The Clock Strikes

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March 19, 2004

It took just one shot, from the stick of Maine’s Mike Hamilton, to turn Cinderella’s carriage into a pumpkin.

The carriage ride that carried eighth-seeded Boston University came to a halt on Friday thanks to 1-0 loss to second-seeded Maine in the Hockey East semifinals.

The fact of the matter, though, was that the carriage itself nearly turned into a freight train. After upsetting top-seeded Boston College in last weekend’s quarterfinals, two games to one, BU came full-steam into Friday’s semis against the Black Bears. In a game where they controlled the play early, the Terriers played what coach Jack Parker called “exactly the type of game” he had hoped for.

That was pure fact. BU limited top-notch opportunities for the potent Maine offense and relied on goaltender Sean Fields — himself likely more than half the reason that the Terriers season was still alive — to stand tall at times when they didn’t. Hoping for that low-scoring game where a fluke bounce could’ve made BU the first number eight seed to ever reach the Hockey East final, the Terriers and Black Bears entered the third period scoreless.

But then, on a perfect shot to the top left corner, Hamilton, a somewhat unlikely hero in his own right, beat the unbeatable Fields with less than 13 minutes remaining — a goal sufficient for the Black Bears to advance thanks to Maine’s Jimmy Howard doing his own Sean Fields impersonation in the other net.

Still, even heading home or to the closest warm climate to break out the golf clubs, this is a time for the BU players, coaches and fans to hold their heads high.

This team two weeks ago needed an overtime goal just to make the playoffs, then Friday nearly headed to the 20th anniversary title tilt in Hockey East. That’s something that gives Parker positive reflection.

“I was really happy with the way our team played down the stretch as well,” said Parker. “It was a team that really struggled throughout the year with consistency.”

In the end, BU may never have really ever found that consistency. It put together back-to-back wins just once and that didn’t happen until after game one of the quarterfinals. And tonight it was the club’s Achilles’ heel that ended their run.

“It was the same thing that hurt us tonight that hurt us throughout the season and that’s our failure to put the puck in the net,” Parker said.

That fact aside, Parker and his players realize that the ending could partially make up for a lot of bad nights.

“It was very inspiring,” said captain Mark Mullen of the past three weekends. “This was a tough season. This season had to be one of the toughest I’ve ever had. To see the way everybody hung in there together — the players, the coaches — it’s just a great feeling.”

“There certainly was redemption,” said Parker. “There was redemption in the fact that we finally got together and played with some intensity down the stretch.

“I’m really proud of this team. We were excited about the fact that they earned their way into the playoffs and then they realized they wanted to ‘do’ something.

“They certainly did something last weekend and they almost did something tonight. So it was nice to see them finish off this way, we just couldn’t get that done early.”

Endings associated with the loss of course go beyond just a season. For six seniors — Mullen, Fields, Frantisek Skladany, Kenny Magowan, Steve Greeley and Gregg Johnson — it’s also the ending of a Terrier career.

“I wanted to savor the moment,” said Fields, who stayed in his crease an extra minute after the game ended, gazing around the FleetCenter ice where he’s earned two Beanpot and one Hockey East tournament MVP awards. “It’s the last time that I’m going to wear the BU colors. So I took a look around and looked at the team to try to remember this.”

For those returning, including the entire defensive corps that dressed on Friday night, there should be a lot to look forward to next season. The key, though, will be to start fast, maintain and then add another exciting finish.

“This wasn’t the type of year we’re typically used to,” said Parker. “So we want to make sure that next year we start the season well and finish it this strong.”

And believe it that more than likely next year the role of Cinderella will not be played by BU.

Strong In Net

By Stephani Cramer

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March 19, 2004

Behind most every championship team is a championship goaltender, and the contenders in this year’s CCHA playoffs are no exception.

Alvaro Montoya, Brandon Crawford-West, Mike Betz, and Tuomas Tarkki are the names of the probable starting goaltenders in the semifinals of the CCHA Super Six Friday, all out to prove that they have the essential qualities a championship goaltender possesses.

Some of these ‘tenders are well known, while others have become a bit of a surprise to their fellow CCHA members.

First, let’s start with the surprises.

Tarkki, of Northern Michigan, is the CCHA’s best-kept secret of the season. After playing only 130:19 in the regular season, Tarkki became the starting goaltender for the ‘Cats when senior Craig Kowalski pulled his groin in the final series of the regular season against Ferris State.

Tarkki, a junior from Rauma, Finland, backstopped his team to a road upset of Alaska-Fairbanks, making 70 saves in two games. Then Tarkki held Michigan State to just one goal on 36 shots to give his team a berth in the semifinal game against the Wolverines.

“It’s unfortunate that Craig got hurt,” Tarkki said, “but that was the only way I could get ice time this season. I can’t say I was happy about that, but I’ve been preparing for that the whole year. I knew I had to step in and I had to be ready.”

“Personally, I think that Craig Kowalski is the best goaltender in the country,” coach Walt Kyle said. “Tuomas was behind him and didn’t get ice time because of that. That wasn’t indicative of what we thought of Tuomas. We felt we had a guy that could have been an All-American there and everyone on this team is feels very confident that Tuomas can play, win games, and be an outstanding goaltender in college hockey.”

Brandon Crawford-West of the Miami RedHawks is a surprise in the respect that he is a freshman facing all the shots. The San Diego, Calif., native started his first game on October 10 against Michigan, and then Miami coach Enrico Blasi alternated goaltenders for part of the season, then became the number one RedHawk netminder after the Alaska-Fairbanks series November 21 and 22.

The next two goaltenders need no introduction.

Mike Betz has been Ohio State’s starting netminder for the past three seasons, and is the lone starting senior in the Super Six. This is the third year in a row the Buckeyes have made the CCHA tourney, and the Buckeyes’ maturity in net is a factor they’re counting on to guide them to the championship game.

In the event that things aren’t going Betz’ way, Head Coach John Markell won’t hesitate to insert backup Dave Caruso into the net for a change of momentum, as he did in the CCHA quarterfinal against Notre Dame.

“[Caruso is] a little bit more of an aggressive goalie than Mike is, and that’s what we expect of him. You just do it to change momentum. We are very fortunate — we have two good goalies that can be put in there, and there’s not much change, and you just do it to change the rhythm of the game,” Markell said.

Finally is the sophomore Montoya, who guards the net for Michigan, the defending CCHA champion.

Montoya continually adds to his already impressive resume that already boasts the “Modern Miracle” as he backstopped the U.S. to the first World Junior Tournament gold medal the under-20 division had ever achieved.

Montoya’s fast glove and unbelievable stops have given his team the confidence to go anywhere — including past the Wildcats in the CCHA semifinals and into the championship game to defend their title.

If these goaltenders are on their games, the remaining CCHA games could be some of the best of the season.

The semifinal matchups are set as the No. 1 seed Wolverines will be playing the No. 4 Wildcats in the first game of the afternoon, while the No. 2 RedHawks will face off against the No. 3 Buckeyes in the second.

This Week in the CHA: March 18, 2004

By Mike Volonnino

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March 18, 2004

As each shift went by last Sunday, the question grew more prescient — could Niagara upset Bemidji State in the CHA championship without a single point from Barret Ehgoetz or Joe Tallari?

With the final heading into overtime, Ehgoetz — third overall in the nation with 53 points — and Tallari, who has amassed 123 points in his four years as a Purple Eagle, were conspicuously absent from the scoresheet. Amazingly, Niagara had still been two minutes away from the Bruce McLeod Trophy without a contribution from its big stars before the Beavers scored a dramatic game-tying goal to send the championship into sudden death.

While Niagara fans may have grown fearful about their title prospects, coach Dave Burkholder was much more sanguine from behind the bench.

“Giving up the lead in the third period twice was tough,” Burkholder said. “We regrouped after regulation….Every time we put the [Ehgoetz] line on the ice in overtime, I kept thinking that this has gotta be the shift.”

And at 13:27 of the overtime, the shift finally came. Tallari from Ehgoetz. Textbook.

“This was probably the biggest goal in our program’s history,” Burkholder said. “For Joe to get it from Barret, it certainly adds to the NCAA tournament bid.”

Regardless of how Niagara does in the dance, Tallari has written a fitting chapter for a magnificent career. For most of the year, he seemed destined to have an all-time senior letdown. After notching 56 points as a junior, Tallari struggled mightily to find his scorer’s touch. Before New Year’s Day, he had managed just three goals and eight assists.

Niagara challenged for first place on the strength of Ehgoetz’s play, and the team waited for Tallari to come along. He found it in January with a four-point weekend against Bemidji and then posted consecutive four-point games against Findlay and Canisius, as part of a 13-game scoring streak.

Just as he and his team seemed to be peaking, Tallari went cold again and didn’t have a point for five straight games entering the championship. In fact, against Wayne State in the CHA semifinals, the Purple Eagles relied upon two goals from the fourth line to win 2-1 and to prevent a bracket-busting loss to the Warriors.

“The win was a complete effort,” Burkholder said. “We don’t play another day if our senior line with Nick Kormanyos, really our fourth line, doesn’t score both goals against Wayne State. Our second line was solid both nights. We’re a pretty tough team to beat when we have that effort.”

But while it may be hard to beat a team when its depth excels, it is also very hard to win a championship if that team’s stars fail to shine.

Tallari got the job done.

“He’s certainly etched his name in Niagara hockey history forever,” Burkholder said. “He’s had such a great career.”

The Purple Eagles now get to extend their season by at least another week. Since the CHA finishes its tournament a week before the rest of Division I, the players can crash on each other’s dorm room futons, crack open a soda and watch their potential opponents duke it out.

“I hope the kids are as high as I am after this win,” Burkholder said. “We need the week off; people have no idea how hard it is to win come playoff time. The other conferences will find out this weekend.”

“We’ve only been a Division I program for six years, and this is our second trip to the tournament,” he added. “I don’t know who we are going to play and where, but we are going to be a tough out. We beat New Hampshire when they were the number-one team in the nation. We played 16 nonconference games and got points in half of them. The tough schedule prepared us.”

Tallari had been preparing his whole career to deliver in a moment like this. Turns out that Niagara couldn’t win without a point from its stars.

Bemidji Holds Heads High

Just two weeks ago, it was Bemidji State riding the emotional high. After Niagara faltered down the stretch, the Beavers were celebrating a remarkable senior class whose first year in the program captured four wins only to quintuple that total in this, their final season.

First place during the regular season seemed a harbinger for things to come, but it was not meant to be. A program that set as a preseason goal to reach 20 wins wound up needing 21.

“Any time you tie up the game with two minutes left in the regulation, it gets you excited,” said coach Tom Serratore. “During the first ten minutes of overtime, I thought we were carrying the play, but Niagara got the one bounce they needed.”

After a suitable mourning period elapses, the program will grasp its myriad accomplishments in winning its first championship of any kind since joining Division I. Still, for the time being, that regular-season victory must feel Pyrrhic.

“In a one-game elimination playoff anything can happen,” Serratore said. “You always want to win in the postseason and we obviously wanted to be that team with the automatic bid into the NCAA tournament.”

Bemidji, moreover, will probably enter next year as it did this year, the favorite to win the CHA. It will return all of its top scorers, including the remarkable junior tandem of Brendan Cook and Riley Riddell, who combined for 73 points as well as Rookie of the Year Luke Erickson. While this loss marks an end to the careers of players like captain and First-Team All-CHA Defenseman Bryce Methven, the future is bright.

Alabama-Huntsville Crumbles and Tumbles

Alabama-Huntsville coach Doug Ross did not mince words when evaluating his squad’s 5-3 upset loss to Wayne State.

“You have to get better goaltending to win in the postseason,” he said. “We let in some soft goals and it hurt us. We didn’t get the goaltending down the stretch that we had earlier in the season.”

The numbers don’t lie. Adam MacLean and Scott Munroe combined to yield four goals on 20 shots. Meanwhile, Matt Kelly picked up right where he left off the previous time the Warriors played UAH — spectacularly. The sophomore goalie made 40 saves to make it three straight over the Chargers.

“We had a young team this year,” Ross added. “Next year we will have better goaltending, better defense, and more scoring. We need to add depth. We only really got goals from Jared Ross’s line. That will change as we mature.”

Hobey?

Ross also had some blunt words for the Hobey Baker selection committee, wondering how his star (and son) Jared Ross was not named a finalist for the award, after netting 50 points and leading the nation in points per game. Or at the very least, Ehgoetz.

“Tell me, what is the selection process like for this award? What [are] the selection criteria? We’ve got guys who are leading the country in offensive categories and we can’t be named one of the top 10 guys? Are we a Division III or ACHA conference? what’s the award for?

“To me it shows a total lack of respect for the CHA.”

CHA commissioner Bob Peters, though upset, was more circumspect:

“It is disconcerting because there are two very fine athletes and they lead the nation in various categories, they were our co-Players of the Year. My personal opinion is these are exciting players to watch and they deserve the accolades as players of the year. I can easily see why people should be voting for them. I can also see why the decision is tough, but I probably would feel more comfortable had we received at least one finalist.”

And Lastly

Congratulations are also in order for the fine way that Wayne State turned around a moribund season with a dynamic last couple of weeks, including a playoff win and near-upset of Niagara in the semifinals.

The final chapter was written in Findlay varsity hockey history with its 6-2 loss to Bemidji on Saturday. The Oilers gamely competed at Kearney and did themselves proud with their final performances. Success to wherever that program’s players land.

Friends and Foes

By Paula C. Weston

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March 18, 2004

There’s no doubt that both Notre Dame and Ohio State will be prepared for tonight’s Super Six semifinal game, but one Buckeye defenseman and the captain of the Fighting Irish will have insight into their respective opponents that even their coaches might envy.

After all, they met in kindergarten.

“I didn’t really know him that well [then],” says OSU blueliner Reed Whiting. “He came to my kindergarten birthday party.”

“He lived less than a mile from my house,” says Irish forward Aaron Gill.

Gill

The two grew up in the same neighborhood in Rochester, Minn., where they went to the same schools, played together on the same football and hockey teams. And they’re not alone. One Rochester neighborhood is responsible for producing no fewer than 21 Division I men’s ice hockey players. One pair of coaches steered most them from PeeWee through Junior A and into college.

One of those coaches is Kirk Gill, Aaron’s dad. The other is Todd Lampman, father of former Nebraska-Omaha players Josh and Bryce Lampman.

“We never had captains growing up,” says Aaron, whose younger brother, Tony, also plays for Notre Dame. Another brother, Adam, also plays hockey. “They expected everyone to be leaders. There was a good core group of good players, so they never thought of one single guy as a leader. It really taught us how to be good team players. That’s what’s helped us become the players we are today.”

“We never had team issues,” says Whiting. “There was just no question about selfishness. No problems with coaches, guys being a team, parents never had problems — I’m talking none. We were always a team.”

The team-building began with football, not hockey. “His [Aaron’s] dad was our football coach in third grade. That’s when we really got to know each other. Aaron was a really good hockey player from day one, and I was always a house league kind of guy.”

Whiting credits an unusual daily routine with the Gill brothers for improving his skills. “Aaron, Tony, Adam, and I would rollerblade to school with a stick and a ball, puck handling the whole way.”

Whiting made the travel team — along with Aaron Gill and former Colorado College player Michael Stuart — in fifth grade. All the Stuarts, including current CC captain Colin and his brother Mark, were coached by Kirk Gill and Todd Lampman. The list of players influenced by Gill and Lampman include current Lake State goaltender Jeff Jakitis, Findlay’s Nate Markus, three other current CC players — John Brunkhorst, Andy Canzanello, and Scott Thauwald — and a slew of former collegians who have gone onto the pro game, including Bryce Lampman (N.Y. Rangers), Mike Stuart (St. Louis), and B.J. Abel (Philadelphia).

And many of these guys played together while growing up. “In Bantams, it was B.J., Mike, Aaron and I,” says Whiting. “That was the VFW Rochester Bantam A. Both years we were in bantams, we went to state championships and lost both years. Kirk and Todd coached that.”

“Aaron, B.J., Bryce, Nate, and I all played together for the Rochester Mustangs (USHL),” says Whiting. “I played one year, and that was Bryce’s and Nate’s first year. Aaron and B.J. played the year before, and B.J. started the year before that. Mike played two years before I got there and left for Colorado College.”

Aaron says that his father and Todd Lampman “always taught us to work hard,” and that growing up with so many players who ended up playing a high level of organized hockey was a distinct advantage.

“We’re all pretty talented kids … but we enjoyed and pushed each other and that really helped us. We all trained together. It was great going back [for summer vacation]. Summer hockey was always as good as it could be.”

Whiting

The camaraderie between the Gills, Stuarts, and Whitings extends beyond ice hockey. The three families are close, says both Aaron and Reed.

“Mrs. Stuart works for my dad, and she and my mom are best friends,” says Whiting, whose father owns Jim Whiting’s Nursery in Rochester. “Colin and Micheal and Marky all worked for my dad. B.J. worked for my dad two years back.”

The quality of coaching and the closeness of the families has produced players who are hard working and who make the most of their talents and opportunities, according to their respective coaches.

“Aaron is a coach’s dream,” says Notre Dame head coach Dave Poulin. “He’s everything you want in a player, a real leader in the locker room, a steadying influence.”

OSU head coach John Markell says that he admires Whiting’s “inner drive.” “He walked on here and became a regular. If he keeps it simple, he’s a very effective hockey player. He’s certainly a big strong kid capable of playing in the corner, he’s smart. If he plays within himself, he can play even better.

“He’s a very coachable kid, a likeable kid.”

The long-time friends admire each other as well. “He’s always been a great friend to me,” says Aaron Gill of Whiting. “He’s a great kid. He’s always working hard. He’s always thinking about other people.”

“He’s a great guy,” says Whiting, who adds that Aaron’s younger brother, Tony, is “the hardest-working kid I’ve ever met, the toughest kid I’ve ever met.”

And Gill and Whiting have stories about each other — many that can’t be published, they said — that go back. Way back.

“When Reed’s got his contacts out, he’s got some pretty big glasses,” says Gill. “Reed wasn’t like the coolest kid in school. This was sixth grade. He had a crush on this girl and she started sitting next to him, and he started talking to her.

“That year he got his contacts. He told me, ‘She might like me,’ because he got the contacts. Well, she ended up having a party. ‘I know I’m going to get invited,’ he said. He wasn’t, and he was crushed.”

“I didn’t get quite as suave as I wanted to be until the last couple of years,” says Whiting in response. “It was a long process. I’ve had help, mentors. I was kind of this geeky-looking guy with big, long hair.

“I had a crush on his sister, Annika. She’s a year older. She was a figure skater and we were all hockey players. It never worked out.”

Whiting says that Gill had similar luck with the ladies growing up. “Aaron is kind of a shy guy. He was dating this girl, the hottest girl in fourth grade. I remember the day she dumped him. Riding on the bus on the way home, I teased him so bad that he got so mad that I thought I’d lost my best friend. I was freaking out.”

Whiting says that Gill and he were “always” getting into fights. “We fought always. I’m much bigger than him, but he would always go.”

The two go back and forth now in a slightly more mature manner. “My brother [Tony] didn’t play on Sunday,” says Gill, “and he says that Reed was calling him all the time. He was calling me about this game and I finally told him Monday to stop.”

“I give it to him a lot more than he gives it to me,” says Whiting. “Over the years, I’ve always been on the better teams … until this fall. He’s only beaten me once in his life.” That was on October 10, 2003, when Notre Dame beat Ohio State, 5-2, in Columbus.

“We know each other pretty well,” says Gill. “We’ve always been pretty intense. If I see him [in pre-game warm-ups], I’ll try to give him a mean look.”

So what about this game? “Reed’s pretty confident,” says Gill. “He said, ‘I might be ending your season.’

“I’m really excited. It’s a great opportunity for our team to go up there. We have a lot left to prove. We’ve gone to the Joe and never really won there. It’s a huge opportunity for us and our program.”

And after the game? “We always shake hands,” says Whiting.

A Team of His Own

By Vince McConeghy

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March 18, 2004

Just don’t call Niagara head coach Dave Burkholder a nice guy.

To do so would be to state the obvious, yet it provides little insight into how this coach has the Purple Eagles returning to the NCAAs for a second time, a distinction earned by way of a classic see-saw victory over Bemidji State in the CHA Championship.

In an era where head coaches increasingly sound more like corporate executives, Burkholder speaks the language of the game in a simple and direct manner, believing firmly that while every contest tells a slightly different story, there is a defining moment to each.

Burkholder

Mark Messier once described the essence of hockey as “give and go.” Many of Burkholder’s post-game summations follow along the same sparsely elegant logic of this and other hockey truisms. After all, Burkholder played goaltender during his collegiate career, so when he says “a bounce here, a bounce there,” or “puck luck” you get the sense of someone who watches the games as if he were still in the crease. True to that goaltender nature is a coach who rarely gets too high or too low after games, including some of Niagara’s bigger upsets against ranked teams.

But if Burkholder remains on an extended high for just a little bit longer, it would certainly be understandable. After three difficult seasons, he has restored the luster to a program that some say had been set adrift by administrative apathy and the departure of Blaise McDonald, Niagara’s first coach and now current head man at Massachusetts-Lowell.

McDonald will forever be remembered with a mixture of reverence and envy in the annals of Niagara sports history. Niagara is a small institution run by the religious order of Vincentian priests, and until McDonald all of its Division I sports cache had been stored up in the basketball program. Niagara’s hockey program, with its unprecedented trip to the Elite Eight in 2000, changed all that and made clear that it was the only program that dare compete against the nation’s very best on an annual basis.

When McDonald left for Hockey East, many Niagara loyalists felt cheated. It was as if they had been given a glimpse of something big only to have it vanish. Many assumed the administration would allow the program to slide into an acceptable level of mediocrity when it failed to complete construction on Dwyer Arena and other telltale signs that it was wavering in its commitment to hockey.

“No question when you follow a guy like Blaise, and what he built here when he was at the helm, it wasn’t easy,” Burkholder reflected. “It wasn’t easy speaking in front of the community, or in front of the team that was used to the way Blaise did things.

“But I’ve had to change my role … I’ve had to back-off from the players. When I was an assistant here, I wore the “good cop” hat and excelled in that role. But now, all the tough decisions come from my desk, and that’s not going to make you popular at times, but you have to stand pat.”

Jerry Forton, who was an assistant coach under McDonald and continues in that role with Burkholder, has witnessed Burkholder’s maturation.

“He simplifies the game,” Forton said. “He lets what guys do best come out. There was an adjustment period for about a year for him, and now his overall presence with the team and his relationship with them is excellent.”

The foundation of Niagara’s past and current success has been its ability to recruit. The Purple Eagles annually play the toughest non-conference schedule of any team in the CHA and has earned the respect of more established programs for its competitive but clean play.

Burkholder and his staff possess a shrewd eye for talent. Speed along the wings, puck sense at the blueline, and centermen who can create are trademarks of the Niagara program. But there’s more to it than that. Forton explains: “There’s many players with the same set of hockey skills. … We now look at leadership experience and experience in winning as equal components to the equation instead of just hockey skills alone.”

Junior center Barrett Ehgoetz, who led the nation in scoring for most of this year, emulates many of these ideals. Ehgoetz is listed generously at 5-foot-8, 170 lbs., but to watch him play reminds us all that this will never be a big man’s game alone. For Ehgoetz has remarkable anticipatory vision that enables him to position himself at the leading edge of the play, and his fierce competitive nature negates most of his size disadvantages.

By filling the pipeline with talent, Burkholder has created an intensely competitive situation for playing time amongst teammates. Niagara was thought to be a senior-laden team entering this year, but often Burkholder rotated deserving underclassmen into the lineup. Freshmen Aaron Clarke, Sean Bentivoglio and Pat Olivetto have become regular contributors. Sophomores Brian Hartman and Andrew Lackner have gotten more pucks to the net from the blueline and added stability on the power play. Perhaps Niagara’s depth is no more evident than in the second half play of sophomore Justin Cross.

“Just look at what Justin has done for us,” Burkholder said. “He struggled at the beginning of the season … but we asked him to step up and play with Barrett and Joe Tallari and he’s developed into a prominent Division I player.”

And then there’s the development goaltender Jeff VanNynatten. The sophomore has emerged as Niagara’s number one starter at the position and his MVP play during the CHA tournament validated Burkholder’s belief in his enormous talent. Burkholder is not a particularly easy coach to play goaltender for. He will not hesitate to pull his netminder out if he thinks “the guy just doesn’t have it on a particular night.” But Burkholder was instrumental in developing Greg Gardner, Niagara’s cornerstone goaltender during their magical 2000 season, and he seems to have channeled VanNynatten’s exuberance into a more focused and mentally disciplined player.

Niagara’s reward for reaching the NCAAs will no doubt be a first round matchup against a No. 1 or 2 seed. It is unlikely the Purple Eagles will sneak up on anybody the way they did by upsetting New Hampshire in 2000. But that won’t change the way they approach the game. Senior Dave Hominuk, who along with seniors Chris Welch and Joe Tallari represents the heart and soul of the Purple Eagles, anxiously awaits the challenge.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment,” Hominuk said. “Burky [Burkholder] believed right from the beginning that we could get it done. … He’s come into his own as a head coach and after a few years he’s developed his own style. He’s a tremendous competitor, whether it’s in the classroom or on the ice he expects our best. … Off the ice he’s a very family oriented man and has high values.”

Burkholder’s ultimate achievement has been to migrate and imbue the core values of Niagara as a Vincentian institution into the hockey program. Those values include a 100 percent graduation rate and a commitment to serve those less fortunate in the surrounding community. His sense of time and place is genuine.

“I love the Niagara community,” he said. “My wife’s from here, I’m from here and I hope to be here for a long time. … The year we’ve had this year just puts a stamp on what we’ve been doing as a staff. … We could be a dangerous team to play in the NCAAs. We’ll play aggressively in all of our systems.”

This Week in Hockey East: March 18, 2004

By Scott Weighart

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March 18, 2004

Dave Hendrickson is taking this week off. This is also the final Hockey East column of the season. Therefore, the transition from Hendrickson to Weighart here is analogous to Bobby Orr doing an end-to-end rush before dishing to a forward for the easy tap-in.

Hockey East Championship Weekend

This weekend’s semifinals and finals at the FleetCenter promise to be an exciting and unpredictable joyride. Each of the four teams has beaten its three potential adversaries at least once this season, so each knows that winning this particular championship is plausible for any club.

Plots and subplots abound: Massachusetts faces UNH in a rematch of a last year’s thriller. Could this matchup be any more exciting? It could. The Minutemen were a definite underdog last year and almost pulled off the upset. Now they’re back with most of their key players returning, while UNH has lost many good players in the meantime — but not Michael Ayers, looking to lead his team to an unprecedented third consecutive championship game victory.

Meanwhile, eighth-seeded Boston University just knocked off the top seed in Boston College, and now looks to beat the team that is both the No. 2 seed and No. 2 in the nation, the Maine Black Bears. Will the clock strike midnight for the Terriers, or is this a team that has found the formula at long last? In some ways, it’s a curious battle of a team that has underachieved in this year’s standings against a team that’s overachieved to some degree.

In trying to make some sense of all this, we asked Massachusetts-Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald to analyze the key factors in the two matchups for the weekend. Along with Boston College, the River Hawks were the only other Hockey East team that managed to beat all four semifinalists during the season.

Boston University versus Maine

What a weekend for Boston University against archrival Boston College. Facing the end of their season for the second weekend in a row, the Terriers came up big with a quarterfinal triumph against the Eagles.

“We played pretty well on Thursday night, and then we played horrible on Friday night, and BC played great,” BU coach Jack Parker said. “But then on Saturday night, we were a much more confident team, so that was quite a turnaround. So now we’re feeling pretty good about ourselves, but it doesn’t mean that we’re automatically going to get that out of ourselves in our next game.

“I told them that the wins against BC were pretty nice and quite a bit of redemption in our BC season. That’s always another season within our season. But that’s not redemption for a whole season, though it gives us a chance for that.” We’ve got a chance to win the Hockey East tournament and less of a chance to get into the national tournament because we’ve got to win the Hockey East tournament. In order to have a chance to the win second championship, we’ve got to win the first, and that’s a long way off.”

Still, Parker admitted that the team had showed some fortitude in the face of a season that appeared to be going down the drain pretty quickly a few short weeks ago.

“There’s no question after a couple of losses after the Beanpot, I was concerned that maybe the guys, or any team, would start thinking, ‘Maybe it’s just not our year: Now we might even come in last,'” Parker said. “I was concerned about that, but I never saw any of that in practice or in games as far as guys quitting or guys thinking ‘Why try?’. So that was good, but there still wasn’t that sense of urgency that something’s got to get done.

“We started to play pretty well — we had a little breakout scoring-wise against UMass here, beat them 6-1, tied them at their place, came back feeling pretty good about ourselves. Then we went over to Northeastern and played a real good game, only tied them 2-2. Then we came back here, and we’re completely flat. They took it to us, and I really thought that it was a pathetic end to it all. But then we had a couple of really good team meetings, and the best games of our year were our two games against UNH. We tied them and played really well, and then when the money was on the line, we won up there.”

Now their reward is to play a Maine team that comes in at a remarkable 28-7-3 record. In the three matchups between the two teams, BU played very well in two of them but ended up with a win and a loss. In the other meeting, Maine blew out BU, though it was more of a team defense problem than a goaltending issue in that case. Obviously, Parker knows that it will all start with getting a solid defensive effort this weekend — more like Sean Fields’ 1-0 shutout victory over Maine than the 8-4 mistakefest that occurred one night before that win.

“I think the keys of any tournament are whether you can generate offense off your defense — it’s always defense first in situation-and two, goaltending,” Parker said. “Obviously we feel like we have a real hot goaltender right now who’s played really well in the second half. I also believe that special teams also play a big part in these games. We’ve played well in that area, and that gives us confidence.”

Meanwhile, Maine dispatched Merrimack in two games, as the Bears were not about to endure another quarterfinal upset after last year’s loss in Orono at the hands of the Minutemen. For a team that lost its top five scorers (Martin Kariya, Lucas Lawson, Francis Nault, Robert Liscak, and Chris Heisten), their consistency this year has been absolutely astonishing. Certainly their story ranks right along with Boston College, which has an almost identical record despite having players lose nearly 50 games to injury, many simultaneously.

“Our upperclassmen have really stepped up,” Maine coach Tim Whitehead said. “First of all Todd Jackson, Colin Shields, Prestin Ryan, and in the last several games Cameron Lyall. We’ve been really pleased with our consistency. We lost a lot of players, but it’s really been the seniors more than the freshmen who have stepped up.”

One key has been the stellar play of goaltending tandem Jim Howard and Frank Doyle. However, neither has one minute of experience playing in the FleetCenter. Could that be a flag?

“Certainly Jimmy Howard and Frank Doyle have both played in big games before, so that’s not really a concern,” Whitehead said.

Nonetheless, Maine will not be looking beyond BU. The last time a No. 8 seed advanced, it was Merrimack bettering BU in 1998. But no one really believed that the Warriors could win the title that year, and BC beat them decisively in the semi-final. Don’t look for a lopsided result in this one.

“We have a lot of respect for BU,” Whitehead said. “They’ve got great goaltending, talented defenseman, and some dangerous forwards. They’re going to be really high [after upsetting BC].”

BU-Maine Analysis by Blaise MacDonald

“On paper, Maine’s the better team obviously, sporting two spectacular goaltenders. I think the keys for BU would be killing off their power plays, seeing as Maine scored a number of shorthanded goals against them earlier in the year. I think goaltending: Sean Fields will be very important. Also look for BU to deliver a lot of shots on net and crash the net. For Maine to be successful, watch Prestin Ryan — he’s the key man for them. He needs to stay out of the box, and all the offense is going to run through him.

“How will Maine’s goaltenders react to playing in the FleetCenter? I really think when you have goaltending like they have, there’s a sense of calmness and confidence. You could be playing on Mars, and it doesn’t matter.”

Massachusetts versus New Hampshire

After getting off to a hot start early in the season, UMass struggled to find consistent success in the homestretch.

“We struggled for a couple of weekends after the New Hampshire series,” Minuteman coach Don “Toot” Cahoon said. “We certainly struggled against Boston College, but a lot of teams have. The next weekend against BU we had won bad night, then one pretty good night where we came out of it with a tie. Then we had a weekend off, which didn’t play in our favor, and then we had one bad game against Northeastern at Northeastern.

“Then we played extremely well against Northeastern at home and lost 3-2 — playing extremely well but making major blunders. We felt pretty good coming off that game: Our execution was back, and our competitive edge was back. You alluded to the fact that we gave up a lot of shots in that first night [of the quarterfinal series] against Lowell, but they weren’t a lot of high-quality shots, and Timmy Warner was certainly up to the task; he played extremely well, and we capitalized on the opportunities they had. Then we played excellently the next night.”

Along with BU’s upset of BC, the other amazing story of the quarterfinals absolutely was Tim Warner. Amazingly, the junior netminder came into the Hockey East playoffs having played just 68 minutes and 13 seconds all season without a single start. He gets tabbed to replace Gabe Winer after Winer stopped just 12 of 15 shots against Northeastern. In response, Warner comes up with 39 saves on 42 shots and follows it up by stopping 22 of 23 in the series-winner. Wow.

“Preparedness is the issue there,” Cahoon said. “Tim is mature enough to take his role as the backup goaltender very seriously, and he conditioned himself and stayed in the mainstream with the team, came to practice every day and put his best foot forward.

“When you’re called on, you want to respond, and he handled it beautifully and did a great job. We haven’t declared who’s going to be playing this week, but Timmy’s a strong candidate and certainly deserving of the opportunity. We’re going to reserve the right to name the goalie, and he and Gabe are going into the week as they do every other week waiting to get the news from the coaches later in the week.”

Cahoon is not lulled by the fact that this year’s semi-final rematch does not include the likes of Wildcat standouts Lanny Gare, Colin Hemingway, Jim Abbott, Garrett Stafford, and Josh Prudden — all lost to graduation.

“Clearly they have lost some terrific players, but they still have some great players remaining: You’ve got Collins, Saviano, Aikins, Callander, and Ayers and a host of other players who are very creditable, so we’re going to need to play our best hockey,” Cahoon said. “We’ve been kind of an anomaly statistically throughout the year, and we just need to bring our best play this weekend if we’re going to be competitive.

“From our perspective, we want to be careful not to look too far into the tournament, just take care of the first piece, which is obviously the game against New Hampshire. They’re a tournament-tested program; I don’t think that there’s a team in the country that’s been in more big games over the last few years, so we’re going to have to be prepared and play extremely well in order to succeed on Friday night.”

Like Whitehead in Maine, New Hampshire coach Dick Umile has looked for players to step up to replace a good senior class. In so doing, they have fared well but occasionally have struggled, especially in terms of firepower of late. But don’t expect the two-time defending champs to make it easy for UMass to get to their first-ever Hockey East championship game.

“It’s playoff hockey,” Umile said. “We’re playing well as of late defensively. We’ve been up and down defensively, but we’re playing well down the stretch. We’re going to need to do that especially against UMass and if we go forward.”

Umile knows that the Minutemen are a serious threat this time around. “They’ve obviously got a lot of great players back, and Donnie’s done a terrific job with the program out there. Hopefully it proves to be another great college hockey game, and I think it will be that. We’re looking forward to it; we’re 1-1-1 this season, and something’s got to be decided, and for sure it’s got to be decided Friday night. We’ll play into somebody breaks this.”

Umile sees no simple formula in stopping the Minutemen. “Thomas Pöck is one of the top defenseman in the league,” Umile said. “They’re a team that’s very well-coached, and they have a little of everything: They have speed; they have size, and the ability with special teams. They can do a lot, especially with Pöck out there. They’re a transition team, so if you make mistakes and turn the puck over in the neutral zone, they come right back at you. We’re very aware of that; we found that out in the regular season. It should be a good matchup, and we’re looking forward to the opportunity.”

Massachusetts-UNH Analysis by Blaise MacDonald

“The key for UMass is their playmakers. Their big-time players need to play in the prime time, and if they do that, they’ll be awfully difficult to beat. They need to really limit the transitional opportunities that UNH presents to most teams, and that can be done by just taking care of the puck better.

“Players to watch for UMass: 71, Thomas Pöck, 25, Degon, and 37 Kuiper, and up front you’d go 14 Mauldin and 19 Werner — those two guys in particular.

“[Last year’s experience in the semifinal] will bode well for them. UMass belongs there this year. Maybe last year it was a magical year. But it’s clear to me that they belong there in the FleetCenter.

“Their top players played very well against us. It was an inspirational story having Tim Warner come off the bench. That gave the team a lot of confidence and energy.

“The keys for UNH are their defense: They’ve got to play tough down low in one-on-one battles. They’ve got to defend the net and do a good job of defensive spacing on rushes. Offensively, they’re such a good transition team, they’ll create a great scoring opportunity, but I think their key will be getting second and third opportunities from that first chance.

“This is the big stage for our conference. No team goes into this weekend thinking about next weekend. They’re thinking this Friday — no further.”

Redemption Song

Terrier forward Kenny Magowan has had one rollercoaster ride of a season. In the early going for BU, the senior power forward was the one player who dramatically exceeded expectations during the first half. Coming into this season with just 22 goals in three campaigns, Magowan had seven goals before the end of November, leading the team by a wide margin.

In the coldest January in Boston in recent memory, Magowan started heating up again with a goal and four assists in four games. Then he injured a medial collateral ligament against Maine (Aha! Another subplot!) and missed almost a month including the Beanpot. He came back, played in four games — then reinjured the knee against Northeastern. As he went off the ice, he fired his helmet down in the walkway, knowing it was likely that his collegiate career was over.

“It was obviously frustrating,” recalled Magowan, a New Jersey Devils draft pick and the Terriers’ one true power forward. “I did rehab for five weeks — kind of monotonous, every day doing the same thing, seeing the guys skate out there and not being able to be with them. Then the excitement coming back — I didn’t really get to do what I wanted to do. Only four games and then that weekend against Northeastern, it was another awkward play. At the moment, I thought that was it. The doc said another four to six weeks, and four weeks was Regionals. The way we had been playing that weekend and the way our season had been going all year, I thought we were on the outside looking in, for sure.

“I just aggravated [my MCL]. It wasn’t the same thing. I went home on crutches, but the next day I didn’t need them. But it was real sore, but I was two weeks ahead of where I was [after the first injury].”

Still, Magowan was reduced to watching in street clothes as his teammates fought for their lives in Durham and Chestnut Hill.

“Now I know what it feels like to be a parent or a coach or someone involved with a team,” Magowan said of his days as interested spectator. “It’s amazingly nerve-wracking: Every play you’re just hanging on, seeing what’s going on, what develops. When you’re out there, you’re just playing; your mind’s not really on the whole game. It was great knowing that if we won, I could play again because my knee was feeling really good. At the same time in the back of my mind I knew my college career could be over. I’m just grateful to be part of the team again this year.”

Magowan shrugs off his success when healthy this season.

“It was just luck I guess, being in the right place at the right time,” Magowan said. “It’s just one of those things: For three years, you don’t score many goals, and all of a sudden I had six or seven this season, which was nice… Guys are starting to score a lot now, so it’s nice to see.”

For Terrier fans, it will be nice to see him back on the ice again. In fact, it looks probable that BU will have all players available to them this Friday.

Looking Ahead To The NCAAs

After the ice chips settle this weekend, 16 teams will look ahead to the NCAA tournament. BU and Massachusetts both know that they basically must win the league championship to get an autobid. In a conference call Monday, NCAA representatives emphasized that the two UMass losses to Mass.-Lowell — counted as forfeit wins for the Minutemen in the Hockey East standings, due to an ineligible player for the River Hawks — will still count as losses as far as the NCAA tournament is concerned. Cahoon is philosophical about this income.

“Given the fact that they decided to use the two forfeited wins as originally lost games — and I certainly understood that, I don’t have much of a feeling either way — it’s pretty clear that we have to win out to get in,” Cahoon said. “Am I disappointed by that? I don’t know that I am. Clearly we had opportunities throughout the year to win two or three more games that we either tied or let slip through, and that turns out to be our Achilles heel. So let’s just go into the tournament with the idea that we want to win it to begin with, and that would be a perfectly good way to get into the NCAA tournament.”

Fans who were annoyed by seeing BU play UNH in a second-round game last year — one week after they met in the Hockey East championship game — may very well find themselves equally irritated this time around. The committee would not rule out the possibility of, say, BC or Maine playing UNH in a second-round game.

“It’s possible,” said Ron Grahame, the chair of Division I Men’s Ice Hockey Committee. “I’m not going to try to speculate on where anybody’s going to be without knowing the final 16 teams and what we’re looking at — we’ll plug it in from there. But there’s a lot of good teams, there’s a lot of conferences that are represented. We’ll have a challenge, especially when you’ve got teams who have played each other all year long and it looks like they would be best [at the same site]. But when you’ve got five teams that are best at one site, they obviously can’t all be there. The hockey community has got to rely on us to make the best decision for the bracket.”

Last year, Terrier coach Jack Parker expressed his displeasure with his team facing familiar foes in Harvard and UNH and still believes that mixing up East and West more thoroughly throughout the tournament is best for college hockey. But Tim Whitehead expressed a little sympathy for the committee.

“You can’t control everything — conference matchups, teams playing in their own regions,” Whitehead said. “It’s a tough call; the committee’s got a tough job to do. We need to fill some seats in Albany. We’ve got four sites, and we have to make sure it works. We had a tough draw last year [getting sent to play Michigan in their own building], but we didn’t play well down the stretch, so I didn’t feel I could make any complaint.”

To be fair, this year’s field may cause more headaches than usual, as five WCHA teams appear to be locks, while Colorado College and Alaska-Anchorage are still in contention as well. Still, it would be nice to see the NCAA do whatever they can to make the national tournament as national as possible.

Do we really need to see UNH play Maine for a fourth or fifth time? Shouldn’t the WCHA have the opportunity to prove that it’s definitively the best conference this season by putting its top four teams in different brackets? The Anaheim championship was great because it gave Hockey East a chance to get three teams in the Frozen Four — while also giving non-conference opponents the chance to knock them all out.

Another concern: Although Cornell coach Mike Schafer raised a ruckus last year when Cornell was No. 1 seed but drew No. 14 seed Minnesota State-Mankato instead of a far easier opponent in Wayne State or Mercyhurst, the committee seemed unconcerned about this sort of injustice. This could mean that Maine or Boston College might be a No. 2 seed overall but fail to reap the benefit by playing the MAAC champion or Niagara, the CHA champion.

“We’ll do our best as to where the teams are and where they fall in the final 16,” Grahame said. “It’s not a mandate; it’s not an absolute that one will play 16. There are too many variables to make it work that way with conference matchups and that sort of thing. Cornell was not happy last year because of who they had to play, but it still was a team that was in the bottom four of that overall mix. It just worked out that way. We will look at it; we looked at it last year, and it just worked out that way in terms of what was best for the bracket.”

We’ll see what happens. You can check it out on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. EST on ESPN2.

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

I went to Big Sky, Montana, for an annual ski vacation in February, but we stayed over with relatives near Minneapolis on the way, and I had the opportunity to see the pair of games that Minnesota played at Minnesota-Duluth. What a great pair of uptempo teams to watch! Those guys definitely can skate. Let’s hope that we get to see at least one of them make it onto the national stage in Boston.

Boston College ends up watching the Hockey East semifinals and waiting to see how its PairWise Ranking holds up over the weekend. BU went through the same thing after the Merrimack upset and had to figure out what to do with the unanticipated time off. The Terriers played well against UNH in the NCAAs but lost a heartbreaker. Look for BC to do better than that, especially if the draw a MAAC champ in the first round. But with their recent doldrums, a title run is certainly in doubt for the moment at least.

If you’d like to check out something different in terms of music, check out my Internet radio show. You can hear it by going to www.live365.com and searching by show name, which is Alter-Nation. I regularly rotate about 50-70 songs. It’s a good opportunity to hear music that is criminally ignored by commercial radio, including groups like The Cocteau Twins, The Delgados, Cinerama, and Belle & Sebastian. Check it out if you’re so inclined. This week I’m featuring my top alternative songs of the 1990s, including tunes by U2, Morrissey, Jellyfish, Ron Sexmith, Billy Bragg, and many others.

Hobey Finalist Danis is ECAC POTY

By Juan Martinez

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March 18, 2004

Brown and Colgate representatives were featured prominently among the individual honorees at the annual ECAC Awards Banquet Thursday night and, for the second year in a row, a goaltender was named Player of the Year. Cornell’s David LeNeveu was co-POTY in 2003.

Yann Danis is the ECAC Player of the Year. (photo: Chris Gerlt)

The Bears’ Yann Danis became only the second player in ECAC history to be honored as Player of the Year and receive the Ken Dryden Award as the league’s best netminder in the same season. St. Lawrence’s Eric Heffler turned the trick in 1999.

Danis won 15 games in leading Brown to a third-place finish in the ECAC after spending most of the season atop the standings. The Quebec native, recently named a finalist for this year’s Hobey Baker Award, posted the second-best save percentage in the nation (.942) and third-best goals against average (1.81). He finished his career at Brown with school records for lifetime GAA (2.20) and save percentage (.930).

Danis’ teammates Scott Ford and Brian Ihnacak, were also honored. Ford was named Best Defensive Defenseman, breaking a two-year hold on the award by Cornell. It’s the first time a Brown player has earned the accolade since Mike Traggio won it in back-to-back seasons (1994, 1995). Ford was also fourth on the Bears this season in scoring with six goals and 15 points.

Ihnacak and Cornell goaltender David McKee were named co-Rookies of the Year, marking only the second time in ECAC history that the award has been shared. Clarkson’s Erik Cole and Willie Mitchell split the prize in 1998. Ihnacak, who is the first Brown player to win ROTY since netminder Geoff Finch in 1991, was second on the Bears in scoring (10-20-30) and led all league freshmen in goals, points and power-play points. McKee follows in a long line of marquee goaltenders to call Lynah Rink their home. The Texan posted 16 wins with a 1.84 GAA and .920 save percentage in leading his Big Red to a second-place finish in the ECAC. In league play, he was even stingier, posting a 1.37 GAA and .939 save percentage. He is the sixth Cornell player to earn the award, but the first since Kyle Knopp in 1996.

Colgate’s Stan Moore was named Coach of the Year for the second time in just three seasons as a bench boss. A winner while at Union in 1997, he spent the entire season as the Raiders’ interim coach after Don Vaughan’s sudden move into the administrative ranks. Moore took over the reins just weeks before the regular season and turned what could have been a messy situation into a Cleary Cup-winning campaign. Colgate (21-11-5), which was picked to finish eighth in preseason polls, plays in the ECAC semifinals this weekend and is looking to capture its first title since 1990 and its first NCAA appearance since 2000. Vaughan is expected to return behind the bench next season, leaving Moore’s future up in the air.

Raiders’ sophomore Jon Smyth, the ECAC’s leading scorer with 17 goals and 28 points in conference action, was presented with the Best Defensive Forward award. Playing well at both ends of the ice, Smyth enters the semifinals as the Raiders’ top scorer after posting just three points in his rookie season. He is the first Colgate player to earn the honor, which had been won by a Cornell skater three of the last four seasons.

Individual Awards

Coach of the Year: Stan Moore, Colgate
Player of the Year: Yann Danis, Brown
Co-Rookies of the Year: Brian Ihnacak, Brown and David McKee, Cornell
Ken Dryden Award (Goaltender of the Year): Yann Danis, Brown
Best Defensive Forward: Jon Smyth, Colgate
Best Defensive Defenseman: Scott Ford, Brown

All ECAC First Team

F Jon Smyth, Colgate
F Lee Stempniak, Dartmouth
F Brady Leisenring, Vermont
D Ryan Glenn, St. Lawrence
D Grant Lewis, Dartmouth
G Yann Danis, Brown

All-ECAC Second Team

F Kevin Croxton, Rensselaer
F Hugh Jessiman, Dartmouth
F Joe Zappala, Yale
D Rob Brown, Colgate
D Scott Basiuk, Rensselaer
G Nathan Marsters, Rensselaer

ECAC All-Rookie Team

F Brian Ihnacak, Brown
F Kyle Rank, St. Lawrence
F Oren Eizenman, Rensselaer
D Grant Lewis, Dartmouth
D Mike Campaner, Colgate
G David McKee, Cornell

All-ECAC Honorable Mention

F Rich Peverley, St. Lawrence
F Ryan Vesce, Cornell
F T.J. Trevelyan, St. Lawrence
F Matt Moulson, Cornell
D Scott Ford, Brown
D Noah Welch, Harvard
D Jaime Sifers, Vermont
D Joe Callahan, Yale
G Steve Silverthorn, Colgate
G David McKee, Cornell

This Week in Atlantic Hockey: March 18, 2004

By Jim Connelly

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March 18, 2004

And Then There Were Two…

Twenty-three hours of hockey later, the inaugural Atlantic Hockey playoffs are down to only two teams. Few were surprised that top-seeded Holy Cross made it out of the fray. In fact, the Crusaders had the easiest time, by far, disposing of ninth seed American International, 5-0, and sixth seed Canisius, 4-1.

The Holy Cross defense limited (possibly the understatement of the year) its two opponents to very few quality scoring chances, and both the offense and the power play both clicked and operated extremely efficiently and productively, shouting full force that this is one team with which to be reckoned.

Their opponent in the championship game (Saturday, March 20, 7:00 p.m. at Army’s Tate Rink) comes from the other side of the fence, as they say. Fourth-seeded Sacred Heart had to win back-to-back battles, shutting out on of the league’s hottest teams, Connecticut, in the quarterfinals, before beating second seed and defending champ Mercyhurst in the semis, in the most exciting game of the seven-game weekend.

Plenty is clicking for the Pioneers, including an offense that might have been overlooked at times and a defense that, similar to Holy Cross, is doing a nice job of limited chances. The backbone of that defense, goaltender Kevin LaPointe, has performed higher than expectations and, if Sacred Heart is to earn the autobid to the national tournament, LaPointe will likely be the reason.

The matchup of these two clubs is an interesting one. In three games this season, Holy Cross holds a 2-1-0 advantage. More importantly, their styles have differed remarkably from game to game. No more was that evident than a weekend home and home that saw Holy Cross win night one, 6-5 in overtime, in a wide-open, offensive game, before Sacred Heart responded a night later with a tight-checking 2-1 win.

“They’re a versatile team that we’re going to have to play our best if we want to beat them,” said Holy Cross coach Paul Pearl of Sacred Heart. “Their strength is their persistence.”

“If you watch them play, they have such talented kids and [with the persistence] you get the success that they’re getting. They’re not going to cheat [the systems]. They work too hard and that makes them a good team.”

Versatile and persistent. Not everyday words in hockey — well, the latter maybe more than the former — but last weekend, they make sense. The Pioneers played two very different games. Their opener against UConn was a defensive battle. Strangely played at 10 in the morning on Saturday, neither team featured much run-and-gun and SHU came away victor by neutralizing UConn’s high-firing offense while being opportunistic on its own chances.

Sunday’s semifinal win over Mercyhurst was exactly the opposite, with Sacred Heart having to fight through multiple momentum changes to contain the fast-skating Lakers. In the end, it became a game of survival, which the Pioneers did well, allowing a total of only 24 shots throughout the game.

“Holy Cross has some real skilled forwards that like to play on the rush,” said Sacred Heart coach Shaun Hannah. “And we have some forwards that can play that way as well.

“But knowing the way Holy Cross has played defensively [of late], and the fact we have a good team defense system here, I expect a close-checking game.”

If that’s the case, picking the winner becomes a lot more difficult. As much as Holy Cross can limit an opponent’s chances on any (or is it every?) night, Sacred Heart can counteract that with LaPointe, who is the leading candidate for playoff MVP if the Pioneers win.

There’s nothing that would point to the fact that Sacred Heart stole a win from Mercyhurst in the semis, but if you want to make that case, a couple of LaPointe’s saves, including a first-period robbery on Adam Tackaberry and a late-game glove save on T.J. Kemp, support it.

For either team winning this game would be monumental. Neither school has ever advanced to the NCAA tournament, though Holy Cross did win the inaugural MAAC championship before an autobid was awarded. Still, both coaches are hesitant even to think what the next step would be like.

“I haven’t even thought about it,” said Hannah, when asked whether he’s talked to his team about the NCAA experience. “There are steps to take and we have to go one step at a time. Maybe those conversations come into play after the weekend if things work out for us.”

“I’m purposely not going there,” said Pearl. “That perspective [on the impact of an NCAA bid] is something you have in the middle of July, not right now. We focused only on this game and winning this game. There’s no reason to think beyond this.

“What we’ve done so far is mission accomplished. [The championship game] is just another mission.

“We’ve been good at breaking things into little sections — little six-game exams. We weren’t talking about a regular-season title after 12 games. Then last week, we acted as if last weekend were a two-game tournament. Thus, this weekend is a different tournament. So it’s a one-game pass or fail. It doesn’t have a heck of a lot to do with what happened before.”

Hannah did note that everything that has happened to this point, has, and will have a major impact on his players and the program moving forward. And the success, he believes is something that comes from the past.

“Here at Sacred Heart, we’ve been working at this for a lot of years,” said Hannah. “We’ve come up short on several occasions. Last year, with the team we had, we didn’t accomplish (they were upset as the number three seed by Bentley in the first round) what we wanted to and that’s rolled over to this year’s team. The upperclassmen have communicated that well to the younger players.

“From the team perspective, there’s a lot on the line. For the institution, there’s a lot of buzz on campus. For the young institution we are and the short Division I history at Sacred Heart, it’s a great opportunity for the institution.”

Prediction: I’ve done such a crummy job predicting the first seven games of this tournament, it almost doesn’t even make sense for me to pick here. Still, I’ll give my opinion so more people can tell me I’m wrong. My thought is that the Holy Cross defense will beat the Sacred Heart defense — simply put. With that, look for a low-scoring game, and possibly overtime. Holy Cross, 3-2

We Won, Now What?

It’s hard to say but fun to speculate where the winner of the Atlantic Hockey tournament will end up in the NCAAs. At this point, there are a few things known.

First off, it’s almost a lock that whichever team wins, they’ll be the lowest of the 16 seeds in the tournament. There was a thought that Holy Cross would rank higher than Bemidji State in the PairWise comparison, but that was spoiled when Niagara upset Bemidji in the CHA tournament. With Niagara the winner, the Purple Eagles actually rank higher than both Sacred Heart and Holy Cross in the PairWise (Niagara was not a “team under consideration” tournament until they won the CHA, because their RPI was under .500, the cutoff for qualifying).

Thus there are only three other teams still playing that potentially could rank lower than Holy Cross (no team ranks lower than Sacred Heart). Those are Clarkson (currently tied with Holy Cross in the PairWise), Northern Michigan and Alaska-Anchorage (unable to tell where they rank as similar to Niagara, their RPI is below .500 and they’re currently not a team under consideration).

The conclusion at the end of this is that whether or not Sacred Heart or Holy Cross end up victors, they are odds-on favorites to be the lowest seed in the tournament and most likely have to face the top team.

That, then, is where you have your second hangup. Currently, three teams are tied at the top of the PairWise: North Dakota, Maine and Boston College. The tiebreaking method at this point is RPI, of which UND has the highest. Thus, the first-round opponent for the Atlantic could be North Dakota.

What’s more is the location. To satisfy the NCAA rules for placing teams, we’d first have to look at the criteria that says a number-one team shall be placed as close to home as possible. For North Dakota, that’s the West Regional in Colorado Springs. Still, there’s one exception.

Should Colorado College qualify, as the host of the West Regional, they must stay at home. Thus the NCAA criteria that conference matchups in the first round should be avoided at all costs says that North Dakota might be forced to move from the West. In that case, they could be shipped East in place of the lowest eastern number-one seed (currently Boston College). That would place the first-round game between North Dakota and the Atlantic winner in Albany at the East regional.

One other scenario: Maine wins Hockey East but North Dakota loses out west at the WCHA tournament. That could catapult Maine over North Dakota for the overall number one, setting up a meeting between the Atlantic winner and the Black Bears in the first round of the Northeast regional in Manchester, N.H. (Ironically, both Sacred Heart and Holy Cross played Maine this year, losing by a combined score of 13-0 — HC lost 7-0 and SHU lost 6-0).

Like I said in the beginning, it’s impossible to predict any of this before Saturday night when all is said and done in the conference tournaments. Still, it’s fun to imagine.

York Finally Named Top Coach; Saviano POTY

USCHO Staff Report

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March 18, 2004

It only took him 10 seasons, 228 wins, three Hockey East regular-season championships and three Hockey East tournament championships. At last, Boston College head coach Jerry York has received the Bob Kullen Award as Hockey East Coach of the Year. A unanimous selection by his peers, York steered the Eagles to a 17-4-3 record in Hockey East play, good for first place. BC has been ranked as one of the top five teams in the nation all season long, and enjoyed a midseason run of 23-1-3 overall.

York

York was the Spencer Penrose Award winner as national coach of the year in 1977 while with Clarkson. He was also previously CCHA Coach of the Year in 1982 with Bowling Green.

Meanwhile, 5-foot-7 New Hampshire senior Steve Saviano was named the Hockey East Player of the Year, after racking up 26 goals and 21 assists through 39 games this season. Saviano has also been honored with the Len Ceglarski Sportsmanship Award, which recognizes his gentlemanly play as much as his scoring talent.

Saviano is the fifth UNH player in the last six years to take home Player of the Year honors (Jason Krog- 1999, Ty Conklin-2000, Darren Haydar-2002 and Mike Ayers-2003). Saviano ranks tied for sixth in point scoring among Division I players and his 1.21 points per game is 10th best in the nation. Saviano posted a career-high four goals twice this season, Oct. 24 vs. Canisius and Jan. 23 vs. Merrimack.

The Hockey East Rookie of the Year is Maine’s Michel Léveillé, who has totalled 32 assists through 37 games in his first season. That is the highest total for any Hockey East player this year.

Boston College also named two first teamers and four second teamers to the annual Hockey East All-Star squads. BC teammates and Hockey East’s leading scorers Ryan Shannon and Tony Voce made up two-thirds of the first team’s forward line, while Saviano completed the trio as the only unanimous selection. On defense, it was the offensively-gifted Thomas Pöck of Massachusetts and Stephen Wood of Providence garnering first-team recognition, while Jim Howard’s record-setting season at Maine made him the first team’s goalie.

The second team featured three of Howard’s teammates — forwards Todd Jackson and Colin Shields, and defenseman Prestin Ryan. Together, the Black Bears recorded 10 shutouts, twice their previous high, and limited Hockey East opponents to just 1.75 goals per game, the best defense ever. Rounding out the second team were three BC players — forward Patrick Eaves, defenseman Andrew Alberts and goaltender Matti Kaltiainen.

Indvidual Awards

Player of the Year: Steve Saviano, New Hampshire (Sr. F; Reading, Mass.); Runner-up: Tony Voce, Boston College

Bob Kullen Coach of the Year: Jerry York, Boston College; Runner-up: Tim Whitehead, Maine

Goaltending Champion: Jim Howard, Maine (So.; Ogdensburg, N.Y.); Runner-up: Matti Kaltiainen, BC

ITECH “Three Stars” Award: Keni Gibson, Northeastern (Jr. G; Stittsville, Ont.); Runner-up: Jim Howard, Maine

Rookie of the Year: Michel Léveillé, Maine (So. F; Levis, Que.); Runner-up: Jim Healey, Merrimack

Len Ceglarski Sportsmanship Award: Steve Saviano, New Hampshire (Sr. F; Reading, Mass.); Runner-up: Ben Eaves, Boston College

Charlie Holt Team Sportsmanship Award: Northeastern; Runner-up: University of New Hampshire

Best Defensive Forward: Todd Jackson, Maine (Sr.; Cortland, N.Y.); Runner-up: Ryan Shannon, Boston College

Best Defensive Defenseman: Andrew Alberts, Boston College (Jr.; Eden Prairie, Minn.); Prestin Ryan, Maine

2003-04 Hockey East All-Stars

First Team
G Jim Howard, Maine (So.; Ogdensburg, N.Y.)
D Thomas Pöck, Massachusetts (Sr.; Klagenfurt, Austria)
D Stephen Wood, Jr, Providence (Sr.; Sudbury, Mass.)
F Steve Saviano, New Hampshire (Sr.; Reading, MA)
F Ryan Shannon, Boston College (Jr.; Darien, Conn.)
F Tony Voce, Boston College (Sr.; Philadelphia, Pa.)

Second Team
G Matti Kaltiainen, Boston College (Jr.; Espoo, Finland)
D Andrew Alberts, Boston College (Jr; Eden Prairie, Minn.)
D Prestin Ryan, Maine (Sr.; Arcola, Sask.)
F Patrick Eaves, Boston College (So.; Faribault, Minn.)
F Todd Jackson, Maine (Sr.; Cortland, N.Y.)
F Colin Shields, Maine (Sr.; Glasgow, Scotland)

Honorable Mention
G Frank Doyle (Maine)
D J.D. Forrest (Boston College), Ryan Whitney (Boston University), Brian Yandle (New Hampshire)
F Chris Chaput (Providence), Elias Godoy (Mass.-Lowell), Jason Guerriero (Northeastern), Marco Rosa (Merrimack)

All-Rookie Team
Jim Healey, Merrimack, Goaltender (Holyrood, Newf.)
Cleve Kinley, Mass.-Lowell, Defenseman (Powell River, B.C.)
Kevin Schaeffer, Boston University, Defenseman (South Huntington, N.Y.)
Brett Hemingway, New Hampshire, Forward (Surrey, B.C.)
Michel Léveillé, Maine, Forward (Levis, Que.)
Colin McDonald, Providence, Forward (Wethersfield, Conn.)
Jason Tejchma, Mass.-Lowell, Forward (Muskegon, Mich.)

What a Streak!

Streaks Extended and Ended

On The Road Again

Perennial Playoff Participants

Rookies Step Up

Record Setters

Send Him a Card

Outgunned

First Team

Second Team

Bemidji Holds Heads High

Alabama-Huntsville Crumbles and Tumbles

Hobey?

And Lastly

Hockey East Championship Weekend

Boston University versus Maine

Massachusetts versus New Hampshire

Redemption Song

Looking Ahead To The NCAAs

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

Individual Awards

All ECAC First Team

All-ECAC Second Team

ECAC All-Rookie Team

All-ECAC Honorable Mention

And Then There Were Two…

We Won, Now What?

Indvidual Awards

2003-04 Hockey East All-Stars

No. 4 Clarkson (17-17-5, 8-12-2 ECAC) at No. 1 Colgate (21-11-5, 14-6-2)

No. 3 Harvard (16-14-3, 10-10-2) at No. 2 Dartmouth (14-9-9, 10-5-7)

If We Had a Vote

Fans Can Support Diversity In Hockey Program

Updated TV Coverage for Championship

In Case You Missed It

What’s On Tap

Three’s Company

A One-Sided Rivalry

What Lies Ahead

What Lies Farther Ahead

A Better Tomorrow for Hockey East

The ECAC Fan Fest

The New York State Museum

Tours of the State Capitol

The Northeast Great Outdoors Show

Bonus Time

3-2-1

What If?

Next Week

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