Nov. 20, 2008 — This has been an enjoyably baffling couple of weeks so far, with a number of bipolar teams making solid assessment practically impossible.
Harvard is 4-2-1 and atop the standings, but has played more games than anyone else, and lost back-to-back games at RPI and Union two weeks ago. Princeton and Cornell reside in the third and fourth seats from the front, which was to some extent expected, but Dartmouth? The Big Green have gone nuts in the scoring department (20 goals in five games), and rookie goalkeep Jody O’Neill has been outstanding so far.
Quinnipiac is about as unpredictable as a team can get. The Bobcats were shutout in three straight, then stormed back with 11 goals last weekend. Yale has only played a trifecta so far, St. Lawrence and Clarkson have been knocked down every time they try to stand tall, and the bottom trio of Union, Rensselaer and Brown wouldn’t seem to know a goal light from a stop light.
Just another day in the ECAC.
Let’s face it, nobody can make heads or tails of this Cat. Hamden Hockey potted 14 goals in its first four games, including a 4-1 loss to UMass-Lowell. Everything was as it should be: the Blue & Gold were scoring like junkies and defending like Frenchmen.
But then the goals ran dry. Three straight goose eggs against league foes in one week had pundits — myself included — baffled. It was as though coach Rand Pecknold switched places with QU golf coach John O’Connor. Hey John, low score loses in most sports. I think it was the equipment staff caddying the sticks that had the players confused.
Whatever adjustments Pecknold made when he reappeared seemed to take. QU reeled off 11 goals at Union and Rensselaer, and goaltender Nick Pisellini has really made a name for himself early on this year with a 1.28 goals-against and a .950 save percentage, equivalent to one goal on every 20 shots. (That’s good.)
So what are we to expect from the Q’Cats now?
“Obviously, yeah, we scored some goals on the weekend,” said Pecknold. “The three previous games, we had some chances,” he said, explaining that he wasn’t upset with his team’s inability to stir the scorekeeper. “Against Princeton, the power play played well,” despite failing to convert.
“It would’ve been one thing if we weren’t generating offense,” but we were, he said. The biggest difference between the slump and the spurt was that “we did a better job of getting our noses dirty, getting into the high-pressure areas”.
More encouraging to Pecknold than seeing the little red light over the other goalies’ heads is the lack thereof in Pisellini’s end.
“I think we’re a better defensive hockey team this year. The penalty kill has been excellent, [in part because] there are only a couple of freshmen who have jumped into the rotation,” he said.
The blue line leadership has also merited mention after last year’s vacuum, with Dan Henningson, Matt Sorteberg and Andrew Meyer earning praise from their coach.
Bud Fisher was the three-year workhorse in net for Quinnipiac before this year, but Pisellini’s numbers have demanded playing time for the freshman. That said, Pecknold hasn’t written Fisher off just yet.
“We had two bad defensive games, and they happened to be games that Bud started,” he said. He indicated that he’d wished to play Fisher last weekend, but the senior ‘keeper was out with the flu, so his reemergence is on hold.
Dan Clarke, another frosh netminder, suffered the excruciating fate of getting injured in his very first day of practice. Pecknold hopes for his healthy return around the midseason mark, and plans to play the unknown Clarke at some point in the second semester.
Overall, Pecknold is still stuck on the same emphasis as he was when we first spoke a few years back: consistency.
“Consistent competitiveness is our main focus. We did not have a good third period against RPI … we were lucky to have a good enough lead” to win, he said of the 5-1 victory, in which the Engineers outshot the ‘Cats 14-6 in the final frame.
Just to frustrate your loyal correspondent, QU hits the North Country for St. Lawrence and Clarkson this weekend — two teams who have been nearly as befuddling as their upcoming guests. Score predictions? I may as well try to guess the names of the 500th fans to enter the rinks each night.
About halfway through Colgate’s home match against Cornell last weekend, there was an innocuous looking pileup in visiting ‘keeper Ben Scrivens’ crease. At first glance it didn’t look like much more than Raider forward Peter Bogdanich accidentally knocking Scrivens down, and thus earning a two-minute minor for goaltender interference.
However, as you can see in the video, Bogdanich barely made any contact at all with the goalie, but Scrivens saw an opportunity and quite literally pulled the forward backwards and on top of Scrivens himself in the hopes of drawing a call.
The fact that the officials called a penalty on Bogdanich is laughable, but not surprising: chances are, Scrivens saw that the refs were looking away, and they made the knee-jerk reaction of whistling both players, even though Bogdanich’s greatest possible offense was having his heels in the crease (which is a play-stopping infraction, but not a penalty). It’s another unfortunate case of the zebras calling a play by what they presumed to have happened, instead of what they actually saw.
Oh, and as for Big Ben Scrivens’ move, straight out of WWE … seriously? What made him think he had to pull a stunt like that, at a seemingly arbitrary point in the game? At least the stripes called that one correctly.
Clued in by King of the Capital District Ken Schott of the Schenectady Daily Gazette, I was made aware of an incident between Princeton and Union last weekend. According to his report — I was not in attendance, to be clear — Princeton forward Matt Arhontas took a reasonably belated shot after the buzzer, to which Union’s Mike Harr took exception. The Dutchman defenseman jammed his stick into Arhontas’ blades, tripping him and drawing a minor penalty.
Tigers coach Guy Gadowsky immediately berated Harr, informing him multiple times that “that was a chicken-[expletive] move,” and moving to the front of the bench to shout as much.
Schott weighed in, decrying Gadowsky’s actions as unprofessional and inappropriate, absolutely inexcusable for someone in the coach’s position. I’m tempted to agree with him, but only to a point: coaches spend a lot of time recruiting, training, and looking after their players. College sports teams are almost as close as an athletic squad can get, since they travel, practice, study, and frequently eat and live together; it’s like a family, and that’s no exaggeration.
So it should come as no surprise that a coach — fearing for his player’s well-being as well as that of the team — could get so riled up in the heat of the moment. It’s a physical, ultra-competitive sport with a lot at risk, and I’m not talking about the standings. I can forgive Gadowsky for losing his cool a bit in this regard.
However, just because student sections abuse opposing teams with all the varieties and vagaries of the English language at their disposal does not mean a coach should be offered the same latitude. He is in a position of professional authority, and therefore is held to a higher standard — he is a role model and should comport himself as such. The veteran bench boss Gadowsky may not have used any verbiage that Harr hadn’t heard before, but that doesn’t excuse him from setting a poor example to his constituents on the bench or in the stands.
That’s just my two cents.
… how to sound educated and, let’s face it, a bit elitist at the rink.
Quick team pronunciation guides (Brown through Cornell two weeks back, Dartmouth to Quinnipiac in last week’s column):
Rensselaer
Alford — AL-ford … Angers-Goulet — ahn-GERS - goo-LAY … Appert — APP-ert … Beauregard — bo-RE-gard … Brutlag — BRUT-lag … Burgdoerfer — burgh-DORF-er … Contini — con-TEEN-ee … Kerins — CARE-ins … Kurulak — KER-lack … Mathias Lange — ma-TEE-us LANG … Ornelas — or-NELL-iss … Polacek — po-LAH-chick … Rabbani — rah-BAHN-ee … Andrei Uryadov — ON-drey YER-ee-AH-dov … VASSEL — va-CELL
St. Lawrence
Bogosian — bow-GO-zee-in … Caister — KAY-ster … DeVergilio — DEE-ver-JILL-ee-oh … Drewiske — drew-ISS-key … Miskovic — MISS-koh-vick … Parenteau — PAIR-en-toe … Petizian — pit-EE-zee-en … Pitsikoulis — PIT-see-COOL-iss … Spadaccini — SPAD-ah-SEE-nee … Tisi — TEE-see … Torney — TORE-nee … Vermeulen — ver-MULE-in
Union
Boileau — BWAH-loh … Buote — BEE-ott … Caffaro — kah-FAR-oh … Lareau — la-ROW … Milan — MY-lawn … Milnamow — MILL-na-mow … Pallos — PAH-luss … Presizniuk — preh-SIZ-nick … Shaffer — SHAY-fer … Valery-Trabucco — VAL-er-ee trah-BOO-ko … Zajac — ZAY-jack
Yale
Arcobello — ARK-oh-BELL-oh … Blase — BLAZE … Brosnihan — BREZ-ni-han … Dignard — DIG-nard … Jaskowiak — jass-KO-we-ack … Karwoski — car-WOSS-key … Limbert — lim-BEAR … Matczak — MATT-zak … Rondeau — RON-doe … Trentowski — tren-TAH-ski
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