruce Crowder says. “If you look at the teams that are off to pretty good starts, they’re getting some pretty good play out of their goaltenders.”

Tim Heneroty and freshman Adam Geragosian have only been between the Northeastern pipes for a single game each. (And this writer wouldn’t be surprised at all if Geragosian eventually becomes a strong collegiate goalie. His father, Mike, after all, is one of the most widely-respected goalie coaches around and Adam has played a lot of games at a high level of competition.)

More puzzling, however, is the case of Keni Gibson (.843 Sv%). The junior burst onto the scene two years ago, finishing with a 2.65 GAA and a .905 save percentage despite struggling down the stretch either because he’d run out of gas or because he suffered a crisis of confidence following Northeastern’s tough loss to BU in the Beanpot title game. (Prior to that marquee contest, he’d posted a 13-4-1 record, allowing as many as four goals only twice; from that point on, however, he surrendered four or five goals in all but one of the final seven games, all but one of them losses.)

Last year, his save percentage numbers (.907 Sv% overall, .898 HEA) were comparable to the season before, but the losses accumulated (6-12-2, 2-11-1 HEA) and his GAA soared to 3.58 in league play. Perhaps the defense post-Jim Fahey was just too porous, but even so Gibson just wasn’t playing at the same level he had as a freshman pre-Beanpot.

“I wish we could [put a finger on what has happened],” Crowder says. “Obviously, we were sitting back in his freshman year feeling pretty good about our goaltending position. And last year he had a stretch of five or six games that he only let in six goals and looked great.”

Of course, the case isn’t closed on Gibson. Lowell’s Chris Davidson (2.33 GAA. .912 Sv%) looked to have played himself out of D-I hockey last season, but has been the Comeback Player of the Year so far. The number of goaltenders who have fallen into a funk and then emerged better than ever is considerable.

“Sometimes goaltenders try to do too much,” Crowder says. “Instead of, hey, you try to stop the first shot, let [us] worry about everything else, they think they have to be Jacques Plante, Bernie Parent and Patrick Roy all in one. Winning will solve a lot of problems.”

Aye, there’s the rub.

When a goaltender is struggling, the rest of the team either tries to compensate or gets deflated. Either way, it can become a vicious cycle.

“What happens a lot of times is that you get [defensemen] who are apprehensive and instead of playing the position like they should be playing, they’re worried about doing somebody else’s job,” Crowder says. “That’s where things start to break down and maybe you get a little more tentative than you should be.

“It’s like the fires out in California. You’ve got to find a way to contain it and get each kid to do his job and go from there.”

Easier said than done, of course.

“It’s all-encompassing because [goaltending] is where your foundation is,” he says, “whether it’s your penalty killing or defensive zone coverage or even offense. The forwards are saying we have to score more goals to give us a little more breathing room, the D are saying we have to stop more goals so they’re not scoring.

“Right now our situation is kind of a double-edged sword. We’re not producing offense and we’re not having great team defense. That’s an area where we need to improve so we’re going to continue to work on it.”

As for how to get the goaltender himself out of his funk, there’s no one answer. Some players respond best to an in-your-face challenge and others need to be propped up with reassurance.

“You have to know the personnel that you’re dealing with,” Crowder says. “It’s no different than anything else. There are some forwards you can get in their face and there are some that if you do that you’re going to lose them. You’ve got to know the kid and put a little understanding that [there’s a] confidence factor and [you understand] what he’s up against.”

In the meantime, Crowder has to hope that Gibson returns to his freshman form when he looked like the Huskies’ next Marc Robitaille. If not, the search will continue, but it isn’t easy. Goaltenders project to the next level probably worse than any other position.

“There have been a lot of teams in this league over the years that have brought a kid in who they thought would be a go-to kid and for whatever reason it didn’t work out,” Crowder says. “You just have to keep plugging.

“The hardest thing whenever you’re recruiting goaltenders is that they’re usually on the top of their game. If they’re [going through] a lot of adversity they’re probably not in a position to be recruited by colleges. So things are great, things are hunky dory.

“The thing that’s tough is figuring out how kids are going handle adversity and disappointment, and can they bounce back from a bad two or three games. Those are the things that [are difficult to project] unless you have a sports psychologist in your back pocket that you can whip out and have him give the kid a test. You have to rely on people who know him and get a feel for the kid during the recruiting process. Under the NCAA rules, you’re not allowed to go spend a week with a kid and see how he’s doing.

“Sometimes you don’t know. Marc Robitaille was probably the last goaltender in North America to get any [scholarship] money. He was overlooked a lot and then he comes in here and does a great job.”

Great job as in All-American. Great job as in Northeastern’s last home ice berth. Great job as in… off to the pros, sadly for Husky fans, after his sophomore season.

But When They’re On…

Who would know better than New Hampshire coach Dick Umile what it’s like to have not just good goaltending, but great goaltending? An All-American (in the form of Michael Ayers and Ty Conklin) has been between the pipes for Umile in three of the last four years.

“There’s no question that the game starts from the goal out,” Umile says. “They can cover up a lot of mistakes. Nights when you’re not scoring, they keep you in the game. When you make mistakes, they cover up for you. There’s no substitute for great goaltending.”

In With A Bang

UNH freshman Jacob Micflikier hasn’t spared any time making a first impression on Wildcat fans. The 5-8, 180-pound native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, who paid his dues in the USHL last year, has already scored six goals in five games, including a Texas Hat Trick against Union. As a result, he was honored with Hockey East’s Rookie of the Month and Player of the Week awards.

“You never know what they’re going to do at this level, but he’s obviously playing very well,” Umile says. “We thought he was capable of doing this. When were we at Niagara he centered a line of Sean Collins and Steve Saviano and Saviano scored four goals so [Micflikier] had a real good game there.

“We’re really pleased. He’s on a line now with Justin Aikins and Preston Callander, who are good players. He can keep the line going, he adds to the line, he has speed and he [handles himself well] for a little [5-8, 180] guy.”

Marquee Madness

It might be considered too much of a good thing. Teams love to face off against their big rivals, but UNH might be overdoing it with three major rivalry games in the span of six days. This weekend the Wildcats travel to BU and then host Maine. On Wednesday, they host BC at the Verizon Center in a game that was switched to this date to play in the great new facility.

Umile, however isn’t about to provide bulletin board material for Providence, UNH’s opponent next Friday, or give his own team a chance to consider that contest of lesser import.

“Our next four games will be a challenge for us,” he says. “But we’re in a good position right now and we’ll find out fast how well we can play. It’s a challenge; it’s exciting.”

When asked if it’s easier to prepare a team for consecutive major rivals since there’s no overlooking one team in greater anticipation of another, Umile laughs and says, “I’ll tell you more in a week.”

He then adds, “In our league, I don’t know. Any night in our league that you’re not ready you’re going to get spanked. It’s like the ACC in basketball. It’s always big games. Everybody is a big opponent.”

Twin Tandem

Anyone notice the identical twin statistics of Maine’s goaltenders, Frank Doyle (1.33 GAA, .942 Sv%) and Jim Howard (1.33 GAA, .941 Sv%)?

My Favorite Email

The name is being withheld to protect the guilty, but here’s a favorite email:

I have to thank you for giving me so much to do on Friday morning to avoid actual work….

Folks, that’s what this column all about: destroying productivity in offices around New England and throughout the world.

Quote of the Week, Take One

BU coach Jack Parker was none too pleased with what he considered chippy play in the Terriers’ game against Maine. Afterwards, he said, “All I can say is that I’m glad we tape the games.”

Even when he doesn’t say a lot, he says a lot.

Quote of the Week, Take Two

Merrimack coach Chris Serino, commenting on traveling to face Maine last Thursday just two weeks after facing New Hampshire.

“That must be the prerequisite for being number one in the country,” he said. “If you have Merrimack coming, you’ll get rated number one.”

Top Fan Contest

Here’s the scoop from the league office:

As part of the celebration of its 20th anniversary season, Hockey East is launching a promotional contest to identify its top fan. All fans, friends and followers of the league are invited to nominate themselves or someone else who would make a strong selection as Hockey East’s top fan. The contest will separate nominees into two categories, current student and general public. Three to five finalists will be selected in each category.

The finalists will then be identified on the league web site, where an online poll will allow other fans to choose which of the finalists in each category is the most worthy to be called Hockey East’s top fan. The results of the fan poll will be used in conjunction with a committee vote to determine the official winner of the contest. There will be one winner in each category.

The winners will be announced in late February. Each winner will receive two tickets to each night of the Hockey East championship tournament at the FleetCenter along with hotel accommodations for two at the Royal Sonesta Hotel, the official headquarters of the Hockey East tournament.

To make a nomination for oneself or another, an individual must submit an essay of no more than 300 words describing why the nominee should be considered, along with a list of three references that could speak to the merits of the candidate. If you are nominating someone else, you may list yourself as a reference for that person. All nominations must be submitted to the league by Dec. 31, 2003.

Nominations may be submitted via email ([email protected]), fax (781-245-2122), or regular mail:

Hockey East
Top Fan Contest
591 North Ave #2
Wakefield, MA 01880

Trivia Contest

Last week’s question observed that Providence had earned back-to-back Defensive Player of the Week honors, but with two different goaltenders. The question asked what other two goaltenders from the same team had achieved this distinction most recently. The answer was Maine’s Jimmy Howard and Frank Doyle.

First to answer correctly was last year’s Trivia Hall-of-Famer, Ankur Patel. His cheer is:

“Go Cats! Beat Maine!”

This week’s question notes that Maine is off to an unprecedented 7-0 start and asks what Black Bear team began the season with the school’s longest undefeated stretch, when was it broken and by whom? Email my trivia account with your precise answers. The winner will be notified by Tuesday; if you haven’t heard by then you either had the wrong answer or someone else beat you to it.

And Finally, Not That It Has Anything To Do With Anything, But…

  • Hey, Lawyer, how proud are you of your new team now?
  • Gotta love how those Oakland Felons are disintegrating. Maybe you can get by without character during the good times, but you can’t when times get tough.
  • With what Danny Ainge has done to the Celtics, I might just start paying attention to the NBA again, despite all the jerks. No team with Antoine Walker’s shot selection is ever going anywhere.
  • Now if Jeremy Jacobs can sell the Bruins, then I might get interested in both winter pro teams.
  • Exactly how does AOL proclaim that its latest release is “turbo”? Turbo? AOL 9.0 is about as turbo as I am young, rich, handsome and brilliant.
  • Okay, okay. Thanks to the three of you who think I’m brilliant. Mom, glad to see you learned how to use a computer.

    Thanks to Justin Pelletier.

    • This Week in the WCHA: Nov. 6, 2003

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    Let’s Talk Offense

    Some thoughts this week, while pondering the matchup of a North Dakota offense fresh off a 10-goal performance against a Minnesota defense without its two best players:

  • Let’s see: A battle for first place in the WCHA not having to do with either the North Dakota-Minnesota series or the Colorado College-Denver series. Interesting. Yes, it’s Minnesota-Duluth and St. Cloud State that’ll battle for the early rights to the top spot in the league this weekend at the DECC.
  • Colorado College athletic director Joel Nielsen is leaving Colorado Springs for the AD job at South Dakota. Nielsen had been helping to lead the fight against the NCAA legislation that would strip CC and other Division III schools with Division I programs of the ability to award athletic scholarships. The transition is expected to take place before the end of the month, so it’s a tough time to shake things up in a campaign that got a jolt just last week.
  • Maybe having two of the top scoring players in the country right in their back yard will be the spark that gets more fans back in the seats at Michigan Tech.
  • Last week, we mentioned that Minnesota State has only one third-period goal this season. Wisconsin, on the other hand, has only one first-period goal to its credit but has managed to claw back to a 3-3 record.
  • And finally, the top UND line of Zach Parise, Brandon Bochenski and Brady Murray combined for 17 points in two games against Yale last weekend. Shootout, anyone?

    Double Talk

    Maybe it’s coincidence, maybe it’s intentional, but St. Cloud State coach Craig Dahl this week sounded a lot like Minnesota-Duluth coach Scott Sandelin did about a month ago.

    Before his Bulldogs embarked on a season-opening stretch that would eventually see them losing to North Dakota and Michigan State while tying Boston College, Sandelin remarked that, no matter the outcome, those games would be good for his team.

    So this week, in advance of a trip to Duluth to play the Bulldogs in a battle for first place — more on that later — Dahl took a similar approach.

    “All of this is really good,” Dahl said, “because it’ll give us a dose of confidence or, ‘This is what we’ve got to work on, boys.'”

    Maybe it’s just a good time to model yourself after the Bulldogs. They’re on a four-game winning streak that has them at 4-2-1 on the season — more importantly, 4-0 in the WCHA — going into this weekend’s series at the DECC. Junior Lessard claimed the second straight USCHO.com national offensive player of the week award for the Bulldogs after recording five goals and two assists in last weekend’s sweep of Alaska-Anchorage.

    There were enough signs before the season that suggested the Bulldogs could be in the thick of the WCHA race at this (admittedly early) point in the season, but St. Cloud’s involvement in such a battle wasn’t much of a thought. Certainly not to Dahl at least.

    But the Huskies have a 3-0-1 record, although all four games have been at home. Dahl said he gets the sense his team is a bit nervous about its first road trip of the season, just like he may have been nervous about his team before the season.

    “I just looked at our team this year, and pretty much habitually playing 12 freshmen and sophomores and rotating three goaltenders, I figured the beginning of the season’s going to be a little bit of a feeling-out period,” Dahl said. “Certainly, I would have been very happy with four of eight points in the league from two series. I can’t believe we got seven of eight. That’s astounding to me.”

    The Bulldogs were responsible for ending the Huskies’ WCHA playoff run last season, thumping St. Cloud 7-3 in the deciding Game 3 of a first-round series. Dahl, however, said revenge isn’t a factor this weekend.

    “I think our players just are really trying to worry about playing this year as well as we can and as smart as we can,” Dahl said. “That sounds like coachspeak, but I haven’t heard a word about last year from them.”

    Pick Your Poison

    Which is scarier: That a North Dakota team that scored 18 goals last weekend is playing a injury-scarred Minnesota defense this weekend, or that the Sioux could score 18 goals last weekend without the help of a power-play goal?

    UND, in fact, has not scored a goal with the man advantage yet this season, going 0-for-26. That’s the worst opening run on the power play in coach Dean Blais’ 10 seasons as the Sioux’s head coach.

    Makes you wonder how many goals North Dakota would be scoring if the power play was working. It’s already leading WCHA teams with an average of 5.6 goals per game, but just two power-play goals in the first five games would put that average at six goals.

    “You’d think if you scored 18 goals, you’d have three or four that were on the power play,” Blais said. “But we had our opportunities.”

    While noting that plenty of odd things have happened to prevent the Sioux from scoring on the power play, Blais said his team needs to shoot more.

    That shouldn’t really be a problem when considering the top UND power play unit consists of Parise, Bochenski, Murray, Andy Schneider and David Lundbohm. That group has 11 goals this season.

    “It’s not like we’ve got freshmen out there that are just learning the system and everything else,” Blais said. “The guys that are out there have played a lot of power play in their lives and just have to figure out a way to put it in the net. They know what they’re supposed to do; they just haven’t executed very well at times.”

    Minnesota is wounded on defense, where Keith Ballard is out with a leg injury and Chris Harrington was hurt in a collision with Thomas Vanek in his own end last weekend.

    But Blais said he’s not concerned with what that may do to the matchup. Rather, he’s telling his players to focus on what they can control.

    The Great Divide

    The rankings — No. 6 for Colorado College, No. 7 for Denver — and the records — 5-0-1 for the Tigers, 5-1 for the Pioneers — might make you think the teams that will play in the opening weekend of the Gold Pan series are that close in many categories.

    That might not be the case.

    CC is being held together with duct tape and who knows what else because of a rash of injuries to its forwards. It appears Denver has been able to avoid the serious injury bug.

    Denver has seen the more serious test of the two, coming out of Mariucci Arena last weekend with a split. CC got its toughest test in a series at Clarkson two weeks ago, getting a win and a tie.

    The teams have had similar experiences of good goaltending — CC’s Curtis McElhinney allowed one goal in two games last weekend against Minnesota State; Denver’s Adam Berkhoel rebounded from a shaky game last Friday to post a win on Saturday.

    But this could be the weekend that separates these teams. CC was picked for the higher finish, based mostly on its regular-season championship a year ago, but that is being threatened by a depleted lineup. Denver has been on the rise despite being picked for fifth by the coaches.

    These teams meet again in the last series of the regular season, March 4 and 5. One has to wonder whether the appearances will be so similar then.

    Other Things to Think About

    Some things have a way of making you forget you just got swept in a WCHA series.

    Minnesota State’s Cole Bassett was hospitalized in Colorado Springs on Saturday night after going into the boards headfirst in the first period of a 3-1 loss to Colorado College. He stayed on the ice for several minutes while being attended to by trainers, the Mankato Free Press reported.

    He left the ice on his skates, with assistance from teammates, but went to a hospital on a backboard.

    Bassett watched practice from outside the rink on Monday and is doubtful for this weekend’s series against Alaska-Anchorage, coach Troy Jutting told the newspaper.

    Pink, It’s Not Even a Question

    The psychological experiment that is the pink locker room just might have worked on Alaska-Anchorage last weekend.

    The visitors locker room at the DECC has long been painted pink in an effort to soothe the opponent to the point where they’re too relaxed to play.

    An analysis on gliddenpaint.com contends that if your favorite color is pink — or, we suppose, are exposed to a lot of that color, “gently, you offer love, attention and nurturing to those in distress.”

    Maybe UAA was just too nurturing of Minnesota-Duluth.

    After the Seawolves were swept by the Bulldogs by scores of 8-1 and 5-1, coach John Hill threw open the doors of the locker room.

    “Come into the pink palace,” Hill told the Anchorage Daily News. “It worked on us this weekend. It got us in that relaxed atmosphere.”

    The Seawolves practiced in Minneapolis this week before moving on to a series at Minnesota State. No word on increased paint sales in Mankato this week.

    No Surprises Here

    Don’t count Michigan Tech coach Jamie Russell among those surprised to see the Huskies’ Colin Murphy and Chris Conner leading the nation in scoring early this season.

    We’ll say that again. The new Tech coach doesn’t look at the NCAA scoring leaders, see two of his players tied for first and say, “How ’bout that?”

    Maybe he knows something the rest of us don’t.

    Maybe he expected the breakout start Murphy and Conner, along with rookie Taggart Desmet, the third member of the line, have forged.

    “I had high expectations for those three,” Russell said, “and I don’t expect them to tail off in any way, shape or form.”

    Recent form could be the biggest reason most didn’t expect it from the Huskies this season. Last season, they were eighth among WCHA teams, averaging 2.87 goals per game. So far this season, Russell’s first in Houghton, they’ve racked up 4.5 goals a game.

    That’s clearly due to the Desmet line, which has accounted for 39 of the Huskies’ 69 points and 21 of their 27 goals this season. Russell said part of their success can be traced to the diversity of their playing styles.

  • Conner is a speedster with a knack for hitting the net. He leads the nation with 11 goals and 1.83 goals per game, is part of a four-way tie for the national points-per-game lead with 2.50 (his 15 points also leads the nation) and has an eight-game point-scoring streak going into this weekend’s home series with Wisconsin.
  • Murphy’s poise with the puck gets him scoring opportunities. He’s tied with Conner for the points lead, is fourth in goals per game at 1.33 (eight goals) and has an 11-game point streak.
  • Desmet, the center, helps put it all together. After sitting out last season because of prior major junior involvement, he has emerged as the nation’s rookie scoring leader (nine points, 1.80 per game) thanks to his vision and ability to create plays.

    “I think Taggart has really been a good fit with those guys,” Russell said. “They all compete hard. They’re playing both ends of the rink. We showed a clip the other day of Colin Murphy backchecking. He’s getting it done at both ends of the rink.

    “Chris day in, day out, just battles and wants to get better. He’s out on the ice — I have to kick those guys off the ice, say that’s enough. They’re great to work with. They’re a threat every time they get out onto the ice.”

    He’s My Brother

    Mark Heatley, a freshman walk-on at Wisconsin and the brother of former Badgers star Dany Heatley, got his first playing time two weeks ago against Quinnipiac. He got it by his hard work in practice and his tenacity.

    But he was happy to share it.

    Heatley, who had modest recruiting interest until an injury sidelined him last season in juniors, said he was playing for his brother, who was injured in a September car crash that led to the death of Atlanta Thrashers teammate Dan Snyder.

    “I think about it all the time. I think about my brother,” Mark Heatley said. “I guess I use it as motivation, just to work hard for him. Getting in the lineup, it gives him a chance to watch me play on TV and take his mind off stuff, and I think he really likes that.

    “I’m playing for him and my family.”

    (Not) Rating the Goalies

    St. Cloud State has allowed an average of just over 20 shots on goal in its last four games. Good for the Huskies defense. Bad for evaluating goaltenders.

    The Huskies are trying out three goaltenders early this season, but Dahl conceded it has been tough to get reads on Jason Montgomery, Adam Coole and Tim Boron because of the low amount of shots they’ve seen.

    Boron faced only 12 shots in three-plus periods against Princeton last Friday. Montgomery saw only 15 shots the next night. Both allowed one goal.

    Dahl credits a defense that has been able to capably rotate eight players into the mix so far this season for the low shots total. But with Minnesota-Duluth and North Dakota on the docket the next two weekends, the goalies’ challenges may be soon in arriving.

    “I think these next two series are going to separate the men from the boys back there,” Dahl said. “Because I guarantee you we’ll probably see more than 15 shots on those four nights. I’m looking forward to playing in these games. I’m looking forward to it because it’ll tell us a little bit more about what we need to improve.”

    He Said It

    Denver goaltender Berkhoel, a Woodbury, Minn., native, after allowing three goals to Minnesota’s Thomas Vanek over the weekend but still escaping Mariucci Arena with a victory last Saturday:

    “Vanek made me look stupid twice this weekend, but after four years of trying, I finally got a win here.”

    Spotted

    Yes, that was former Wisconsin defenseman Mark Osiecki standing in front of Brett Favre on the sidelines at the Metrodome last Sunday night. The coach of the Green Bay Gamblers of the United States Hockey League was carrying cords on the sidelines for the Green Bay Packers.

    In Other Words

    WCHA players of the week were Minnesota-Duluth’s Lessard on offense, Colorado College’s Curtis McElhinney on defense and North Dakota’s Murray as the top rookie. … North Dakota’s Bochenski reached the 100-point plateau last weekend. The junior has 103 career points for the Sioux. … Opponents are outshooting Alaska-Anchorage on average 40-26 this season, and the Seawolves have been outshot in five of six games. … Wisconsin has won 13 of its last 14 games against Michigan Tech. The only loss in that span, which dates to the 1999-2000 season, was a 1-0 Tech victory in Madison in November 2001. …

    Three goals last weekend helped CC’s Joey Crabb reach five goals for the season. He had four a year ago. … The crowd of 9,946 that watched last Friday’s UND-Yale game was a Ralph Engelstad Arena low. … Colorado College won all four games against Denver last season and has a four-game winning streak in the Gold Pan series. … Minnesota State has been outscored 6-1 in the third period this season. Last year, the Mavericks won the third-period battle 62-50.

    • This Week in Division III: Nov. 6, 2003

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    Starting on a High Note

    The D-III season got off to a lively start last weekend with a pair of marquee matchups. Elmira, ranked 10th in the USCHO.com preseason poll, played a home and away series with second ranked Oswego. Number three St. Norbert traveled to RIT for a pair of games.

    In each case, the higher ranked teams came away 1-0-1 in two quality games, something not normally found so early in season.

    After starting with some games against weaker opponents in recent years, RIT coach Wayne Wilson found this a welcome change, even though the Tigers took a tie and a loss.

    “I love playing big games like this early,” Wilson said. “I think it exposes weaknesses earlier in the season and allows you to work on things.

    “I think I would have rather played (the exhibition with) Humber first and get some of the kinks out before playing St. Norbert for our first game, but playing top teams in the early going can really help.”

    St. Norbert coach Tim Coghlin was also happy with the trip to Rochester, especially the way his young defense responded.

    “I’m very pleased,” he said. “RIT is explosive; they just keep coming at you. I thought we played very well.”

    “They shut us down in the second game (a 4-2 St. Norbert win),” said Wilson. “But we learned a lot.”

    Scheduling Changes

    Neither RIT nor Elmira has much time to make changes before another big test. The teams, which have for decades played each other late in the season, square off in just two weeks. Elmira also faces Manhattanville this weekend, as the ECAC West modifies its schedule to mirror that of the neighboring SUNYAC, which plays half of its conference schedule before Christmas.

    “I think I’d rather see all the league games in the second half, but at least there’s some space between big games,” said Wilson. “Last year — done with Manhattanville by Christmas and played Elmira twice within six days in February.”

    The NCHA and MIAC have also modified their interlocking schedule, which traditionally had the two leagues squaring off in the middle of the season. Now all the non-conference games will take place in November and December, allowing both leagues to play nothing but conference games down the stretch.

    “I like the new arrangement,” said Wisconsin-Stout coach Terry Watkins. “It allows us to get the bugs out in early games, and then come back and really focus on conference games.”

    Yes, Virginia, There Is a Division II

    Division II hockey is getting more organized, especially the six ECAC teams. The Northeast 10 conference has adopted those teams, instituting a post-season tournament for them this season. Now they’ve even announced a pre-season poll.

    St. Michael’s got four of the six first place votes to finish on top, with ECAC East rival St. Anselm picking up the other two to place second. Following are the four ECAC Northeast Division II schools, Southern New Hampshire, Assumption, Stonehill and Franklin Pierce.

    The only other NCAA Division II school is Minnesota-Crookston, which is allowed to play in the MCHA playoffs because that league does not get an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

    Welcome to the Party

    Speaking of the MCHA, that conference will admit a new member next season. Finlandia University, located in Northern Michigan, has been given provisional NCAA status, and was unanimously voted into the league on Monday.

    “This is great for the program,” said Finlandia coach Joe Burcar. “We will be able to establish some rivalries and play for a championship. We’ll be able to set our eyes on that goal and look forward to the challenge of the MCHA.”

    The Lions have been playing non-conference games against MCHA schools for the past three seasons, accumulating a 9-5-1 record, including a 9-3, 13-4 sweep of Northland last weekend.

    Weekly Awards

    Not all conferences have started play yet, but the ones that have are giving out weekly awards.

    ECAC West

    Player of the Week — Lawne Synder, Elmira. A three-year defenseman, Synder moved to forward this season and the results have been immediate — three goals and three assists in a two-game series with Oswego.

    Goalie of the Week — Adam Levelle, Hobart. The junior netminder backstopped Hobart to a 1-0-1 weekend at the Buffalo State All Sports Invitational, earning all-tournament honors.

    Rookie of the Week — Brad Harris, RIT. Harris tallied each night in a two game series against St. Norbert.

    MCHA

    Player of the Week — Jon Daigle, Marian. Had two goals and two assists in a pair of games last weekend.

    Goalie of the Week — Terry Dunbar, Marian. Posted his fifth career shutout in a 5-0 win over St. Scholastica.

    Rookie of the Week — Joe Dovalina, MSOE and Kelle Larsson, Lawrence. Dovalina made 55 saves in a 5-0 loss to Wisconsin-River Falls, while Larsson had a pair of assists in a 6-4 loss to St. Scholastica

    NCHA

    Player of the Week — Jason Deitsch, St. Norbert. The junior forward scored four goals and two assists in three games, including scoring the winning goal in both Green Knight wins as they went 2-0-1 against Marian and RIT.

    SUNYAC

    Player of the Week — Jim Gilbride, Fredonia. The sophomore forward was named MVP of the Buffalo All Sports Invitational with an outstanding five goal performance in a 13-3 win over Johnson & Wales. That tied a school record.

    Goalie of the Week — Jeff Phelps, Geneseo. Phelps has not allowed a goal in 80 minutes of work so far this season, including a 3-0 win over Lebanon Valley.

    Rookie of the Week — Mike DeMarco, Buffalo State. The freshman had a school-record six assists in a 10-2 win over Johnson & Wales.

    Strictly Opinion

    USCHO recently reported the lawsuit against Norwich and a former player. I did most of the research on the story, but I wasn’t there and didn’t see the incident.

    You never know what’s going to happen with any lawsuit, but this one seems to be a hard sell, in my opinion. David Harbinson, a backup goalie for Wisconsin-Superior, was allegedly struck in the face with the stick of Norwich forward Jason Lumsden. Lumsden apparently inadvertently hit Harbinson with his stick as play was near the Superior bench.

    Harbinson, as is the custom of backup goalies, was not wearing a helmet on the bench. Lumsden, as is the custom of hockey players, was being aggressive. I have coached for over 10 years, and I can tell you that you have to be alert at all times for pucks and sticks flying over the boards. I have narrowly avoided being cut by a player’s skates after he was upended and sent flying into the bench.

    To quote many a player and coach, “That’s hockey.”

    To further complicate things, Harbinson is also suing Norwich, claiming that they condoned and possibly even instilled Lumsden “reckless” behavior. He is also suing the NCAA, because, well, why not?

    Stay tuned … this one may wind up on Court TV … or Judge Judy.

    This Week in the CCHA: Nov. 6, 2003

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    All Good Things to Those Who Wait

    Well, perhaps waiting isn’t the best way to spend your time while rebuilding a program. Perhaps the Lake Superior State Lakers and the Bowling Green Falcons have spent their time doing something more productive than waiting.

    The Lakers still anchor the CCHA standings, having lost their only two league games so far this year to Miami, but LSSU is 2-2-2 overall — which is .500 hockey, for those of you playing along at home — and 2-0-2 against nonconference opponents.

    With three of four points at Canisius two weeks ago, the Lakers have already accomplished something in the 2002-03 season that they could not last year: win a game on the road.

    Last Saturday, the Lakers scored four goals in their win over visiting St. Lawrence, the first time this season that LSSU has netted four in a game, a feat the Lakers accomplished just three times in 38 games last season, and the first time since a 4-2 win over Northern Michigan Feb. 15, 2003. And they tied the Saints the night before.

    “Both teams played really hard both nights,” Laker head coach Frank Anzalone told the Sault Ste. Marie Evening News Nov. 2. “The good thing about college hockey is a game like tonight with two average teams playing as hard as they can. It makes for a really good game to watch.”

    Perhaps one of the most encouraging signs for far this season for the Lakers was the way in which LSSU earned that 2-2 tie. Bo Cheeseman and Colin Nicholson scored 21 seconds apart with the Lakers down 2-0 in the second to knot the game.

    While it’s nice to get those goals, the stalwart of Laker play for the past two seasons has been goaltending. Junior Matt Violin (2.32 GAA, .902 SV%) had the 2-2 tie against the Saints, and freshman Jeff Jakaitis debuted with 41 saves in the 4-2 win.

    “Jakaitis did really well,” Anzalone told the Evening News. “He plays a style where his defense will have to be very accountable to him. He is still learning to handle rebounds on the first shots. All night though, he was very strong.”

    This weekend, the Lakers venture into CCHA play again, hoping to break their league road drought against the struggling Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks. LSSU is 1-5-0 against UNO in Omaha, and the Lakers haven’t won a regular-season CCHA game since Dec. 9, 2000. The last time LSSU won any game on the road against a CCHA opponent was March 8, 2002, a 4-3 win over Michigan in the opening round of the CCHA playoffs.

    Neither team has a point in league play so far this season, so one team or the other — or both, if the weekend results in two ties — is going to earn at least something with this series. The Mavericks, outscored by opponents 18-11 in six games this season, are struggling both fore and aft, with a collective .884 save percentage.

    In fact, the Mavericks haven’t won a game in 14 outings, going 0-12-2 since a Feb. 15 win against Bemidji State.

    The Lakers will be the first CCHA team to visit the brand-spanking-new Qwest Center.

    The Waiting Game, Part 2

    In Bowling Green, special teams made the difference in two games that gave the Falcons three league points against in-state rival Miami. BGSU held Miami, the No. 2 power play in the nation, scoreless for 11 attempts in the two-game set, while power-play goals accounted for half of BGSU’s eight in the 4-1 win and 4-4 tie. The Falcon PK is now fourth in conference play (.903).

    “We really try to use the penalty kill as a motivating force for our team,” BGSU head coach Scott Paluch told USCHO.com’s Jeremy Potter. “When it’s not going well five-on-five, killing off a penalty can give you a great lift.”

    It was that stellar penalty kill that helped the Falcons come back from a four-goal deficit in the tie game. At 45 seconds into the second period, Derek Edwardson scored shorthanded for Miami — the RedHawks’ second shorthanded tally of the night — to give Miami a 4-0 lead, but the Falcons never gave up, with Mark Wires netting two in the second, and Rich Meloche scoring twice in the third.

    “You have to catch your breath from a game like this when it’s over,” Paluch said. “This was a great point for our team.”

    This week, BGSU hosts Niagara for one game, the same Niagara team that lost 6-2 to Michigan last week. Even though it’s just the third meeting between the two squads, there’s already a little history there — at least for the Falcons. It was against the Purple Eagles Oct. 4, 2002, at the Lefty McFadden Invitational, that Paluch debuted as Falcon head coach. He won that game, 4-1, and BGSU is 2-1-0 against Niagara all-time.

    The 2-3-0 Purple Eagles have impressive wins over New Hampshire (Oct. 25) and Wayne State (Oct. 31). Barret Ehgoetz leads Niagara with six goals and an assist for seven points in five games. Senior netminder Rob Bonk (2.01 GAA, .918 SV%) is the Purple Eagles’ leading goalie and earned the conference win against WSU.

    Let’s Just Hope He Doesn’t Read His Own Press

    Notre Dame rookie netminder David Brown is fast becoming legend in South Bend. With all of 18 years and four collegiate starts to his name, Brown already holds the school’s consecutive shutout minutes record at 186:15.

    Last week, the Irish swept Nebraska-Omaha 4-2 and 2-0, with Brown picking up his third straight shutout. Although Brown has a poised, veteran supporting cast — and although Morgan Cey looked good returning from injury with 29 stops in the 4-2 win — the fortunes of the Irish early this season are clearly linked to Brown’s performance.

    “I never thought I would come out this hot to start,” Brown told Steve Lowe of the South Bend Tribune after the win. “I just try to do what I know how to do and show the guys and prove to coach that I’m able to get the job done.”

    And, typical of any well-coached goaltender, Brown gave much of the credit for his third shutout to the team in front of him. “The guys really helped me out,” Brown told the Tribune. “They really let me see the puck, clear the rebounds especially — that was key for me. They were right there for me every step of the way.”

    In six games overall this season, Brown has posted an incredible .964 save percentage (1.15 GAA), miles ahead of veteran OSU netminder Mike Betz, whose .927 makes him second in overall play. In conference play, Brown (.955 SV%) just trails Betz (.958 SV%).

    Nationally, Brown ranks fifth in goals-against average, third in save percentage, and first in shutouts.

    To paraphrase George Lucas via Han Solo, let’s hope this kid doesn’t get cocky.

    Barks Worse Than Bites

    A year ago, a two-game set between the streaking Ferris State Bulldogs and the perennial powerhouse Michigan Wolverines would have been something to anticipate. Anyone who saw FSU play last season knew that the Bulldogs were on the road to something; few realized the season would culminate with a regular-season title and FSU’s first-ever NCAA tournament appearance.

    This season, the Bulldogs are 2-6-0 overall with just one league win. Already, FSU has equaled its number of conference losses (five) for all of the 2002-03 season.

    The Bulldogs are being outscored by opponents 32-18 through eight games overall; FSU’s offense averages 2.25 goals per game (10th), while the Bulldogs are allowing 4.00 goals per game (tied last).

    After losing 4-2 to Michigan State Saturday night after dropping an 8-0 decision the night before, Bulldog head coach Bob Daniels told the Ferris State Torch that the games were “rough” and “physical,” that every time the Bulldogs approached the MSU net, the Spartans “were all over” them.

    What a difference a year makes. Having returned 17 veterans, you’d think FSU would be more competitive this season — and perhaps they will be, once they find their feet.

    It would be nice to see the curse of Coach of the Year broken with Bob Daniels.

    At Least He Doesn’t Bite

    What do Alaska-Fairbanks’ Aaron Voros and Miami’s Taylor Hustead have in common? They’re the only two players in the CCHA to have earned 30 penalty minutes already. Voros leads the league with 34 minutes in eight games; Hustead has 32 in 10 games.

    What separates them, however, is significant. Voros is the third-leading scorer on his team (2-3–5), while Hustead (2-0-2) is 10th on a RedHawk squad loaded with offensive talent. Each gentleman netted both of his goals on the power play.

    During his rookie season, Voros led the CCHA in penalty minutes with over 100. Last year, because of a tumor in his leg, Voros played only 16 games for the Nanooks and still finished second on the team in penalties, just seven minutes shy of the 49 it took Kelly Czuy 35 games to accumulate.

    After earning his sixth penalty of UAF’s two-game series against Ohio State at 1:20 in the second period last Saturday night, Voros didn’t see another shift until the start of the third — when he promptly took another penalty, at :57.

    But is Voros merely misunderstood, a pro player in a college game? UAF head coach Guy Gadowsky seems to think so.

    “You can have different opinions on what a penalty is and what isn’t. Aaron Voros draws a lot of attention — he deserves a lot of penalties — but because he’s Aaron Voros he gets a lot that he doesn’t deserve. But regardless, the refs aren’t adapting to us; we’ve got to adapt to the refs. Whether they’re justified penalties or not, he was having trouble find a way to stay out of the box.

    “I know that there are people that feel that he’s playing an excellent hockey game and a pro style and that’s why he’s very much a commodity for the next level by the way he plays, and that he doesn’t get a fair shake.

    “That may be true, but if we can’t adapt, it’s not fair to the team.

    “I think it’s unfortunate — if you want my opinion. I think there’s times when he plays great and forechecks great and makes a great hit and gets a penalty for being Aaron Voros. I believe that. That’s my opinion. Still, I’m not the one calling the penalties, so we’ve got to realize that we have to change in this league.

    “You know what? Maybe at the next level … he won’t get those penalties … but right now we have to learn how to change. We have to learn how to adapt.

    “It doesn’t matter if he didn’t deserve it at all, ten percent, fifty percent, a hundred percent; we’re having trouble staying out of the box. We have to learn to adapt. He’s not the only one on the team, mind you, but he draws a lot of attention and lately … he’s been in the box a lot. He’s such a good player that we need him on the ice, period.”

    The Nanooks were swept by the Buckeyes, 4-2 and 3-2. Each of OSU’s game-winning goals was scored by J.B. Bittner on the Buckeye power play. In each case, Aaron Voros was not in the penalty box.

    Games of the Week

    It may be early, but it looks as though each of these teams has a legitimate chance of hosting a first-round CCHA playoff series.

    Western Michigan (3-3-2, 2-3-1 CCHA) at Alaska-Fairbanks (3-5-0, 2-2-0 CCHA)
    Friday and Saturday, 7:05 p.m. AT, Carlson Center, Fairbanks, Alaska

    What planet is this, and who are these Western Michigan Broncos?

    Last weekend, WMU traveled to Cornell’s Lynah arena and tied and beat the Big Red, 5-5 Friday and 3-2 Saturday.

    Yes, the Broncos allowed five goals against Cornell Friday night, and — yes — the Broncos were up 5-2 at the start of the third, but let’s give credit where credit is due, here; this is the same Bronco team that just a year ago would score five in a game and allow six to lose.

    The following night, Bronco netminder Scott Foster stopped 13 shots in the final period to preserve the victory for WMU.

    “It was a solid team effort,” Bronco head coach Jim Culhane told USCHO.com’s Adam Wodon after the win. “We haven’t had a lot of success on the road. Tonight and this weekend in one of the toughest places to play in college hockey … hopefully this could be a good step for our hockey program.”

    A “huge challenge” was how Culhane described the trip to Ithaca to the Western Herald. “Cornell hadn’t lost at home in 25 games and I thought we executed well in a hostile environment.”

    Now the Broncos, who were 4-15-1 on the road last season, hope to carry this newfound road momentum to Fairbanks, the longest trip of the year for every CCHA team that has to play the Nanooks on the road, 5,656 miles round-trip for the Broncos.

    Their welcome may be chilly indeed. The Nanooks will try to bounce back from two road losses to OSU last week, the second of which head coach Guy Gadowsky called “painful.”

    “Last night, I don’t think we deserved to win at all. Going into the third period, we found ourselves in a hockey game that we didn’t deserve to be in, so the results you can say were justified.

    “It hurts because I thought we definitely gave ourselves a chance to win.” In the first game, the Nanooks were down 3-2 at the start of the third in spite of being outshot by the Buckeyes 26-10 through 40 minutes of play. It wasn’t until Rod Pelley scored a minute into the third that UAF lost some steam and OSU began to dictate the game. OSU won 4-2.

    In the second match, a 3-2 loss, the Buckeyes led just 2-1 going into the third, and the Nanooks battled back after J.B. Bittner netted the game-winner at 15:04; Felipe Larranaga scored at 17:57 to keep UAF in it, and the Nanooks peppered OSU netminder Mike Betz with 43 shots on goal in the loss.

    After losing two on the road to Colorado College Oct. 17-18, the Nanooks returned home to beat Ferris State 4-2 and 4-1 Oct. 24-25.

    Here’s a look at the match. The stats are for overall games played.

  • Goals per game: WMU 3.25 (fifth), UAF 3.00 (sixth)
  • Goals allowed per game: WMU 3.50 (tie eighth), UAF 3.75 (10th)
  • Power play: WMU 17.5% (fifth), UAF 12.8% (10th)
  • Penalty kill: WMU 78.7% (eighth), UAF 72.4% (11th)
  • Top scorer: WMU Dana Lattery (4-5–9, UAF Ryan Campbell (4-3–7)
  • Top ‘tender: WMU Mike Mantua (.894 SV%), UAF Preston McKay (.906 SV%)

    The goalie stats are especially misleading. Foster (.882 SV%) and Mantua split time in the Bronco net evenly, and Keith Bartusch (.861 SV%) has seen the lion’s share of work in the Nanook net (396:22 minutes) because McKay was out with an injury.

    There are several keys to these games. The first is the match in net. McKay is the best goaltender among the four likely to see play, for either team, but if he’s as streaky as any goalie can be, and he has just one full game under his belt after returning from injury.

    The second is scoring. The Broncos seem to have discovered this season that if you score more goals than you allow, you win. This is a new development in Kalamazoo, and a welcome one. The Broncos are — drum roll, please — a collective plus-6 in overall play, plus-7 in league play so far this season, another stride forward. WMU is being outscored by opponents in overall play by a narrow, two-goal margin; UAF, collectively at minus-9, is bested by overall opponents 30-24.

    The third key to this series is special teams — not necessarily how well the Bronco and Nanook special teams are in the overall scheme of things, but rather how often each will have occasion to use special teams. The Nanooks were beaten twice last weekend by the OSU power play; Bittner’s game-winner in each game was with the Buckeye man advantage.

    The Broncos have compiled more minutes in lockdown than have the Nanooks, and more individual Broncos have taken penalties than have individual Nanooks, but as Gadowsky has said, Voros is a penalty magnet — and not in a good way. Add to the mix Czuy, and UAF has the propensity to spend a lot of time in the box with a penalty kill that needs some work.

    Note to those playing along at home: perhaps the bigger ice surface will negate this whole argument. With more room, the Nanooks may not feel the need to fight for space, and the Broncos may be frustrated.

    These games are bigger than the sum of their collective scores. These are cluster matches; the Nanooks will travel to Kalamazoo Jan. 9-10.

    WMU leads this series all-time, 14-8-3, and are 7-4-3 in Fairbanks. Last year, the Broncos earned their first-ever sweep of the Nanooks in the Carlson Center, beating the Nanooks by a collective score of 12-6 in two games (Jan. 24-25).

    Picks: Look for the Nanooks to come out determined on Friday night, but it may be that the Broncos have their number. Look also for each of these teams to find its way to Detroit at the end of the season. UAF 4-3, WMU 5-3

    • This Week in Women’s Hockey: Nov. 6, 2003

    By
    -

    We’re in the midst of Four Nations Cup week, the time every year when the best women’s hockey talents from Canada, U.S., Sweden and Finland depart to play for their national teams, leaving several college programs shorthanded.

    Some affected colleges were able to schedule around the Cup (No. 1 Minnesota, No. 4 Minnesota-Duluth). Others happen to be playing the last place teams or last place picks of their conference (No. 2 Dartmouth, No. 3 Harvard, and No. 7 Wisconsin).

    Then there’s No. 5 St. Lawrence, minus captain Gina Kingsbury, playing the full complement from No. 9 New Hampshire. It’s not the best situation for the Saints, but it’s good news for the rest of college hockey to have at least one duel of top 10 teams scheduled this weekend.

    Despite the reduced U.S. college schedule, there’s still plenty of action this week. Harvard and Brown are finally starting their seasons, and the ECAC and CHA are scratching their slate of conference play — a whole 28 days since Minnesota State opened the year by taking out Minnesota-Duluth, for those keeping score. Early returns are already in from Cup host Sweden, and the impact of current and former college players there is always a source of excitement. Harvard and No. 6 Providence meet up in the first post-Cup game on Tuesday.

    All this, and the most heart-warming story is happening off the ice.

    Paging All Donors

    When Niagara coach Margot Page discovered that former player Jennifer Goulet required treatment for thyroid cancer, she needed to be more than just a bystander.

    The Purple Eagles set an ambitious fundraising goal of $1,500, the cost of Goulet’s treatment. They hosted a charity hockey game matching current players against alumni to kick off the fund on Oct. 25, and they have been collecting donations ever since.

    The diversity of the donation sources has been beyond what Page ever anticipated.

    "It’s been amazing how much response there has been. We thought it was just going to from our local area, but then you look at the hockey world, and how much camaraderie there is."

    — Niagara coach Margot Page, on the response to the fundraiser for ailing former player Jennifer Goulet.

    “It’s been amazing how much response there has been,” Page said. “We thought it was just going to from our local area, but then you look at the hockey world, and how much camaraderie there is.”

    Page estimated on Sunday that the team had raised approximately half of the goal. Even being on the road in Boston didn’t stop the donations from coming. During the weekend’s games, Northeastern offered to make a contribution, and the referees on the ice asked Page how they could help.

    “[Jennifer’s] amazed that people she doesn’t even know are donating,” Page said. “That just shows how close people in the hockey world are and how caring they are.”

    Goulet has already had surgery for her ailment, and she will be undergoing further treatment over the next couple weeks, according to Page.

    Goulet, who turned 24 on Monday, recorded 47 points for her career. She was a key contributor to the Niagara team that advanced to the 2002 Frozen Four. The most visible effort of her career came when she tallied a goal and an assist in the consolation match against Minnesota. Her points lifted the Purple Eagles to a tie with the top-seeded Gophers and concluded Niagara’s dream season on an upbeat note.

    Check donations made payable to the Jennifer Goulet Fund are being accepted at the following mailing address:

    Attn: Niagara head coach Margot Page
    Dwyer Arena
    Niagara University, NY 14109

    International Impact

    As usual, the box scores at the Four Nations Cup have read like a who’s-who of U.S. women’s college hockey, regardless of what nation the players are representing. Through two days of competition, those who have played U.S. college hockey this calendar year have accounted for 50 percent of goals scored and 76 percent of assists. That doesn’t even count Boston College assistant coach Katie King, who leads everyone with three goals, or recent Brown graduate Pam Dreyer, who has been the tournament’s top goaltender so far.

    Minnesota-Duluth leads the nation with six players representing three different nations at the Cup, and Minnesota is right behind with three U.S. players. Dartmouth and Harvard sent two players each, while Wisconsin and St. Lawrence each sent one.

    Teams have been impacted unequally by the national team programs every year, and so far this year’s tough luck leader is St. Lawrence. The Saints have already been shorthanded. Coming off the program’s dramatic first-ever victory at UMD on Saturday, Kingsbury missed Sunday’s rematch because she had to fly out to Toronto. She was forced to miss the game because there were no flights available from Duluth to Toronto between the game on Sunday and Canadian team’s departure.

    On the other side of the ice, UMD’s Canadian national team representative Caroline Ouellette was still playing college hockey, as were the Bulldogs’ five other national team players. Ouellette had made arrangements to travel overseas with the U.S. team and Duluth teammates Julianne Vasichek and Jenny Potter.

    “We made an assumption that what’s good for Gina is good for the rest of the Canadian national team,” said Saints coach Paul Flanagan. “Well, we found out about a week before that Caroline Ouellette was going to travel on Monday, along with Jenny Potter, which was rather convenient for UMD.”

    That convenience included Ouellette’s four assists in a 5-0 thrashing. She twice sent in freshman linemate Jessica Koizumi alone in on net. Kingsbury was long gone instead.

    “We did speak with Canada and tried to look at an alternative travel with Gina but it didn’t work out,” Flanagan said. “I’m not going to be critical of anyone or blame anyone else. It’s our athlete’s responsibility to ask the questions and to make plans because it is something separate from the university.”

    St. Lawrence was missing more than Kingsbury in the rematch. First-line freshman Chelsea Grills was also too hobbled to play. Then they fell behind 3-0 in the third period and started marching to the penalty box. Flanagan declined to say that Kingsbury would have turned around the result, and he gave Duluth plenty of credit for coming back strong as expected.

    “With our senior leader Gina out of the mix, it changes the dynamics of our team,” Flanagan said. “We rely on her a lot. She can play some nights half the game. That’s what you see a lot in women’s college hockey.”

    As an example, Flanagan noted that Potter and Ouellette’s line accounted for half of Duluth’s shots on Sunday.

    “Let’s take them out of the mix and it could make a difference. I’m not staying they still wouldn’t have beaten us 5-0, but it changes the psychology and mentality of the whole game,” he said.

    One team that can sympathize with St. Lawrence’s plight is Dartmouth, who was missing as many as four national team players for key games against Harvard and UMD a year ago. For this week’s tournament, Dartmouth’s Canadian national team representatives, Gillian Apps and Cherie Piper, will only miss games against Vermont. They also accounted for six goals in the Big Green’s season-opening win over Providence. Piper has already set up Apps for a goal in the Four Nations Cup.

    “I mean it’s definitely nice that Cherie and I are fortunate enough to actually get a game under our belts before we go to Four Nations, and it’s great to be here for such a big game too,” Apps said following the victory.

    Piper, on the other hand, felt that the opponents they would be missing were irrelevant because of the strength of her teammates.

    “You don’t really focus on [the missed games], because no matter what you’re gone,” she said. “I just find that our team is so positive about it. You can leave and come back and they’re just happy with the fact you had the opportunity to play with your country, and people are going to pick up the slack, and they’re going to work their butts off every chance they get to compete.”

    Piper also insisted that her impending departure to Sweden had no impact on her two goal, two assist game that night. Dartmouth coach Mark Hudak had his own theory for the two stepping up their game to the next level.

    “It’s funny, you look at kids their freshman year like Piper coming off of winning an Olympic gold medal, but there’s still an adjustment in getting back to school, and those things can affect you,” he said. “They’re a little more comfortable here now, they understand how everything works here, so when they come to the rink, they can leave that other stuff behind and they can play hockey the way they know how to play hockey.”

    That means a lot more consistency can be expected of Apps and Piper this season, and many more challenges for Dartmouth’s opponents.

    No Place Like the Road

    St. Lawrence’s bad fortune goes beyond the Four Nations departure. The team’s schedule worked out so that it plays seven of its first eight games against Top 10 teams and eight of its first 10 games on the road.

    Flanagan felt the travel schedule was so bad that he found himself apologizing to his team for it. What he liked though was that one his players responded by saying, “Coach, we’re Division I athletes. We expect this.”

    “I was really talking to them about making sure they never miss a class, and that they can’t do last minute planning,” Flanagan said. “They’re accepting their role as athletes and students. They’ve impressed me.”

    The Saints have stepped to the challenge on the ice with a 3-2-1 record that includes a tie with Providence, a split with No. 8 Mercyhurst and an emotional split against Duluth, the team that defeated them in the 2001 NCAA final.

    St. Lawrence had been 0-6 all-time against UMD, and senior goaltender Rachel Barrie had been around for all those games. When the Saints went up 3-0 and Barrie held off a late rally for a 3-2 victory, she was overcome with emotion.

    “She had never beaten them and it meant a lot to her personally, and she realized how much it means for our club right now,” Flanagan said. “It was twofold for her.”

    The Saints’ most visible weakness has been on the power play, where they’re just 2-of-32 for the season. In the team’s 3-1 loss to Mercyhurst the week before playing Duluth, Flanagan said the Saints were just moving around the puck on the power play but not getting anything on net. Only in the third period of the rematch, when the Saints scored twice to claim a 4-2 victory, did the team find its game.

    Now Flanagan’s hoping for a pair of free-skating games on the big ice sheet of the Whittemore Center at UNH. The Saints are uncharacteristically third in the nation in penalty minutes this season. That doesn’t play to their strengths.

    “Hopefully it’s a good skating, free-wheeling game, getting away from a lot of the physical stuff that we’ve encountered the last two weeks,” Flanagan said. “Hopefully we get a good ref that let’s them play and let’s them wheel, and I just think the big ice lends itself to more of a wide-open game.”

    As for the matchups, St. Lawrence is shorthanded with injuries and Kingsbury’s absence, but Flanagan hopes the difference is in net with the First Team ECAC goaltender Barrie. New Hampshire has had to replace recently graduated All-American netminder Jen Huggon.

    “We’ve got a good combination of veterans and younger kids, but you have some untested kids early in the season, and you never know sometimes,” he said. “We’d like to think Rachel brings a lot of experience in net, but we’re pretty young in a lot of areas.”

    Getting Off the Ground

    Speaking of Mercyhurst’s success, College Hockey America’s league slate gets started this weekend with Mercyhurst at Findlay and Niagara at Wayne State.

    Mercyhurst’s victory over St. Lawrence was the first in the program’s history and one of the biggest nonconference wins in the four-team conference’s two-year history. The Lakers beat Brown on route to the Bears’ 2002 NCAA run, but they had not beaten a ranked opponent recently despite several close calls.

    “It was a great weekend of hockey, either game could have either way,” said Mercyhurst coach Mike Sisti. “We felt that we couldn’t afford to go emptyhanded out of that weekend. We would have liked to get two, but we were definitely happy to get the one.”

    Page feels anyone in their conference will be capable of pulling an upset this season.

    “I think you’re just going to see that more down the road,” Page said. “Obviously it’s something that’s going to take some time but I think you’ll see surprises with all four teams.”

    The CHA will expand to five teams for sure next year with Quinnipiac joining. Page and Sisti both seemed confident that the league would work to find a sixth in order to get an automatic bid for the expanded eight-team NCAA tournament next season.

    “That’s going be great for women’s hockey, because you can work the whole season and develop your players for the conference tournament and hopefully that’s what’s going to lead to the national tournament,” Page said.

    Page can sympathize with that feeling. Her team, which made the Frozen Four in 2002 a year prior to the CHA women’s league’s formation, is a developing stage right now with the most freshmen on its roster since the program was created. The team is off to just a 1-2-1 start against Northeastern and fledgling Clarkson, but Page says the Purple Eagles have gelled off the ice and it’s only a matter of time before it happens on the ice.

    Mercyhurst is in better position to win right now. Despite the team’s losses to graduation and youth a year ago, the team has still been strong defensively and in net with Desi Clark. Teresa Marchese-Del Monte, the conference preseason player of the year and a transfer from top rival Niagara, has already scored four goals and provided the kind of scoring punch the Lakers had once lacked. She accounted for two of the goals in the St. Lawrence victory.

    “Being younger than other programs that have been around 20 to 30 years, I think we’re closing the gap by chipping away at things at each year,” Sisti said. “We’re just trying to improve week to week. That’ll be our challenge again this year.”

    Injury Bug Strikes Again

    The college hockey world sent its sympathy to Minnesota captain Kelsey Bills when she suffered a fracture in her leg the week before last. Add to that list Minnesota-Duluth’s Larissa Luther, who will be out until at least January just after she had started to develop a synergy with Potter and Ouellette on the first line. It’s a tough string of luck for Luther, who also missed much of the first half of last year for academic reasons.

    Also facing tough luck was Northeastern senior goaltender Chanda Gunn, who was run over by a Niagara player in Saturday’s 2-2 tie. She was still visibly hobbled after Sunday’s game. The injury came at an unfortunate time since Gunn was set to play for the U.S. at the Four Nations Cup. Her status was unknown as of last Sunday.

    Northeastern was not fazed a bit by the loss of their senior leader, however, in a 3-0 victory over Niagara the next day. Katy Augustyn produced a shutout for the Huskies in net, while freshman Amy Goodney provided a crucial deflection at the crease to put Northeastern ahead. Goodney also added the empty-net clincher in the end.

    Coach Joy Woog was beaming once again.

    “We played a great team game today,” Woog said. “Everybody backchecked. Everybody forechecked. We won the one-on-one battles. We run the races to open pucks. We just had a great team game. As long as this team shows up, we’re going to be fine in any game we play this year.”

    New Beginnings Next Week

    Another team out of action this weekend is Providence. Coach Bob Deraney thinks it comes at a good time. Results have been disappointing so far with a tie against Northeastern and the 7-2 defeat at Dartmouth.

    “You need to have passion, desire, and determination to play this game, and we’ve been lacking it, personally,” Deraney said after the Dartmouth defeat. “I think maybe this’ll be a wakeup call for our kids and maybe it won’t be. I don’t know where we go from here.”

    After facing a Dartmouth team that was eager to get on the ice and play its first games, Providence will be facing a Harvard team eager to play its first games as a full squad once U.S. national players Julie Chu and Angela Ruggiero return. This weekend Harvard provides a difficult ECAC welcoming to new D-I team Union, who has already lost games by wide margins to traditional weaker D-I schools Quinnipiac and Boston College. That makes Providence Harvard’s first real challenge.

    The Friars have 11 full days to prepare for the Harvard match. Deraney thinks that is a blessing given the circumstances.

    “To be honest with you, you always want to get back on the saddle and play again, because I don’t want them to forget this feeling,” Deraney said. “But when they have so much time off, it can be a double-edged sword. But we did get banged up [against Dartmouth], so the rest will do us good because it will allow our kids to get healthy. I think we can really do some soul-searching.”

    This Week in Atlantic Hockey: Nov. 6, 2003

    By
    -

    Expansion: A Commentary

    Though this column always has a hockey focus, basketball and football are inspiring the words I lead with this week.

    What began as a defection of three teams from the Big East — namely Miami, Boston College, and Virginia Tech — to the Atlantic Coast Conference, has turned into a musical-chairs mess of teams leaping from league to league in an attempt to build the better college sports conference.

    After griping that teams were stolen it, the Big East did the same to Conference USA, which in turn scrambled to find six teams to fill that hole. Thursday, reports surfaced that the Atlantic 10 is looking to take two teams from C-USA as well.

    You want to talk about an absolute mess? This hopscotch scenario is the case study.

    The one thing in all of this that is good: it has no direct effect on college hockey. Boston College, right now, is the only affected program with a Division I team, and they’ll be staying put in Hockey East.

    One issue, though, that plagues these major, all-sport conferences can be found in Atlantic Hockey: budget.

    If there’s one thing that we all realize, it is the fact that no matter what industry you’re in — college athletics included — money is tight these days. Asking colleges to increase annual budgets is a very difficult thing to do.

    Atlantic Hockey members are no strangers to money woes. The nine remaining teams are exactly that — remaining. They are left after two charter members of the then-MAAC — Iona and Fairfield — dropped varsity hockey, citing a need to reallocate funds.

    Yet within this discussion of tightened wallets co-exists talk of the need to expand.

    For Atlantic Hockey, that has existed for some time now. Names such as Robert Morris, Navy, Rhode Island, St. Anselm and a host of others have been thrown around as programs that are looking at starting or elevating to Division I men’s ice hockey.

    At the same time, similar discussions (I tend to call them rumors) surfaced that teams might look to leave College Hockey America (read: Air Force). That rumor silenced itself a bit two years ago when the CHA was granted its autobid.

    On a third level, there was talk of the opposite — contraction. Rumors that schools like Quinnipiac, Connecticut or Mercyhurst would leave for more competitive leagues have never been secret. That was so much so, that when Bob DeGregorio became commissioner he demanded written commitment from all programs to remain conference members.

    Back to the topic, though, the rumors are all well and good when you don’t think about the financial impact. Adding money to the equation is what needs to be examined more carefully.

    If leagues are going to expand, attention must be paid to geography. The Atlantic 10 ignored this by adding St. Louis, but the reality in that conference is that each school’s athletic budget is high enough to support extra travel expenses.

    In a quasi-bus league like Atlantic Hockey, most teams do not rely on air transportation to travel to and from games. At last look, truly only Mercyhurst invested any significant dollars in air travel.

    That, though, could change through expansion. The U.S. Naval Academy is based in Annapolis, Maryland — a cool six-hour bus ride from Erie, Pa., and Mercyhurst; seven hours from Bentley in Waltham, Mass.; and a three-plus-movie, eight-hour ride from Buffalo, N.Y., home of Canisius.

    Robert Morris is in Pittsburgh, less than an hour from Mercyhurst. For the Lakers, that would be an ideal team to have in the league. But for the seven New England schools that’s equivalent to the trip to Mercyhurst and Canisius — and now the cash register is ringing.

    I realize that a nine-team league creates a schedule with only 24 league games per institution, leaving a 10-game scheduling hole that needs to be filled with non-league games. The reality, though, is that many teams are able to do so without a strong budget impact: New England teams can schedule Hockey East and ECAC opponents that can be day trips.

    There are, as well, economically viable expansion opportunities. The ability to add Rhode Island and Robert Morris simultaneously would create more balanced spending — Mercyhurst and Canisius would have new, local opponents, and the New England contingent would have the same. Balancing expense and expansion is not only fair, it’s smart business.

    And at the end of the day it will be business that dictates whether decisions are smart or ill-advised. That means expansion needs to be (and likely will be) given a strong look from a business angle before decisions are made.

    Weekly Awards

    Player of the Week

    Adam Tackaberry, Mercyhurst (Sr, F, Nepean, Ontario) — Tackaberry had two power play goals and an assist Thursday as Mercyhurst opened Atlantic Hockey play with a 4-1 win at Canisius. He scored the first goal of the game to put the Lakers ahead to stay, added an assist in the second period on Mercyhurst’s third goal, and concluded the Mercyhurst scoring with a power play tally in the first minute of the third period.

    Goaltenders of the Week

    Andy Franck, Mercyhurst (So, G, Lakewood, OH) — Franck came within 16 seconds of posting his second career shutout as the Lakers won their Atlantic Hockey opener 4-1 Thursday, October 30, at Canisius. Franck stopped 29 of 30 (.967) shots as Mercyhurst picked up its second win in three tries.

    Jamie Holden, Quinnipiac (Jr, G, Telkwa, B.C) — The preseason Second-Team All-Atlantic Hockey pick made 35 stops for the Bobcats in the 4-2 win over UConn on Friday. Holden kept the Huskies off the scoreboard in the third period with 10 saves. Holden also had an assist in the win over UConn, marking the first goalie helper since Dan DiLeo did it against Bentley on March 3, 2000.

    Freshman of the Week

    Scott Champagne, Mercyhurst (Fr, F, Cornwall, Ontario) — Champagne’s first collegiate goal proved to be the game-winner Thursday, October 30, in a 4-1 win at Canisius. His power play goal came six minutes into the second period.

    Earning Respect

    One win against a nationally-ranked opponent shouldn’t earn too much for any team, particularly Mercyhurst. The somewhat insular schedule of Atlantic Hockey is enough to make it nearly impossible for Mercyhurst to have any traction in the PairWise Rankings, let alone national polls.

    Reality, though, shows that the Lakers — after two trips in the last three years to the NCAAs — should be on the radar screens of Big Four teams as a potential opponent in the national tournament. Most coaches will tell you exactly that — that throughout the season teams like Quinnipiac and Mercyhurst in Atlantic Hockey, as well as the top schools in the CHA, are scouted just in case they become first-round NCAA opponents.

    But while coaches will take hard looks at those clubs, pollsters usually do not. Voters on each of the national polls have a hard time recognizing that the Lakers — or anyone in Atlantic Hockey — are capable of competing at the level of the top teams. Until, that is, such a team knocks off a nationally-ranked team like the Lakers did Ohio State just a couple of weeks ago.

    Even then, though, what does that merit? One win can be dismissed as a fluke. Repeating that task, though, has to open eyes.

    Thus, from a national standpoint, the most critical portion of the Lakers schedule is fast approaching. A two-game series at Western Michigan November 21 and 22, along with a single game at defending ECAC champ Cornell on November 29 are barometer games that will give the best measure of where, if anywhere, in the national picture the Lakers belong.

    Add to that the balance of Mercyhurst’s non-league schedule to get the full scale: at St. Lawrence on December 13; at the RPI tournament Christmas weekend; and a two-game set at Clarkson January 2 and 3.

    “The [Ohio State] win was nice. Now we have to do it again,” said Mercyhurst coach Rick Gotkin. “We were excited when we beat Ohio State and we’ve proven to ourselves that we can do this. It’s proven that we can [win outside the conference] now and we’re expecting to do that a few more times this year.”

    So what percentage of these games would Mercyhurst need to win to gain the respect of the pollster? That’s hard to measure. The only comparison available is recent years is the 1999-2000 Niagara team that went 9-6-2 against Big Four teams, captured the CHA title in its inaugural league season and received an at-large bid to the tournament. That club went on to upset New Hampshire in the first round of the tournament — possibly the most monumental upset in recent NCAA tournament history.

    “Niagara’s win in the NCAAs against UNH was unbelievable,” said Gotkin. “What they did in the few years they were together was a tribute to the coaches. That was the first time that the whole nation said that these small programs have some great commitment.”

    That is the path Gotkin would like to see his Lakers take. Reality dictates it’s a long road ahead, though, and the NCAA itself will make the road longer. A revamp in tournament criteria a year ago made it difficult for a MAAC team to receive an at-large bid because of its low cumulative conference RPI (for more on that, see USCHO’s explanation of the NCAA tournament criteria under the NCAAs link at the top of the page).

    With the Ratings Percentage Index as a major part of the criteria for selection (it’s not only a criterion but is also the tiebreaker should you match criteria with another team), Gotkin concedes that at-large bids can’t be the focus.

    “Honestly, I don’t think the NCAA would be happy having two Atlantic Hockey teams in the tournament,” said Gotkin. “But if you win your out-of-conference games on the road and you have a great conference season you should have a case for the NCAA tournament just like Hockey East or the CCHA.

    “We have to focus, though, on the one way we know will get us there and that’s winning our conference tournament. Maybe that should be our motto for the rest of the year: just win.”

    Ugly Opener

    Getting shut out in college hockey is never pretty. It’s even uglier when it comes not in the goals department, but rather in shots on goal.

    That happened to Bentley last Sunday when Union held the Falcons without a shot in the first period. All told, Union outshot Bentley, 16-0 in the first frame and 38-13 in a 5-1 Dutchmen win.

    Not surprisingly, the story for the season for the Falcons has been similar. Opponents have outshot the Falcons 192-139, as Bentley has opened with a 1-3-1 overall record.

    Welcome back

    American International is the final Atlantic Hockey team to begin league play. Though having played three non-conference games against league teams, the Yellow Jackets have not played a game that actually counts towards the league standings — until this weekend.

    AIC will play two at league leader Holy Cross. Besides looking for its first league win, AIC (0-6-0) will hope to enter the overall win column for the first time.

    This Week in the ECAC: Nov. 6, 2003

    By Juan Martinez
    -

    Finally.

    After weeks of exhibition and non-conference games, we’ve finally reached the first full slate of ECAC contests. It felt like this weekend would never arrive. For Brown (1-0-0) and Harvard (0-1-0), though, last Saturday marked their ECAC start.

    Behind tight defense and a couple of timely stops by Yann Danis, the Bears knocked off the Crimson for their third consecutive opening win against Harvard, but their first victory at Bright Hockey Center since 2001.

    “I love to play Harvard,” said Danis after the game. “They are one of the best teams in the country so I love playing them.”

    Despite being named ECAC Goaltender of the Week, Danis admitted that his 20-save effort — the ninth shutout of his career — wasn’t exactly a tough night at the office and that he had a clear view of every shot he faced.

    Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni wasn’t about to argue that point.

    “I’m 46,” said the former Michigan State netminder, “and I could have had a shutout going into the third period. He saw all the pucks. It looked like we had new skates, new gloves and new sticks. We had no rhythm and no crispness to our game whatsoever.”

    Clearly frustrated, Mazzoleni was careful not to criticize his team immediately afterward, however, a change in his coaching philosophy over the years.

    “I’ll have to watch the [game] tape first,” he said minutes after the loss. “I used to be the type who would walk in after the game and make some comments [to the players] that were completely wrong once I looked at the tape. I’ve learned not to speak from emotion.”

    When asked five days later what he though of the effort of his club now that he had time to view the video, his answer was simple.

    “Awful.”

    But why, Mazzoleni was asked?

    “I don’t know,” he admitted, “and that’s a terrible thing for a coach to say, but I don’t know. We were flat and had no energy.”

    To their credit, the Bears played very well, especially in the second period, when they scored both of their goals.

    “In years past,” said Brown coach Roger Grillo, “we held on at the end of games. Not [Saturday]. I was pleased with how our young guys came to play.”

    Never afraid to make adjustments, Mazzoleni will be changing his lineup a bit as Harvard and Brown head further north into New England for games against Vermont and Dartmouth.

    “Noah Welch will not play Friday,” he said. “That’s a coaches decision. John Daigneau will get the start [in goal] Friday and Ryan Maki will play his first game of the year up front.”

    The Crimson will be looking to rebound with those new faces in an already sold-out Gutterson Fieldhouse against Vermont (0-3-2), where the Catamounts are still searching for their first victory of the season.

    Harvard has a five-game winning streak going against UVM, including four wins by a combined 18-8 score in 2002-03 alone. On the flip side, however, the Cats have won two of their last three against the Crimson in Burlington.

    “If we don’t play with energy and commitment against everybody,” said Mazzoleni, “we’re not going to win.”

    The Cats are coming off a loss and a tie at Michigan Tech last weekend in which they gave up four power play goals. On the other side of the ice, UVM, which had been 2-for-20 on its power play, tallied three such goals against MTU.

    Saturday night, Vermont hosts Brown. The Bears have won four in a row against UVM, sweeping each of the last two season series, including a pair of Danis shutouts a year ago.

    Offensively, the Catamounts are receiving a balanced effort that will help against a good defensive Bears team. A pair of juniors top the scoring chart as Tim Plant (2-3-5) and Brady Leisenring (1-4-5) lead the way.

    In goal, where Vermont will need an especially strong effort to match Danis and hold the Harvard offense at bay, sophomore Travis Russell is likely to get the nod again. He’s earned the decision in each game thus far and sports a .903 save percentage and 3.57 goals against average (GAA).

    Across the border, Dartmouth (1-0-0) plays host to Brown on Friday and Harvard the next evening. The Big Green have won two in a row against the Bears, including the ECAC Consolation … uh … sorry … Third-Place Game in Albany last season after splitting the regular season contests.

    “Brown’s an excellent team,” said Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet. “They have one of the best goaltenders in the country and appeared to have beaten Harvard without needing him to have one of his best games, but by keeping them off their game.

    “They are a really good defensive team and have a good offense. We have a lot of respect for them.”

    The Big Green, coming off a season-opening 2-1 win over Holy Cross, still has much to improve on so early into the campaign.

    “We need to work had as a team,” said Gaudet. “Offensively, we’ll come around, but we need to protect our end of the ice a lot more. That wasn’t a problem for us last year, but we do not have a lot of experience on defense. It was kind of the opposite last year when we had young forwards.”

    Dartmouth, looking to replace three workhorse defensemen who graduated in the spring, will certainly hope the offense can carry them until the new bodies become fully comfortable in their roles.

    The envy of many a team, Dartmouth’s forwards are second only to Harvard’s in the league in terms of overall talent and depth. Lee Stempniak and sophomores Hugh Jessiman and Eric Przepiorka are a dangerous trio that could all be in the top ten in ECAC scoring this season.

    Speaking of the Crimson, Dartmouth will be looking to avenge its three losses to Harvard last season, the final one coming in the ECAC semifinals in Albany.

    “They are the kind of team that a loss isn’t going to set them back,” said Gaudet in reference to Harvard’s resilience. “They can handle it.”

    And while he had not yet made his decision, Gaudet is leaning toward starting Dan Yacey, named to this week’s ECAC Honor Roll, to help combat the offense he expects from both opponents.

    “We have a little bit of a dilemma in goal,” he said, “but that’s a good problem to have. Darren Gastrock is a veteran and Sean Samuel is good too. I think I’ll likely go with Dan. He’s played well from the get-go and in practice.”

    The Bears meanwhile will look to build on their momentum.

    “I think we’re going to match up well against most teams,” said Grillo. “In this league, every point is so important so it was huge for us to get the win [at Harvard]. The hard part is that we only had two weeks of practice going in. It’s like going from the preseason to the playoffs.

    “These points and the first 10 games are critical.”

    Junior Chris Swon, who scored the winner against Harvard, took it one step further.

    “We’re a gritty team,” said the member of this week’s ECAC Honor Roll. “We made a great dedication to offseason conditioning. We work our asses off and we’ll do it all season long. We’re going to go out and get some more wins.”

    A New York Affair

    Shifting from northern New England to the northern reaches of the Empire State, we find Clarkson (3-1-2) and St. Lawrence (1-5-3) hosting the Capital District’s finest, Union (5- 1-1) and Rensselaer (2-2-1).

    The Golden Knights are the only team of the four to have won both of its games last weekend, 4-1 wins over Findlay and Sacred Heart, for its best start to a season since a 5- 1-0 beginning to the 1991-92 campaign.

    “Even when I was here as an assistant,” said Knights coach George Roll, “we used to get off to slow starts. This is important for us. It’s not a great start, but we’re happy with it. We’re once again trying to make Cheel [Arena] a tough place to play.”

    Rensselaer, the Knights’ opponent on Friday, knows a great deal about running into bad luck in Potsdam. The Engineers are 2-9-1 against Clarkson in Cheel, outscored 58-23 over the 12 seasons of the building including 45-12 over the last eight.

    “We’ve been playing under some tough luck,” said Rensselaer coach Dan Fridgen, whose team will be gunning for its first win in Cheel since 1999. “We haven’t been good recently up there. It means we’ll have to play hard and smart.”

    Both clubs enter the game on 2-0-1 streaks, with the Engineers having mounted a three- goal comeback to defeat Merrimack last Saturday.

    “We showed a lot of character in that game, down 3-0 in the second period,” said Fridgen. “They scored a shorthanded goal early in the third and that can sometimes be deflating, but we were able to rally.

    “The road is a hostile environment, but the guys worked real hard.”

    Rensselaer has received balanced scoring, with 14 different goal scorers and 20 of 24 players with at least one point. Defensemen Scott Basiuk and Brad Farynuk (named to this week’s ECAC Honor Roll) are two of the Engineers’ top scorers with two goals and four points each. Top scorer sophomore Kevin Croxton leads the league and team with six assists, but has yet to register a goal.

    Meanwhile, Clarkson’s top line of rookie Mike Sullivan and juniors Mac Faulkner (ECAC Player of the Week) and Chris Blight have accounted for 11 of the Knights’ 19 goals and 21 of 49 points.

    Faulkner, who has five goals and four assists on the year, has already matched his goal total of his freshman and sophomore campaigns combined. He’s also quadrupled his previous career total for power play goals with a league-leading four thus far.

    “He’s been tremendous,” said Roll. “He’s playing with confidence, finishing his checks, and going to the net well. He’s been a catalyst and very determined.”

    Saturday night, the Dutchmen come skating into Cheel having won two of their last three against the Knights, including a 5-3 win in Potsdam in January.

    “George has done a terrific job,” said Union coach Nate Leaman about his bench counterpart on the back end of his North Country tour.

    “They are a good team and they are going to come after us. Their defense will be up in the play so we’ll have to limit their chances and play well on the special teams.”

    That’s an area Union suffered a lapse in during their 9-2 loss at New Hampshire. The Dutchmen allowed a pair of power play goals to, admittedly, one of the best units in the country. But, as Leaman pointed out, that was just the beginning of their problems against the Wildcats.

    “We came out real timid against UNH,” said the rookie bench boss with a sigh, “and didn’t play the type of hockey that has made us a successful team. We let them dictate the play and were not aggressive. The big sheet [of ice] affected us, but we didn’t come with an edge and it hurt us.”

    The Dutchmen, powered by ECAC points and goals leader Scott Seney (7-4-11), rebounded with a 5-1 win over Bentley on Sunday in a contest in which Union held the Falcons shot-less through the first period.

    Don’t expect a repeat performance of that this weekend, however, even against a struggling St. Lawrence offense on Friday.

    “We expect them to be extremely hungry to get the win,” said Leaman. “They are even better at home in front of their fans. We’ll need to be good defensively.”

    St. Lawrence knows that they’ll be facing a tough challenge in its own right. In fact, the Saints have lost three straight to the Dutchmen and have not beaten them at home since the 2000-01 season.

    “They are a well-coached team off to a great start,” said Saints assistant coach Chris Wells about the Dutchmen. “They’ve picked up where they left off at the end of last season when they learned how to win.

    “They even said that when they were here last year. When they beat us in overtime and won at Clarkson, their players said ‘we’re finding ways to win and learning how to do it.'”

    The Saints are looking for some of that magic as well. St. Lawrence is coming off a loss and tie at Lake Superior last weekend, but despite the outcome, Wells believes the club played better than the numbers suggest.

    “We played a pretty solid six periods,” he said. “The biggest trouble we’re having is finding the back of the net. We had 83 attempted shots over the weekend and we’re getting chances from in tight. As soon as some of them start finding the net it will lead to increased confidence.”

    Thus far, offense has been the Saints’ albatross. They’ve scored more than two goals in a game only twice and are averaging just 1.84 goals per game. It’s been the major ingredient in their current eight-game winless streak.

    Another factor has been a rash of injuries, but the Saints are getting healthier by the day and the return of junior captain Josh Anderson is a huge addition to the lineup. He’ll help take some of the pressure off the trio of Rich Peverley (3-6-9), John Zeiler (2-6-8) and T.J. Trevelyan (6-2-8), who was named to this week’s ECAC Honor Roll. The play of rookie blueliner Drew Bagnall has also been a major plus for the Saints as he leads the ECAC in scoring among defenseman and freshmen with six points.

    Finishing up the action in the North Country is the Saints’ matchup against Rensselaer on Saturday. Riding a 10-2-0 home mark against the Engineers since the 1991-92 season, St. Lawrence will look to continue the trend of success.

    “It’s always up for grabs,” said Wells. “They are always skilled and with the way we’re playing offensively and with [Nathan] Marsters in net, it will be a battle.”

    C is for …

    Princeton (0-2-0) and Yale (0-2-0), each coming off a pair of road losses against more battle-tested opponents will look to rebound when they host Cornell (0-1-1) and Colgate (2-1-1) this weekend.

    With all due respect for Danis, the best goaltender in the ECAC, the Tigers’ sophomore netminder Eric Leroux, even in defeat, should have been given major consideration for ECAC Goaltender of the Week. Perhaps he was, but being named to the ECAC Honor Roll somehow doesn’t seem enough for the performance he put on at St. Cloud.

    “He was one of our high points this weekend,” said Princeton coach Len Quesnelle about his netminder. “He gave us the chance to win both games.”

    Facing a ranked team that had many more games under its collective belt than Princeton, which was coming off an exhibition contest as its lone game action, Leroux made 43 saves in losing 2-1 in overtime on Friday. Along the way, he stopped 19 shots in the second period, 14 in the third and three in 1:58 of overtime before the Huskies scored on the power play.

    “Our play was ok against that kind of team in that environment,” said Quesnelle. “But then we had to kill a penalty in overtime and it was not a very good call.

    “At times we handled the play well in all zones and sometimes it looked like we were playing our first game.”

    The next night, Leroux made 49 saves, including 17 in first period of a 3-1 loss.

    Not surprisingly, he’ll return between the pipes when the Tigers host Colgate on Friday.

    The Raiders come in off a 6-0 win over Findlay last Saturday in which they got better as the game went along and held the Oilers to only 15 shots.

    “Princeton is a disciplined team,” said Colgate interim head coach Stan Moore. “They play sound defensively and their goaltender played really well last weekend.

    “In the past, they’ve always given us a tough time, being very opportunistic against us. They’ve taken advantage of our turnovers, so we will need to be better about that.”

    The Raiders are 1-0-2 in their last three against the Tigers, skating to a 2-2 tie in New Jersey on the final game of the 2002-03 season.

    Colgate moves onto Yale on Saturday were they will face a Tim Taylor-coach squad that lost twice in North Dakota by a combined 18-4 score.

    “We were beaten in every aspect of ice hockey,” said Taylor. “It is tough to have that experience and say that it will make us stronger, but we’re not discouraged. We need to form a new team psyche and new chemistry.

    “We also realized that we have to do a lot more on the defensive side to be the team we want to be. They schooled us pretty well.”

    As for the Raiders, Taylor is aware that his Bulldogs will face another challenge.

    “Colgate is a team that was a lot better than their record last year,” he said. “They are one of the teams in our league that knows they are a good team and wants to go out and prove it. They walk quietly, but carry a big stick … a very dangerous team.”

    Led by ECAC Honor Roll member Kyle Doyle’s three goals and seven points in four games, the Raiders are a team that could easily emerge with home ice in a few months. Sophomore Kyle Wilson has three goals of his own to go along with six points and junior Steve Silverthorn has started to take control of the top job in net. He’s 2-1-0 with a 1.67 GAA and .912 save percentage.

    “Yale had an eye-opening experience last weekend,” said Moore, “and Tim [Taylor] will take it and put it to good use. They’ll be a much better team when we face them.”

    First things first for Yale, though, as they battle the new-look Big Red a week after Cornell’s home loss and tie against Western Michigan.

    “They have a little different team this year,” said Taylor, “but they have the same aspects of the Frozen Four team. They have not changed things, but have changed the parts. They run the same forecheck and power plays.

    “As they break in their new defenseman and new goaltender, they’ll be better.”

    Cornell coach Mike Schafer agrees and sees some similarities between the two clubs.

    “This is a tough time of year because you don’t know what type of team you’re facing,” he said, “but they will be well-coached. They have young personnel and are feeling around for things. They are probably similar to us, with everyone trying to catch up with their new roles.”

    Falling into their roles last weekend were ECAC Honor Roll member sophomore Matt Moulson and Rookie of the Week Byron Bitz. Moulson has two goals and five points on the young season, while Bitz notched a pair of tallies and an assist against WMU.

    The Big Red sport a 6-1-1 mark against the Elis over the last three years, including a 3-0 victory in New Haven last season that marked Cornell’s first win at Yale since the 1995- 96 campaign.

    Against their oldest opponents, who they play Saturday, the Big Red swept a pair from the Tigers last season and hold a 69-40-7 all-time advantage.

    “Both of our games against them,” said Schafer, “were two of the tightest games last year. They played very well defensively. It will be a very different game on the road.”

    Norwich, Former Player Named in Injury Suit

    By
    -

    Former Wisconsin-Superior goaltender David Harbinson has filed a lawsuit against Norwich University and former player Jason Lumsden. Harbinson charges that Lumsden’s stick struck Harbinson while Harbinson was seated in the Superior bench near the end of Norwich’s 5-4 overtime victory in an NCAA semifinal game, played at Superior’s Wessman Arena on March 17, 2000.

    Harbinson alleges that Lumsden was “negligent and reckless” in his style of play, and that Norwich allowed it, according to court documents obtained by USCHO.com. The Royal and Sunalliance Insurance Company and the NCAA are also named as defendents.

    Lumsden, who graduated in 2000, could not be reached for comment. Harbinson also graduated in 2000, and did not see significant playing time that season, backing up starters Tom Pink and Nate Ziemski.

    It is not public record at this time what injuries Harbinson suffered, or how much he is claiming in damages. The court documents say that Harbinson is seeking damages for “past and future … health costs … earnings … and emotional damage due to disfigurement and disability.”

    Norwich coach Mike McShane recently traveled to [nl]Wisconsin to be deposed. He had no comment, but Norwich University, upon an inquiry by USCHO, released the following statement:

    “Norwich University has answered the complaint filed by Mr. Harbinson and moved for a dismissal of the complaint.

    “While the case is still in the discovery phase, Norwich University has cooperated at every turn through its legal counsel, Forrest Maki, of Superior, [nl]Wisconsin.

    “No further comment or information is available at this time.”

    Sources indicate that Lumsden, during play near the Superior bench, inadvertently struck Harbinson in the face with his stick. Harbinson is claiming that it was Lumsden’s “reckless” style of play that caused the incident. Harbinson was not wearing a helmet, as is typical of backup goaltenders.

    A scheduling conference is to take place in Douglas County court on Nov. 18.

    Two of a Kind

    By Jim Lothrop
    -

    “They must be brothers.”

    Perusing through the 2003-04 University of New Hampshire yearbook, one might immediately jump to that conclusion. A quick glance shows that line mates No. 8 and No. 10 seem to be cut from the same cloth. No. 8, the “older brother” if you will, stands at 5 feet, 7 inches, 170 pounds; No. 10, a twin-like 5-9, also weighs in at 170.

    Heck, they’re even both from the same hometown of Reading, Mass.

    “Oh yeah — those two are definitely brothers.”

    But it’s when you watch them on the ice — one floating a perfect, tape-to-tape cross-ice pass to the other — that you see the chemistry between them that can seemingly only come from brotherly instinct.

    Shocking, then, when one finds out that No. 8 and No. 10 — senior Steve Saviano and junior Sean Collins, respectively — are not only not brothers, but that they’re as different in their respective styles of play as they are in their last names.

    “I scored a few more goals in high school than in college, but he [Collins] scored a lot of goals in high school,” says Saviano, who despite his diminutive size, drives something on the order of a mid-’80s Oldsmobile ’88 on campus.

    “Steve can score too. People forget about that,” says Collins. “But he always seems to find me. The puck was always on my stick in high school.”

    Steve Saviano and Sean Collins grew up about a mile from each other in Reading, a town of about 23,000, a half-hour north of Boston. “Sean lives on Collins Ave, named after his grandfather,” Saviano says proudly of his former Reading Rocket teammate and current mate on New Hampshire’s top line.

    From the time the two were tots, hockey chemistry blossomed.

    Steve Saviano scored twice in last year's 3-2 NCAA semifinal win over [nl]Cornell. (photo: Pedro Cancel)

    Steve Saviano scored twice in last year’s 3-2 NCAA semifinal win over [nl]Cornell. (photo: Pedro Cancel)

    “We started playing pee wees and midgets together at around age 12,” says Saviano. “Collins is more of a scorer; I set him up a lot. We compliment each other very well. I’m always looking for him, and he’s always finishing.”

    Says Collins of their early days together, “I had heard a lot about him. Ever since we met in squirts, we had a bond as friends, and we’ve had it ever since.”

    Which meant lots of street hockey.

    “That’s all you do in Reading,” laughs Saviano. “We were lucky to have about four places to play.”

    And right from the start, their talents and unmistakable ability to work together as one led to success on the ice.

    Saviano and Collins played on the same line at Reading High School for three years in the late ’90s. During that time, the two led Reading to three Middlesex League championships and three appearances in the Massachusetts Super Eight Tournament.

    “The deepest we ever went [in the Super Eight] was in 97-98, I believe. We got third place,” says Saviano. “Kevin Truelson [former UNH defenseman who graduated this past May] played for Archbishop Williams and beat us with two top-shelf goals. He never let me live that down.”

    Saviano pauses.

    “I’m kind of glad he’s gone now,” he chuckles.

    When asked about a memory that particularly sticks out during their high school playing days, Collins lets out a heavy sigh.

    “Oh man — there were so many,” he says. “Steve’s junior year comes to mind. It was the first round of the Super Eight. We’re playing Matignon, and it’s 2-2 in OT. The place was jammed; there were no more seats at Walter Brown [Arena], and fans were standing in the aisles. Stevie took it the length of the ice and put it top shelf to win it. All of our fans came right over the glass and onto the ice.”

    Reading High School coach Peter Doherty certainly hasn’t forgotten.

    “Both were great, great players in high school,” says Doherty, entering his 26th year behind the bench for the Rockets.

    Collins was HEA's top freshman with 45 points two seasons ago.

    Collins was HEA’s top freshman with 45 points two seasons ago.

    “As soon as you put them together, they clicked — it was like magic. Together they were unbelievable. You should have seen them in practice. They just know where each other is going to be, all of the time.”

    Saviano made the team as a freshman. And it was through sheer will at that.

    “His work habits were fantastic. He worked so hard because he wanted to be a player. He made himself a player,” says Doherty.

    Saviano was captain one of the three years they played together, Collins the next year.

    “Steve’s senior year, he broke the league scoring record, which had previously been held by Wakefield High’s Mike Souza. The following year, Sean broke Steve’s record,” says Doherty, whose son, Mark, was a captain for UNH in the 1980s.

    That’s pretty good company. Souza himself would go on to have a stellar career at UNH also, particularly his junior year, when he was on a line with a senior named Jason Krog, who would go on to win the Hobey Baker Award, and a freshman named Darren Haydar.

    Doherty has his own favorite memory of when the two played for him.

    “We’re playing Catholic Memorial, which is normally the top team in Massachusetts year in and year out. We needed a win to get into the top eight, and we’re losing. Well, Sean took over that game. He owned the puck. He scored two or three goals, and we ended up winning the game, 4-2. He was like a one-man show.

    “The opposing coach said later ‘The only difference in the game was that they had Collins, and we didn’t,'” said Doherty.

    For their high school careers, Saviano recorded 70 goals, and his 148 assists ranks him No. 1 in school history. Collins bagged 129 goals and 141 assists for an astounding 270 points, good for No. 1 on the school list in goals and No. 2 in assists behind Saviano.

    Both Saviano and Collins have had collegiate careers that have, well, mirrored their days in high school.

    Saviano led the Wildcats with 30 assists last season.

    Saviano led the Wildcats with 30 assists last season.

    Entering his senior year at UNH, Saviano is still the “assist guy,” with 23 goals and 45 helpers. His team-high 30 assists last year led a potent Wildcat scoring attack. Collins is still the “goal scorer,” with 42 goals and 33 assists so far for his career.

    “They’re two great kids. Sean’s a proven goals corer. Steve has done a lot for this program,” says New Hampshire coach Dick Umile.

    “I think he [Saviano] can be a potential All-American this year.”

    Both come from strong family backgrounds. When Boston College star Patrick Eaves was at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Boston due to a hockey-related injury, Sean’s mother, an X-Ray Technician there, brought Eaves a box of chocolates and a UNH hat while he was being treated.

    A box of chocolates and a UNH hat for a member of the hated Eagles?

    “She’s whacked. She’s out there,” laughs Collins.

    To get an idea of what each player has meant to New Hampshire’s success over the past few years, one need not look any further than last year.

    In leading the Wildcats to their second consecutive Hockey East Tournament Championship, Saviano was named to the All-Tournament Team as the leading scorer with two goals and five assists. Collins scored a pair of goals in the Wildcats’ sweep of Massachusetts-Lowell in the quarterfinals. In the NCAA Regionals, Collins scored a goal in wins against St. Cloud State and Boston University.

    But it was at last year’s Frozen Four that both players showed the country how special they are.

    In New Hampshire’s second consecutive trip to the Frozen Four, Saviano shined in the Wildcats’ 3-2 victory over then-No. 1 Cornell, scoring two goals, and in the process beating the Big Red’s all-everything goaltender, Dave LeNeveu. It was the first multiple-goal game of his collegiate career. For his part, Collins chipped in with an assist.

    And in the Wildcats’ discouraging 5-1 loss to Minnesota in the National Championship game, Collins scored the lone goal for UNH.

    Saviano Sighs.

    “We learned a lot … again,” he says of last year’s close-but-no-cigar performance. “It’s going to be tough to get back to the Frozen Four this year, but we’re ready for that challenge.”

    Indeed, the Wildcats lost their entire first line to graduation entering the 2003-04 season. But that doesn’t seem to matter to Saviano and Collins, who just continue to go out and rack up points.

    Regardless of where the Wildcats end up at the end of the season, it will mark a very strange occurrence for the two players: the end of their playing days together.

    So after you graduate from UNH this spring and move on, what’s it going to be like?

    “We’ll stay in touch,” says Saviano. “I’ll see him at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We still only live a mile away from each other.

    “We’re better off having played with each other. I’m sure Sean feels the same way.”

    Reading Rockets and New Hampshire Wildcats fans most surely agree.

    D-III Scholarship Legislation Marches Forward

    By Adam Wodon
    -

    With the Division III scholarship legislation entering its final phase, the schools negatively affected by the proposal are gearing up for a showdown.

    Despite rigorous protest in the preceding months, the NCAA Division III President’s Council has placed the issue on its agenda for the January convention as part of its sweeping Division III reform package. The package includes a number of reforms aimed at getting Division III athletics back in line with its stated goals, with only one of the items drawing any resistance. But that item — a proposal that would prohibit Division III schools that “play up” in one Division I sport from awarding athletic scholarships — has met with rigorous protest from the schools, alumni and Division I sports that will be affected.

    If the legislation passes, four storied Division I men’s ice hockey teams will be affected — St. Lawrence, Clarkson, Rensselaer and Colorado College — as well as lacrosse powerhouse Johns Hopkins and others. Under the proposal, scholarships would be phased out by 2008.

    Despite the outcry, the Presidents Council decided by a 9-3 vote to keep the item on the agenda. As a result, lobbying efforts have intensified.

    “That is going to be an issue that’s going to require a lot of education and discussion,” Johns Hopkins athletic director Tom Calder said to the Baltimore Sun, “and a lot of it will take place before the convention, getting to athletic directors and presidents.”

    Those in favor of the proposal argue that Division III schools unfairly benefit from having a Division I scholarship sport. The schools with the D-I sports argue that no evidence exists to support that position, that their status in Division I was granted 20 years ago for sports with long traditions that pre-dated the Division classification system, and that the schools and communities have invested themselves in these programs.

    “In good faith we have made long-term investments in facilities and pledged our commitment to our student athletes, coaching staff, and fans,” said Clarkson president Tony Collins. “The case made more than 20 years ago, and accepted by the NCAA, remains intact today for Clarkson University.

    “We are disappointed that members of the Council did not recognize the intent of a 1982 waiver for eight schools that had strong traditions, pride and competitive rivalries in one or two sports at the Division I level.”

    Part of the problem facing the jeopardized schools is that the vast majority of the 424 Division III schools that will be voting on this legislation, are not affected one way or another, and therefore have no incentive to alter their position. To most schools, the scholarship legislation is just another item in a large reform package.

    Middlebury president John McCardell is council president, and has remain steadfast in his support of the legislation.

    “What defines Division III is that we do not give scholarships,” McCardell told the Sun. “There was not a compelling case to keep this exception.”

    Johns Hopkins, which has been leading the fight to the finish, expressed its disagreement with McCardell in a lengthy statement on its web site.

    The waiver was granted in 1982-1983 to recognize the very special situation that exists at a small group of institutions. As a group, the eight schools operate typical Division III programs very much guided by the Division III philosophy. The only significant difference between us and other Division III members is a history and tradition of prominence in one particular sport, generally a sport that has a relatively low national visibility but that is important locally or regionally. Given this history, and the importance of that one traditional sport to each institution, its students, alumni and community, it makes sense for our institutions to continue competing in their traditional sports at the highest competitive level. In other sports, they play in Division III, a status consistent with their institutional philosophies. The waiver is consistent with an underlying principle of the Division III philosophy, which states that “the purpose of the NCAA is to assist its members to develop the basis for consistent, equitable competition while minimizing infringement on the freedom of individual institutions to determine their own special objectives and programs.”

    Hopkins maintains that its fellow members in the Division III Centennial Conference, in which it competes in sports other than lacrosse, do not believe Hopkins has an unfair advantage over them. Hopkins also takes exception to the claim that allowing some schools to play up to Division I in some sports, hurts the D-III philosophy.

    The eight schools represent less than 2 percent of the entire Division III membership. Together, they offer a total of 13 sport programs at the Division I level. This represents 0.18 percent of the approximately 7,000 sport programs offered by Division III institutions. We believe strongly in the principles of Division III, but we do not believe that an exception — granted in extremely special cases for clear and specific reasons, and affecting fewer than one of every 538 sport programs offered by Division III schools — represents a concern to the future of Division III.

    Hopkins says that Division III schools already face restrictions within their D-I sports. For example, they cannot have representation on NCAA committees in the D-I sports, and they cannot share in the revenue of the respective NCAA tournaments.

    Though none of the schools have explicitly said so, the possibility of a lawsuit exists on the horizon.

    “We will now move forward on all fronts with the other seven schools opposing this proposal,” Collins said, “We will explore all options available to us and leave no stone unturned to find a solution that is in the best interest of our student-athletes and the University.”

    Other highlights from Hopkins’ lengthy Frequently Asked Questions section of its web site:

    Johns Hopkins’ FAQ about the D-III legislation

    Don’t multi-divisional schools have better Division III facilities because of their Division I sports?

    Some institutions place a higher priority on athletics than others and build facilities accordingly. There is no evidence that those priorities are dependent on whether or not an institution is multi-divisional. Compare the natatoriums at Middlebury, Franklin and Marshall or Emory to those at Johns Hopkins or RPI. Compare soccer facilities at Emory, Messiah or Misericordia to those at RPI, Clarkson or Johns Hopkins. Compare football facilities at Gettysburg or Mount Union to those at RPI or Colorado College. For a wide variety of reasons (athletics emphasis, professional sports team involvement, alumni support, corporate involvement, etc.), institutions have chosen to develop and maintain a wide range of athletic facilities. An institution does not need to sponsor a Division I program to have quality athletics facilities, nor does sponsoring a Division I sport guarantee that an institution’s Division III sports have better facilities than other Division III programs.

    What impact could this legislation have on the communities where our institutions reside?

    It is likely that without athletic grants-in-aid, the Division I programs at the eight schools could not remain competitive. Towns such as Canton, N.Y. (St. Lawrence) and Potsdam, N.Y. (Clarkson) rely on competitive Division I hockey and the spectators it attracts to sustain tourism and entertainment-related businesses (restaurants, hotels, etc.). The loss of spectators either because Clarkson and St. Lawrence are not as competitive in Division I or because they move to a Division III schedule could be devastating to the economies of these small towns in upstate New York.

    Oneonta, N.Y. (Hartwick and Oneonta State) is known as “Soccer Town USA” due to the rich history and tradition of soccer in that community. The National Soccer Hall of Fame is located in Oneonta specifically for this reason. The loss of competitive Division I soccer in Oneonta could have a negative impact on its tourism economy.

    Colorado College hosted the first 10 NCAA hockey championships, beginning in 1948. When the old World Arena (site of those NCAA tourneys) was torn down, members of the community stepped up and provided significant funding for a new facility. The new World Arena operates as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and currently hosts hundreds of events each year for the community to enjoy. David Palenchar, President and CEO of World Arena stated, “Colorado College hockey is as essential a part of the fabric of this community as Pikes Peak.”

    Similarly, Johns Hopkins’ tradition in lacrosse is important to the Baltimore community and its economy. The Lacrosse Hall of Fame and the headquarters of U.S. Lacrosse, the sport’s national governing body, are on the university’s campus. The sport’s World Championships and other significant competitions, including the women’s NCAA Division I national championship, have been held at Johns Hopkins, drawing thousands of visitors to the city. The university was one of the co-organizers of the 2003 NCAA Division I-II-III Men’s Lacrosse Championship weekend, which drew record numbers of fans to Baltimore.

    If the Ivy League institutions can compete without scholarships, why can’t the multi-divisional institutions?

    In most cases, the multi-divisional institutions compete for the same academically high-caliber student-athlete as the schools in the Ivy League. We are not, however, similarly endowed and are not in a position to commit to be need-blind or to meet 100 percent of every admitted student’s demonstrated financial need. Our aid packages routinely involve loans and unmet need. Not all our admitted students are aided, even if they have need. Our Division I coaches ensure that needy student-athletes will have at least their need met with athletic grant-in-aid. Athletic grants-in-aid remove uncertainty and allow the eight institutions to be competitive in recruiting.

    Additionally, the eight intuitions, though all quality colleges and universities, do not have the “brand” reputation of the Ivies. If a student-athlete without need has to choose between a $120,000 tuition bill at one of the private multi- divisional schools, and $120,000 at an Ivy school, they often will choose the Ivy school, based on reputation alone. We cannot compete for that student-athlete without offering an athletic grant-in-aid.

    The Ivy League’s strong endowments, financial aid policies and reputation make it possible for them to recruit Division I athletes without athletic grants-in-aid. The multi-divisional institutions need athletic grants-in-aid to compete for student-athletes at the Division I level.

    Haven’t times changed to the point where multi-divisional classification isn’t appropriate any longer?

    The eight multi-divisional schools have developed their programs and plans in confidence that the NCAA meant what it said in 1983 when it created the exemption for our Division I sports. Over these two decades, we have continued to develop the rich tradition and prominence of the Division I sports on our campuses, in harmony with our thriving Division III sports programs. In some cases, we have made financial commitments to competition venues in our Division I sports, commitments that would be difficult to meet at a lower level of competition.

    There remains no data that illustrates we garner a competitive advantage from fielding Division I teams; in fact, there is good data to support the argument that we do not. Our closest athletic rivals support the continuation of the exemption. To the extent that the exemption creates a lack of uniformity across Division III, that lack of uniformity is statistically small and, in practical terms, insignificant. The exemption does little, if anything, to undercut the philosophical underpinnings of Division III. It was granted and continues to exist for good, rational and easily justifiable reasons. There is no compelling reason to repeal it.

    2003-2004 Division III Preview

    By
    -

    Not that anyone would bet on Division III hockey, but if they did, then the USCHO.com Preseason Poll has been more accurate than many of those 800-number betting lines.

    The first edition of the poll has correctly picked the national champion in three of the past five seasons. It was incorrect in 1999 (RIT was ranked No. 1, but Middlebury won the title), and 2000 (Middlebury was picked, but Norwich came out on top). But the poll accurately predicted the NCAA tournament winners in 1998 (Middlebury), 2001 (Plattsburgh), and last season, when Norwich won its second title.

    The Cadets find themselves right where they were going into last season — ranked at the top of Division III. Does that put any added pressure on Norwich?

    “We haven’t minded it,” said coach Mike McShane. “It hasn’t had an affect on what we do. If you ask coaches and players anywhere, they’ll tell you that there are 10 teams out there that could win the national title.”

    Being ranked is all good, according to McShane.

    “There’s no pressure. (Being ranked Number One) helps with recruiting, helps give visibility to the program. It’s an honor.”

    While Norwich’s place atop the poll is the same as last season, the feeling the team has going into the season is not the same.

    “It does feel a little different,” said McShane. “Last season, we were on mission after losing in the (2002 title) game.

    “This year, it’s a different mission, to repeat.”

    Here’s a brief preview of each of the top 15 teams in Division III:

    1. Norwich (27-3 last season. ECAC East champions, NCAA champions)

    The defending champs look to pick up where they left off last season. Leading the charge will be All-Americans Kurtis McLean (48 points last season) and Lou DiMasi (26 points). Norwich returns eight of its top ten scorers, including Phil Aucoin (45 points), Matt Schmidt (41 points) and Paul Mattucci (38 points).

    Goaltender Randy Hevey is gone, but netminders Kevin Schieve and Mike Boudreau return. Boudreau had the hot hand at the end of last season, backstopping the Cadets to the national championship.

    And the rich got richer. Along with four highly touted recruits, the newest Cadet is senior Nick Cote, who transferred in from MCLA, which dropped its hockey program at the end of last season. Cote scored a whopping 33 goals last season for the Trailblazers — over a third of the team’s entire offensive production.

    2. Oswego (25-7-1 last season. SUNYAC champions, lost in NCAA title game)

    The Lakers find themselves where they were at the end of last season: second, behind Norwich. Like the Cadets, Oswego returns almost everyone, 20 players in all.

    “We’re a very deep team,” said new coach Ed Gosek. “We lost (goaltender) Joe Loftberg and (captain) John Hurliman,” Gosek said. “But we’ve brought in five very good players, and I expect the work ethic to be there again.”

    Gosek takes over the reins from George Roll, who took the head coaching job at Clarkson at the end of last season. Gosek has been an assistant at Oswego for the past 13 seasons.

    “We really came together as a team last season,” he said. ” We had some very talented players, but everyone worked hard as well. Nobody complained about their role. The fourth line guys worked their butts off. Chemistry is huge, and we had it last season.”

    Besides returning players like Mike Lukajic (33 goals last season) and Dan Patrick (56 points), the Lakers picked up transfer Sean Kotary from Findlay. Kotary, an NHL draft pick, has two years of eligibility left. Also in the mix will be freshman Ryan Woodward, the Player of the Year in the Ontario Provincial Jr. League last season. Recruited by most of the top Division III programs as well as many Division I teams, Woodward is expected to make an immediate impact.

    3. St. Norbert (27-2-2 last season. NCHA champions, lost in NCAA semifinals)

    The Green Knights advanced to the Division III Frozen Four for the first time last season, and have the ability to go at least as far again this year. Five of St. Norbert’s top seven scorers are back, including All-Americans Jason Deitsch (46 points last season) and Ryan Tew (25 points from the blue line). Sophomore forward Connor Hughes should build on a solid freshman campaign (28 points), and seniors Faron Duthie (33 points) and Mike Buchan (25 points) are poised for career seasons. Other than Tew and Jim Underwood, St. Norbert’s blueliners will be first-year players, putting pressure on returning goaltenders Chancy Colquhoun (2.21 GAA, .912 save %) and Eric Van Den Bosch (2.12 GAA .898 save %).

    4. Middlebury (22-5-2 last season. Lost in NESCAC championship game, lost in NCAA semifinals)

    Last season was successful by most team’s standards, but not the Panthers’. For just the second time in eight years, Middlebury failed to win either a NESCAC or NCAA title. Bill Beaney returns from a year long sabbatical for his 17th season behind the bench, and he’ll see several familiar faces, including senior Kevin Cooper, last season’s NESCAC Player of the Year and first-team All-American (41 points last season). In all, Middlebury returns 16 of their 17 top scorers, as well as both goaltenders, Yen-I Chen (2.29 GAA, .905 save %) and Marc Scheuer (1.59 GAA, .896 save %).

    5. Wisconsin-River Falls (23-7-1 last season. Lost in NCHA semifinals, lost in NCAA quarterfinals)

    The Falcons are another team with a young defense and a veteran offense. UWRF returns seven of its eight top scorers from an offense that was tops in the NCHA last season, including senior forwards Jim Murphy (37 points last season), Matt Elsen (34 points) and Jamie Steinert (28 points).

    “With the forwards we have, we’re going to be an explosive team,” coach Steve Freeman said. “As the season goes on, we’re going to keep getting better, especially on defense.”

    The biggest loss for the Falcons is all-star goalie Jacque Vezina, who sported a 1.99 GAA and .923 save percentage last season. Expect the load to be carried this year by sophomore Dan Meneghin, who appeared in 14 games last year and finished with a 1.72 goals against average and a .929 save percentage.

    6. Wisconsin-Superior (21-6-2 last season. Lost in NCHA finals)

    The 2002 national champions were shut out of the NCAA tournament last season for just the second time in ten years. The goal for the Yellowjackets is simple: do better against St. Norbert, which was 4-0-1 against UWS last year.

    It will be a difficult task for coach Dan Stauber in light of what his team lost to graduation: nine impact players including three All-Americans, forward Colin Kendall, defenseman Steve Rodberg, and goaltender Nate Ziemski. Expected to pick up the slack is a talented group of juniors, and a strong recruiting class.

    “We have a good core of guys coming back that are in that junior class, just like we did two years ago when we won it,” said Stauber. “Those juniors need to play like that junior class did.

    “They have big shoes to fill, especially with a young team. We will count on everyone, including the freshmen, to step up and make it back to the NCAA Tournament.”

    7. RIT (19-4-2 last season. Lost in the ECAC West finals)

    Like Wisconsin-Superior, the Tigers had a rare premature end to their season in 2002-2003, missing the NCAA tournament for the first time in eight years. And also like UWS, RIT lost a large group of seniors, including leading scorer Mike Bournazakis and four-year starting goaltender Tyler Euverman. Key for the Tigers will be the play of senior Mike Tarantino, who got off to a slow start last season but finished strong (42 points). Sophomore George Eliopolous will shoulder much of the goaltending duties, and RIT returns its entire defensive corps, led by seniors Ryan Franke and Ryan Fairbarn. A large group of freshman forwards will support Tarantino and sophomore Darren Doherty (22 points).

    8. Elmira (18-8-2 last season. ECAC West Champion, lost in NCAA quarterfinals)

    Picked to finish behind RIT in the USCHO poll, the Soaring Eagles were the choice to finish first in the ECAC West by the league’s coaches in their preseason poll. Coming off its first NCAA appearance in four years, Elmira will miss the leadership of Mike Clarke and the point production of Jason Silverthorn, both departed. But for the most part, the Soaring Eagles were a young team last season, and have only three seniors on the roster this time. Expect Pierre Rivard to have another big year (44 points last season) and goaltender Greg Fargo to improve on his 3.67 GAA and .899 save percentage.

    9. Plattsburgh (20-9-3 last season. Lost in SUNYAC finals)

    The Cardinals were another team unaccustomed to missing the NCAA tournament, and Plattsburgh will face the unusual task of being an underdog in the SUNYAC. The Cardinals lost six players from last season, including All-Americans Brendon Hodge, Peter Ollari, and Jason Kilcan.

    “We have a different look this season,” said coach Bob Emery, who also lost his long-time assistant, Kevin Houle, who left to coach the Plattsburgh women’s team. “We’re more balanced. We don’t have any superstars, but we have better chemistry than last year and everyone works hard.”

    Chad Kemp is the team’s leading returning scorer (33 points last season) and Rob Retter also returns after finishing third on the team in goals last year. Also back is the goaltending tandem of Craig Nelson (2.50 GAA) and Tony Seariac (3.22 GAA). They’ll be joined by MCLA transfer Jason Vasco, who played almost 1,200 minutes for the Trailblazers last season.

    10. Trinity (19-6-2 last season. NESCAC champions. Lost in NCAA quarterfinals)

    The Bantams look to overcome a tragic end to their most successful season ever. After upsetting Middlebury in the NESCAC title game, Trinity blew a three-goal lead in the third period against Norwich in the NCAA quarterfinals. Trinity lost just two regulars to graduation, and will again rely on All-American goaltender Doug Kisielius, who was among the nation’s leaders in minutes played (1,553) and save percentage (.912). He’ll be joined by a squad of blueliners that returns intact from last season, led by senior captain Tim Joncas (21 points last season). Also back are forwards Joe Ori, Jeff Natale and Ryan Stevens, who combined for almost 100 points last season.

    11. Manhattanville (18-6-2 last season. Lost in ECAC West semifinals)

    Expectations are high for the Valiants, who return 19 players and have made significant additions to a squad that challenged for the league title last year. Leading scorer Chris Siefert is gone, but back are all-star goaltender Jay Chrapala (2.22 GAA, .922 save %) and league Rookie of the Year Tyler Resch (30 points). They’ll be joined by senior captain Dave Schmalenberg and four transfers from Division I Iona, which eliminated its program at the end of last season.

    “From a talent and experience standpoint, this team is by far our best team ever,” said coach Keith Levinthal. “As to how well we do, that will depend on how hard we work and how well we play as a team”.

    12. St. John’s (20-7-1 last season. MIAC champions, lost in the NCAA preliminary round)

    The MIAC will be another dogfight this season, but don’t be surprised if the Johnnies come out on top again. They may have overachieved last season with a freshman-led team, and another year under their belts should make this squad even better. The trio of Ryan Langenbrunner, Scott Bjorkuld and Darrly Smoleroff combined for a whopping 87 points as freshman. In all, St. John’s returns the top six and eight of ten top scorers.

    The major loss for the Johnnies is All-American netminder Rick Gregory, who played in all but three games last season. Juniors Aaron Bulman and Chris Gornick are expected to battle for the starting job.

    13. New England College (20-6 last season. Lost in ECAC East championship game)

    The Pilgrims again look to emerge from the large shadow cast by Norwich in the ECAC East. Successful three seasons ago, NEC might not be able to catch the Cadets, but should contend for an at-large NCAA berth. Coach Tom Carroll, now in his second season behind the bench, will rely on 50-point scorer Travis Banga to go out with a bang in his senior campaign. Losing just two players from last year’s squad, the Pilgrims return all but one member of their defensive corps and all three goaltenders from last season.

    14. St. Thomas (16-9-2 least season. Lost in MIAC championship game)

    The Tommies will move into a new facility this season, but expect their winning tradition to continue. After 28 seasons in the Fairgrounds Coliseum, St. Thomas will move into the soon-to-be-completed Mendota Heights facility after the first of the year.

    The look of the Tommies will be different as well, as head coach Terry Skrypek, entering his 17th season, has to replace 10 players from last year’s squad.

    Back are two all-stars: goaltender Zach Sikich (1.90 GAA, .930 save %) and forward Dustin Lick (31 points). Five blueliners return, along with five of the top six scorers from last year.

    15. Wentworth (21-5-3 last season. ECAC Northeast champion, lost in NCAA quarterfinals)

    The Leopards emerge as the clear favorites in the ECAC Northeast this season. Pushed in past years by Lebanon Valley and Johnson and Wales, Wentworth returns essentially intact from last year, while its competition suffered significant losses.

    Curry could emerge to challenge the Leopards, but it will be a daunting task, as Wentworth brings back high-scoring forward Alex Marinkovich (53 points last season) and goaltender Raj Bangoo (2.38 GAA, .922 save %).

    Rensselaer Names Will Assistant Coach

    USCHO Staff Report
    -

    Rensselaer has named Andrew Will as its interim assistant men’s hockey coach. Will replaces John Burke, who was named the head coach of Rensselaer’s women’s hockey team.

    Will had been an assistant at Union and was not retained when Nate Leaman was named head coach this summer. Will is a 1996 graduate of Union and was named the ECAC Defensive Defenseman of the Year in 1996.

    Gunn Recalibrates Her Aim

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    Northeastern senior goaltender Chanda Gunn might be a two-time Patty Kazmaier nominee, a U.S. national team selection, and an All-American, but none of those achievements make her immune to self-doubt, or to a constant desire for improvement.

    When Gunn turned Hockey East on its head by stopping 46 of 47 shots in a 1-1 tie at defending league champion Providence, her feelings were dominated by the sting of the coaches’ preseason poll, which picked Northeastern dead last in the six-team league.

    gunn

    gunn

    “[The tie] makes being No. 6 seem a little less …” Gunn cuts that sentence short to elaborate on the sting of No. 6. “Being No. 6 makes you feel like you’re the worst team in the world and the worst player in the world.”

    Even Gunn, who led the nation in save percentage in just her first year as a starter, feels at times like she’s the worst player in the world. That is her nature — always looking for improvement.

    “She’s a rink rat, and I mean that in a complimentary way,” said Providence coach Bob Deraney following the tie. “She loves to play the game. She’s always looking to play better, and she’s never satisfied with her ability, and these are the kind of results you get.”

    Given Gunn’s high standards for herself, the end of her sophomore year was tough to handle. A season that started 23-2-0 ended 4-4-1. In a flash, Northeastern lost the Beanpot to Harvard, the ECAC East regular-season title to Niagara and the ECAC East postseason title to Providence. In retrospect, Gunn looks at her sophomore year as one where she just showed up to play, where she did not know what to expect in her first year as a starter.

    Then there was her junior year. Northeastern went 9-18-4, the worst mark in school history. The Huskies, picked to finish second in Hockey East that preseason, placed fifth and out of the playoffs. The season was colored by off-ice problems, which became very public when head coach Joy Woog cut captains Pamela Pachal and Michelle Lorion in January. The two fired public criticism back at Woog, and Lorion filed a lawsuit.

    As for Gunn, she still placed third nationally in save percentage, but that was not enough to rescue Northeastern from its offense, which ranked 25th in Division I. Northeastern lost to Boston College for the first time ever in the Beanpot semifinals by a 3-2 margin, and Woog said Gunn was no longer the stone wall she had been in the past.

    “My junior year I struggled a little bit.” Gunn said. “I went through a couple of things off the ice and I lost my competitive edge.”

    That baggage seemed a distant memory when Gunn made those 46 saves against Providence. The edge was back.

    “I think anyone who plays against us will tell you, she’ll steal a game,” said Woog, who bubbled with joy all day. “We’re proud to have her on our team.”

    Few players in college hockey have been more valuable to their teams than Gunn, the lone senior on a squad where 20 of 23 players are freshmen and sophomores. She has been entrusted to prevent youthful defensive mistakes from showing up on the scoreboard.

    So far, she has been up to the challenge.

    “This year, it’s my senior year, I definitely want to win. I definitely know that we can. We have a good team, good players, and a good coach.” Gunn says that last word with emphasis, sticking up for Woog. “I’m a lot more competitive. I’m definitely there to win games. I’m not there just to play well.”

    Expect Gunn to continue to make strides both on the ice and off it. Before interviewing after the Providence game, Gunn twice claimed she wasn’t any good at giving interviews. Turns out she proved her own harshest critic wrong once again.

    Transfer of Power

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    February 6, 2003. That is a date with incidents whose effects are being felt as the 2003-2004 Division III men’s hockey begins. On that date, Fairfield announced it was dropping sponsorship of varsity ice hockey. Just over a month later, Iona also made the same announcement. Then during the summer, Division III MCLA piled on.

    Almost immediately, speculation began about whether the players on these teams would stay at their school to complete their degree, or transfer to another institution to continue playing hockey.

    This brought to light a series of larger questions. Would some of these former Division I players end up in Division III? If so, what effect would they have? On a broader level, how prevalent is transferring in Division III? And what effect does it have on the sport?

    Now that the season is getting started, and rosters for teams are being finalized, some of those questions can be answered.

    Looking through the rosters currently available and tracking recruits announced through other sources, there are at least 36 players transferring this season within Division III men’s hockey. Nineteen of those are coming from Division I schools, although not all of them are from now-defunct programs. The remaining 17 players are transferring from one Division III school to another.

    These numbers make this off season stand out because of a higher than normal transfer rate. Over the past few years, it has been typical for two or three Division I players to transfer down to Division III each season. And typically less than 10 Division III players move around to other teams. To have 36 players transfer in a single season is definitely unusual.

    The reasons why a player transfers vary widely, and can be highly personal.

    BALDAROTTA

    BALDAROTTA

    “When someone is leaving a school, a lot of coaches want to know exactly why it didn’t work out there,” said Joe Baldarotta, coach at Wisconsin-Stevens Point. “To me, just the fact that they are leaving says that the kid simply wasn’t happy there and is just looking for some happiness from the game. Whether it is lack of ice time, didn’t like the coach, didn’t fit in well with the other players, didn’t like the town he was in, didn’t have his major, whatever. There are a million different reasons why it didn’t work out.

    “We all have gotten a second chance along the way somewhere. I want them to start fresh here.”

    Deciding to transfer can be a tough decision for a player.

    “A kid goes to school to get a college education,” said Curry coach Rob Davies. “You really need to look at it year to year. Your needs as a person change, and the school’s philosophy may change. Each year different obstacles are presented and they don’t always work out for the best. And then the kid is sitting there thinking ‘What am I going to do?’ Kids are not committed to a school for four years, so why not move on?

    “A lot of times they’re not happy with the program they’re coming from. Whether it is a personal thing, their personal agenda wasn’t satisfied, the team or coaching changed since their freshman year, etc… There are a lot of variables. And if it is a personal thing, you have to look at it as a coach and see if you are inheriting a problem.

    “It only makes sense that hockey players move around like regular students do. If you look at retention rates, especially at Division III institutions, it’s not as high. I know that every institution is trying to get its retention rate up, but you have a lot of kids moving whether they are athletes or not athletes. So it only makes sense that athletes would do the same thing.”

    The rules regarding transfers are straight forward at the Division III level, and are much less complex than transferring at the Division I level where scholarships are involved.

    According to the NCAA Division III Manual, a player must obtain a waiver from the athletic department of his school to start the process. This waiver allows the player to have contact with other schools and coaches. Once that waiver is obtained, the player can talk to other teams and schools to determine where they wish to go. Division III coaches are very careful not to have any contact with a player before the waiver is obtained. No one wants to be stuck with the label of ‘poacher.’

    “We can’t discuss anything with them [before the waiver is obtained],” said Baldarotta. “We feel that it’s not fair to the program that they are leaving. Sometimes the transfer hasn’t even talked to his coach yet, and the last thing we want to be seen as is tampering in any sort of way. We wouldn’t like it if any other coach was talking to our players. We tell them that they have to obtain a written release from their school. That ensures that they have talked to their coach and athletic director.”

    The player must also be in good academic and athletic standing at his old institution. As long as that requirement is met, the player is immediately eligible to play upon transferring and retains all of his eligibility.

    A transferring player can have an immediate impact on a team. Not only are they older and more mature than a comparable freshman would be. They have also already made the adjustment to the level of play of Division III hockey. This can be a big bonus to a team who brings in a transfer over a new freshman recruit.

    “They bring a certain level of maturity,” said Davies. “They’ve been battle tested. They’ve been in games, depending on which programs they’re from, big games against tough competition. They bring maturity not just physically but emotionally as well. A transfer is different from a freshman in that sense.”

    Coach Davies has three transfers joining his Curry squad this year, including Manu Mau’u, who was Johnson & Wales’ leading scorer each of the last two seasons.

    “I think for older kids the transition is easier,” added Baldarotta. “They’ve been at the college level before. They realize that academics are a huge part of their success along with their athletics. You don’t have to acclimate them to the way the game is played within the entire Division.”

    Those teams that can recruit a transfer from a Division I school can expect even more of an impact. Manhattanville, located just 15 miles from the Iona campus, added four former Gaels players this season and are seeing the benefits already.

    “We’ve noticed a difference in our first three games,” said Manhattanville coach Keith Levinthal. “They’ve played in bigger games. The kids from Iona have played at a lot of big places and are very used to playing those kinds of games. I don’t think they get as rattled. While the MAAC conference games may not be that much different from a Division III game, all of their non-conference games are noticeably different.”

    Stevens Point has also had success in attracting Division I transfers. Over the past two years, Point has attracted three players from Division I schools, including the addition of Dan Francis from Findlay this season.

    “If we are able to get a D-I caliber player, in most instances it will increase our skill level,” said Baldarotta. “We take a strong look when a guy contacts us, and we encourage them to come here and play whenever we can because they fit in so well. We’ve had great luck with transfers.”

    If any good came out of the way Fairfield and Iona handled the termination of their teams, it is that the announcements were made early. It gave the players time to contact other coaches, look at the possibilities that existed for transferring, and make a decision. The announcements also came early enough in the recruiting cycle for Division III coaches to include the possibility of Division I transfers in to their plans.

    “The Iona thing happened early enough that we weren’t in a position where we had to back out of any commitments to kids,” said Levinthal. “At the higher level programs, it is very difficult to get the very good hockey players to make a decision. They are going to look at Division I as long as possible. Fairfield happened before last season was over, and Iona happened before the playoffs. At that point, we really didn’t have any commitments from anyone. If [the Iona players] hadn’t come here, we probably would have recruited one or two more freshmen. But with four kids coming over from Iona, it just made our recruiting that much easier.”

    No matter the circumstances, the decision to transfer is a tough choice for a young player to make. They agonize over it, weighing the pros and cons, trying to decide what is best. It is easy for others not involved in the decision to pass judgment on them, saying the player should have done this or that. Or thinking that one program poached from another. But when it comes right down to it, it is a young man trying to decide what is best for him at a single moment in time.

    “I don’t think anyone realizes how difficult it is to leave a place that you are already at,” said Baldarotta. “For a kid to make a decision to transfer, he has had to think about it for quite a while. A kid doesn’t do this on a whim. When you transfer from somewhere to somewhere else, you’re starting over at a new place completely different. When kids come to a school, I sometimes think they get their entire life from the school. The team becomes like a family to them and they make so many close relationships.”

    This Week in Hockey East: Oct. 30, 2003

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    Red Sox Agonistes, Part I

    Rumors that I almost jumped off the Tobin Bridge have been greatly exaggerated. I never had more than one leg over the railing…

    How The Mighty Have Fallen… Or Almost

    It was a tough week for the Hockey East elite. New Hampshire and Boston College lost to unranked teams while Maine, Boston University and Massachusetts had to survive scares of their own.

    To begin with, top-ranked New Hampshire lost to Niagara. Niagara? No disrespect to the Purple Eagles, but this year’s squad is not to be confused, at least not yet, with the one that toppled the Wildcats in the 2000 NCAAs. Heck, this year’s Niagara coach can even see over the dasher.

    (If you need an explanation for that joke, see “Congrats, A Thank You And An Explanation” below.)

    Of course, UNH was playing shorthanded to the extreme with eight players suspended for team rules violations.

    Nonetheless, UNH coach Dick Umile took nothing away from Niagara’s upset, saying, “They did a good job in pressuring us tonight. They’re a well-coached team. I give them all the credit in the world for the victory.”

    Second-ranked Boston College fell to Notre Dame, 1-0, absorbing its first shutout at home since Jan. 22, 1999.

    Like UNH, BC also was playing shorthanded with Ben Eaves (concussion) and Dave Spina (ankle) out of the lineup.

    BC coach Jerry York similarly bypassed easy excuses after the loss. “ND did a good job defensively,” he said. “Injuries are part of [the game]. We still had enough players to generate offense, but it was a defensive game and it was hard to create offense. We limited their chances and they limited our chances.”

    Maine became the third straight Hockey East team to rise to the nation’s top ranking because it dodged the same bullets that felled UNH and BC. The Black Bears entered the third period against St. Lawrence trailing by a goal and didn’t get the game-winner until freshman Keith Johnson scored with less than five minutes remaining.

    By contrast, BU held a seemingly comfortable 5-1 lead halfway through its game with Providence only to see the Friars fight back and have the game-tying goal within their grasp with BU goaltender Sean Fields dead to rights. Stephen Wood’s wrist shot, however, flew over the net and the Terriers escaped with a win.

    “We were hoping the game was over,” BU coach Jack Parker said. “They just kept battling. Give them a lot of credit. I thought we still played well territorially, but we didn’t play with the focus we needed to defensively … We weren’t nearly as thorough as we were through the first two periods.”

    UMass also barely escaped egg on its face. The Minutemen recorded another ugly win, 2-1 over Holy Cross, thanks to a third-period goal by Chris Capraro.

    “That’s a really bad performance,” UMass coach Don “Toot” Cahoon said. “People were trying to do [too] much, the role players, because they’re not focused on the things they need to do to contribute.”

    So who among Hockey East’s leading teams takes the next pratfall and who just barely misses? We’ll see in the coming weeks.

    Red Sox Agonistes, Part II

    I still feel Cowboyed Down to six feet under. After game seven I felt physically ill. My hands shook. I could not believe what I had just witnessed.

    A week after the fact, it still feels worse than Bill Buckner (1986), Bucky Bleeping Dent (1978), Fisk’s Homer For Naught (1975), and Hoolian Havier is a Herk (1967). In time, I’m sure that 1986 will reassert itself as the worst one of all. After all, that was just one strike away from the whole enchilada. For now, though, the physical errors of that gut-wrencher pale in comparison to this year’s synaptic shutdown.

    I know this much for sure. Next time I watch the Red Sox in the playoffs, I’m going to wear a cup. I’m not getting kicked down there again without protection.

    Second in the Country

    As a freshman last year, UMass-Lowell forward Ben Walter didn’t score his first goal until after Christmas, finishing with a total of five.

    This year, he’s already recorded eight, good for second in the country, with a nation’s-best six on the power play.

    When you ask coach Blaise MacDonald the reason, his answer is unequivocal. “Coaching!”

    He then adds, “Some wise coach, probably Al McGuire, said the best thing about freshmen is they become sophomores. Like any athlete, performing well is a derivative of having a high level of confidence and his level of confidence is very high because he’s prepared and he got an awful lot of experience last year.

    “He’s still getting the same chances he got last year, but now the red light’s going on. It’s just a year of experience and a lot of confidence right now.”

    Walter isn’t just a one-dimensional player either. His new-found scoring touch complements the otherwise well-rounded game he displayed as a freshman.

    “Walter is a guy that has great hockey savvy, awareness, and a tremendous amount of passion to play the game,” MacDonald says. “He does so many subtle little things out on the ice that you can’t teach kids how to do.

    “He really is [a complete player]. His game savviness has gotten better. He’s positionally in much better places this year and we’re using him on a regular shift with penalty killing and power plays.”

    The sophomore sniper says, “It’s great to be off to such a good start. It was what I was hoping for coming into this season. Last year, I didn’t get off to a great start offensively, and I think that hurt my confidence. My teammates are playing really well, and I’m pretty much feeding off of them, and hopefully I’ll continue to perform.”

    Red Sox Agonistes, Part III

    I don’t want to hear about next year. These opportunities are far too precious to be squandered. The fact is that the core of this team is going to be almost impossible to keep together. This was the year.

    The Boston Herald‘s Kevin Mannix had it right when he wrote, “If the Red Sox had the kind of strategic and emotional direction from their coaches that the Patriots have received from theirs, nobody would be talking about 1918 or the Marlins today.”

    Giving Them Their Due

    In this year’s Season Preview, I picked Lowell and Merrimack to finish eighth and ninth because of glaring question marks in goal. Discussion of both teams began with the phrase, “Goaltending, goaltending, goaltending.” No other teams in the league had less reason for optimism that their dufflebags could get the job done.

    Well, the season is young but it’s already time to give credit where credit is due. Merrimack’s Casey Guenther and Lowell’s Chris Davidson have done an excellent job, stopping the preponderance of pucks sent their way.

    Other than mop-up duty, Guenther had managed only three games in two years with one of those coming as an emergency replacement the night after Joe Exter’s near-tragic injury. Usually if a goaltender can’t assert himself for at least a little more action than that over two seasons, he’s just not up to snuff.

    So when coach Chris Serino said in the preseason, “We think Casey is going to be very good, one of the better goaltenders in the league,” it sounded a lot like whistling past the graveyard. That is, no coach can come out and say, “My guy can’t even stop a beach ball. He stinks. I don’t know how we’re going to cover up for his weaknesses.” If a coach says his goalie is a stiff, it’ll likely become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    So this writer viewed Serino’s comments as attempts to prop up a major weakness, not unlike the dead guy in Weekend At Bernie’s.

    So much for that assessment.

    Guenther earned last week’s Hockey East Player of the Week Award after holding Northeastern to two goals and shutting out Providence. He now holds a 2-2-1 record with a 2.17 GAA and a .921 save percentage.

    “We know he’s a good goaltender,” Serino says. “His first year he had some growing pains to go through. It was a year when we went through a lot of stuff [with my illness]. Last year, Joe was just playing so well. Joe never had a slump where I could say, ‘Casey, go play.’ But when I did play him, he played well.

    “Obviously experience is huge, but we felt Casey was going to be very good. I told him, ‘You’ve already proven it to us. We know. Prove it to everyone else now.’ He’s done that.”

    Lowell’s goaltending situation appeared even more dire. The River Hawks suffered last year with the league’s worst goaltending, a dubious distinction it would have ‘won’ in a landslide. Then the returning number one guy, Dominic Smart, who had at least finished well, left the team in August for personal reasons. Transfer John Yaros, who had impressed in practices, would not be eligible until after the holidays.

    That left Chris Davidson, who played poorly last season (3.86 GAA, .848 Sv%), and Paul Mammola, who had been fourth on the depth chart before Smart’s departure.

    To be blunt, this had disaster written all over it. A much younger team than last year’s edition would presumably expose Davidson’s weaknesses even more.

    Wrong again.

    Davidson has looked like a new man (2.14 GAA, .909 Sv%).

    “We’ve played five games and he’s played three great games, one clunker and one decent game,” MacDonald says. “I think the two goals against Canisius were bad goals, [although it] could have been a tough game to play. He didn’t see a lot of shots.

    “But the night before against Niagara, if he’s not in the nets we’re out of the game after 20 minutes. The same thing against Anchorage. He was borderline spectacular all game. And he played great against Miami.

    “So he’s really, really brought his game to a whole different level. What we’re looking for is a level of consistency from everyone, whether it’s a goalie, forward or defenseman and be able to maintain that level of play on a consistent basis. He’s done that so far.”

    Red Sox Agonistes, Part IV

    There’s no Curse of the Bambino. Babe Ruth is merely a fat guy who Grady Little would have pinchrun for with two outs in the eighth inning…. or substituted Damien Jackson for in the sixth inning as a defensive replacement…. or relegated to the bench if Derek Lowe were pitching.

    A New First-Place Team

    The big winner last weekend had to be Merrimack, which took three of four league points with a 4-2 win over Northeastern and then played to a scoreless tie with Providence.

    “Anytime you play in Hockey East, no matter who you’re playing, if you take three out of four points it’s been a success,” Serino says. “If you took three out of every four points every week, you’d be at the top of the league.

    “So we feel like we got off on the right foot, especially since we were on the road for one game. We’re pleased, but we can improve on our play.”

    Serino has been fighting the perception among many that last year Merrimack was a one-man team led by goaltender Joe Exter, whose departure would have left the Warriors without a prayer this year.

    “Everybody [views] us as though our whole ballgame was based on Joe,” Serino says. “I think we’re much better defensively than people give us credit for. I think our defensemen are really good.

    “I think in [Eric] Pedersen, [Tony] Johnson, [Rob] LaLonde and [Bryan] Schmidt we’ve got four elite defensemen there. I feel very good about our defense. The emergence of Jeff Caron and Mike Sullivan — they logged significantly more ice time against Northeastern and Providence than they had in the previous games — has allowed those [four] guys to get a little more rest and therefore they’ve played better.

    “That’s a part of our team that’s really been overlooked. Johnson and Pedersen have been starters for four years. Schmidt just had a great freshman year. And so did LaLonde, but I think Schmidt kind of [overshadowed] him. They’re big, they’re mobile and they can all handle the puck.”

    Underlining Serino’s point is the fact that the number one star of the scoreless tie was neither Guenther nor Providence goaltender David Cacciola. It was Pedersen.

    “He played outstanding,” Serino says. “He played shorthanded, on the power play, played a regular shift and was immense on defense. The factor of the matter was that Casey played well, but he didn’t have to play outstanding for the shutout. He didn’t stand on his ear for the shutout.”

    Red Sox Agonistes, Part V

    Four chances to pull Pedro. Four! Exactly what was required — other than the complete blowing of a three-run lead and a trip to the World Series, of course — to let Grady know that the Yankees were hammering the out-of-gas Pedro?

    Did Don Zimmer need to hit a home run? George Steinbrenner? George Costanza?

    Four chances!

    Argghhh! Time to gargle with Drano….

    Your Mother-in-law, Your Sports Car And A Cliff

    You know the old joke about mixed feelings.

    Well, it applies in great measure to Providence, which stands at 4-1-1 and a national ranking (15th), but holds only a single point in league play after a 6-4 loss to BU and a scoreless tie with Merrimack. Arguably, once BC and Maine commence their Hockey East schedules the Friars will find themselves leapfrogged into an early seventh place.

    “That’s why our league is so good,” coach Paul Pooley says. “The first four games we played decent, but we weren’t as challenged as we were on Friday night against BU or [Saturday against] Merrimack. So it’s a learning process for our team. We’ve had a couple injuries that haven’t helped us with our depth, but I’m excited.

    “We’ve got a long way to go as a hockey club; we’re not anywhere where we need to be, but we’re doing some positive things and we’re showing a lot of heart and character.”

    One positive has been the play of forward Chase Watson who had earned back-to-back Hockey East Rookie of the Week honors prior to opening league play last weekend.

    “Somebody has to [make an immediate impact],” Pooley says. “We’re playing five freshman forwards so somebody has to play in certain [key] spots. He’s played with a couple of guys — Torry Gajda and John Goodwin — who’ve really complemented what he’s done.

    “But I think the freshmen got a dose of Hockey East this past weekend and what it’s all about. That’s why they’ll continue to get better because they’re getting challenged every time they’re on the ice no matter who they’re playing against.”

    The Friar goaltending also included a surprise last weekend. Bobby Goepfert had played every game, earning the Hockey East Defensive Player of the Week Award two weeks ago, but he faltered on Friday night against BU. David Cacciola played well in relief and then again the next night in the scoreless tie with Merrimack. As a result, Cacciola took the league’s Defensive Player of the Week Award giving Providence an unusual back-to-back honor.

    “Bobby played the first four games because he played very well, but struggled a little bit on Friday night against BU and David went in and played well,” Pooley says. “A thing about sports is when you get your opportunity what you do with it and David made the most of it.

    “So that’s a big positive from a coach’s perspective and it’s a motivator for the two goalies. David had a couple good games and that was the best thing that could happen for us. Now he’s got to keep making the most of his opportunities to stay in competition for playing. That’s true for everybody. It’s a positive and a motivator for David and gives him a lot of confidence and that’s good for our hockey club.”

    Red Sox Agonistes, Part VI

    The Red Sox absolutely did the right thing in not bringing Grady Little back and not just because of his outrageous, crushing blunder in The-Latest-Game-To-Rip-Our-Hearts-Out. Yeah, he was great in the clubhouse, but he’s not a good Xs-and-Os manager.

    But he pounded the nails in his own coffin with his interview in the Boston Globe, saying, “Just add one more ghost to the list if I’m not there, because there are ghosts. That’s certainly evident when you’re a player in that uniform.”

    There are ghosts?

    No, there are no ghosts. There can be some bad breaks, great pressure, some failures to deliver in the clutch, and mind-boggling blunders (from Galehouse to Grady).

    Grady’s contention that there are ghosts (and obviously he doesn’t mean literally) that have done in the Red Sox makes him absolutely unqualified to lead this team.

    Ghosts didn’t do them in this year or in 1946. Stupidity did.

    An Early Pivotal Weekend

    Obviously, the season is just getting started, but two teams are facing off this weekend with the opportunity to get a significant leg up on the competition or, alternatively, fall in an early hole.

    Northeastern and Lowell are the two Hockey East teams to have played league games and not yet record a point. They both have only a single loss in conference play, but getting swept this weekend would leave them clawing to get back into the mix.

    “It reminds me a lot of last year when we played UMass-Amherst early on and we let both of those games slip away,” says Blaise MacDonald. “It was really a defining time for UMass’s program and season and it really set us back. This weekend has all the same flavors.”

    Lowell at least can point to a nonconference win and a feel-good 14-11 goal differential. Northeastern, on the other hand, has lost three straight after opening with a 3-3 tie with Colgate. The Huskies did travel to Denver for two tough games there, but can’t be pleased with getting outscored 15-7 in the three losses.

    “The biggest thing is that we probably haven’t got the play in the goalie position that we were looking for,” coach Bruce Crowder says. “When you look at our save percentage both guys are in the low 80s. [Keni Gibson (0-2-1, 3.93 GAA, .836 Sv%) and Tim Heneroty (0-1-1, 6.00 GAA, .838 Sv%)]. You’re not going to be successful with that. Somebody in that position has to step up and be a difference-maker.

    “Offensively, we’ve been a little snakebit early here. But hey, we’re four games into the season and there’s a lot of hockey to be played.

    “We’re a team that’s relatively young at the same time, too. We’ve got three 18-year-old freshman defensemen. We’re playing a lot of freshmen and it takes a little time for those guys to get their feet planted and feel a little more comfortable in what they’re doing. The coaching staff is being as positive as we can be making sure that it’s going to help us in the long run.”

    As a result, Crowder isn’t looking at this weekend as an early make-or-break series.

    “Anytime you get Hockey East games they become pretty important whether it’s the first two games of the season or the last,” he says. “For us, we’re just trying to get better every game we go out there. Obviously, we haven’t shown up in the win column yet so that’s one of the things we need to get done and at the same time I’d like to see us improve a lot of areas of our game.”

    Red Sox Agonistes, Part VII

    Can we agree that Florida Marlins fans — which number well into the tens of thousands — are among the least deserving groups to win two World Series in less than a decade?

    By contrast, I offer one anecdote and one fact.

    Anecdote: A friend of mine who considers all sports “a waste of cycles” (geekspeak for a waste of time) had a conversation with her young daughter in which the little tyke convinced her mother that it was indeed important to “reverse the curse.” And at least until the little one’s bedtime, they watched the game together.

    Factoid: At 11 p.m. in the Boston television market, game seven of the Red Sox – Yankees series saw 79 percent of all televisions that were on were tuned to Red Sox-Yankees. Seventy-nine percent!

    Congrats, A Thank You And An Explanation

    In reverse order…

    If you didn’t get the joke about the current Niagara coach being able to see over the dasher, the previous Purple Eagles coach was the vertically challenged UMass-Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald.

    Ba-doom.

    Thanks to Scott Weighart for filling in so well last week. I’m considering it a stab in my back, however, that he turned in his column two days before the deadline. Now that is an ugly precedent.

    Finally, congratulations to Lowell’s Chris Fontas for scoring his first goal last week. I was one of Chris’s youth hockey coaches for four or five years and it’s great to see his success. Remember this: if Chris makes a great move, I taught him that one; if he makes a mistake, though, it’s the fault of his father, who ranks ninth on UNH career scoring lists with 174 points.

    Red Sox Agonistes, Part VIII

    The Boston Globe‘s legendary columnist Bob Ryan had the best opening line to sum up Redsoxian agony.

    The reward for all that fidelity will surely come in another life. There is no indication it will ever materialize in this one.

    And he had the second best closing lines in response to New York Yankees manager Joe Torre saying, “I think the Boston fans should be proud of their ball club. They were the toughest team we’ve faced in my eight years here.”

    Ryan wrote:

    The Red Sox always lose in great games. The 1975 World Series was an epic. The Bucky Dent Game was an epic. The 1986 World Series was a keeper. That’s the point. The Red Sox always play in these things, but they never wind up pouring the champagne.

    Seriously. Would it spoil some vast eternal plan if the Red Sox could win one?

    Trivia Contest

    Last week’s contest asked three questions:

    1. Which former Hockey East player turned baseball player reached Double-A in the minors, partly due to switching from infield to catcher?

    2. What former Hockey East player scored an impressive 106 goals in three ECHL seasons after concluding his collegiate career?

    3. Now the really tough one: What former Hockey East player once inspired his coach to say, “It wouldn’t surprise me if he was named Prime Minister someday”? He was named Hockey East’s top scholar-athlete twice in a row. As a senior, he only scored three goals all season … but two were game-winners.

    The answers are:

    1. Dan Donato, BU. Donato played third base in the Yankees’ system but switched to catcher in the D-Rays system and got as high as AA.

    2. Cal Ingraham, Maine. The former Maine captain scored 106 goals in 209 games with the Tallahassee Tiger Sharks in the ECHL from ’95-’96 through ’97-’98. He actually went on to have three consecutive 50-goal seasons with the Idaho Steelheads of the WCHL.

    3. Sean MacDonald, Northeastern. MacDonald won tons of honors here academically, leading Crowder to make this statement about him.

    First to answer numbers two and three correctly was Lalit Joshi, whose cheer is:

    “Thank you Josh Beckett!!! Let’s go Huskies!”

    First to get question number one and the writer of one of the more impressive letters in memory is Alexandra Fitzpatrick. Check out her research:

    The real answer to a trivia question is do I have way too much time on my hands???? The answer is an absolute, without question, and unapologetic… YES!

    1) Off the top of my head I can only think of one guy who played pro baseball and hockey. None other than Danny Donato – BU

    2) Well sit back and enjoy this one because for the life of me I couldn’t find the magic 106 goals in three season but I did find the following…there may just be a future trivia question in here somewhere.

    – I really thought I had it with John Campbell of UMass-Lowell. But playing for 3 different teams in the 2002-2003 season he snuck an extra nine goals in when he suited up for the Cincy Cyclones and ended up with a total of 115 over 3 ECHL seasons. Huh, the nerve!

    – Jon Pratt, BU, had 106 in two seasons with 57 for the Rivermen in 96-97 and 49 in 97-98. But then he went on to net 35 more for a grand total of 141 in four seasons.

    – John Joyce of BC fame also had 106 in 2 seasons with the Birmingham Bulls. 50 in 94-95 and then 56 in 95-96. But alas, those were the end of his days in the ECHL.

    – UNH’s Eric Royal followed the trend and found 106 points in 2 seasons for Wheeling. In 95-96 he had 14 for the Wheeling Thunderbirds. In 96-97 the name change to the Wheeling Nailers brought him luck as he accumulated 92 points that season for a total of 106. Then he scored 51 more with the Pee-Dee Pride for a grand total of 157 points in 3 ECHL seasons. Again, these guys are obviously purposely ruining my chances on this trivia question!

    – Finally, hailing out of Providence College, there is Troy Lake. It took him 4 seasons to amass one shy of the magic 106 number. He had 105. 92 in three seasons with Roanoke Express and then 13 in his final season with Richmond Renegades.

    Other findings of note re: ECHL…

    – Cal Ingraham of Maine scored 256 points in 3 seasons.

    – Glen Steward of UNH fame had 170 points in 2 seasons including 92 in one season.

    – J.F. Aube scored a whopping 417 points in 6 seasons.

    Makes you wonder what happened to these guys and why they never stepped it up to the next levels.

    And finally, not that it has anything to do with anything, but…

    – Eric Peterson from Northeastern scored an incredible 141 points in one season over in Holland. 40 games, 64 goals, 77 assists. Wow.

    3) Steve Thornton – BU – I know this is not what you were going for because he scored well over 3 goals his senior year but I’d put money on the fact I heard Coach Parker say something like that about Stevie.

    Alexandra not only gets a cheer, but also immediate induction into the Get-A-Life Hall of Fame. (And yes, in these parts that comment is uttered with great admiration.) Her cheer is short and sweet:

    “Go BU!”

    This week’s question observes that Providence has earned back-to-back Defensive Player of the Week honors, but with two different goaltenders. Email my trivia account with the most recent previous two goaltenders from the same team to achieve this distinction and indicate the dates. The winner will be notified by Tuesday; if you haven’t heard by then you either had the wrong answer or someone else beat you to it.

    Red Sox Agonistes, Epilogue and Epitaph

    The best closing line of them all, the one that describes the agony in exquisite perfection, comes from Sports Illustrated‘s Tom Verducci.

    Years and decades from now, in the dead of a cold New England winter, one Boston fan will look up from his chowder and, apropos of nothing, shake his head and say quietly, “I can’t believe Grady left Pedro in.” And all the other members of Red Sox nation present will immediately know exactly what is being said and they will bow their heads in silence, as if mourning the loss of a loved one.

    Thanks to Travis Barrett, Vince McConeghy and Craig Roberts.

    This Week in Atlantic Hockey: Oct. 30, 2003

    By
    -

    ‘Hurst Conquers

    One week after the non-league almosts of Atlantic Hockey had fans shaking their heads, the rested and refreshed Mercyhurst Lakers pulled off the upset of the year to date.

    Having played nothing but an exhibition game in 20 days, the Lakers marched into Ohio State and knocked off the No. 12 team in the country, giving the league its first win over a nationally-ranked opponent in nearly three years and the first since changing from MAAC to Atlantic Hockey last June.

    “You’d think we won a national championship around here,” said Mercyhurst coach Rick Gotkin of the victory’s post-mortem. “There’s more phone calls and email from people then when we went to the NCAAs (in 2001 and 2003).”

    The win was a culmination of almost-wins for Atlantic Hockey teams in the first month of play. Quinnipiac took Michigan to the brink twice, Canisius tied and dropped an OT decision to Lake Superior State and UConn let slip a three-goal third period lead against Rensselaer — all of these coming just a week earlier.

    So when the buzzer sounded in Columbus on Saturday with the scoreboard reading 3-2 in favor of the Lakers, there’s no surprise that a cheer went up around Atlantic Hockey-land.

    “A lot of coaches feel that whether in conference or out of conference, we’re trying to gain respect. If we go out and play well, that sends a loud message, particularly to recruits. Atlantic Hockey teams get better and better every year.

    “It’s a real compliment to the players who make up the teams in Atlantic Hockey.”

    Said Canisius coach Brian Cavanaugh: “It’s huge. It’s great to see and great for Atlantic Hockey. Ohio State has been getting some recognition, so to go in there and win that game is huge for [Mercyhurst].

    “I think it helps with both recruiting and scheduling. When you look at what these schools have done, it speaks to our league as improving each year.”

    The win was obviously special for Gotkin, but even more so for second-year associate head coach Dave Smith. Smith is an alumnus of Ohio State, having played for the Buckeyes before launching an eight-year professional career.

    According to Gotkin, it was Smith who sparked the club that night.

    “We came out in the first period and kind of stood around and watched,” said Gotkin. “We weren’t quite sure how good Ohio State was and how good we were.

    “After the first period, [Smith] came in the coaches’ room and was really ticked. So I told him to go in the room and tell [the team].”

    According to Gotkin, Smith’s speech was basic but full of fire, telling the team to play without fear.

    “He told them that we have a good Atlantic Hockey league team and that when we play in the league, we play with confidence. But when we come out of conference we don’t play the same.”

    Mercyhurst got what Ohio State coach John Markell deemed “two lucky goals,” and clung to a one-goal lead late in the third before holding on for the win.

    Quipped Gotkin of Markell’s commentary on the ‘Hurst’s goals: “Isn’t there luck in every athletic event? What puts you on one side of that bounce or the other? Is it the hard work? If it’s a lucky bounce going in, so be it. But they were goals on the road against a good team and a good goaltender.”

    The win was the first for Atlantic Hockey teams against a nationally-ranked opponent since Quinnipiac beat Union on December 3, 2000. Union fell from the top 15 that week and went on to lose 12 of its next 14 games. This week’s USCHO.com poll saw Ohio State fall out of the top 15 for the first time this year.

    Weekly Awards

    Player of the Week

    Peter Rynshoven Mercyhurst (Sr, F, Fairbanks, AK) – Rynshoven figured in two of Mercyhurst’s three goals as the Lakers upset No. 12 Ohio State 3-2 Friday in Columbus. Rynshoven scored his first goal of the season, a power-play goal in the third, which proved to be the game-winner. He also assisted on an earlier power-play tally in the third that put the Lakers ahead to stay.

    Goaltenders of the Week

    Andy Franck, Mercyhurst (So, G, Lakewood, OH) – Franck stopped 28 of 30 (.933) Ohio State shots Friday as Mercyhurst defeated OSU 3-2. Franck was named the game’s first star.

    Justin Eddy, Quinnipiac (Sr, G, Apple Valley, MN) – One outing after keeping No. 6 Michigan in check and making 51 saves in a 3-2 loss, Eddy responded with another stellar outing against another powerhouse program. On Friday night, Eddy turned away 46 shots in a 2-1 overtime loss at Wisconsin. It marked the sixth straight one-goal loss for the Bobcats against a member of one of the Big Four conferences. For the season, Eddy has a .939 save percentage and a 2.30 GAA.

    Freshman of the Week

    Jon Asselstine, Mercyhurst (Fr, F, Barrie, Ontario) – Asselstine scored his first collegiate goal Friday in Columbus, as Mercyhurst surprised the Buckeyes 3-2. The second period goal gave the Lakers a 1-0 lead. It was his only shot of the game.

    Roberts Shines in Knights’ AH Opener

    Playing a Bentley team that it hadn’t beat in two seasons, Army relied upon its best area of play to get its first Atlantic Hockey win: goaltending.

    Netminder Brad Roberts held Bentley in check and pushed a 1-1 goaltending duel to the final minutes, when Army’s Chad Mayfield buried the game winner. The Knights added an empty netter for the 3-1 final.

    Said Bentley coach Ryan Soderquist: “[The game] could’ve gone either way but when it comes down to it, [Roberts] was the difference.”

    Soderquist likes the young Roberts, who as a rookie a season ago shared the award for MAAC Goaltender of the Year with Sacred Heart’s Eddy Ferhi, who now plays in the Anaheim Mighty Ducks organization.

    “He’s sharp and stays focused,” said Soderquist. “He never flops around. He just makes the save and is back up again.”

    Roberts is the second goaltender in three seasons at Army to be considered a league standout. John Yaros, who left Army last year, currently is on the roster at UMass-Lowell. As a transfer, Yaros won’t be eligible to play until near the holiday break but once in the lineup is expected to challenge for the top job at Lowell.

    Ironically, Yaros and Roberts are cut from the same cloth. Both played their junior hockey for Apple Core in New York, prompting Soderquist to quip: “We’ve been trying to spend some time at Apple Core, figuring maybe we’ll get a goalie from there too.”

    Frozen Four Revisited

    Last year’s Frozen Four at the HSBC Arena brought college hockey life to the city of Buffalo. Housing two teams in Canisius and Niagara, the city showed its northern hospitality well in handling the crowds of hockey fanatics.

    Last weekend was the miniature version of that event when the Punch Imlach Hockey Showcase took stage at the HSBC. Upsets were the name of the game on day two. After losing, 8-2, on Friday night at New Hampshire, Canisius tied Lowell, 2-2, in a game that saw Griffs goalie Bryan Worosz turn aside 31 River Hawk shots.

    The early game on Saturday featured the ultimate upset, with Niagara soundly beating No. 1 New Hampshire, 5-2, a night after falling 6-1 to Lowell.

    In terms of the atmosphere and crowd for the Showcase, Cavanaugh said, “It could’ve been better.

    “When you play in an 18,000-seat facility, having 2,000 fans just doesn’t cut it. It’s tough to play in those big buildings, but it’s a great experience for our kids. To play there and to have the number-one team in the country there is a great experience.”

    Facing Number One

    Though Canisius left last weekend satisfied with a 2-2 tie against Lowell, Friday night’s contest against UNH was anything but. The Griffs spotted the Wildcats a 5-0 lead through two periods and stumbled to an 8-2 loss to open the Showcase.

    The score sounds ugly, but didn’t seem to bother Cavanaugh.

    “We had a couple of breakdowns against UNH on Friday and that cost us,” said Cavanaugh. “They came in focused and you could tell. The first 13 or 14 minutes of the first period, I thought we played real solid hockey. But then we had a bad giveaway that cost us a goal, then they got another one. By the time the second period came, it was all over.”

    Cavanaugh said, though, despite the drubbing and the fact that the team is winless (0-3-3) through six games, the locker room is positive.

    “We’re very upbeat,” said Cavanaugh. “We feel we’re playing pretty good hockey and we could use a few bounces to go our way right now. There are areas that we need to work on, in particular special teams, but this team knows we’re much better than last year.”

    Quote of the Week

    After Canisius drew 2-2 with Lowell on Saturday night, Lowell head coach Blaise MacDonald was going on about the fact that the River Hawks had outshot the Griffs, 33-17.

    Said MacDonald: “It was a game that I thought we deserved better from. We deserved the win, we had ample opportunities to score. If you look at the shot chart, you can see that we dominated in the second period, but we failed to get more than one goal past their goaltender.”

    Canisius’s Cavanaugh used a golf analogy to respond to MacDonald, for whom the term “avid golfer” would be an understatement.

    “I told coach MacDonald that we both shot 72. He might have hit 14 greens [in regulation], and I saved a lot of pars with a chip and a putt. But in the end we both shot 72.”

    The Week Ahead

    …begins right now, as Mercyhurst and Canisius renew their age-old rivalry on Thursday night in Buffalo. Connecticut, coming off a weekend road split with Alabama-Hustsville, and Quinnipiac — itself returning from two weeks on the road — will meet in the first Atlantic Hockey contest for both schools. Army and Bentley rematch last weekend’s bout, this time at West Point.

    AH’s non-league battles continue with Holy Cross traveling Saturday to Dartmouth, Sacred Heart on Saturday to Clarkson, and Bentley to Union on Sunday.

    The running tally on non-league games isn’t all that impressive, though as already mentioned, many of the road losses have been close games. Atlantic Hockey is a combined 3-18-3 against non-league foes, with two wins coming against the CHA and Mercyhurst’s win over Ohio State the lone victory over the CCHA.

    Paula Weston contributed to this column.

    This Week in the ECAC: Oct. 30, 2003

    By Juan Martinez
    -

    We’re one week closer to a full slate of ECAC games, but in the meantime, we have plenty of action ahead of us this weekend. Highlighting the schedule is the first league game of the year as Harvard and Brown renew their traditional rivalry. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into the fray.

    And They’re Off …

    The exhibition games are in the rear-view mirror.

    The scrimmages are complete.

    When Harvard and Brown hit the ice Saturday at Bright Hockey Center, everything counts — the goals, the assists, the wins and the losses.

    “This is a big game for us,” said Brown coach Roger Grillo. “It is our first real game, our first Ivy League game and the first ECAC game.”

    The Bears, who have not lost to the Crimson in this traditional opener since 2000, enter the contest after posting an exhibition win over Trois-Rivieres (4-0) that has served as their only game action to date.

    “I thought it was the perfect type of game for us,” said Grillo. “They skated well and were a skilled team. We were good considering we only had a week of practice.

    “We had some nice creativity with the puck. We were solid defensively and made adjustments pretty quickly.”

    The Crimson, meanwhile, find themselves in the same situation, having played in just one contest, an 8-0 exhibition win over Guelph that was less competitive than even the score implies.

    “It was nice to get it in before the start (of the season),” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “I thought we played progressively better, but were really flat for the first period and a half.

    “The only way to get better is to play.”

    And play they will.

    The annual ECAC opener pits more than just travel partners. It’s a matchup of the preseason favorite, Harvard, and a program that Grillo has rejuvenated — one that, with All-America goaltender Yann Danis in place, has a realistic chance to be sitting in first place come February 28.

    “We’re a quick team,” said Grillo, “with good speed up front. The games are a grind these days, but we’ll be better offensively and solid defensively.”

    Last year’s edition made it to the ECAC semifinals, an accomplishment that surprised many, but didn’t satisfy Grillo and the Bears.

    “Some parts of last season were positive,” he explained, “but we left Albany upset with the way we played. It left a bitter taste in some guys’ mouths and they worked hard all summer to get back.”

    That extra motivation is something opponents will get a quick sense of this season and Mazzoleni knows what to expect.

    “Brown is a hard-working, disciplined hockey team,” he said. “They’ll try to outwork you and they have Danis.”

    Grillo, too, knows what his club will be up against on the first day of November.

    “They are not the preseason favorites for no reason,” he said. “They have a lot of guys back, are skilled at every position and have good depth.

    “Work ethic and intensity will be key for us. This early in the season, making the fewest mistakes is key. We’ll need to take care of the puck.”

    Another big challenge for the Bears will be making up for the loss of Les Haggett, who remains sidelined for another week, possibly two, after getting his knee scoped. The junior was Brown’s second-leading scorer (13 goals, 33 points) last season and his absence will make competing with Harvard’s firepower more difficult.

    Of course, the Bears do have a great equalizer between the pipes in Danis, who will start Saturday and still conjures images of his 66-save, double-overtime performance at Bright in the 2002 ECAC playoffs.

    “No surprise there,” said Grillo in reference to who his goalie will be this weekend. Danis also posted a season-opening shutout against Harvard (4-0) last season in Providence.

    And despite wanting to give sophomore John Daigneau more action this season, Mazzoleni will counter Saturday with junior Dov Grumet-Morris.

    “I’m the kind of coach who will always give the key opportunities to the older kids,” said Mazzoleni, stressing the importance of the experience his Crimson leaders possess. Even so, he notes, expect to see Daigneau play the following week at either Dartmouth or Vermont.

    The Roll Continues

    It may still be early in the season, but the Union Dutchmen are gathering wins and confidence at a record pace. Continuing the best start in its Division I history (4-0-1), Union notched a win and a tie at Bowling Green last weekend.

    “I was happy with it,” said Dutchmen head coach Nate Leaman. “We faced some good adversity on the road. Bowling Green’s record (1-4-1) says nothing about how good they are.

    “We went down a defenseman on the second shift of the first game and we had to play with just the five. On the second night, we had to kill off lots of penalties, but it was the best (game) we’ve played all year.”

    They’ll need to keep up that pace, especially against their Friday opponents, No. 3 New Hampshire.

    “They have a lot of team speed,” said Leaman about the Wildcats, “and a great transition game. I’m glad we’ve faced good opponents on the road already because we know what to expect on the road.”

    Leaman also stressed the importance of not making many adjustments going into the contest, despite the larger ice surface at UNH, but instead simply playing the type of game that has gotten Union to this point.

    “They have an advantage,” he said in reference to the larger sheet, “and they spread you out and split their defense well. We have to be sound defensively and stay together on the ice. And stay disciplined.”

    UNH has been excellent on specialty teams, scoring 10 power-play goals in just four games. In addition, both of junior Sean Collins’ tallies have come shorthanded.

    If that wasn’t enough to keep Leaman up nights, there’s also the little issue of senior netminder Mike Ayers.

    “We have to get to him,” said the coach, “somehow. He is as good as they get in net and he certainly showed that in the national tournament last year.”

    Ayers is 2-1-0 with a 2.01 goals against average (GAA) and .910 save percentage this season. He has a career mark of 43-12-7 and last season posted seven shutouts with a 2.18 GAA and .926 save percentage.

    Union’s other opponent this weekend, Bentley, isn’t the same type of foe, but Leaman says the Dutchmen still need to be focused if they expect to win.

    “We need to be good,” he said, “and concentrate on our game. When we played (Atlantic Hockey member) AIC, we were not real sharp mentally.”

    Despite being named ECAC Goaltender of the Week and having a 0.97 GAA and .967 save percentage, sophomore Kris Mayotte isn’t set in stone as the starter this weekend.

    “We’re evaluating it day-by-day,” Leaman explained, “and practice-by-practice. We’re letting them (Mayotte and classmate Tim Roth) battle it out and compete in practice. We’ll see who is the sharpest and then decide.”

    Health-wise, sophomore defenseman Scott Wheeler’s injured knee makes him day-to-day, while senior Glenn Sanders will be out with a shoulder injury.

    Pack Your Bags, Ivies

    Princeton and Yale each open their seasons this weekend with tough road trips out West. The Tigers travel to St. Cloud for a pair of games against the No. 13 Huskies, while the Bulldogs face an even tougher challenge in Grand Forks against No. 2 North Dakota.

    Princeton, like its fellow Ivies, has a few weeks of practice and one exhibition game under its belt as it faces more game-tested opponents. In this case, the Tigers, who struggled in the early going against Guelph before rebounding to win (6-4), will be looking to slow up undefeated St. Cloud State (3-0-1).

    “After digging ourselves a hole in the first five minutes,” said Princeton coach Len Quesnelle about allowing three goals in the first 6:31 to Guelph, “we battled back.

    “But we were not prepared and just didn’t go.”

    It’ll be tougher to come back against St. Cloud, he recognizes, and as a result, the Tigers need to be ready from the start.

    “They are quick up front and that’s important since they play on a big surface,” said Quesnelle about the Olympic-sized ice the Huskies call home. “We need to have smart play away from the puck and be patient. When we don’t have possession, we need to have good positioning and when we do have the puck, we need to use the extra space to our advantage.”

    Sophomore Eric Leroux, who was 0-9-0 with a 4.30 GAA and .884 save percentage last season, has been announced as the starter between the pipes for the Tigers on Friday. Junior Trevor Clay, who was 3-8-0 with a 4.73 GAA and .879 save percentage in 2002-03, will serve as the backup.

    On the injury front, Princeton will be without sophomore defenseman Seamus Young (two goals, nine points last year) while classmate Mark Masters remains questionable.

    The Eli, who flew out to North Dakota Thursday afternoon, didn’t get quite as much out of their exhibition game.

    “I was pleased with the result,” said Yale head coach Tim Taylor. “We played well after we knocked some of the kinks out. Unfortunately, (Guelph) was not a very challenging opponent. We had the puck most of the night and didn’t get to test ourselves defensively, without the puck.”

    They will most certainly be tested in Grand Forks, were Yale will be looking for a measure of revenge after last season’s 7-3 home-opening loss in a fight-filled contest against North Dakota.

    That night, as Taylor explained, “we were down 2-1 (going into the third period) before the roof caved in.”

    The cave-in came in the form of five third-period Sioux goals, including a trio of tallies in the first 5:06 of the final stanza.

    That same potential explosiveness exists with this year’s North Dakota squad, but unlike a season ago, when the Bulldogs were driven by their offense, coming back from large margins may not be quite so easy in 2003-04.

    “They are a strong offensive team,” said Taylor, “and they will have the puck a lot. We have youngsters on defense, it isn’t our strength, but we got away with being an offensive team (last year).

    “This year, with graduations and the loss of Chris Higgins, we’re a different team … more defensive.”

    The Eli will be without Higgins’ 20 goals and 41 points, Evan Wax’s 18 goals and 37 points and Nick Deschenes’ 19 points. As a result, they’ll need to play a tighter game and will rely heavily on a defensive unit that is not only without graduates Stacey Bauman, Greg Boucher and Bryan Freeman (who each played more than 30 games last year), but boasts only two upperclassmen — senior Jeff Dwyer and junior Joe Callahan.

    What the Yale players do have this season, however, is added motivation to prove critics wrong.

    “We’re looking forward to this year,” said Taylor. “We’ve been bombarded with all the questions about what we’re going to do without Higgins and our players are sick of hearing about it. Tired of others thinking we can’t win without him. The players want to prove something.

    “We’ve told them all along, we don’t replace him with one guy, we do it as a team.”

    A large factor in whether the added motivation and the new look can surprise the league, as last year’s edition did, lies squarely between the pipes with the continued development of sophomore Josh Gartner.

    Playing in 20 games last season, he posted an 11-7-0 record with a 2.54 GAA and .917 save percentage. Splitting time with him was Peter Cohen, who played in the Sioux game and finished the year at 7-6-0, but with a considerably higher 3.78 GAA and .865 save percentage.

    A strong start by Gartner will provide a boost to Yale and may solve one of the club’s question marks.

    “He’s the incumbent, so he’ll start Friday,” said Taylor. Cohen may play as well, explained the coach, but that’s a decision he’ll make after the first game in the series.

    Taylor is also high on rookie Matt Modelski, who will not make the trip out West.

    “He will get an opportunity. He’s too good not to play.”

    Staying Put

    Cornell and Dartmouth also open their seasons this weekend, but each remains at home after exhibition contests that had different results.

    The Big Red, 7-2 winners over the U.S. Under-18 Team, host Western Michigan, a program with close ties to all three members of the Cornell coaching staff.

    Head coach Mike Schafer was an assistant under Bill Wilkinson before returning to Cornell. Assistant Scott Garrow, in his second stint with the Big Red, is a 1992 graduate of WMU and was an assistant with the Broncos for the last four seasons. Cornell assistant Brent Brekke graduated from Western Michigan in 1994.

    Given all the connections, is there an extra incentive for the Cornell crew when playing the Broncos?

    “I have great feelings for the hockey program,” said Schafer, “but I have bad feelings for the University. Western Michigan did a lot for me and a lot of my feelings are for Bill Wilkinson. He was a boss and a mentor.

    “I was disappointed with how the University dealt with him, a guy that started the program. I still hold a grudge against the school. I was very disappointed … I’m still disappointed.”

    Wilkinson is now head coach at Wayne State, a program he’s took from six wins in 1999-2000 to yearly totals of 18, 21 and 21 since then.

    But we digress …

    Last season, the Big Red swept a December weekend series in Kalamazoo by 6-1 and 3-2 (ot) scores. This year, the Broncos, having already played six games (2-3-1) will have the upper hand in terms of game-experience.

    “Early in the season,” said Schafer, “there are lots of details that take a while to sort out. The effort and determination has been good, but we are still a long way away. We made lots of turnovers (in the exhibition game).

    Against WMU, Schafer continued, “we need to limit the turnovers in the neutral zone, especially early, and limit their chances. We also need to play very physical, something we didn’t do last year.

    “They have a talented group of forwards up front and good team speed. They are a great opponent for us to start off the season.”

    Both senior Todd Marr, 2-2-0 with a 1.76 GAA and .932 save percentage last year, and rookie David McKee played in the exhibition game last weekend. Schafer has yet to decide, however, on who will start Friday.

    Meanwhile, in Hanover, Dartmouth will look to bounce back from their exhibition loss to a strong St. Francis Xavier club as they open the season against Holy Cross.

    “We played a good team,” said Dartmouth coach Bob Gaudet, “and we got exactly what we wanted. We were able to see our young guys in key situations. The kids did a good job and gained some experience. We treated it like a regular game and it was a good trial run.”

    Many thought the Big Green had a good shot at sneaking by Harvard and Cornell to capture the ECAC Tournament title last season. Disappointed in losing in the semifinals to the Crimson, Dartmouth will be looking to make a championship a reality this year. With, arguably, the best collection of young talent in the league, they could do just that.

    This year’s squad is hurt by some key losses both up front and on defense, where workhorses Pete Summerfelt (2-28-30 in 2002-03), Trevor Byrne (8-16-24) and P.J. Martin (2-11-13) will need to be replaced. That trio of blueliners, instrumental in the resurgence of the program, logged a considerable amount of ice time.

    “Byrne and Summerfelt played about 30 minutes a game,” explained Gaudet, “and P.J. played a lot of the remainder.”

    The names everyone focuses on with this club, however, are up front.

    A year ago, Lee Stempniak scored 21 goals and notched 29 points. Mike Ouellette posted 14 tallies and 35 points. Hugh Jessiman picked up 23 goals and 47 points.

    They are all back, Stempniak as a junior and Ouellette and Jessiman entering their sophomore seasons.

    “Jessiman and Stempniak came back stronger,” said Gaudet. “We expect them to continue on in their development. Last year, Jessiman skated at about 195 (pounds), this year’s he’s up to a solid 215.

    “Everyone seems stronger. Even (sophomore Eric) Przepiorka, who isn’t a big guy (5-9), is stronger on his feet.”

    They’ll be put to the test against Holy Cross this Saturday before Dartmouth opens ECAC play against Brown on November 7. Like other Ivy opponents this weekend, the Big Green will be facing a better-tested opponent.

    “It’s more frustrating than it used to be,” said Gaudet. “It used to be that just some teams played earlier. Now, all the teams are playing more. Initially, it is tough and you have to be patient, but after a few weeks, it settles out.”

    In the meantime, the Big Green will need to perform well in a few days, not weeks.

    “They are a good team,” said Gaudet about a Crusaders (2-2-1) club coached by Paul Pearl, a former assistant of his at Brown. “They have a lot of games under their belts already and we have a lot of holes to fill. The only way to tell where we are is to play.

    “They will challenge us, but we have to be consistent. We’ll need to limit turnovers and unforced errors coming out of our zone or odd-man rushes that result from trying to force things in the offensive zone.

    “We need to play smart and disciplined and only try to control the things we can control. We probably have some rust, but you can’t duplicate game situations in practice.”

    Another question that remains unanswered for Dartmouth, thanks to the graduation of Nick Boucher, is who will play in goal.

    “I’m at a bit of a quandary with what to do,” admitted Gaudet, a stellar netminder in his own right when he played for the Big Green.

    “Dan Yacey (1-1-1, 2.15, .932 in 2002-03) has been there when called upon. Darren Gastrock (2-3-0, 3.62, .867 last year) has done a good job for us and played some big games. And Sean Samuel is young, but has shown good signs of being very solid.

    “I just hope I make the right call on the goalies,” Gaudet joked. “Sometimes I wish I had a crystal ball.”

    For now, Gaudet said he isn’t sure whom he’ll start, but senses it will be Yacey against Holy Cross.

    One Point for the North Country

    When two nationally-ranked teams, Colorado College and Maine, skated into the North Country last weekend, they faced tougher competition than they likely expected, but still managed to leave with three wins and a tie. It wasn’t exactly the dreaded North Country road trip most teams have grown accustomed to.

    Clarkson hosted the No. 8 Tigers in their home opener only to blow two late-game leads and a pair of potential victories. Last Friday, the Knights led 2-0 midway through the second period and 2-1 heading into the third, only to allow the game-winner with less than three minutes left. The next night, Clarkson was up 4-3 with less than eight minutes to go, but surrendered the game-tying tally with again less than three minutes in the contest.

    A week earlier, the Knights also lost a late lead when Bemidji salvaged a 1-1 tie with a goal with 1:39 to play. One would think there is a disturbing trend brewing in Potsdam.

    “It’s discouraging on one hand,” said coach George Roll, “but the guys competed hard against a top club. We’ll get better.

    “I thought we played our best game of the year (Saturday). The effort was there and that’s all the matters. We will grow as a team … and we’ll learn to win those games before this year is over.”

    They’ll have their chance this weekend in a pair of games against Findlay (Friday) and Sacred Heart (Saturday) before opening the ECAC slate against Rensselaer.

    “We need to get the team prepared so that they come ready to work both nights,” said Roll. “We are not the type of team that can take off a night and still win.

    “Our special teams play needs to continue. We’re not bad on our power play, better than I thought we’d be so far and our penalty killing has been excellent. But we do need to generate more offense, get to the net and do a better job down low.”

    Clarkson will be without a pair of freshman defensemen. Matt Curley remains out, while Michael Grenzy joins him watching from the press box with a bone bruise.

    Down Route 11 about 10 miles, the Saints head back on the road this weekend with a pair at Lake Superior. St. Lawrence will look to bounce back from getting swept at Appleton Arena by No. 1 Maine.

    The Saints held a 2-1 lead going into the third period against the Black Bears last Friday, but an early goal tied it up and Maine’s final tally with less than five minutes to play ended St. Lawrence’s upset bid.

    “That was probably the best we have played thus far this season,” said Saints’ coach Joe Marsh. “This (was) an excellent Maine team, but I think we found that we can play at the level we need to play to compete.”

    Unfortunately, SLU fell into the trap that Marsh had feared on Saturday (7-2 loss), giving Maine far too many power play opportunities.

    “We had hoped to play the same way we did the (first night),” said Marsh, “but you can’t get into a specialty teams contest with a team with Maine’s ability. We hurt ourselves with the penalties.”

    Maine was 3-8 with the man-advantage after SLU’s successful 2-5 power play performance the night before. The Saints will need to continue to receive contributions from their power play, an area Marsh said will make a difference for SLU the more confidence the units get.

    Along those lines, a weekend slate against the Lakers may be just what the doctor ordered.

    Lake Superior (1-2-1), swept last weekend by Miami, the club SLU opened the season with a win over, allowed an amazing four power-play goals on five chances by the RedHawks. The Lakers managed to kill only three of eight shorthanded situations on the weekend.

    The Saints will also be looking to reverse some history on their road trip as they look to improve upon a 1-5-0 all-time record in Sault Ste. Marie. Another key for the Saints to reverse that trend will be the ongoing excellent play of the Rich Peverley-T.J. Trevelyan-John Zeiler line.

    The combo has accounted for eight of the Saints’ 13 goals on the season. The unit has played together for 15 consecutive games and 16 overall dating back to the 2002-03 season. Over that span, they’ve accounted for a mighty impressive 21 goals and 56 points.

    Finally, A Real Road Trip

    Having played its lone road game thus far in neighboring New Hampshire, Kevin Sneddon is excited about having his Vermont Catamounts hit the road this weekend for a pair at Michigan Tech. We’ll see what he thinks after the airplane food settles into his stomach.

    “I’m really looking forward to getting away with the team,” said the Cats’ coach. “It’ll be interesting to see how the guys interact with one another and to see how we play in back-to-back games.”

    According to Sneddon, the bonding time players get on extended road trips is essential.

    “They need more time together away from the rink.”

    They get it, especially in two weeks when UVM begins a six game road trip. In the meantime, Sneddon will also be looking carefully to see how some of his key guys play out West.

    “I was very pleased with how the team performed (against St. Francis Xavier (a 4-3 loss)),” he explained, “but some of our key players didn’t and I was disappointed with that. I thought we could have walked away with the game after going up 2-1, but we didn’t.

    “We need our full team and the same work ethic from all.”

    A fact that underscores what it will take from the Cats in order to notch the seasons’ first win. Against Michigan Tech, Vermont will be tested once again, granted not to the level they were while facing three Top-10 teams.

    “They are a much improved team,” said Sneddon about the Huskies (1-2-1). “They’ve played some good hockey to date and they are dangerous on the transition. Chris Conner and Colin Murphy are two of the top three scorers in the CCHA.”

    Conner, in four games, has notched nine goals and 11 points to go along with Murphy’s six tallies and 10 points.

    “We’re making progress,” Sneddon said. “We’ve definitely taken steps forward since playing Boston College. The team is getting used to me and me to them. We need to keep playing smart for 60 minutes.”

    On the injury front, senior defenseman and team captain Oriel McHugh will be out a couple of weeks as well fellow blueliner Gerard Miller.

    One Shot Deals

    Both Rensselaer and Colgate play just one game this weekend as they inch closer to ECAC play. The Engineers head back to New England for a Saturday game at Merrimack, while the Raiders play host to Findlay on the same evening.

    Rensselaer earned its first win of the season last week with a 6-0 blanking of Army.

    “We played well special teams-wise,” said Engineers head coach Dan Fridgen, whose Engineers went 1-6 on the power play and scored two shorthanded goals. Rensselaer also killed off all six Army man-advantages.

    “We spread the scoring around too,” he continued. “We had 13 different players with a point and Nathan (Marsters) played well when we needed him to.”

    Looking ahead to Merrimack, Fridgen knows that it’ll be another test for his sextet.

    “They are a solid team,” he explained, “from the goaltender out. The forwards can create things offensively and it is a team that will put you to the test.

    “We need to keep the game simple, as we would anyway since we are on the road. We need to play a smart game and do the little things off the faceoff or in our own zone.”

    In Hamilton, N.Y., the Raiders are looking to get back into the swing after a weekend off.

    “The conditioning level stayed high while we were off,” said Colgate’s interim head coach Stan Moore, “we made sure of that. We gave them an academic day off, but then put them through some high-tempo practices.”

    Colgate will take on Findlay this Saturday, a club that shocked Michigan State in its first regular season game.

    “They’ve had some other big games too,” said Moore about the Raiders’ opponent. “We played them tight at their rink last season and we were fortunate to get out of there with a win.

    “We need to be as prepared as we can be, ready for battle, and make sure we are physically and mentally prepared.”

    Physically, however, the Raiders will be without junior defenseman Justin Spencer again as he recovers from taking a shot to the throat earlier this year. He’ll be ready to practice again on Monday. Rookie Dustin Gililanders remains out with a broken foot as he looks to suit up for the first time as a Raider.

    In goal, health isn’t an issue, but Moore has yet to decide who will start, choosing to wait until late in the week before he makes the call.

    “It helps with the focus of the goaltenders,” he explained, “not knowing until Thursday. We also want input from the players. They don’t make the decision, but we want their opinions.”

    ECAC Award Winners

    Three new faces highlight the ECAC awards landscape. Clarkson junior Chris Blight was named Player of the Week thanks to his four-point weekend performance against Colorado College.

    ECAC Rookie of the Week honors went to the Engineers’ Tommy Green, who scored his first two goals in the college ranks.

    “He played real well,” said Fridgen. “He has good offensive capabilities, and as he gains more experience he’ll get better in his own zone. Right now, he’s deadly below the circles.”

    Union’s Kris Mayotte was named ECAC Goaltender of the Week to round out the hardware. The sophomore made 30-plus saves each night as the Dutchmen continued their undefeated season. He leads all league goaltenders in overall GAA (0.97) and save percentage (.967).

    (Players named to the ECAC Weekly Honor Roll are listed in the sidebar.)

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