Home Blog Page 1231

Second Suspect Pleads Not Guilty To Assault On BU Players

By Allison Weinberger
-

A second suspect pled not guilty Wednesday morning to multiple assault charges in connection with a Dec. 3 attack on four Boston University athletes.

Boston and Hingham, Mass., police arrested Ronald B. Twombly, Jr., 23, at 3 p.m. Tuesday and charged the Hingham resident with assault with intent to murder with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon causing serious injury, and affray (starting a public fight).

“Twombly is believed to be responsible for the most serious assault,” Boston Police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said.

Police believe Twombly, who was arraigned this morning at Brighton District Court, attacked 22-year-old Kevin Schaeffer with a baseball bat, sending the senior hockey player to the hospital with a broken orbital bone and a dislocated thumb. Schaeffer underwent surgery Dec. 12.

Brighton Court Judge David Donnelly set Twombly’s bail at $15,000, ordering him to stay out of Brighton, avoid contact with the victims, remain free of drugs and alcohol and submit to random substance testing while his case is pending, according to Jake Wark, deputy press secretary of the district attorney’s office.

Donnelly ordered Twombly to return to court Jan. 3 for a pre-trial conference, Wark said.

The Dec. 3 altercation occurred outside 9 Wadsworth St. in Allston at 4 a.m., when three to eight men with baseball bats, hammers and wrenches attacked three senior hockey players and a junior lacrosse player.

Schaeffer, the most seriously injured, and captain Sean Sullivan were transported to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, while goalie and assistant captain John Curry received minor injuries. Junior lacrosse player Lauren Morton was struck in the jaw with a baseball bat but was not hospitalized.

Hockey coach Jack Parker has said the assault was the result of an earlier scuffle between different members of the men’s hockey team and two unknown assailants, one of whom was reportedly involved in both incidents.

On Dec. 7, Boston Police arrested 23-year-old Sean Melanson of Hingham for his alleged involvement in the incident. Melanson was charged with assault by means of a dangerous weapon and threats to commit crime and will return to court Jan. 11.

Twombly could not be reached for comment.

Daily Free Press staff reporter Matt Negrin contributed to this article.

MacCormack Steps Down at Lebanon Valley

By
-

After almost eight seasons, Al MacCormack has resigned as head coach of the Lebanon Valley men’s hockey team. MacCormack had served as the head coach for the Flying Dutchmen since the program’s inception in 1998, amassing a 123-97-2 overall record.

MacCormack is taking a leave of absence from the college that will run until the end of his current contract in July, 2007, and will continue to participate on the NCAA Division III Men’s Ice Hockey Committee.

Current assistant coach Howard Hutton, in his second year with the program, has been named interim head coach for Lebanon Valley. Prior to Lebanon Valley, Hutton was head coach of the ACHA club team at Farmingdale State University.

“The athletic department is going to head in a different direction now,” said Hutton. “Playing in the ECAC West, there has got to be a commitment and dedication to recruiting. The guys we have now need to be focused on the second half of the season to see if we can get some wins. There needs to be a renewed sense of commitment to working a little harder and holding each other accountable for their actions. From the head coach down to the equipment manager, we have a lot to prove right now.”

Over the course of almost 27 seasons as head coach at Ithaca, Cortland, and Lebanon Valley, MacCormack earned a 292-349-18 record, placing him amongst the top 15 active Division III coaches in wins.

After several successful seasons in the ECAC Northeast — including a league championship and NCAA berth in 2001 — Lebanon Valley has struggled to win in the ECAC West. Over the last two plus seasons, the Flying Dutchmen have a record of 1-32 in league games. The team has started the season 0-11 overall and 0-6 in conference.

A decision on a permanent head coach will be deferred until after the conclusion of the season.

“We need to focus from January 6th until our last game in February,” said Hutton. “What happens after that is going to be decided after the season. We need to send the right message out that this team is heading in the right direction for the second semester.”

Lebanon Valley resumes play Jan. 5 with a two-game series at Elmira.

Few Games, Little Change: Minnesota Leads USCHO.com/CSTV Poll Once More

USCHO Staff Report
-

A light week of games left the USCHO.com/CSTV Division I men’s poll largely unchanged from a week ago, with Minnesota again the unanimous choice for No. 1 in Monday’s rankings.

The Golden Gophers, who were off last week, topped the voting for the fifth straight week, followed again by No. 2 New Hampshire, which was similarly idle.

Notre Dame and Miami each moved up a spot, to third and fourth, respectively, after Maine tied Mercyhurst Saturday and fell from No. 3 to No. 5 in Monday’s results.

Like most of the squads in Division I, none of those teams will play again until after Christmas.

St. Cloud State, Boston College, Colorado College and Boston University occupied spots six through nine this week — the same as last Monday — with none having played since the last poll.

Moving up to No. 10 was Denver, which won twice at Alaska-Anchorage last weekend. The Pioneers displaced Michigan in the top 10, as the No. 11 Wolverines and No. 12 Cornell each slipped downward one place this time around.

Vermont was again No. 13 after shutting out St. Lawrence Saturday. The Catamounts were followed by Michigan State, Clarkson, and Massachusetts, all of which held their positions after having the week off.

This Week In The MIAC: Dec. 15, 2006

By C. J. Spang
-

Turning Things Around

The last time I spoke with Augsburg interim coach Chris Brown, he wasn’t sure where his Auggies were at. At the time they were 0-4-0 and heading into a series with St. Mary’s. Goaltending was an issue and Brown had other concerns as well but maintained his team was getting better.

Things got a whole lot better for Augsburg starting with that weekend. The Auggies won the opener with the Cardinals 4-2, then, skated to a 3-3 tie the next weekend. At the Augsburg Tournament the next week the Auggies opened with a 5-1 win over Finlandia and fell to current No. 4 Wisconsin-Superior 3-2. Two weeks ago, Augsburg tied St. Olaf twice, then, this past weekend started high-powered Bethel in its tracks, winning 5-1 and dueling to a 0-0 tie Saturday. The Royals scored 13 goals the weekend before in a two-game set with St. Thomas.

“We look at it and go, ‘Geez, how the heck did we hold Bethel, with all that offensive power, to one goal in 125 minutes of play?'” Brown said.

“I still think Bethel is, if not the top team in our league, certainly one of the top three,” he said. “And I picked them to win the league in the coaches’ poll. So we certainly had tons of respect for them.”

Sophomore goaltender Andy Kent was the hero of the Bethel series (see below for more details and know I’m not neglecting him).

The lacking on offense is a surprise considering scoring has been a staple of the team in years past. But this year, it really is about the defense. The first three games of the season were apparently an abbhoration as the Auggies gave up six, six and five goals to St. Norbert, Lake Forest and Wisconsin-River Falls, respectively. All those games were losses. In the other nine games, Augsburg has given up four goals twice, three goals twice and two goals or less five times. In conference play, the Auggies have the second-best defense, giving up an average of 2.00 goals per game. Last season, Augsburg gave up five or more goals in 10 games, all of which were losses.

“The reason we probably haven’t been beaten (in conference play) is our kids are committed to playing tough team defense,” Brown said. “They’re doing all the dirty things it takes, on the defensive side of the puck, to put us in a position to be able to compete in those games but I think the reason we’ve tied four games is just simply we need to do a better job in the offensive end.”

The Auggies have one last game before a month-long break, which isn’t exactly what Brown would have hoped for at this point in the season.

“When we were walking off the ice after Saturday’s Bethel game I turned to our assistant coaches and I said, ‘Too bad this break’s coming right now cause I feel like we’re playing well,’ ” he said. “But at the same time you know going into a college season at this level, it’s basically two seasons. You hate to think of having to peak for the middle of December then restart up again in January but that’s kind of what it’s like. I think the break is good for you if you want it to be. I don’t know how it’s going to affect our momentum … I don’t feel right now that we want to take a break. I mean who does when they feel like they’re playing on all cylinders, who wants to take a break?”

Putting out the Fire

Every coach I’ve talked to uses the same word when describing Bethel’s offense — firepower. Well, the blaze that was the Royals’ offense was snuffed out this weekend by Augsburg sophomore goaltender Andy Kent. Kent stopped 64-of-65 shots on the weekend en route to a 5-1 win and 0-0 tie. The lone goal Kent gave up came at 3:35 in the first period of Friday’s game so Kent ended with 121:25 of shutout hockey. Not bad for a guy that came into the season with just three collegiate games under his belt. But it’s been the experience this season — he’s played in nine straight games — that Kent says gets him going.

“I know I play better the more games I play, like, last year I didn’t play till the end of the year and it’s tough to get in a rhythm there,” he said. “But now I’ve been playing and I feel like I’ve been getting in a rhythm and it’s a lot easier to play.”

For the year, Kent is 3-3-4 with a 2.24 GAA and a .914 save percentage, and against conference foes he is 2-0-4 with a 1.89 GAA and a .930 save percentage, both of which are second in the MIAC.

“Andrew is one of the most dedicated and hard-working players on our team if not the most,” Brown said. “And he is so determined to not only prove himself but to contribute to the success of our hockey program, he’s so committed to Augsburg College hockey that, the kid is just a relentless worker off the ice.”

Johnson to Frozen Four?

Augsburg senior center Aaron Johnson is one of five Division-III men’s hockey players and 46 Division-I men’s hockey players on the list of finalists to compete in the 2007 Division I Frozen Four Skills Challenge in St. Louis, Mo., on April 6, 2007. The list of 50 will be narrowed down to 16 who will compete at the Frozen Four.

“What a thrill for him if he ends up being selected, which I’m hopeful that he will. What a thrill for him,” Brown said. “I think he’d be a great selection and I hope he gets it. But yeah, it certainly is a thrill for our hockey program to have to be recognized through Aaron.”

This Week In The SUNYAC: Dec. 15, 2006

By
-

Midseason Report

Just like that, the first semester is done. And with that, we can get an early look at how right and wrong the preseason predictions were.

Not too much of a surprise at the top of the order where Oswego and Geneseo sit one-two, respectively, though I picked the Ice Knights to finish third. The Lakers completed the Fall undefeated for the first time in their history. However, like any team with high aspirations, Oswego coach Ed Gosek is not totally satisfied.

“We’re pleased with the no lose part,” Gosek said. “But, there have only been a few games where we played well for all three periods. I think the players understand that and try to improve. They are not complacent.”

So, what are the areas the team needs to improve on? “Special teams. We need to continue to improve there,” Gosek said. “Chemistry — try to finalize some of our line combinations for the stretch run.”

Three players certainly have some good chemistry. Brendan McLaughlin has 14 goals and 17 assists for 31 points, Ryan Ellis also has 17 assists along with 10 goals, and Garren Reisweber has 12 goals while Peter Magagna has 13 assists.

Just imagine what happens if Oswego makes those improvements.

Geneseo has been a little bit of an enigma. You can’t argue with a second place standing and a one-goal loss to Oswego is nothing to be ashamed of. They also split with Neumann who has proven to be a very good team this year and beat Plattsburgh. However, they continue to struggle against ECAC Northeast teams, losing to UMass-Dartmouth and Curry.

Most importantly, Geneseo has done better than I expected considering the constant coaching turnover every year. I guess by now, it’s considered business as usual. Derek Jokic continues to be the guy in net with a 3.09 GAA and .908 save pct. Mitch Stephens has not slowed down a bit, getting an amazing 30 assists in the first 15 games. Mike MacDonald has 11 goals followed by Trent Cassan with nine and Mathieu Cyr with 8.

What is a surprise at the top is the team that is missing — Plattsburgh, who I had finishing second. The Cardinals certainly have had a roller coaster season so far. They went a stretch of five games without a win, including getting just one point in four straight conference games. Yet, they beat Middlebury the first time they played them and lost by a goal the second time, they barely lost to Norwich, and they tied Oswego. The pollsters still believe in them, as they have them ranked 15th in the nation despite a 5-5 record. And, despite the fact that right now they are in the playoffs by just one point.

Their coach, Bob Emery, also believes in his team: “The only thing I don’t like is the most important thing and unfortunately that is the results. I thought we played well enough in every game to win. We had some frustration early in the year that caused us to grip sticks harder and not play loose, and that effects how you play.”

The goaltending has struggled, though Emery doesn’t blame them. Though he acknowledges there were some goals they should not have let in, he concedes that no one would be noticing if his team were scoring more goals like they should. No one has double digit goal totals, as the scoring is spread out amongst the entire team.

At the bottom of the order, no surprise seeing Cortland in last, as we had them picked just one spot higher. However, the Red Dragons do seem to be on the verge of something bigger. At least, that’s how the season started thanks to the discovery of goaltender, Ben Binga. However, with his meltdown in the last weekend of conference play came the team’s meltdown, culminating in Binga sitting home while Cortland got embarrassed by Castleton State as none of their remaining three goalies could do a thing to stop the onslaught. Binga has to now ask himself, is this a team sport or an individual sport?

Like the top, there is a surprise in who is not on the bottom — Brockport. Not only are they not on the bottom, they are kind of not in the middle either, sitting tied for third place, though only one point ahead of two other teams. The Golden Eagles are a classic glass half full, half empty scenario.

Take the last weekend of SUNYAC play. On the one hand they came away with two points on the Western New York swing which is nothing to sneeze at. However, they had solid leads in both of those games — one very late — that they couldn’t hold onto. So, do you praise them for coming away with two points on that road trip or do you bemoan the fact they blew two victories?

Coach Brian Dickinson seems to have the proper perspective for his team:
“We’d like to be a little better than 5-6-4. But, the reality is we’ve made significant strides in our program. The guys have bought into what we want to get accomplished. Day in and day out we ride them hard; we’re well conditioned. We have our moments were we’re not very good, but we seem to be able to weather the storm.”

Fredonia and Potsdam are right where I expected them to be and Buffalo State almost is. As expected, Fredonia has been trying to find a goaltending solution while Potsdam’s goalies have struggled to be consistent.

It looks like the Blue Devils are going to settle on Pat Street who has played in most of their games with a 2.92 GAA and .910 save pct. Neal Sheehan has been doing most of the scoring with 8 goals and 9 assists, Matt McKeown has seven goals, and Steve Albert has 11 assists. Those are overall numbers. In league play, Fredonia has the most anemic offense, scoring only 14 goals in seven games.

Meanwhile, the Bears have been getting no help from their netminders with a miserable 5.09 GAA for Vince Cuccaro and 4.02 GAA for Rob Barnhardt. To be fair, they have at times been let down by defensive mistakes. The freshmen have helped out in scoring as two lead the team: Luke Beck (6-9–15) and Connor Treacy (6-8–14) followed by familiar names, seniors Ryan McCarthy (5-6–11) and Adam Gebrara (6-4–10).

Buffalo State has not played up to the expectations set last year. Currently, they are out of the playoffs, but with such a tight grouping, they can still very easily make a solid run in the second half. However, Sean Sheehan needs to improve his numbers (4.04 GAA and .885 save pct.) and though Jason Hill has been a great asset in scoring (9-15–24), the Bengals are going to need a lot more offensive power to pull them back to last year’s level.

Morrisville got their feet wet in NCAA Division III hockey during the first semester. They have held their own. They’ve only let up five or more goals in four of their games, and never have let up double digit goals. That’s more than can be said for other SUNYAC teams. And, they even beat a future conference foe, Brockport, 2-1.

The Mustangs are letting up a lot of shots on goal, and only the great play of Cody Williams (.914 save pct.) and Travis Moore (.908 save pct.) is saving them at times. However, they work hard, never let up, and most importantly are learning what it takes to play at this level and what type of players they are going to need to recruit in the future.

SUNYAC Short Shots

Oswego got 55 shots against Johnson and Wales and went 3 for 8 on the powerplay in their first game, a 9-1 win, as three players got a pair of goals (Ryan Ellis, Rich Zalewski who also got three assists, and Brendan McLaughlin) … In the 15-0 Oswego blowout over Johnson and Wales with the first goal coming 11 seconds into the game, the Lakers got 53 shots on goal, went 7 for 12 on the powerplay, and had two players with hat tricks (Matt Whitehead and C.J. Thompson), Peter Magagna with a pair of goals, and Tony DiNunzio got five assists … Half the goals in Buffalo State’s 4-2 victory over Lebanon Valley were shorthanded as the Bengals got two of them … Buffalo State scored their two non-shorthanded goals 34 seconds apart … D’Arcy Thomas got two goals in Buffalo State’s 7-4 win over Lebanon Valley … Neumann outshot Fredonia in overtime, 5-3, but the teams had to settle for a 5-5 tie as the Blue Devils went 3 for 10 on the powerplay … Geneseo had trouble getting started coming out of the locker room as they let up a goal 15 seconds into the first and 32 seconds into the second in an 8-2 loss to Curry as Chris Kestell scored both goals … Plattsburgh scored the first six goals of the game in their 6-2 win over Williams … Geneseo wrapped up its 8-3 win over Skidmore by scoring their final two goals 28 seconds apart … Brockport outshot Morrisville, 41-15, but needed a shorthanded goal to put the game away, 3-1.

Game of the Week

Only two teams are in action over the break, both hosting tournaments. Both very good tournaments.

Plattsburgh is hosting their traditional Cardinal Classic with a solid field consisting of their first day opponent, Connecticut College, Babson and Neumann. Nobody is under .500 and two teams (Plattsburgh and Neumann) are ranked nationally. It will not be easy for anyone to come away with two wins from that field.

“We always strive in the past to have the toughest non-league schedule, and this year seems to be the toughest,” Emery said. “Connecticut College is better. Neumann is better. Babson is doing well. That makes our tournament very tough.”

“Connecticut College likes to play a strong defensive game and try to hang around and be there at the end,” Emery said about the team he faces Friday. “We played them a couple of years ago [in the first round of the Cardinal Classic]. We were lucky to come away with the win [in overtime].

“We’re going to have our hands full.”

Oswego is putting on what they hope will be an annual holiday tournament, the Pathfinder Bank Oswego Hockey Classic. They, too, have a solid field consisting of New England College who plays the host, Elmira, and St. Thomas.

It is because Oswego has a rare East-West crossover in this tournament that it gets my nod for the Tournament of the Week, though you can’t go wrong no matter which one you attend.

“I give our booster club credit,” Gosek said. “We used to have a tournament, but that fell by the wayside. They really wanted to do it right. First, it’s nice for the college to have a tournament in our new Campus Center. Second, it’s nice for the community. We got four quality teams. They’re quality programs, and that’s what we wanted to get for this tournament.”

Schools usually arrange their own tournaments, so they get the easier opponent the first night. However, don’t bet on New England College (4-3 and received some votes in the national poll) being a pushover.

“Tom Carroll always does a great job preparing his teams,” Gosek said. “Every game against them always seems to be close, one-goal games, and I expect the same thing this year.”

On The Periphery

On September 27, 1907, race car driver Lawrence Smelzer was killed competing in a 24-hour race at Morris Park, N.Y. Afterwards, two women showed up to retrieve his body.

Both claimed to be his wife.

Life is full of surprises. This season has certainly seen its share of some very interesting surprises, which of course has made it a whole lot of fun, even if coaches and prognosticators no longer have much hair left.

Hopefully, during this holiday season, the surprises won’t be as shocking as you open your presents.

Have fun, enjoy family and friends, be safe, and I’ll see everyone in the new year.

This Week In The ECAC Northeast: Dec. 15, 2006

By Paul C. Altmeyer Jr.
-

Looking at the overall standings in the ECAC NE, far at the top of the points pile is UMass Dartmouth, with 10 wins in their first 12 games, plus a loss and a tie. Coach John Rolli reflected on his team’s great start. “I’d have to say the break’s coming at a good time. Coming into the season, we were just trying to establish our identity. We go to the Babson Invitational and figure, let’s see where we are. We surprised ourselves beating Babson, 7-2; then we beat Geneseo, 6-2. The next week, in a non-conference game versus Fitchburg, we got past them.” They also had a huge win over Curry College, followed up by their tenth straight win of the season against Tufts University, before running out of gas with a tie against Wesleyan, and then their first loss, against Connecticut College.

Rolli feels the break came at the right time, but he’ll be ready for the games to begin again. “After the break, we’ve got Assumption on January 6th, and a total of thirteen games remaining. Eleven of them are league games, and two are non-conference games. We have three home games in a row, then eight out of the next ten are on the road, so if we’re going to do anything, it’s going to be coming off of the bus.”

The Corsairs will hopefully get good news soon from their doctors, as three players who have been banged up are hoping to return following the break. Freshman defenseman Paul Moran missed two out of the last three games; junior forward-defenseman was injured in the Babson tournament, and is hoping to return soon; and sophomore defenseman Chris Carpenter, who transferred from Connecticut College, is slated to see the doctor this week and hopefully get the green light to play.

Rolli is looking forward to these players getting on the ice soon. “They are three players who add depth, which is important in the second half. We’re happy with how our first half went; realizing that, the next two months are key, not only for us, but for every team in the league.”

One team that has had a rough start overall, but is at the top of the Northeast-10 standings with a 2-0 record, is Stonehill College. “Obviously the first half of the season has been a frustrating start,” coach Scott Harlow said, “We have five losses by one goal, and one by two goals.” Three of Stonehill’s losses also occurred in overtime, giving one the impression that they have stayed close in many of their games.

“We’ve made a lot of young mistakes. We have a lot of freshman and sophomores. We’ve haven’t learned how to win yet. Only one team really outplayed us, and that was Curry. We just haven’t done the right things at the right time,” Harlow said. That Curry loss came before a stretch in which Stonehill has gone 2-2-0, with both losses close affairs, even out-shooting one of their opponents.

In looking ahead to the remainder of the season, which will resume on January 19, 2007, at Worcester State, Harlow seemed optimistic. “Moving on, we won nine in a row last year. We’ll come back refreshed, and with a better mindset than we had. The win over Franklin Pierce will help us, we’ll come back with a good attitude.”

Despite heading into the break at 3-8 overall, and with a 2-6 ECAC Northeast record, Harlow is happy with his record with the Northeast 10. “We’re 2-0 in the conference, for us that’s big. We win one more, maybe get home ice. Win a couple more, maybe get a bye in the first-round.”

Harlow has eleven players who are in their first year of collegiate hockey, and besides senior goalies Matt Gorman and Josh Green, there is only one other senior, defenseman Evan Spencer. “I think it’s going to come with maturity. We’re going to have a lot better second half of the season. The goal is to get home ice,” said Harlow, now into his seventh year behind the Skyhawks bench.

Three players who have earned the praise of their coach are Brendan O’Brien, who as a freshman last year led the team in scoring, and is currently the leader with 3G-12A-15PTS. in seven games. “By far our best player,” Harlow said, “and he was hurt for a couple of games.” Sophomore defensemen James Florentino, and Billy Ninteau, who transferred from Clarkson, have also played steady hockey. “Ninteau’s just been playing great, and he’s getting thirty minutes a game, he and Florentino,” Harlow said.

Sad news came out of the UMass Dartmouth hockey offices, with the recent passing of Brian Glinner, a goalie for the Corsairs in the mid-90’s. “He was the ultimate teammate,” said his former coach, John Rolli. “He always had a story to tell, full of life, he was everyone’s best friend on the team.”

Rolli recalled one story that brought back a memory. “We had a stretch when we had to sit out some players in a game against Assumption. Brian ended up playing third line left wing for us!”

Glinner, who was a superb goalie for Everett High School, had been battling stomach cancer, and passed away December 7. “He was as tough a kid as you’ll find,” said Rolli. “A real city kid. He came upon one foe that’s tough to beat.”

This Week In The ECAC East and NESCAC: Dec. 15, 2006

By
-

All Aboard!!!

Looks like the Polar Express up just ahead and that just might be Tom Hanks playing the conductor, or maybe the engineer, or one of many other employees on the train to the North Pole to see you know who!

Anyway it looks like a lot of D-III coaches from New England are jumping onboard the train hoping to get some last minute gift requests for their team into the “Big Man up North.” Certainly there have been a lot of surprises and very interesting results from the league this year in the first half of the season — it’s really setting up to be a great season and a strong second half with some surprise newcomers contending in both leagues.

Let’s see what the wish list looks like for the teams as they head into the break and look to come out in the second half with a strong start to get some momentum on their side heading towards the playoffs.

ECAC East (in alphabetical order because Santa is a little meticulous when it comes to organizing and checking his lists)

Babson: 4-3-0 Overall Record — 3-2-0 Conference Record

What Jamie Rice wouldn’t give for a little more offense, a better power play and a little tighter penalty kill. The Beavers are a young bunch and their going to need more production from players other than Brad Baldelli and John Geverd who have five goals apiece or just about 20% of the team’s total output. Freshman Jason Schneider has shown some early promise with four goals and three assists for seven points in the first seven games. The goaltending has been OK and an improvement in that area would certainly help the Beavers contend in the second half.

Castleton State: 5-2-2 Overall Record — 1-1-2 Conference Record

In your first nine games of the season, you already have surpassed last year’s win total for the season but the Spartans aren’t resting on any laurels despite their strong start. They continue to get great production and leadership from Joe Hutchko (3-4-7) but a couple of young guys have added some offensive punch to the line-up. Freshmen Kirk Bolduc (0-10-10) and Steve Culbertson (5-6-11) lead the team in scoring to support some strong goaltending from Jeff Swanson and Jay Seals. If the Spartans can cut down on the penalties and improve the power play a bit, they will compete with everyone, every night.

New England College: 4-3-0 Overall Record — 3-2-0 Conference Record

Coach Carroll has to be delighted that his team had a real strong showing headed into the break with a decisive win over travel partner St. Anselm’s. That could be the kind of boost the team is looking to build on after the holidays. Freshman goaltender Matthew Lyon has some great numbers and could be the consistent netminder the team is looking for moving into 2007. A healthy Mike Carmody would also add to the offensive production as the all-star forward has only played in three games in the first half. Continued success on the power play is also something that Coach Carroll would like to find in his stocking as the Pilgrims have scored 13 power play goals this season of their 22 total tallies.

Norwich: 5-2-0 Overall Record — 2-2-0 Conference Record

The Cadets hope to come out in the second half starting at the Times-Argus tournament with renewed enthusiasm. Certainly, the tragedy that befell former captain Mike Serba has to have had an impact on the Cadets and here’s hoping they can play with his spirit in 2007. offensively Norwich has been potent with four players having double-digit point totals in the first seven games of the season. What will make the second half better will be return to health and form for Chance Gieni to support the efforts of David Thompson in goal and a number of defensemen to step up every night from the rotation of eight that Coach McShane has played already this season. The Cadets have depth and experience and will no doubt contend strongly to retain their league title.

St. Anselm’s: 3-2-1 Overall Record — 3-2-1 Conference Record

Closing out the first half with a loss at NEC is not what Coach Seney had in mind for his team headed into the break. This team is a very talented bunch led by a strong senior class who will need to bring a consistent effort to every contest if the results are going to be better in the second half. Jason Rafuse will need to continue his steady play in goal and the Hawks should look to see what it is like to play with a lead as they have demonstrated their resilience in coming from behind already on multiple occasions this season. Senior Brett Smith (3-6-9) leads the Hawks in points including two power play goals and one short-handed goal — two of the three goals were game winners. Smith is a special player and he will need to stay healthy and productive to lead the hawks in the second half.

St. Michael’s: 2-4-0 Overall Record — 1-4-0 Conference Record

The Purple Knights need to cut down on the goals against with some better team defense and stronger goaltending from the senior tandem of Derek Jackson and Erik Smith. Thirty goals against in the first half of the season are five a game for the opposition and that’s tough for any team to overcome on a regular basis. Senior Jared Silver continues to impress on offense but he needs some help and junior Tim Dancey seems to be helping in that area with a team leading four goals in the first six games.

Salem State: 3-5-0 Overall Record — 1-4-0 Conference Record

The Vikings have had going all for them or all against them with some lopsided wins and losses on both sides of the record. Fifty percent of the team’s offense has come on the power play so more production from 5-on-5 play. Sophomore Ryan Hatch has seen action in every game so far and has posted some respectable numbers including 230 saves in just the first eight games. The Vikings will need to cut down on the opponents averaging over thirty shots a game to help out their goaltender. Sophomores Zach Doyon (6-2-8) and David Passaglia (1-9-10) lead the team in scoring and they will need some help form veterans Andrew O’Neill and Sean Ferguson to move up in the conference standings in the second half.

Skidmore: 4-1-2 Overall Record — 2-0-2 Conference Record

Coach Neil Sinclair’s team believes in the system and more importantly believe in each other. They got out of the gates strong and up until a loss at Geneseo in the final game of the first half, had an unblemished record. The Thoroughbreds are stingy on defense giving up just two goals a game and their freshmen goaltenders have been outstanding to start the season. DJ Delbuono and Jimmy Santacroce both have save percentages over.919 percent and have come up with the big save that the team has needed in some tight games. Offensively, Coach Sinclair hopes to see the continued maturation of his freshmen including scorer Matt Czerkowicz (4-6-10) and Anthony Ferri (4-2-6). Skidmore hopes a trip to the Codfish Bowl will get 2007 off to a rousing start and that the focus continues to be on getting better every shift, every day, and every game.

Southern Maine: 5-4-0 Overall Record — 4-1-0 Conference Record

Senior Chris Sparkes has helped to ignite the Southern Maine offense.

Senior Chris Sparkes has helped to ignite the Southern Maine offense.

Yup, that’s the Huskies at the top of the table at the end of the first half. A far cry from last year’s start, Coach Beaney probably is asking Santa that his team play with the intensity and have the results against all his opponents that seem to occur when he matches up against NESCAC teams. A disappointing loss to Suffolk ended the first half but historically Southern Maine plays their best after the break and if that holds true, the Huskies might not move far from their current slot. Mark Carragher (7-7-14) as expected leads the team in points and fellow senior Chris Sparkes has chipped in with eleven points including a four goal game against Colby. David Beckles will need to continue to his consistent play if the Huskies want to stay at the top.

UMass-Boston: 1-6-1 Overall Record — 0-5-0 Conference Record

The Beacons broke into the win column before the break which was a big event for the team having not won a single contest last season and it rewarded the efforts of a very young team that has been very competitive under first year coach Peter Belisle. The challenges for this team are still found in finding some more offense and stopping opposing teams from scoring. Freshman Ryan Donovan has great numbers in his first seven games including a 2.91 GAA and .933 save percentage while facing almost three hundred shots — that’s about forty-two biscuits a game at the UMB net which is way too many. Offensively the team has just 13 goals but the leading scorers are all freshmen which bodes well if they can maintain their confidence and level of play starting with their own Codfish Bowl tournament after Christmas.

NESCAC (in alphabetical order because Santa is a little meticulous when it comes to organizing and checking his lists and after all NESCAC comes after ECAC East)

Amherst: 6-0-1 Overall Record — 3-0-1 Conference Record

One of just a handful of unbeaten teams in the first half, the Lord Jeffs have been a pleasant surprise in the NESCAC conference. They have received great leadership from their captain Sean Ellis, balanced scoring led by sophomore Joel Covelli (2-12-14), solid goaltending from Josh Fillman and great special teams. So why is Jack Arena on this train anyway? He’ looking for the continuation of great special teams where his power play has been at the top of the charts in the nation most of the season and continued strong play from his defensive corps including sophomores Rylan Burns and Jeff Landers. Amherst has all of the ingredients to contend in the second half.

Bowdoin: 4-0-3 Overall Record — 3-0-2 Conference Record

Strong goaltending from Nick Smith has helped Bowdoin to an unbeaten first half run.

Strong goaltending from Nick Smith has helped Bowdoin to an unbeaten first half run.

The Polar Bears are also unbeaten through the first half of the season and have brought together a young team balanced by some key veterans in improving their play from the first drop of the puck. Goaltender Nick Smith (.935 SP) has been very solid in replacing George Papchristopoulos giving the Bowdoin team a chance to win every night. Special teams have been good overall but Coach Meagher would like to see the offense score a few more goals from the quality chances they are getting. Continued strong play from freshmen Mike Corbelle (4-3-7) and Mitch Dillon (4-1-5) will help this team grow to their potential in the New year.

Colby: 3-3-2 Overall Record — 2-2-1 Conference Record

The White Mules got off to a fast start but had some mixed results coming into the break. Their juniors and seniors have led the team as expected with a great power play and some strong offensive numbers especially from Joe Rothwell (4-8-12), TJ Kelley (4-7-11), Josh Reber (2-9-11) and Arthur Fritch (4-5-9). The goaltending from senior Ben Grandjean has been steady but the team could use more production and improved play from their younger players in the second half of the season. Look for Mike Policinski, Michael Belliveau, Eric Simmons and Jared Crittenden to add more to the Colby results in 2007.

Conn College: 4-4-0 Overall Record — 3-2-0 Conference Record

Matt Gluck, named as a Skills Finalist for the 2007 Frozen Four, has teamed with Greg Parker to backstop Conn College to a strong start.

Matt Gluck, named as a Skills Finalist for the 2007 Frozen Four, has teamed with Greg Parker to backstop Conn College to a strong start.

The Camels are another of the pleasant surprise teams in the first half. Conn College finished the first part of the season on a high note knocking off then unbeaten and 12th ranked UMass-Dartmouth in a stirring come from behind 4-3 win. The team is very young but has growing confidence in front of freshman goalie Greg Parker (.952 save percentage) who has been outstanding. The offense has had some balance and Coach Ward would like to see that improve in the second half to support the consistent production of senior Rob Campbell (4-5-9) and freshman, Trevor Bradley (4-4-8). It’s been a long time since the Camels could think about the conference playoffs but if they stay healthy and continue to play hard, the results that showed in the first half can certainly arrive in 2007. Look for a good showing at the Plattsburgh holiday tournament after the break.

Hamilton: 3-2-1 Overall Record — 3-0-1 Conference Record

The rivalry match-up games with Utica to end the first half were not completely representative of how this team has competed overall. The Continentals are still unbeaten in the conference and have shown they can play well on the road as well as at home early in the season. Not surprisingly, John Gordon (3-7-10), Kyle Roulston (2-4-6) and Casey Leak (7-3-10) have supplied great production and leadership that this young team needed to start the season. Goaltending has been solid from sophomore Matt Crowson but he is still seeing too many shots to Coach Grady’s liking so a little tighter team defense would be nice to find in his Christmas stocking.

Middlebury: 5-2-0 Overall Record — 3-1-0 Conference Record

The Panthers were defending champions entering the season and with that comes certain expectations for a team that returned a large portion of the title team. The strength of the team is still found in its defensive play and goaltending which has been good but not spectacular as there have been more odd-man rushes for the opposition early in the year than usual. Junior Ross Cherry and sophomore Doug Raeder will give the team a chance to win every night and usually come up with the big saves when needed so the offense needs to go to the next level behind team captain Mickey Gilchrist(5-4-9) and newcomer John Sullivan (4-0-4). Most importantly, Coach Beaney would probably like to be healthy as his team has been short several key contributors in the early going. Look for a renewed start in the second half starting with their own Holiday tournament and potential match-ups with St. Anselm’s and Hobart to ring in the New Year.

Trinity: 2-3-1 Overall Record — 1-2-1 Conference Record

Some good, some bad pretty much sums up the front end for the Bantams who opened their beautiful new on-campus arena this season. The Bantams need to get more offensive production from their shots on goal as they have outshot almost every opponent this season in every period. Trinity has had a ton of chances but have not converted enough to put them on the positive end of the scoreboard. Defensively, a young group, in fact new group of defensemen is still coming together and some more consistent goaltending from freshman David Murison and senior Drew Barber will help this team compete in the second half.

Tufts: 2-6-0 Overall Record — 0-5-0 Conference Record

Tufts would probably like to forget the first half especially a 7-0 loss at Conn College. The Jumbos aren’t scoring much and their power play has not been as effective for them as it has been in past seasons. More importantly they are giving up a lot of goals — an average of five per game which makes things tough for any team that is struggling offensively. Coach Murphy is surely looking for more consistent play in 2007 and some spirited and disciplined play to jump start the Jumbos if they want to have a chance at getting back into the playoff picture.

Wesleyan: 3-3-2 Overall Record — 1-2-1 Conference Record

The Cardinals are still looking for consistency overall in some aspects of their game. Senior Will Bennett (3-11-14) and freshman David Layne (7-4-11) lead the scoring but more production is needed across the board where the power play has been effective at almost twenty percent efficiency. The strength of the Cardinals game was defense and goaltending last season so they will need to tighten things up and look for a return to last season’s form by senior Dave Scardella who is off to a slow start. Sophomore Mike Palladino has played well in his four games going 2-1-1 with a .923 save percentage so look for Coach Potter to tighten things up after their return from a European trip over the break.

Williams: 2-5-0 Overall Record — 2-2-0 Conference Record

The Ephs have been banged up which for most coaches is a bad news scenario. Coach Bill Kangas has found the positive in that some younger players have been getting opportunities to play in situations they might not have if everyone was healthy and he knows that will help his team in the second half when they get everyone back in the line-up. A return by junior Brandon Jackmuff would help immensely particularly on the power play where Williams has just two goals with the man advantage. Moreover opposing teams are scoring with almost 20% efficiency against Williams so the penalty kill will need to be better in 2007.

So that’s the first half summary and wish list; everyone has reason to be optimistic in the second half of the season as things are already tight in the two conferences and the key match-ups within the league are all ahead of us. Just like the boy on the Polar Express who shakes his reindeer bell and can hear it ringing, the teams all need to believe they can compete to play in some meaningful hockey games in February and March.

Happy Holidays to All and may your team get want it wants for Christmas!

This Week In The NCHA and MCHA: Dec. 15, 2006

By
-

NCHA/MCHA Mid-term Report Card

Last weekend marked the end of league play for both leagues until January and brings us to about the midpoint of the season for most teams. With that being the case, let’s take a look at how each league has played itself out so far, and at how well each team has been able to address the questions they had upon entering the season.

Before I get to that, however, I would like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season. I know I’ll be having one as for the first time in years I’ll be spending it with my family in California. It’s things like family and friends, not hockey, that are ultimately important (well, to a point, it is hockey after all). So cherish the time you have with those family and friends as no one can ever be sure what life will throw at you next.

That being said, don’t get too attached, because we have a half a season to go in the Upper Midwest and it’s shaping up to be a great one. So travel safe everyone and enjoy your time off from school or work. I’ll see you back here in January.

NCHA

UW-Stout Blue Devils

2006-07 Coach’s Poll: Sixth
2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Seventh
Current League Standing: First
Grade: A

So far it looks like everyone missed the boat on these guys. The Blue Devils are likely one of the biggest surprises in the nation this season, and are certainly the biggest surprise in the NCHA. While some foresaw a Blue Devil team that would be improved this season, few would have penciled them in at 10-1-2 overall, and 5-0-1 in the NCHA heading into the break.

Much of Stout’s success this season had been due to their ability to come behind. Though currently undefeated in the NCHA, the Blue Devils have trailed in all six league contests. Two of their more impressive comebacks include rallying from a 3-1 third period deficit to tie St. Norbert, and defeating St. Scholastica last week after trailing 4-2 in the final period.

Heading into the season the Blue Devils expected their defense to be solid, and that it has, ranking second in the NCHA in scoring defense. It was the offense that would be the question mark, but Stout has scored nearly four goals per game, which considering their defense is enough to win more often than not.

Though it may not be reasonable to expect the Blue Devils to run the table in the second half, this team is for real and has offered very little to find fault with in the first half.

UW-River Falls Falcons

2006-07 Coach’s Poll: Second
2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Second
Current League Standing: Second
Grade: A-

After defeating St. Norbert two weeks ago, the Falcons were off to a nearly perfect start, but last weekend’s loss at Superior and narrow win over St. Scholastica are enough to keep them from getting the perfect grade.

With almost everyone returning from last season’s roster, questions were few and potential was abundant heading into this season. The Falcons have lived up to the expectations, opening the season 11-2, and winning eleven of twelve since an opening night loss to UW-Eau Claire.

Forward T.J. Dahl has been lights out so far, posting 26 points in 13 games, and A.J. Bucchino has been just as stellar in net, leading the NCHA with a save percentage of 93.2.

The big question facing the Falcons is whether they can keep up this pace for the entire season, as they have been prone to sluggish second halves. For now though the Falcons have lived up to expectations and therefore deserve high marks across the board.

St. Norbert Green Knights

2006-07 Coach’s Poll: First
2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: First
Current League Standing: Third
Grade: A-

Despite being the elite NCHA team over the past decade, St. Norbert has been the victim of a one-point weekend for the second season in a row. Aside from that, the Green Knights have been perfect save for a tie at Fredonia.

Though the Green Knights returned a large amount of scoring, there were still early season questions when it came to their offensive cohesion due to some key losses to graduation. The questions have been answered as St. Norbert currently leads the NCHA in scoring and is posting over five goals per game. Individually, the Green Knights have four of the top six scorers in the NCHA and eight players scoring over a point per game.

Everyone expected the Green Knights to be strong defensively, and that they have been. As usual, goaltender Kyle Jones ranks near the top of every statistical category, and the Knights as a team are only allowing 1.64 goals per game.

By most standards, St. Norbert’s 11-1-2 start is about as much as anyone can expect. Not everyone is St. Norbert, however, and the Knights expect perfection. Overall they’ve been close to it, but not close enough to snag perfect marks.

UW-Superior Yellowjackets

2006-07 Coach’s Poll: Third
2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Third
Current League Standing: Fourth
Grade: A

Heading into the season the Yellowjackets had perhaps the two most obvious questions of anyone in the league. One, would the lack of experience in net pose a problem? And two, who was going to carry the offense?

Sophomore goaltender Chad Beiswenger has answered the first question and done it with undeservedly little fanfare. Beiswenger is 9-2 on the year, allowing only 2.10 goals per game while posting a .928 save percentage. One of the better stick-handling goalies in the league, he has done everything asked of him and anchors a defense currently ranked second in the NCHA.

In regards to the questions on offense, the Yellowjacket’s recruiting class looked strong on paper – and they have backed it up on the ice. Led by Braden Desmet, three of the top four Superior scorers are freshman, and their top seven are all underclassmen.

A grade of A may seem a little high for a team currently in fourth in the league, but considering the unknowns surrounding this team this, Superior is off to a fine 10-2-0 start. Their losses came at Stout and St. Norbert, and there is no shame in losing at either. As usual, you can count the Yellowjackets as one of the premier threats in the league.

St. Scholastica Saints

2006-07 Coach’s Poll: Fourth
2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Fifth
Current League Standing: Tied for fifth
Grade: C+

It’s been a long time since it’s been possible to call a 6-5-1 St. Scholastica team a little disappointing, but this season it’s reasonable to. Not so much because of the way they have played, because they are playing solid hockey, but because of the way they are losing games.

Want to talk about a frustrating season? Try these on for size: All four of the Saints’ league losses have come by one goal, despite leading after the second period against UW-Eau Claire the Saints were resigned to settle for a tie, and perhaps most painful, the Saints’ held two goal third period leads in losses to UW-Stout and UW-Stevens Point.

Despite the disappointing start, there is some good news. Last year’s impressive freshman class picked up right where they left off, as the Saints’ top seven scorers are sophomores.

What may also be good news for the second half is that even in some of the games they lost, St. Scholastica thoroughly outplayed their opponents. Faced with big expectations, remember that these guys are still a young team that is putting the pieces together and maybe still needs to learn how to win big games. Trust me on this, though: Their grade is not indicative of how well they have been playing, but it is indicative of the fact they have let numerous opportunities slip through their fingertips.

UW-Eau Claire Blugolds

2006-07 Coach’s Poll: Eighth
2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Eighth
Current League Standing: Tied for fifth
Grade: B
Trying to grade the Blugolds is a tricky proposition. They are only 1-4-1 in the conference, but compared to the past few seasons are markedly improved. As it’s unrealistic to expect too big of a turnaround on only one season, I’ll error on the side of generosity.

The Blugolds have only been outscored 16-8 in six league contests this season, which compares favorably to the 25-10 scoring deficit they faced over the same stretch last season.

Though it’s expected for a team in the process of climbing out of the cellar, the Blugolds are almost a tale of two teams when it comes to league play. For example, their defense has been respectable in allowing fewer than three goals per contest, but their offense ranks last in the NCHA at under 1.5 goals per game. Special teams tell a similar story. The Eau Claire powerplay ranks in the top of the league, but their penalty kill ranks dead last and is allowing opponents to score 22% of the time.

As mentioned, this sort of inconsistency can be expected for a team rebounding in the manner the Blugolds are. At the same time, however, I think head coach Luke Strand deserves some credit for re-establishing the Blugolds as a team who is capable of giving anyone a fight.

UW-Stevens Point Pointers

2006-07 Coach’s Poll: Fifth
2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Fourth
Current League Standing: Tied for fifth
Grade: C

Over the previous four seasons, the Pointers have never finished better than three games over .500. Over that same span, they have failed to finish below .500. Currently at 4-5-2, it looks like this season will bring much of the same for a team once again struggling with consistency.

The Pointers have shown flashes of brilliance at times, playing exceedingly well in non-conference wins over St. Thomas and Bethel earlier this season. In their lone conference win they overcame a two-goal deficit to beat St. Scholastica in overtime, thanks largely due to a nearly flawless third period.

Unfortunately, that level of performance has not been there on a weekly basis as the Pointers are 1-4-1 in the NCHA and have been outscored 24-8 by the top four teams in the league.

One area where Stevens Point has been consistent is special teams. Unfortunately for the Pointers, they have been consistently poor. Their powerplay and penalty kill units currently both rank 7th in the NCHA.

Part of the Pointers’ difficulties can be blamed on injuries. Rarely have the Pointers started the same lineup this season, which does little to establish the consistency required to win in the NCHA. The break comes at a great time as they look to regain their health and get on a roll, which they have the talent to do. For now though, as their grade indicates, they have merely been average.

Lake Forest Foresters

2006-07 Coach’s Poll: Seventh
2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Sixth
Current League Standing: Eighth
Grade: D

Less than a year ago the Foresters finished fourth in the conference and swept an opening round playoff series. Currently 2-10-1 overall and winless in the NCHA, it doesn’t look like Lake Forest is on track for a repeat performance.

Before the season began, head coach Tony Fritz said it was essential for his Foresters to keep teams from getting the puck on the Lake Forest net. It sounds simple enough, but the Foresters have not been doing the job. They are allowing over 40 shots per game, nearly ten more than anyone else in the NCHA.

To make matters worse, the Foresters have not even been overly competitive, getting outscored by a two-to-one margin on the year. While it doesn’t seem the loss of one player could have such an impact on the offense, the potential return of star forward Mike Kneeland for the second half might be exactly what the Forester offense needs.

The Foresters rank at or near the bottom of the league in every team statistical category, and their performance has left many scratching their heads as to what’s going on down in Illinois. Heading into the season they looked like a fairly experienced with a lot of potential, but so far they have been rather disappointing.

MCHA

MSOE Raiders

2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: First
Current League Standing: First
Grade: B+

The Raiders have not done anything to change their status as the team to beat in the MCHA. They are a perfect 7-0-1 in the league and head into break with a one point lead on second place Finlandia.

What the Raiders have done, however, is given detractors reason to doubt the quality of their team.

With the 20 game MCHA league schedule, MSOE is afforded little opportunity to prove itself against out of conference opposition. Despite quality wins over Lake Forest and Gustavus Adolphus, for better or worse people will remember the event which happened most recently. In MSOE’s case, that’s a 9-0 torching at the hands of Neumann in MSOE’s own Thanksgiving tournament.

Perception is reality, and despite an impressive season aside from the Neumann game, all talk about MSOE and a potential NCAA Tournament birth have subsided for the time being. The Raiders will get one more crack at earning the elusive statement win when they travel to St. Norbert in early January.

As mentioned, there is still no reason to believe MSOE will not win the MCHA, as they remain a quality team with a lot of talent in a lot of areas, but the loss to Neumann looms large for a team many of us are just hoping will burst onto the scene.

Finlandia Lions

2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Third
Current League Standing: Second
Grade: B+

Prior to the start of the season, Finlandia was one of the teams hoping to challenge MSOE for the conference crown. So far they are right there, having won seven straight MCHA contests since an opening night one-goal loss to Marian.

The Lions lead the MCHA in scoring, hanging over five goals per game on the competition. They are led by Josh Paquette who leads the league in scoring with 1.8 points per game.

As usual, Finlandia is excelling on special teams, leading the MCHA in powerplay percentage while being the least penalized team in the league.

Finlandia failed to make noise in their two conference games, dropping a pair against Augsburg and Bethel in the Augsburg Tournament.

The MCHA schedule will make the second half interesting as the Lions still must face MSOE in four games that will prove pivotal in sorting out the conference. This could work to their favor as they will be in midseason form by the time they have to face their stiffest test. So far though, the Lions have been very solid in the MCHA and are in just the position they wanted to be at this point.

Marian Sabres

2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Second
Current League Standing: Third
Grade: B-

The Sabres got off to a rough start this season. After opening the season against St. Norbert and then traveling to New York to take on a pair of SUNYAC foes, the Sabres found themselves at 0-3. It didn’t get any easier the following week as MCHA play began and they were the unlucky team who got to play MSOE. The Sabres only picked up one point on the weekend, but played the Raiders tough, tying one and dropping the other 4-2.

Since then, things have been going much better as Marian is 4-2 in its last six, including a split against Finlandia.

Along with Finlandia, Marian was penciled in as a team who might be able to challenge MSOE for the league crown, but they find themselves five points back at the break.

If the Sabres wish to get back in the hunt, they will need to cut down on the penalty minutes. Taking almost 30 minutes a game will come back to haunt a team whose penalty kill is only succeeding 78% of the time. This trend reared its ugly head in a 6-2 loss to UM-Crookston in which the Sabres allowed four powerplay goals.

Despite their slow start, the Sabres are still one of the better teams in this league and appear to be back on the right track. They still are five points back, however, which isn’t quite where they’d like to be right now.

Lawrence Vikings

2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Fourth
Current League Standing: Tied for fourth
Grade: C

Under the supervision of first year head coach Mike Szkodzinski, this was expected to be a year of growth for the Vikings. All evidence suggests that it is.

Though Lawrence is only 2-8-1 overall, one needs to look no further than their recent series against MSOE. On Friday the Vikings were outshot 29-12 and shutout 3-0. Though they lost 5-1 the following night, they were only outshot 28-24 and took it to the Raiders in the first period, outshooting them 12-5.

The disciplined attitude Szkodzinski was hoping to bring to the program appears to be taking hold as well, as the Lawrence powerplay and penalty kill both rank in the top half of the league.

While there are signs of improvement, the fact remains that the Vikings have only won two league games with both coming over Northland.

UM-Crookston Golden Eagles

2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Fifth
Current League Standing: Tied for fifth
Grade: C-

It was only three years ago the Golden Eagles won the Harris Cup by defeating Marian in the finals of the MCHA Tournament. After tailing off the past few seasons, the Golden Eagles entered 2006 eager to re-establish their winning ways.

So far, it hasn’t happened.

Crookston opened the season by playing MSOE extremely tough, and picked up splits against Lawrence and Marian the following weeks. The relative success was short-lived, however, as in their last three contests the Golden Eagles are winless and have been outscored 21-4, including a 10-2 loss to Finlandia.

Much like Marian, special teams have plagued Crookston so far this season. The Golden Eagles are the most penalized team in the MCHA and their penalty-kill ranks dead last. Partially as a result, they are allowing 4.78 goals per game which also ranks last in the league.

Overall, no one really expected the Golden Eagles to do much this season, and they haven’t. After their last three outings, the break might be exactly what these guys need to try to find their winning touch.

Northland Lumberjacks

2006-07 USCHO predicted finish: Sixth
Current League Standing: Sixth
Grade: D

They say that numbers don’t lie, and unfortunately for winless Northland it means they are once again at the bottom of the league.

The Lumberjacks are 0-11 on the year and have been outscored 50-15. As I have been mentioned before, one bright spot despite those numbers has been the play of freshman goalie Bo Storozuk. Through eleven games, Storozuk has posted a save percentage of 90.7. While not out of this world, it is remarkably high for a goaltender that faces a barrage of shots on a nightly basis. For comparison’s sake, that’s the highest save percentage of any Northland goaltender in years.

Part of Northland’s lack of success thus far may stem from the fact they are operating with a short bench. Very similar to Marian’s situation a few years ago, the Lumberjacks are taking the ice with only 17 skaters – three of whom are goalies.

In only his second season as head coach, Steve Fabiilli is in the early stages of trying to comprehensively build a program from the ground up. If Storozuk is any indication of the type of players Fabiilli will be able to bring in, things bode well for the future. Unfortunately for the Lumberjacks, however, for now they remain the least formidable team in the MCHA.

Clarkson Rookie Departs For QMJL

USCHO Staff Report
-

Clarkson freshman goaltender Matt Smith will leave the school after completing final exams this week. Smith has decided to play hockey in the Quebec Major Junior League. A native of Mississauga, Ontario, the 6-0, 204-pound goaltender saw limited action with the Golden Knights this season. Smith played in one game, an exhibition contest against the US NTDP Under-18 team, and allowed four goals on 12 shots in one period.

Clarkson, which entered the break riding its longest winning streak in head coach George Roll’s tenure at five games, returns to action on Dec. 29 when it plays defending national champion Wisconsin in the opening round of Badger Showdown. The Knights own an 11-5-1 overall record and are tied for second place in the ECAC Hockey League with a 5-2 league mark.

NCAA Directive On Rules Enforcement Reinforced

USCHO Staff Report
-

Frank Cole, the NCAA’s National Coordinator of Officals, along with Col. James Knowlton, the chair of the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee and Ty Halpin, the NCAA’s liasion to the Ice Hockey Rules Committee recently sent a memorandum to the Conference Commissioners and Hockey Coaches in regards to the Officiating Directive.

Below is the text of the memorandum:

In the summer of 2004, the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee, conference commissioners and supervisors of officials developed a directive to call the rules book as written without exception. The consensus at the time was that the style of play had reached a point at which a major correction to the game was needed. Since the directive was published, the college hockey community has realized significant progress and encouraged a much faster, more exciting game.

Recently, the Division I Men’s Supervisors of Officials met to review officiating on a national level in an ongoing attempt to ensure that officials are consistently applying the rules across the country. Specifically, the group focused on restraining fouls and gained advantages in the scope of the directive.

The group wishes to clarify two main points. First, the NCAA Ice Hockey Rules Committee’s directive is different from the National Hockey League and USA Hockey “Standard of Enforcement.” Some areas of the NHL/USA Hockey standard do not apply to the NCAA directive. Secondly, the NCAA directive was never intended to be taken as an absolute “zero tolerance” document. There always will be judgment in officiating and every situation is not black or white.

The supervisors had lengthy discussions about the directive and the way games are officiated. A term that consistently presented itself was the idea of the integrity of the play in progress. Impeding and intent are critical ingredients when determining restraining fouls.

Other concerns were the level of enforcement from official to official. Generally, the supervisors believe the directive is being called appropriately in most conferences. However, some officials are using a level of enforcement that goes beyond what was the intent of the directive. As a result, this has led to an increase in embellishment. On the other hand, the supervisors believe there may be some slipping in enforcement with other officials. After watching numerous video examples specifically relating to restraining fouls, the supervisors believe they have a consistent message. Moving forward, this message will be shared immediately with the officials.

In closing, the NCAA directive will continue to be enforced with the clarified interpretations noted above. As always, officials will be selected for the NCAA championships based on their adherence to the directive and management of the game. If there are any questions regarding this correspondence, please feel free to contact us or your supervisor of officials.

Top Three Unchanged As Minnesota Heads Up USCHO.com/CSTV Poll

USCHO Staff Report
-

Two more wins meant another week at No. 1 for Minnesota. The Golden Gophers swept Michigan Tech over the weekend to extend their nation-best unbeaten streak to 18 games and their reign atop the USCHO.com/CSTV Division I men’s poll to four weeks, once more by a unanimous decision.

Monday’s poll also featured a familiar name at No. 2, where New Hampshire resided once again. The Wildcats beat Massachusetts-Lowell Wednesday and St. Lawrence Friday to run their own unbeaten streak to 12 and their winning streak to nine, tops in Division I.

Maine was again No. 3 this week after topping Northeastern Friday; the Black Bears were followed by Notre Dame, which swept Michigan over the weekend. The Fighting Irish, who finished a scant one point behind Maine this time around, traded poll positions with No. 5 Miami, which took three of four points from Ohio State.

No. 6 St. Cloud State continued its rise through the top 20, sweeping visiting Colgate to run its winning and unbeaten streaks to eight and 11, respectively. The Huskies, up two places from last Monday’s poll, were followed by seventh-ranked Boston College, which split with Massachusetts.

Coming in eighth was Colorado College after a split with Alaska-Anchorage, while Boston University beat Providence in its lone game of the weekend to finish at No. 9. Michigan rounded out the top 10, down three spots.

Cornell inched up to No. 11 this Monday, tying Rensselaer and defeating Union. Denver was next after taking three points from Minnesota State, and Vermont came in at No. 13, playing its only game in exhibition action, a win over the U.S. Under-18 team.

Michigan State stanched the bleeding of the last few weeks, stabilizing at No. 14 with a sweep of Northern Michigan, and Clarkson moved up to No. 15 with a Tuesday win over archrival St. Lawrence.

Finishing out the poll were Massachusetts, North Dakota (down seven places after a sweep at the hands of Wisconsin), Lake Superior State, Dartmouth, and returning Quinnipiac. Departing the top 20 was Alaska.

Women’s Coach Rivard Out At North Dakota

USCHO Staff Report
-

North Dakota women’s hockey coach Shantel Rivard has been removed from that position and her contract will not be renewed when it expires on June 30. North Dakota athletic director Tom Buning made the announcement today.

Buning said that Rivard will be reassigned to other duties within the North Dakota athletic department and North Dakota women’s assistant coach Dennis Miller will take over as head coach of the women’s team on an interim basis for the remainder of the season. Buning said a national search for a permanent replacement will be conducted.

“Shantel’s professionalism and tireless efforts have helped to build this program’s foundation,” Buning said. “It’s at this point, however, that I feel only a coaching change will allow us to move the program to the next level.”

North Dakota, currently 3-13-2 overall and 0-11-1 in the WCHA, has 16 regular season games remaining. Next on the schedule is a home series with Bemidji State on Saturday and Sunday (Dec. 15-16).

Rivard, in her fifth season at North Dakota, had a North Dakota career record of 45-91-11 overall (.344). Her WCHA record was 9-55-4 (.162) in the three seasons that North Dakota has been a member of the WCHA.

Rivard was hired as North Dakota’s first varsity women’s ice hockey coach on Jan. 17, 2002. Under Rivard, North Dakota’s women’s team took the ice for the first time in the 2002-03 season, compiling a 10-14-2 overall record while competing as an NCAA Division I independent.

In its first-ever game, the North Dakota women’s hockey team tied Bemidji State, 3-3, in overtime on Oct. 20, 2002, in Bemidji, Minn. The Sioux women made their home debut at Ralph Engelstad Arena on Oct. 27, 2002, in front of 3,200 fans, falling to Boston College, 5-2. North Dakota picked up its first-ever victory the next day (Oct. 28, 2002), however, beating Boston College, 5-3.

In North Dakota’s second season (2003-04), Rivard coached the Sioux to their first winning season, as North Dakota finished 16-14-2 overall. That season the Sioux picked up their first win against an opponent ranked in the national top 10, beating eighth-ranked New Hampshire 3-2 on Nov. 2, 2003.

North Dakota became a full-time member of the WCHA women’s league in the 2004-05 season and posted an inaguural league mark of 6-21-1 while going 9-23-3 overall.

In 2005-06, North Dakota was 7-27-2 overall and 3-23-2 in the WCHA. Included was a 2-0 league win over fourth-ranked Minnesota Duluth on Feb. 11, 2006, in Duluth, Minn.

Prior to coming to North Dakota, Rivard spent four seasons as an assistant coach at Maine. A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, she played hockey for four years at RIT. Rivard graduated from RIT in 1995 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering.

Curry-Geneseo Final Comments

By
-

You can read my recap here.

A great gameplan by Curry. Coach Rob Davies still doesn’t like all the penalties his team is taking. “We’ll be running again at 6 a.m. Monday morning,” he told me. But he has to be happy with his team’s performance.

Geneseo looked out of sync for most of the game, but they’ll be ok. They have enough talent to make it at least as far as the SUNYAC semis. Right now it looks like Oswego and everybody else.

Manhattanville Stays Atop USCHO.com D-III Men’s Poll

USCHO Staff Report
-

Idle Manhattanville repeats as No. 1 in the Dec. 11 USCHO.com Division III men’s poll, with the Valiants receiving 11 of 15 first-place votes.

Staying at No. 2 with three first-place tallies is 11-0-3 Oswego, while again at No. 3 is St. Norbert with one first-place vote.

Wisconsin-Superior and Wisconsin-River Falls swap positions for fourth and fifth respectively, with just three points separating the two.

Staying at No. 6 is preseason favorite Middlebury while up two spots to No. 7 is Wisconsin-Stout. Neumann, after a tie and win against Fredonia, drops one place to No. 8.

Norwich drops one place to No. 9 while Hobart stood pat for a third week at No. 10.

Utica and Mass.-Dartmouth each move up one spot to No. 11 and No. 12. At No. 13 and No. 14 again this week are Bowdoin and Amherst.

Entering the poll this week is Plattsburgh at No. 15.

Also receiving votes were Milwaukee School of Engineering, Bethel, Curry, Geneseo, Skidmore, Gustavus Adolphus, New England College, and St. Scholastica.

The next poll will be released on Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2007.

The USCHO.com Poll is compiled weekly and consists of 15 voters, including 13 coaches of Division III programs and two hockey writers.

He Could Go All the Way

By Vince McConeghy
-

The plot line of Sean Bentivoglio’s career at Niagara reads like a page-turner — shift after shift, game after game, season after season, fans of the Purple Eagles are left wanting to see more of this dynamic forward.

In fact, it was that way from the very beginning. At a mere 17 years old, Bentivoglio chose Niagara after fielding interest from some ECACHL schools that wanted him to play another year of junior hockey. Niagara’s close proximity to his parents home in Stoney Creek, Ont., cinched the deal.

“He was one of those rare players,” Niagara head coach Dave Burkholder recalled of Bentivoglio’s recruitment, “that you just couldn’t take your eyes off him. His first three steps are so explosive. And with each season, he has added another level to his game. You don’t always see players progress like that. He is very proud of his decision to come to Niagara, and in the end, he will go down as being one of the most important players in our program’s history.”

BENTIVOGLIO

BENTIVOGLIO

But perhaps the most exciting aspect of Bentivoglio’s play this season has been the growing consensus that he has many more chapters to write in a hockey career that one day may climax in an appointment with the NHL.

“Now that’s something I definitely don’t want to comment on,” Bentivoglio remarked, flustered at the very suggestion that his talents could lead him to the game’s highest stage. “You don’t see players coming out of the CHA and go directly to the NHL. If anything, I’ll start at the bottom again (after graduation) and hopefully work my way up.”

Bentivoglio, by nature, is reserved. He is the captain of the Purple Eagles, a role he inherited from Jason Williamson, who was vocal and commanding in the position.

But Bentivoglio has embraced his leadership role by accentuating a different methodology.

“I try and lead by example,” Bentivoglio said. “We have a relatively young team, but we are very close. I let my play do the talking. Our goal is to get back to the NCAAs, which is something I experienced during my freshman year.”

“I equate him to (Buffalo Sabres captain and former Boston University star) Chris Drury,” Burkholder said. “His style of leadership is to produce on the ice, and no one works harder, in practice and in games, than Sean. He is a playmaker. He creates time and space for his linemates.”

Bentivoglio’s quick burst is the first thing that jumps out at you as you start to reflect on his play on Niagara’s top line alongside Ted Cook and Les Reaney. As of this writing, the trio leads the nation in point production, but there are many other D-I players who possess Bentivoglio ‘s high-end speed.

Few, however, can match Bentivoglio’s power on skates, which in the classic definition set forth by Alain Hache in his indispensable book The Physics of Hockey, refers to the rate at which a player accomplishes work (skating, shooting, passing, etc.), or better stated as: P = fv.

It is this simple equation that illustrates Bentivoglio’s elite status . That power drove Bentivoglio to get repeated open looks at the opposition’s net in his first two seasons, except that his shooting and scoring instincts hadn’t quite caught up to his skating prowess.

Things started to change during his junior year, when Niagara’s coaching staff made it a point of emphasis for Bentivoglio to shoot the puck.

“I guess I will always think of myself as a player that passes first,” Bentivoglio said. “The coaches really worked with me, and kept on me, to shoot. I was fortunate to play with some older guys like Joe Tallari and Barrett Ehgoetz when I first came here. Now I have Cookie (Ted Cook) and Les (Reaney). We just seem to click.”

“Click” is an understatement.

“First of all, they (Bentivoglio, Cook and Reaney) have great hockey sense,” Bemidji State head coach Tom Serratore said. “Second, they never turn their back on the puck. Third, they have the two big strong guys in Cook and Reaney.

“And Bentivoglio is the dynamic guy who makes things happen. He just might be the best all-around player in our league, and he seems to have what it takes to play at the next level.”

For now, though, the next level for Bentivoglio is as close as the next practice, or the next dry-land training session, or any of the other team activities that play out on a daily basis in a bruising season of Division I hockey.

Bentivoglio realizes that time is short. CHA teams battle each other with the ferocity of the Hatfields and the McCoys for that one opportunity to move on in March. Bentivoglio has been through the process three times before.

With each game the plot thickens, the unexpected astonishes — a bounce here and a bounce there — and to the victor, as has been written, belong the spoils.

Liveblogging Curry-Geneseo

By
-

7:00: I’m in the pressbox in Geneseo, looking forward to seeing my first D-III action of the season. I passed on broadcasting RIT-Mercyhurst tonight to catch this one. I’ll make the trip to Erie tomorrow, with a stop in Jamestown, NY with my son for his Bantam game.

First Period

0:00 Let’s play hockey!

0:15: Curry scores on its first rush of the game. George Cademartori puts a nice feed from Ricky Helmbrecht past Derek Jokic to make it 1-0 Colonels.

1:24: Curry takes its first penalty of the game. The Colonels are one of the most penalized teams in D-III, and have been for the past several seasons. They kill off the Geneseo power play.

6:25: Now it’s Genny’s turn to take some penalties – two in a row in fact, but no damage done.

12:43: We’re skating four on four. Not a big crowd here, but they’re loud and the pep band is excellent.

14:55: Very impressed with Geneseo’s Mitch Stephens so far (as usual), as well as Curry netminder Zach Cardella, who foiled Stephens on a shorthanded opportunity a couple of minutes ago.

18:44: Another Geneseo power play, and a nice backdoor attempt by dan Brown goes just wide.

19:05: Oops. I weak shot by Curry’s Bill McCreary somehow eludes Jokic and it’s 2-0 Curry.

20:00: Shots on goal 9-7 in favor of Curry. Genny picks up a holding call at the buzzer.

Second Period

0:00: Back to action.

0:32: McCreary again, this time on the power play, on a wrap-around. 3-0 Curry. As Geneseo SID George Gagnier told me in between periods, “The first and last minutes of the period have not been kind.”

8:45: Curry’s forwards look good. Getting the puck down low well and going hard to the net. They’re also backchecking well. Genny can’t get good looks at the net.

9:19: A bad givaway leaves Curry’s Trevor Spiridi all alone in the Genny zone, and he makes no mistake, beating Jokic glove side on the breakaway to make it 4-0.

10:01: Genny gets on the board in a 4-4 situation. The Ice Knights work the puck down low and Chris Kestell puts it past Cardella to make it 4-1.

14:03: Geneseo kills off a Curry penalty, but just after it expires, the Colonels score again on a backdoor pass from McCreary to Jonathan Whitham. 5-1. That chases Jokic – Jeff Pasemko in net for the Ice Knights.

14:36: Wow. As I was typing the above, Curry scores AGAIN. Didn’t see it, but the call is Steve Murphy, unassisted. 6-1 Colonels.

18:19: Four whole minutes without a goal. Shocking.

18:29: 5×3 for Geneseo. They need a goal…bad.

19:19: Stephens has a cannon. But after some missed shots, he give Kestell a chance from the other point. He scores to make it 6-2. Geneseo still on the power play as there were four seconds left on the 5×3.

20:00: Two periods in the books. Several players have to be seperated at the buzzer. SOG 17-15 in favor of Curry. Score is 6-2 Colonels. Just gave the Genny radio guys some out of town scores from the message board. They’re doing an excellent job.

Third Period

0:00: Well, if this is like the first two periods, somebody’s gonna score pretty quickly.

4:12: Just after their power play expires, Curry makes it 7-2. Ross Enmark had some nice chances with the man advantage, and he finally converts just after Geneseo returns a skater.

7:45: SOG now 25-21 Curry. Skating 4×4 now.

8:41: Curry again on a 4×3 power play. Don Rankin’s shot from the point redirected by Trevor Spiridi. 8-2. Ouch.

12:31: Ah. Tenacious D. The band, not the action on the ice. Nice job by the DJ. On the ice, not much going on.

13:23: Geneseo on a 4×3 power play. Pushing after every whistle.

16:41: Garbage time. Nice rendition of the theme to “Family Guy” by the pep band. I wonder if they’d let me sit in some time?

20:00: And that does it. 8-2 final. Shots 29-27 Curry. Heading down to interview the coaches if I can. I’ll wrap things up later. It’s been fun!

This Week In The ECAC Northeast: Dec. 8, 2006

By Paul C. Altmeyer Jr.
-

Near the top of the Division III standings, nestled in between first place Curry and third place UMass Dartmouth, is Johnson and Wales. With a 5-2-0 conference record, and an overall mark of 6-2-0, third year coach Eric Noack was asked about the great start. “I think it’s basically that our first recruiting class is now juniors, and the last few years, we lost close games, and now we’re finding a way to win them. The last four games were extremely tight games that could have gone either way. The last four games were huge for us.”

The four games produced wins against Suffolk, Franklin Pierce, Worcester State, and Stonehill. Two games were won by a single goal, and two games were decided by a two-goal margin. “We’re not doing anything different or special,” said Noack, who was reached on the team bus on his way to a two-game set against Oswego State this weekend. “Some of our guys are becoming better college players, they’re leaving the Junior A thing behind. These guys aren’t focusing on goals and assists, they’re focusing on wins and losses.”

Noack is very pleased with his goaltending. Sophomore Brian Noiles is unbeaten, sporting a 4-0 record, and a 3.50 GAA. Junior Charlie Bacon has a 2-2 record, with a save percentage of .847. The play in front of the goalies has made Noack happy, also. “Jakub Kubrak is standing out on defense,” the coach stated, referring to his junior blueliner, “He’s shooting the puck real well from the point.” Kubrak has two goals, both power play scores, and two assists so far. Another defenseman contributing to the early season success is sophomore Mike O’Malley, who is logging close to 35 minutes per game.

Up front, the Wildcats were recently bolstered by the addition of transfer Craig Houle from New England College. The freshman forward provided an immediate impact, scoring on his first shift, and is now entrenched on the first power play unit. Captains Ryan Jacobs and Zach Cobb lead the cub in scoring. Jacobs, a junior, has 9-3–12, and Cobb has totals of 3-9-12.

Noack was asked his feelings on the upcoming break, and he’s glad it’s coming. “The break will be good. We’re playing the number two team in the nation [Oswego] in their rink. We’re up at 6 a.m. for practice every day, so this will be a good break, from me, for them. Some guys are looking forward to it. They’ve gotten beaten up.”

After the two games at Oswego this weekend, the Wildcats will be off for three weeks, then pick up play again with a game against Hamline University in the first round of the St. Michael’s tournament.

Noack looked ahead towards what happens after the break. “We’ve got to do the little things right in the defensive zone. We really need to stay out of the penalty box. The teams that do well in the nationals are the ones that stay out of the box. If we have too may guys playing short-handed, they’ll be out of gas when we’re playing even strength.”

“This league is so tight right now with the top three. You’ve got a bunch of teams fighting for the four through eight spots. There’s a ton of work left to be done after the break,” Noack stated.

In Boston, RJ Tolan is enjoying his first year behind the bench at Wentworth Institute of Technology. Off to a solid 3-0-1 start in conference play, and a 5-3-2 overall start, Tolan kept things in perspective. “It’s all been all right. We try to get a little better every day, and we’ve only played four league games.”

One of those league wins was the season opener against Worcester State, a 4-2 win which was significant for Tolan, as it was his first career win as a head coach. When asked what that felt like, Tolan reflected. “It’s been great. We’ve got a great group of kids, and they’ve made my job easy.”

The former UMass Lowell defenseman is obviously enjoying his role as coach. “I’m very happy with the group of kids we have. Character-wise, it’s a great group. We don’t have any superstars, it’s a blue collar group.”

One player that Tolan has been very pleased with is sophomore defenseman Greg Demerjian. “We had three senior defensemen last year, so his playing time was somewhat limited. Now, he’s been out there all the time.” While Demerjian may be logging Zdeno Chara-like ice time, there’s one slight difference between the two blue-liners, and that’s size. Demerjian is 5’9″, and 178lbs., quite unlike Chara’s 6’9″, 260 lbs. frame. The North Carolina native is averaging a point per game, with 4 goals and 6 assists so far.

Offensively for the Leopards, senior captain Ryan Singer leads the way with 4-10–14. Right behind him is fellow western Canadian Jeff Olitch. The freshman has 8-2–10. in his first ten games, and he also leads the squad with three power play goals.

With two games remaining (vs. No. 1 Norwich, and vs. Castleton State) until the break, Tolan was asked about the upcoming layoff, which will last close to four full weeks. “We have a little more work, in terms of academics, so they need that time. We’ll come back and only have two practices, so it’s like we’re starting from scratch, and we’ll have to build it all back up.”

In Springfield, Mass., Western New England College goes into the holiday break on a roll. Winners of four of their last five games, Coach Chris Bernard is thrilled. “We’re certainly excited to be ending the semester with a winning record. That was a goal of ours, coming into the year. We’ve had huge contributions from everyone. We’ve had an opportunity to play everyone on the roster.”

One player who has been on his own roll in sophomore forward Phil Lamy. In eleven games, the former Kent Hills Prep (Maine) star has 6-10–16. Freshman forward Matt Haddock also has six goals, to go along with his four assists.
Bernard is also very pleased with his goaltending. Junior Brandon Gervais has started nine of the games, and has a 4-5 record. Sophomore Kyle Sagnella has started two games, and won them both. He has a miserly 0.64 GAA, and a save percentage of .969.

When asked his feelings on now being off for three weeks, Bernard responded. “I ask so much of our guys to be attentive to detail, to have a superior commitment level, that I think it’s good for the guys to get a mental and physical break. I want them to be mindful of their physical condition, though.” The Golden Bears return to action on Jan. 6 with a home game against Franklin Pierce, and then the following Saturday have a tough contest against UMass, at Dartmouth.

A former Clarkson University goalie, Bernard summed up the season so far, “We’re happy to have eclipsed our win total of last year. This is our best start in ten years. We have high expectations, and we do believe in them.”

In Division II, one team off to a slow start is Assumption College. Heading into the season, coach Kevin Zifcak was hoping his offense would improve over last year’s, which scored 3.52 points per game. Currently, the Ice Dogs are averaging 2.5 goals per game, and are still searching for their first conference win, with an 0-4-0 league mark, and an overall record of 1-7-0.

Junior forward Chris Trahon is picking up where he left off last year, leading the team in scoring. The left winger has 1G-6A-7PTS. so far, and is tied for the club lead in scoring with Luke McDonough, who has 4G-3A-7PTS.

Goalie David Pinkham has gotten off to a slow start. Last year as a freshman, he posted a GAA of .482, and a save percentage of .875. So far this year, the Melrose, Mass., native has a GAA of 6.63, and a save percentage of .862.

Assumption will travel to Stonehill for a contest on Dec. 9, and then head into the break. Stonehill will be flying high after beating Southern New Hampshire earlier in the week.

This Week in the WCHA: Dec. 7, 2006

By Eric Schmoldt
-

Off The Top Of My Head

• Look out for those feisty Minnesota State Mavericks. It seems like every year they sneak up on teams and snag some points, just like they did with a 5-5 tie against Minnesota last weekend.

• What a way for Minnesota-Duluth to end its 11-game WCHA road winless streak. Outshot 42-19 by Alaska-Anchorage last Saturday, the Bulldogs found the back of the net seven times — nearly 37 percent of their shots on goal — to win 7-4.

• And a quick congratulations to the flurry of WCHA players who will represent their countries at the World Junior Championship in Sweden from Dec. 26, 2006, through Jan. 5, 2007.

Power Outage

After winning five of their first six games to start the season, the Michigan Tech Huskies have hit a rough stretch, winning just once in their last eight tries. But head coach Jamie Russell says it has just made his team that much hungrier.

“The mood’s been very good at practice,” Russell said. “We’ve got to move forward — we’ve got the No. 1 team in the country, Minnesota, coming in.”

Not only are the top-ranked Gophers visiting with the nation’s longest unbeaten streak (16 games), they will not be overlooking anybody after settling for a tie with Minnesota State last Friday.

Either way, the Huskies stand ready for the challenge, especially after last year. About a year ago this weekend they went to then-No. 1 Wisconsin and spoiled the Badgers’ holiday break, and later took down the No. 1 Gophers.

“We’ve done a good job of getting up for big games,” Russell said.

The Huskies will have to do that for the rest of 2006 as they take on Minnesota this weekend, then North Dakota and then the Great Lakes Invitational, where they will play Michigan in the first round.

If anything is standing in the way of bursting out of this rough stretch, it is the power play, or lack thereof. Michigan Tech sits dead last in Division I in that respect, having tallied just five goals on the man-advantage all year in 79 attempts: just over a six percent conversion rate.

While Russell is not one to make excuses, few would blame him after they hear his tale of bad luck over the past few weeks as the Huskies have tried to bust out of the power-play slump.

Gearing up for the road series at Denver, the team spent a week working on a unit which revolved around senior captain Mike Batovanja, only to lose him after about one period of play. The Huskies went 1-for-12 on the power play that weekend.

Then, preparing for last weekend’s series with St. Cloud State, freshman Alex Gagne became the focal point for the week, only to learn just hours before Friday night’s game that he would not be able to play that weekend. Tech went 0-for-10 on the weekend, including an 0-for-8 showing in Friday’s loss.

“We’ve got to look down our depth chart this week and probably pick our 25th guy on the roster and design a power play around him … then he’ll get scratched and we can move forward,” Russell said.

Bulldogs Have Bite … Every Now and Then

This Minnesota-Duluth team really is a goofy one to gauge.

Take, for instance, what the Bulldogs have done in their victories this year. Yes, there may only be four of them, but in three of those four, the Bulldogs have scored six or more goals. They have only scored more than two goals in any other game all season, a 3-3 tie with Massachusetts-Lowell to open the season.

Then you can look at the fact that they’ve given up exactly four goals in five of their last six games. One might assume that that would result in poor outcomes; however, they have won two of those games and lost the one where they didn’t give up four — a 2-1 defeat.

And they have the third-best power play in the country, because 21 of their 39 goals have come on the man-advantage.

Good luck trying to figure this team out.

Back to True Form

As reported here nearly a month ago, St. Cloud State goaltender Bobby Goepfert had switched back to his old brand of pads, something which head coach Bob Motzko said he thought would turn things around.

Since then, the senior is 5-0-2 and has given up just 15 goals in those seven games (and he gave up five of those in one outing).

He has helped spark the Huskies to a nine-game unbeaten streak, the third best stretch in the country. They are also in second place in the WCHA after opening the season 2-3-0.

“I thought Bobby Goepfert absolutely stole the hockey game for them,” Tech head coach Jamie Russell said of last Saturday’s matchup.

In A Hole?

My, what a difference a year makes …

At this point last year, Wisconsin had not lost a single WCHA game. The Badgers were 10-0-2 before being upset by Michigan Tech at home and had jumped out to a lead that many thought might be impossible to surmount.

Fast-forward to this year, and they are just 3-6-1 and 10 points back from first-place Minnesota, a deficit which seems like it might be impossible to dig out of.

“Right now I think our focus has to be on getting some points every weekend. I think that becomes a thing that we talk about, controlling what we can control,” UW head coach Mike Eaves said. “If we do that, we give ourselves a chance to get back to being in the battle and, you know, get home ice and all those kind of things.

“How far we’ll crawl up will be determined by how everybody else does.”

In Other Words

• WCHA Players of the Week were Colorado College’s Chad Rau on offense, CC’s Lee Sweatt on defense and Minnesota’s Kyle Okposo for the rookies. It was the second time this year that Okposo has won the award.

• Minnesota State goaltender Dan Tormey had successful surgery this week after the wrist of his catching hand was sliced by the skate of Minnesota’s Blake Wheeler last Friday. The Mavericks will rely heavily on Mike Zacharias as Tormey recovers.

• It’s not often that you hear schools telling people to throw things on the ice after a goal, but that’s what Minnesota-Duluth is doing Saturday night for its fourth annual Teddy Bear Toss. Fans are asked to throw stuffed animals onto the ice after the Bulldogs’ first goal, which will then be distributed to local hospitals and charities.

• Colorado College center Andreas Vlassopoulos returned to the ice Friday night against Denver after 14 months of rehab on his injured knee.

• I think it is safe to say Minnesota does not overlook its last series before the holiday break. The Gophers are 9-2-0 in those series over the past five years.

This Week In The MIAC: Dec. 8, 2006

By C. J. Spang
-

Streak Snapped

Since the 1987-1988 season, Bethel had lost 38 straight regular-season games to St. Thomas. During that time, the Royals were 1-45 against the Tommies. They’re only win came on Feb. 26, 2001 in the semi-finals of the MIAC playoffs. Bethel won 5-3 then went on to win the mini-game and advance to the championship game where they tied St. John’s twice before falling 1-0 in the mini-game.

In Friday’s streak-ender, St. Thomas scored two goals in less than a minute to grab a 2-0 lead in the first period. The Royals responded with the first of four unanswered goals, a power-play goal by sophomore forward Brad Peterson. Bethel tacked on two more goals in the second period, then, got the game-winner in the third period on a weird play.

Tommies junior netminder Treye Kettwick came out of the net to clear the puck but the Royals’ junior forward Dan Bonne came away with the puck at the blueline. As Kettwick tried skating backwards into the net, he collided with a defenseman and both of them hit the ice, allowing Bonne to a free shot at an open net.

“I was just hoping he didn’t miss the net,” coach Pete Aus said.

In the second game, Bethel never missed, showing off the offensive power that many coaches have been talking about all season. Led by sophomore forward Nick Miller, who had a hat trick and two assists, the Royals put up nine goals against St. Thomas in the 9-3 romp.

Miller’s second goal was one of his power-play goals and Aus was thoroughly impressed.

“He one-timed one from the point and he’s just got a rocket, it was a laser,” Aus said. “If anybody would have gotten in the way of it they probably would have been dead.”

Bonne added a goal and three assists while senior goaltender Dustin Thompson picked up his second win of the series, stopping 22 of 25 shots he faced.

“Yeah I think we were (surprised),” Aus said of the weekend results. “Our goal probably going in was to get a win. On Saturday night we just played tremendous. We just really stepped it up I think.”

Miller was one of the guys who really stepped it up. The night before, he had no points, and entering the series, had just one goal and two assists. Aus said his performance was surprising, but it’s something he and his staff thought could eventually happen.

“He’s a great player but we didn’t see that in the first seven games,” Aus said. “He just stepped it up. It was like he was on a different level.

“That’s what we’ve been hoping would happen and he just stepped to the plate,” Aus said.

As for whether Miller can continue his strong play throughout the season, he said he hopes so.

“As a player you always want to think you can do your best out there and help the team as much as possible and yeah hopefully I can stay at this level,” he said.

He and the rest of the Royals will try to continue their strong start in conference play against Augsburg this weekend. The Auggies are second place in the MIAC with five points and a 1-0-3 mark. They’re coming off a pair of sweeps against St. Olaf, and Aus knows they won’t roll over for Bethel.

“I just told them yesterday, ‘Did you see Southern Cal play Notre Dame? Yeah. And did you see what happened with Southern Cal played UCLA? Yeah. OK so two games, if we don’t continue to perform well, doesn’t mean anything. We haven’t proven anything yet. We’ve proven we swept St. Thomas — that’s great,'” Aus said.

“This weekend we’ve got a series against Augsburg, that’s going to be a tough series,” Aus said. “They’ve got some tremendous players and we can’t stand on last weekend’s laurels, it’s a new series this weekend so we have to play hard.”

Gusties Perfect

Gustavus Adolphus won a pair of overtime games against Hamline this past weekend to improve to 4-0-0 in conference play and pull three points ahead of second-place Augsburg in the MIAC standings.

The Gusties won Friday’s contest 4-3 in extra time thanks to a John Keseley 4-on-3 goal less than 30 seconds into overtime. Keseley scored the game-winner on Saturday too, giving Gustavus a 5-4 win. That completed the come-from-behind victory as it was the Gusties third unanswered goal.

Keseley is tied for third on the team in points with three through for conference game, but is leading the team for all games with 11 points. He has six power goals out of a team-high seven goals scored.

“By playing him at defense it enables us to get him on the ice more so than we could if he was playing forward,” coach Brett Petersen said.

Gustavus won its first two conference games of the year against Concordia, taking down the Cobbers 2-1 and 5-2.

While those two teams are consistently considered the bottom-feeders of the conference, with the parity in the MIAC this season, games against those two teams aren’t guaranteed wins like in years past.

“Historically in our conference, if you want to make the playoffs you need to be at 20 points, you have to get 20 points to get in the playoffs,” Petersen said. But because of the increased parity in the league, the fifth team may only have 16 or 17 points and be right around .500 Petersen said. He even went as far as to say his team might not even make the playoffs, even though his team is better than last year’s squad.

The road to the playoffs is certainly going to be a bumpy one for the Gusties as they face St. Mary’s, St. Olaf, Bethel, St. Thomas, Augsburg and St. John’s to finish conference play. Still, Petersen isn’t worried because his players don’t anything different because it’s basically the same schedule Gustavus had last year.

Instead, he voiced his opinion on the conference scheduling as a whole, saying the MIAC should alternate opponents on a given weekend, instead of playing two games against the same opponent.

“I’d like to change our whole schedule to be honest with you but I have a small voice in that opinion in our conference,” he said. “I’d think you’d find a much truer champion.”

As for whether or not Petersen’s team can be champions this season remains to be seen and that’s not what Gustavus is aiming for at this point.

“We’re trying to get 20 points,” he said. “Because I don’t know if there’s a team in the history of our league whose had 20 points and not made the playoffs. So we’re looking at more of a, we’ve got eight points now out of 20. This weekend we could have eight points still, we could have 10 points, we could have 12 points out of 20 and that’s our race every year is to get into the playoffs … and that’s all you can shoot for.”

This Week In The SUNYAC: Dec. 8, 2006

By
-

Hockey Emotions

Hockey is an extremely emotional game. The result of that is sometimes players follow their emotions a bit too far.

Lately, it seems goaltenders have been in the spotlight for allowing their emotions to get the best of them. A few weeks ago in the Wentworth at Geneseo game, the Wentworth goalie got thrown out for fighting.

This past weekend, two goalies went over the edge, both occurring in the North Country.

Potsdam’s Rob Barnhardt got himself DQ’ed against Oswego with nine seconds left in the game. A scuffle developed behind the net, some words were exchanged, and Barnhardt applied a two-fisted crosscheck to an Oswego player’s neck. Barnhardt got a five-minute major for roughing and a game disqualification. Despite the face off being in Potsdam’s zone, coach Glenn Thomaris did not even bother putting in a goalie to finish out the remaining seconds.

Meanwhile, the same night, Cortland’s Ben Binga lost control of himself as his team was getting blown out by Plattsburgh. After letting up the fifth goal of the game, Binga was replaced. On his way to the bench, he slammed the boards with his stick. Unfortunately, he didn’t hold onto it, and it flew all the way into Plattsburgh’s zone earning Binga a 10-minute misconduct. He was seen yelling at his teammates on the bench and didn’t want anything to do with the coaches who tried to talk to him.

The coaching staff talked to their freshman goalie afterwards, and felt it was okay to start him against Potsdam. Instead, he performed an encore. After Potsdam’s fourth goal, scored by Vince Tarantino 55 seconds into the third period — which went in through a screen where Binga never saw it as he didn’t move — he skated towards the bench and said something, as if wanting to come out. He went back in net, and then Mike Knapp went in on a breakaway. Seemingly, Binga didn’t even try to stop it, simply flopping down without a fight as Knapp put it in at the 1:51 mark.

At that, he did skate all the way over to the bench, flinging his helmet and stick towards his team, nearly taking the backup goalie out. The assistant coach then pointed across the rink, sending him off the ice to the showers.

This is not the first time a SUNYAC goalie let his emotions get the better of him. Brett Walker of Geneseo, like Binga, burst onto the scene with some amazing display of talent in net. However, the inability to maintain his composure cost his team numerous penalties and often playing time for himself.

Cortland coach Tom Cranfield told me he is not giving up on the kid. Nor should he. The Geneseo coaching staff worked with Walker and eventually turned him around, and in the end it benefited everyone. Walker went on to have a stellar college hockey career, complete his schooling, and Geneseo won a conference championship in Walker’s senior year riding their netminder’s talent … and composure.

In the meantime, Cranfield is disciplining Binga. The goalie will not be making the trip to Castleton State this weekend.

That game is an interesting match up, because both these teams are doing much better than the previous year.

“I expect a tough game between two teams who are working extremely hard,” Cranfield said. “We’re two teams that are trying to find an identity, to prove ourselves.”

Cortland may be in last place in the SUNYAC, but Cranfield, though wishing he had a better record, is not too disappointed.

“Overall, we’re a team that had four wins all of last year, and we have a chance to go 6-6-1 at the halfway point,” he said. “We’re a pretty young team. We’re still trying to learn exactly who we are. The frustrating part is we haven’t done well in conference play.”

How well they do in any kind of play from here on out is dependant on how well Ben Binga controls his emotions.

A Lot Of Sister Kissing

I don’t know whether it is a sign of parity by how many tie games there are in conference play, but there sure has been a lot of them this year.

At the halfway point, there have been five tie games (last year there were three all season), with only two teams (Geneseo and Potsdam, which is ironic because those two teams once had a string of ties against each other) not producing a tie this year. The king of ties last year was Fredonia with three. This season, Brockport already has three ties.

Two of those occurred this past weekend when they constantly blew leads. Twice, they had a two-goal lead against Buffalo State, only to wind up tied, 4-4. The next night, they blew an early 3-0 lead allowing Fredonia to come back to tie the game at three.

“It was frustrating that we couldn’t finish it off,” Brockport coach Brian Dickinson said after the Buffalo State game. I’m sure those would have been his sentiments after the Fredonia game as well.

“All points are crucial,” Dickinson said.

He still got two crucial points, which kept Brockport in third place, tied (of course) with Fredonia. If anybody told Dickinson he would have been tied for third place at the halfway point, he would have taken it in a second.

“They’ve [the players] been talking about the standings and where we are as a program,” Dickinson said. “We got enough talent that if we stay focused and work hard we’ll be in games for the duration of the game.”

Apparently, that means tying a lot of those games. … Speaking of ties, Potsdam and Plattsburgh are also tied in the standings for fifth place. A mere two points separates third through seventh.

SUNYAC Short Shots

Buffalo State scored two powerplay goals in the final 3:18 of the third period to tie Brockport, who led twice by two goals, 4-4 … Brockport blew another lead on Saturday, this time 3-0, two of them scored by Gordon Pritchard, over Fredonia who came back to tie it 3-3 … Fredonia scored their two goals against Geneseo in the final minute of the first and second period, respectively, for the 2-1 win … Oswego’s Brendan McLaughlin scored two goals and one assist, Ryan Ellis got a goal and three assists, and Peter Magagna got four assists, the Lakers went 3 for 9 on the powerplay, scored their first two goals in the first 1:38, and held Potsdam to 15 shots in an 8-1 rout … Ellis got another two goals and an assist against Plattsburgh, but Pier-Luc Belanger scored his second goal of the night with five seconds left in regulation to give the Cardinals a 5-5 tie … Plattsburgh held Cortland to just 13 shots, all of which Karl Helgesson stopped in a 6-0 shutout … Geneseo went 5 for 10 on the powerplay with Trent Cassan scoring two of them in a 5-2 win over Buffalo State … Cortland’s Barry McLaughlin got a hat trick against Potsdam but to no avail as the Bears won 7-4 with seven different goal scorers.

Game of the Week

Teams wind up the final weekend of the semester with non-conference play. Not too much jumps out in this week’s schedule. Neumann at Fredonia for a pair of games could be interesting. Neumann is having a great season so far, but Fredonia could be the sort of team that catches Neumann by surprise. Especially with the Blue Devils great home record the past few years.

Skidmore at Geneseo is another game that normally would be ignored, but with Skidmore’s strong start as well, they will face a real good test against the Ice Knights.

Cortland has an opportunity to finish the first semester at .500 against Castleton State (see above concerning that game), and Oswego is trying to finish the first half undefeated with what should be two easy games against Johnson and Wales.

Elmira at Potsdam, despite both teams having miserable first halves, is interesting only because of the connections that the Bears’ coach has with both schools. The Potsdam radio announcer joked with me that he is going to call this game the Glenn Thomaris Cup.

The game that stands out the most and gets my pick this week is Middlebury at Plattsburgh. Just a couple of weeks after the Cardinals defeated the then number one team in the nation in the Primelink Tournament, they meet again. Middlebury continues to struggle with a shocking loss to Southern Maine while Plattsburgh is coming off a strong weekend with an easy win over Cortland and an emotional tie against Oswego. This may be a non-conference game, but it means a lot for Middlebury to break out of their funk, and a lot for Plattsburgh to continue their momentum. Besides, when these two marquee programs meet, it’s always a game that has a lot of fans talking about.

On The Periphery

Another college football season has gone by along with another round of debate over the BCS. In all the clutter, nobody has asked the question, “Do we really have to have a national champion in every sport?”

Seriously.

Would your enjoyment of college hockey diminish if the season ended with the crowning of conference champions? And if so, enough to make you stop watching college hockey?

And what is the purpose of a national tournament? To find the best team in the country? I don’t think that happens all the time. Do you honestly believe that Villanova was the best college basketball team in the country in 1985 when it upset Georgetown? I certainly don’t. That’s not to take anything away from Villanova. They won all the games in a tournament that provides such a team with a trophy that says National Champion on it. I wouldn’t dare suggest that Villanova should give up that trophy, but it doesn’t say “Best Team in the Country” on it.

Why is it that we are so obsessed on having a national champion in every sport? Maybe it’s okay if we don’t have one. Maybe in some sports, like football, it’s just not worth adding a bunch more games when the injury rate is so high and many promising careers can be ruined before making it to the pros.

Admittedly, I do enjoy the BCS title game when a team I root for is in it, but overall, my enjoyment of college football has diminished with the BCS concept.

If a proper playoff system is not going to be implemented, give me my Rose Bowl with the Pac-10 champion against the Big Ten champion every year, no matter where those teams are ranked, and trash the BCS.

1...1,2301,2311,232...1,532Page 1,231 of 1,532

Latest Stories from around USCHO

Longtime Notre Dame assistant coach Pooley, Michigan Tech assistant Murray named to Colorado College staff

USCHO Staff -

Former Notre Dame standout, Colorado College assistant Oglevie returns to Irish as new assistant coach

USCHO Staff -

NCAA Division I independent men’s hockey teams to compete for inaugural United Collegiate Hockey Cup in March 2026

USCHO Staff -

With Denver ‘home for me and my family,’ Carle inks multi-year contract extension to remain behind Pioneers’ bench

USCHO Staff -

Bowling Green assistant coach Paskaris leaves bench, named assistant athletics director for development with Falcons

USCHO Staff -

Women’s Division I College Hockey: The PodKaz Offseason interview – A visit with 2-time defending NCAA championship coach Joe Cranston of UW-River Falls

Nicole Haase -

After 42 years coaching Amherst men’s hockey team, Arena retires as ‘heart and soul’ of Mammoths program

USCHO Staff -

Western New England men’s hockey coach Young announces resignation after four seasons with Golden Bears

USCHO Staff -

SUNYAC tabs Fredonia’s Sudbrink as conference men’s hockey scholar-athlete of the year for ’24-25 season

USCHO Staff -

‘A proud day’ as former Minnesota Duluth women’s hockey captain Brodt tabbed new head coach for St. Scholastica

USCHO Staff -

Denver sophomore blueliner, recent Wild signee Buium tabbed USCHO Player of the Year for ’24-25 season

USCHO Staff -

Western Michigan’s Ferschweiler leads Broncos to national championship, named unanimous USCHO Coach of the Year for 2024-25 campaign

USCHO Staff -
©1996-2025 USCHO.com – U.S. College Hockey Online