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This Week in the ECAC: Oct. 24, 2002

By Jayson Moy and Becky Blaeser
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Half of the ECAC teams have seen game action in the last three weeks. This weekend, it’s time for the other half to hit the ice with their editions of their 2002-2003 teams.

Itching To Get Going

The Ivies get underway with a slew of exhibition games this weekend, some with high expectations. The Cornell Big Red and the Harvard Crimson are among that group, voted 1-2 by both polls in the ECAC and moving up in the national polls despite not playing.

The Big Red open up on Sunday in an exhibition against York at Lynah Rink with those expectations.

“We had the same kind of expectations a year ago at this time,” said head coach Mike Schafer. “So from our standpoint from within the program, the expectation is that they have the same expectations, and that’s good. We kind of fulfilled them last year and we’re looking forward to this year.

“It’s a long time between games. Our guys are looking forward to starting again.”

The Big Red, as well as the other Ivies, have been officially practicing since October 15. After two weeks, you know that they are itching to get out there.

“The players have been working hard and this will be their first opportunity to show what they have accomplished during our preseason workouts,” Schafer said. “The players are in top physical shape, so that helps us jump right into things.”

The Crimson, meanwhile, open against Canadian school Guelph on Saturday and also face expectations coming off an ECAC championship.

“You can’t place a value on the experience gained from your squad playing in big, meaningful games, games where the stakes are different and there are tremendous consequences,” said head coach Mark Mazzoleni. “We have made progressive steps, and as a result, the stakes — and all of our expectations — are higher.”

Each year the Crimson have had the weight of expectation on their shoulders. Each year, everyone keeps expecting big things. This year, the Crimson could ascend even further.

“We have learned a lot about ourselves in the last few years,” said Mazzoleni. “We have gained maturity, in knowing exactly what type of effort it is going to take to achieve our goals. Having experienced the things we did last season — both the tough times and the satisfaction of winning the [ECAC] tournament — gives us some confidence and a bit of a mental edge.”

Let’s Not Forget…

Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton and Yale also get under way this weekend, all in exhibitions. There are some expectations here as well.

“The expectations are higher. I think that’s good and we welcome that,” said Brown head coach Roger Grillo. “It’s been the opposite the last couple of years. I told the guys that you won’t be able to sneak up on people, that you’ll have to work harder and that doesn’t make things easier. I welcome the challenge, as do all of us.”

“These guys have had success. They want the next step and they won’t settle for anything less,” said Dartmouth head coach Bob Gaudet, . “There are no excuses; we expect this squad to make a run for it. We may be quite a bit quicker than we were last year and I know we can do better than (ninth, as picked in the preseason poll).”

“If I project ourselves at the end of the season I see a lot of guys contributing,” said Princeton head coach Len Quesnelle. “Coming into this year we’ll be a little bit more competitive internally at all positions. I don’t think we have the clear go-to guy, at least not yet. I think that we’re going to have a number of guys contributing.”

And there are individual expectations for one of the league’s stars in Yale’s Chris Higgins.

“It’s always great to have such a talented offensive player in your arsenal,” said Yale head coach Tim Taylor. “He distinguished himself as an 18-year old freshman who has the ability to score at this level. He will be a year older and wiser, but his challenges will be greater because he will be a known quantity and will receive specific attention from all of our opponents. Hopefully we will have enough talented kids to take the focus off Chris.”

And they’re off.

Hey, Us Too

The Clarkson Golden Knights have been in action for two weekends, but in two exhibition games. The Knights go at it for real as they travel to Ohio State for a pair of games over three days.

“We’ve played a couple of exhibition games now that have given us a chance to fine-tune our game,” said head coach Mark Morris. “The University of Toronto game was a wide-open offensive affair. The U.S. National Under-18 team came in and played us extremely tough. Their goaltender played very well. For the most part we played a pretty sound game ourselves. We have jockeyed some line combinations and hopefully for this upcoming series against Ohio State we will have a pretty good read on what works and what doesn’t.”

“I expect it will be a real competitive weekend for us. It will be a good tuneup as we head into our league opener at St. Lawrence.” That game happens Nov. 2.

A Recap

It wasn’t a good weekend for the ECAC on the scoreboard. The league went 1-5-2 in games, with the lone win coming from Union, 5-2 over Niagara. Hopefully for the conference, this weekend will bring better results.

Is Home Actually Better?

We’ve had the opportunity to watch a couple of games now with the new 15-second faceoff rule and while there are definitely advantages, there is one major problem that we can see.

The new rule takes away some of the edge of being the home team. While each team has five seconds to get their personnel on the ice, in reality the road team actually gets more time to put their line out. The road team has the advantage of the time between the whistle until their turn is up, whereas the home team only has five seconds.

In fact, one coach has realized this already, and in one recent game where a coin toss gave one team the choice to be the home or road team, the team that won the toss decided to be the road team. Why? Because of the new faceoff rule.

Will there be a change? Expect it to be addressed during the spring meetings.

There Is Justice

Last week we told you the plight of Colgate and the Maverick Stampede with the unauthorized second overtime. Well, justice is now done, as the game result has officially been changed by the NCAA ice hockey committee.

The game will be reflected as a tie for Colgate and Nebraska-Omaha rather than a win for UNO and a loss for Colgate. All events after the first overtime are now null and void.

This means that Scott Turner’s goal in double overtime will no longer count. That’s the case with all statistics after the 65-minute mark.

Colgate now has a tie, and a 0-2-1 record. Nebraska-Omaha is now 1-2-1 instead of 2-2-0.

Sometimes the world is okay.

Huh?

What would have happened if we were picking the ECAC Honorees this week? Not to take anything away from the accomplishments of those named, but we would have went this way:

ECAC Player of the Week: Kris Goodjohn, Union
ECAC Rookie of the Week: Kris Mayotte, Union
ECAC Goaltender of the Week: Shawn Conschafter, Vermont

Guess What?

Some things we’d just like to throw out there.

Guess who’s third in points per game in the NHL?

Martin St. Louis.

Guess who scored the first goal in Cape Fear FireAntz (ACHL) franchise history last weekend?

Chris Migliore.

As of Tuesday, guess who was leading the ECHL in scoring — well, tied for it?

Scott Bertoli.

Thought you folks should know.

A Loss

Our condolences go out to the family of Clarkson All-American goaltender Terry Yurkiewicz, who passed away earlier this month in Arizona.

Yurkiewicz was named All-America in 1965 and 1966 and was one of the leaders of Clarkson’s first ECAC championship team in 1966, earning the tournament MVP Award. He was 43-10 in his career with a .910 save percentage and a 2.10 GAA.

The Best and Worst

We’re back with another edition of the best and the worst.

The Best — The Union Dutchmen

The Dutchmen were the only ECAC team to register an official win last weekend, thanks to great efforts from all involved. They get the nod this week.

The Worst — The Record

The ECAC went 1-5-2. “Ugh” is all we have to say.

This Week in Division III: Oct. 24, 2002

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A Busy Offseason

The D-III season has yet to heat up, but there is a good deal of offseason news to relate.

Postseason Format Changes

The biggest news was the early October announcement that the NCAA quarterfinals (now referred to as the Second Round) will consist of a single game, played at four locations on Saturday, March 15. This replaces the two-games-with-possible-minigame format that has been in place since the late 1980s. The play-in game (now referred to as the First Round) will be on Wednesday, March 12.

“We had a lot of support for this from the body (coaches), so it wasn’t just a committee decision,” said Plattsburgh head coach Bob Emery, chair of the Division III Men’s Ice Hockey Committee. “Not playing on Friday gives the team winning the first round game more time to prepare.”

The minigame format is being abandoned throughout Division III. Last season, the NCHA eliminated it for its semifinals and finals, while the MIAC got rid of it entirely, all in favor of single-elimination games. Three years ago, the SUNYAC went to a best-of-three in the event that its championship series was tied after two games, not wanting the SUNYAC title to be decided in a minigame.

That means that this season, we will only see the minigame format in the NCHA quarterfinals and the SUNYAC first round and semifinals. Hopefully, this trend will continue, because the minigame format makes the first game almost useless. Win on Friday and you still have to win or tie on Saturday, which means you play the entire first game for a one-goal lead going into the second game.

The fact that stats from the minigame don’t count makes it even worse — the NCAA treats these “games” like shootouts, meaning they only exist to break ties. Some of the biggest goals in Division III history have been scored in minigames, but you won’t find them in boxscores or in a player’s stats. They’re not considered actual goals.

So now we have a minigame-free NCAA tournament. Good riddance.

East vs. West

There was quite a controversy around the decision last season by the Division III Selection Committee to put the play-in game in the West. There were three Western and six Eastern teams in the nationals last season, so making the three Western teams play down to one team that went East for the Frozen Four eliminated the cost of flying one and possibly two more teams during the championships. But how fair was that? Can we expect anything to change this season?

There are three possible scenarios for the brackets:

1. A 5-4 East-West split — this means the West got either both at large Pool C bids, or a Pool C bid and a pool B bid. Expect the ECAC West to continue to grab the Pool B bid for the near future, although the MCHA is making strides. In this case, the first round game would be in the East, with a 50-50 chance of the Division III Frozen Four taking place in the West. That’s in theory. If this happens, expect the Frozen Four to be in the West, because this is the only scenario where it can occur.

2. A 6-3 East-West split — this is probably the most likely scenario, which calls for a Pool C bid to go to each region and the Pool B bid to stay in the East. Significant cost savings can be obtained by putting the first-round game in the West, but is it fair to guarantee that just one Western team will be in the Frozen Four no matter how good those three teams are?

3. A 7-2 East-West split — while expected to be rare, this almost happened last season. Sources indicate that if Middlebury had lost to Trinity in the NESCAC finals (the game went to overtime), St. Norbert would have been left home with both Pool C bids going to the East. I personally think St. Norbert would still have gotten in over Bowdoin, but the criteria were very close. In this scenario, the first-round game is in the East, but again just one Western team makes the Frozen Four.

Anything but a 5-4 split guarantees an Eastern Frozen Four under this system, unless the play-in game happens in the East with a 6-3 split. The Division III Men’s committee attempted to allow for this possibility during the offseason, but a proposal to make sure the play-in game is in the East in the event of a 6-3 split was denied by the Division III Championships Committee, which oversees all Division III NCAA tournaments. In a memo distributed to coaches, it was reported that the recommendation was denied “as it is contrary to the established pairings and seeding policies.”

The memo goes on to say that the Championship Committee is looking into potential changes to the process for sports with “odd-sized” brackets, but for the foreseeable future, expect things to remain as they are.

The only other postseason change is a slight difference in format for the NESCAC. According to the NESCAC web page, eight teams will make the playoffs this season, with traditional single-elimination quarterfinals, semifinals and finals. For the past few seasons, only the top seven teams made the playoffs, with the regular-season champ getting a bye in the quarterfinals and getting to host the semifinals and finals. Now the highest surviving seed in the quarterfinals will host.

Franklin Pierce, C’mon Down

There’s a new Division II program in the ECAC Northeast this season. Franklin Pierce College, located in Rindge, New Hampshire, has upgraded from club to varsity status. The program has been in existence for over 30 seasons and coach Jay McCormack will try to build on the success that the Ravens have had at the club level. In his 13 years at the helm, Franklin Pierce has won several Northeast Collegiate Hockey Association titles and went to the ACHA nationals in 1995.

The Ravens join Assumption, Southern New Hampshire and Stonehill in the ECAC Northeast Division II bracket, which combines with St. Anselm and St. Michael’s of the ECAC East for the ECAC Division II championship.

Drop the Puck!

There were two major rule changes passed in the offseason. The first (4-7-f, g) is that a goal can now be awarded by a referee in the event a goal is illegally prevented that was “obvious and imminent.” In the past, if someone dislodged the net a second before the puck went in, or a goaltender threw his stick at the puck, or even if an entire team left the bench and jumped on an opposing player attempting to score into an open net, the best the referee could award was a penalty shot.

I have only seen this situation occur a few times (twice in one game last season) but it’s a good rule to have. Most teams and players are above this kind of thing, but in theory, in situations where you had your goalie pulled, you could throw a stick or move the net when it was clear the puck was going in, and take your chances with a penalty shot.

The rule change that all fans will notice is the 15-second rule (2-5-b). Since it worked so well during the Olympics, the NCAA decided to adopt a similar rule in an attempt to speed up the game. In faceoff situations, the visiting team has five seconds to change players if they wish, followed by five seconds for the home team. The official then waits five seconds in the faceoff circle and drops the puck, no matter who is ready.

RIT is one of the handful of Division III teams that has played a game this se ason, and head coach Wayne Wilson said that the new rule has some positives and negatives.

“The positive things are that we all want to speed up games and get in a rhythm,” he said. “This helps that as well as eliminating a lot of the hocus pocus that goes on before the faceoff.”

Still, the rule is going to take some getting used to.

“The negatives are that, and I was told this by an official as well, there’s too much movement in the faceoff circle,” said Wilson. “It’s easier to cheat because the official is occupied with counting to five and doesn’t have time to make sure things are fair before the puck is dropped.

“I also think this rule favors the visiting team, since they have to be ready before the home team. They change first, so they have time to make sure they have the right guys out there. Also, the visiting center puts his stick down first, so odds are he’s ready before the other center is.”

The key right now, at least until things settle down, is to be prepared.

“You need to have a plan,” said Wilson. “Teams don’t have time to adjust to what you’re doing, like moving a defenseman to a different spot. Of course, you’ve got to watch what the other team is doing as well.

“I think once everyone gets a feel for the tempo, things will even out.”

Nobody Asked Me

Of course, there are people at a significant disadvantage under this new rule. People whose lives are forever changed by this, whose very self-esteem is at stake.

I’m talking, of course, about radio color commentators. I can barely get a word in edgewise as it is, and now I have even less time to talk.

Of course, my wife wants to implement a 15-second rule around the house, too.

Poll Position

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USCHO.com’s Division III men’s poll expanded from 10 to 15 teams this season, beginning with the recently released preseason poll. Look for a new poll each Monday. To kick things off, here’s a brief outlook for the top 15 teams in the nation.

1. Norwich — The Cadets were less than two minutes away from a national title last March, and are the favorites to win it all this season. Norwich returns its top nine scorers including Kurt McLean, who was an All-American as a freshman last season, scoring 52 points.

“It’s an honor to be first,” said head coach Mike McShane. “I figured we’d be up there somewhere, but there are 10 or 11 teams that could be No. 1 as well.”

The Cadets are solid on defense, losing just one regular blueliner, and Norwich returns both of its main goalies, senior Randy Hevey and sophomore Kevin Shieve. The duo have a total of 76 games under their belts and combined for a GAA of just 1.64 last season.

2. Wisconsin-Superior — Are the defending national champions getting enough respect? The Yellowjackets are ranked second in both the USCHO national poll and the NCHA preseason poll.

Superior returns most of its firepower, including Chris Hackett, (10-32-42), Josh Liebenow (14-29-43) and NCAA hero Colin Kendall (19-22-41). Nate Ziemski is back between the pipes as well.

The main question mark is the Jackets blueline corps, which lost a lot of experience to graduation.

“We had to recruit five new defensemen to replace the four we lost from last year’s championship team,” says Stauber. “Those four defensemen provided a lot of leadership, and that is hard to replace. We only recruited three new forwards. We feel that our strength will be in our offense in returning our top goal scorers.”

3. RIT — The Tigers will need to overcome the loss of Division III Player of the Year Jerry Galway, but return most of their offense as well as goaltender Tyler Euverman. Coach Wayne Wilson has brought in the largest recruiting class in his tenure, including five new defensemen to complement four upperclassmen.

“I feel really good about our team this season,” Wilson said. “We’re much deeper in goal than we have been since I got here, and we have a mature defense.

“The trademark of this team has always been offense. We lost some good role players up front, some chemistry players, but most of our offense is intact from last season.”

4. St. Norbert — The Green Knights have something to prove this season. After going undefeated in league play last year, something done only once before in the history of the NCHA, St. Norbert lost in the conference playoffs and then again in the NCAA Quarterfinals.

The good news for Green Knights fans is that this team may be the best set of Green Knights yet.

“When you add a couple of very talented freshmen with a lot of depth, by position this is the deepest we’ll have been since I’ve been here,” said head coach Tim Coghlin.

St. Norbert returns 75 percent of its offense, including 2001-2002 NCHA Player of the Year Maris Ziedins (21-20-41).

5. Middlebury — The Panthers will go this year without head coach Bill Beaney, who is taking a one-year sabbatical. Assistant Bill Sinclair will take over in the interim, but don’t expect much change in the traditional Middlebury system that stresses defense and speed.

It’s the defense that has the most gaps to fill with the graduation of goaltender Christian Carlsson (1.39 GAA), who played in all 29 games last season. Also gone is All-American defenseman Matt Dunn (33 points last season).

Juniors Adam Foote and Kevin Cooper lead an offense that returns four of its top five scorers.

6. Plattsburgh — Will the loss of all-everything goaltender Nik Sundberg and sparkplug Mark Colletta topple the Cardinals from atop the SUNYAC? Not likely. Plattsburgh was again the unanimous choice to win the league in the SUNYAC coaches preseason poll.

Playmaker Jason Kilcan (10-31-41) and sniper Brendan Hodge (121 career points) lead the offense, while hard-hitting Peter Ollari leads a group of four veteran defensemen.

The key for coach Bob Emery is to find a replacement for Sundberg — big skates to fill. Backup Tony Seariac only had four starts last season. He’ll battle recruit Curtis Cribbe, who played over 2,600 minutes in juniors last year.

7. St. Thomas — When last seen, the Tommies were dropping a hard-fought 2-1 decision to eventual champions Wisconsin-Superior in the first ever NCAA “play-in game” in Division III.

The MIAC champions should have been granted a quarterfinal series with a lower-seeded opponent, but that’s in the past now.

The main issue for head coach Terry Skrypeck as he continues his march towards the 300-win mark (287-126-26) is how to replace five seniors, including MIAC Player of the Year and All-American Tony [nl]Lawrence (22-27-49). Combined with the graduation of Eric Wenkus, the Tommies lose almost 50 percent of their offense.

The defense looks solid with the return of Drew Palmgren (7-17-24) and Bryan Skrypek (6-13-19), and goaltender Bob Tallarico returns for his senior campaign.

8. Bowdoin — Bowdoin was the last undefeated team to fall in college hockey last season (16-0-3 start), but lost six of its last eight, including two shutout losses to Norwich in the NCAA quarterfinals.

The Polar Bears are rich in defense, returning five of six, as well as workhorse netminder Mike Healey (2.16 GAA)

If Bowdoin can compensate for the loss of NESCAC Player of the Year Mike Carosi, and six other seniors, who combined accounted for 40 percent of the Polar Bears’ offense.

9. Elmira — The Soaring Eagles were perhaps the best team not to make the NCAA tournament last season, victims of a selection process that grants just one bid to teams from the ECAC West and MCHA combined.

Will two hearbreaking, last-second losses to RIT last season help or hinder Elmira as it takes to the ice this season?

“Those were some of the best games in college hockey last season,” said head coach Tim Ceglarski. “But it’s in the past now. We have a different team this season, and so does RIT.”

The main difference — no Steve Kaye this season.

“You can’t replace a player like Steve Kaye,” said Ceglarski. “But we have some good leadership and guys ready to step up,”

As opposed to Bowdoin, Elmira returns most of its offense, but will need new players to gel quickly after losing three veteran defenseman and both starting goaltenders.

10. Wisconsin-Stevens Point — The Pointers were one of the hottest teams around at the end of last season (10-2-2 in its last 14 games) but an 8-7 record before that cost home ice in the semifinals, where Point lost to Wisconsin-Superior in overtime.

The Pointers were a young team last season (15 freshmen), following a typical pattern: take a while to gel, come on strong, but lose in the postseason due to lack of experience.

That shouldn’t be a problem this season. A nice mix of seniors (Zenon Kochan, Nick Glander, Joel Marshall, John Strassman) and sophomores (Mike Brolsma, Ryan Kirchoff, Sean Leahy) make the Pointers a serious contender.

UWSP’s main concern will be replacing goaltender Rob Gould, who finished as the second-winningest netminder in school history.

11. Wisconsin-River Falls — The Falcons return virtually intact this season, losing just two role players from last season.

“Our hockey team is better,” Freeman said. “Whether that’s enough to take another step remains to be seen. We are confident, we have a veteran team and expect to perform at a high level.”

Two-time All-America defenseman Adam Kragthorpe leads the defense, backstopped by experienced netminder Jacque Vezina.

Up front, UWRF returns 90 percent of its offense, including leading scorer Josh Shipp (17-12-29).

12. Oswego — The Lakers have been poised to knock the Plattsburgh Cardinals off their perch for several seasons, but have come up short each time. Picked again to finish second in the SUNYAC in the preseason coach’s poll, the Lakers may have their best chance in recent memory to finish on top.

Oswego returns eight of its top 10 scorers, including Andy Rozak, who led the team with 33 points last season as a freshman.

The goaltending tandem of Joe Loftberg and Tyson Gajda are back, but the Lakers will have a new look on defense, with three freshmen complementing four veterans.

13. Manhattanville — The Variants are in their fourth season, and have tasted a lot of success for such a young program, going 17-7-3 last season and making the ECAC West championship game the season before.

With 22 returning players, this will be the most experienced team in the ECAC West.

“This is the most talented and experienced team yet,” said head coach Keith Levinthal. “We went from zero to being pretty good, but there’s a big difference between pretty good and very good, and that’s the next step we need to take.”

Main goaltender Jon Peczka has decided not to join the team for his senior year, so senior Jeremy Hill, junior Chad Killam and freshman Jay Chrapala will have to step up.

14. Trinity — The Bantams were an overtime goal away from advancing to the NCAA tournament last season, losing to Middlebury in the NESCAC championship game.

The gaping hole left by graduating Geoff Faulkner (1.93 GAA in 23 games) will need to be filled. Other than that, the future looks bright, with Trinity bringing back four of its top five scorers, including three sophomores.

15. Gustavus Adolphus — The Golden Gusties are another team that was an overtime goal away from the nationals, a 3-2 loss to St. Thomas in the MIAC championship game. That was the only game the team lost in the months of February and March last season, and Gustavus will try to build on that momentum.

Departing seniors scored a grand total of one goal last season, so the Gusties return essentially intact, including their entire defensive and goaltending corps.

Elmira Women Picked First In Preseason Poll

USCHO Staff Report
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Last season’s NCAA champion Elmira earned first place in the preseason edition of the USCHO.com Division III Women’s Poll, nabbing ten of eleven possible votes. Elmira loses no one to graduation from a squad that went 26-1-1 on its way to the championship.

The Soaring Eagles will have plenty of competition from within its own conference, the fledgling ECAC West. No. 7 Plattsburgh looks to improve on last year’s 21-4-2 season, and also returns the entire team.

The other first place vote went to Manhattanville, which finished in the No. 2 spot in the rankings. The Valiants, under first-year coach Nicole Kirnan, will try to avenge a 2-1 loss to Elmira in last year’s title game.

Bowdoin, which lost in overtime in the NCAA semifinals last year, was picked third. Tied for fourth was traditional Division III powerhouse Middlebury and upstart Wis.-Stevens Point.

Middlebury is eyeing a return to winning ways which saw the Panthers win AWCHA national titles in 1999-2000 and 2000-2001, before bowing out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last year.

After a tremendous 26-1-0 rookie campaign last year, Wis.-Stevens Point was left out of the NCAA Tournament due to selection criteria.

Last year’s MIAC champion, Gustavus Adolphus, was selected sixth. The Gusties will try to return to the NCAA Tournament this year, and will try to improve on an already impressive 23-5-2 record.

The first regular-season USCHO.com Poll of the 2002-2003 season will be held on November 4, 2002. The USCHO.com Poll is compiled by U.S. College Hockey Online, and consists of 11 voters, all coaches of Division III programs.

Women’s Poll Steady With Bulldogs At Top

USCHO Staff Report
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Minnesota-Duluth held on to first place in this week’s USCHO.com Division I Women’s Poll following a weekend sweep of unranked MSU-Mankato, but saw it’s lead slip slightly as challenger Minnesota earned two first place votes. Last week the Bulldogs earned all but one first place vote.

With a 8-0 win on Saturday over St. Cloud, Minnesota christened the new Ridder Arena, the country’s first ice hockey facility dedicated to a women’s program.

The big movement in this week’s poll came from New Hampshire, as the Wildcats swept Ohio State, 1-0 on Friday and 5-4 in overtime on Saturday. With the wins, New Hampshire remained perfect on the young season with a 3-0 record, and jumped to No. 9 in this week’s rankings.

This weekend sees the action heat up, as No. 1 Minnesota-Duluth plays a two game set with No. 6 Wisconsin, and No. 7 St. Lawrence travels to No. 8 Providence Saturday and No. 10 Northeastern on Sunday.

The USCHO.com Poll is compiled by U.S. College Hockey Online, and consists of 15 voters, including 11 coaches of Division I programs and four women’s hockey writers.

Wildcats Climb To No. 1 Ranking

USCHO Staff Report
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New Hampshire surged into first place in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll after a win and tie against previous-No. 1 Minnesota over the weekend. Friday night’s 5-5 tie and Saturday’s 3-1 New Hampshire win lived up to expectations, thrilling thousands of fans in attendance.

The Wildcats were the new consensus No. 1 team, garnering 34 of the 40 first-place votes available. Minnesota, which received one first-place vote, swapped places with New Hampshire and became the new No. 3 team.

Denver, despite a 4-2 loss to Boston College on Friday night, rebounded with a 3-1 win at Northeastern to improve to 3-1-0 overall and remain in second place in the poll. With the win over Denver, combined with an 8-6 victory over Vermont, Boston College rose to fourth place and earned four first-place votes.

No. 9 Maine dropped a 3-0 decision to No. 10 Colorado College, and correspondingly fell four spots in very close voting.

Hockey East had a good week as a conference, as No. 11 Providence made up ground, in addition to New Hampshire and Boston College. With a weekend sweep over unranked MSU-Mankato, Providence remained perfect with a 4-0 record and rose four spots. Mass.-Lowell, which is the looking to enter the poll, has a difficult weekend ahead as the River Hawks face No. 11 Providence and No. 4 Boston College on Saturday.

The USCHO.com Poll is compiled by U.S. College Hockey Online, and consists of 40 voters, including 28 coaches from the Division I conferences and 12 beat writers from across the country. The poll is published weekly by the Associated Press.

Merrimack’s Serino Reprimanded for Blasting Referee

USCHO Staff Report
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Merrimack coach Chris Serino was issued a formal reprimand by Hockey East Commissioner Joe Bertagna after blasting referee John Murphy to reporters following his team’s loss at Michigan, 5-1, on Oct. 19.

Serino said of Murphy, “I think he’s incompetent.” He later added, “You don’t have a game like this anywhere. There were observers here tonight, they saw.”

“Hockey East will not tolerate such public criticism of on-ice officials, whether assigned by our office or by anyone else,” said Bertagna.

“Coach Serino was out of line and he should have known better. On behalf of our conference, I wish to apologize to the official and to the CCHA.”

Murphy is a former ECAC official who began working CCHA games this season and had been assigned to the game by the league office. He refereed both Merrimack-Michigan games on Oct. 18-19, which ended up with Merrimack whistled for 26 penalties and 74 minutes over the two nights while Michigan was assessed 18 penalties for 36 minutes.

According to Hockey East, Serino violated league by-laws which include the American Hockey Coaches Association’s Code of Conduct, which specifically prohibits public criticism of officials.

The AHCA requests that members voluntarily return a copy of the code signed by the school’s coach, captain and athletic director. Serino, who is also Merrimack’s interim Director of Athletics, signed the document on September 24, according to the league.

Lowell’s Amar Cleared to Play

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Massachusetts-Lowell found out late Thursday night that Baptiste Amar was indeed eligible to play — something that the Riverhawks contended was correct all along.

Amar

Amar

“It was a very pleasant phone call that I got at 9:08 last night,” said head coach Blaise MacDonald. “I didn’t doubt it, we had enough information, we had due diligence and knew we did the right thing, but another coach in Hockey East was challenging that. And our integrity and our understanding of the rules prevails.”

Amar sat out Lowell’s two games last weekend, pending a ruling by the NCAA. Another Hockey East coach put in a challenge with the NCAA, suggesting Amar had just one year of eligibility, which he used last season.

Amar, a defenseman who was a member of the 2002 French Olympic team, played in the game against Rensselaer on Friday night, and looked a bit rusty, but with him on the ice, the Riverhawks looked more at ease and in step with the game.

“While he was out, it had the team on edge a little bit,” admitted MacDonald. “Here’s a guy that is practicing and we don’t know what’s going on, we’re confused, is he going to play, is he not, is he going back to France next week if he’s ineligble, and that’s difficult for the team.

“Then when we got him back, I didn’t want the team to think he had a big ‘S’ on his chest either. He’s a good solid player and he’s a guy that can play a lot of minutes, so getting him back is going to be important for us.”

Providence 2002-2003 Season Preview

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Providence coach Bob Deraney doesn’t want to look at 2002-03 as a whole new season but rather a continuation of the last one.

And who can blame him? Providence closed out last season with a run through the ECAC East tournament that included an upset of eventual Frozen Four participant Niagara, followed by a 1-0 victory over Northeastern in the championship. The Huskies had outscored the Friars 14-6 during the regular season but were limited to just 10 shots on goal in the final.

“At the end of the season, basically I was along for the ride,” Deraney said. “Our kids basically understood what we were trying to accomplish and they made it our No. 1 priority as a group. I think that was evident in both games we played in the championships.”

Because women’s hockey has no automatic tournament bids, Providence’s Cinderella season ended with the ECAC East tournament. The continuation has to come this season.

The Friars are a well-balanced team that plays everyone and spreads out its scoring. Nine different players and eight returning players on the team had double-digits in goals and assists last season. None had more than Jen Butsch’s 31 points.

“We’re solid all-around,” said senior defenseman Melanie Ruzzi. “It’s the whole team game. Everyone plays both sides of the puck very well.”

Senior forward Danielle Culgin was the team’s second-leading scorer, and she netted Providence’s biggest goal of the season — the double-overtime game-winner against Providence. Culgin believes the Friars’ closeness separates them from the rest of the league.

“We’re a close-knit team compared to other teams,” Culgin said. “It’s more like a family than anywhere else. There’s something special going on when you walk into the locker room.”

Another rising player for Providence is Rush Zimmerman, who led all Friar freshmen in scoring last season, and also earned a spot on the U.S. Under-22 select team this summer along with Butsch.

The Friar blueliners are led by Kelli Halcisak, an All-League defenseman with a fierce slapshot. Halcisak scored 28 points for the Friars her sophomore year, her first with the team. Halcisak led Ohio State, her former team, in scoring during her freshman campaign.

Providence’s all-Amy netminding combination of Quinlan and Thomas is well-seasoned in goal, but that won’t prevent freshman Jana Budgen, a 2001 Hockey Night in Boston most outstanding goaltender, from competing for the starting job right away.

For the second year in a row, Providence chose to start its season with defending national champions Minnesota-Duluth.

“I don’t know what I was thinking to do it two years in a row,” Deraney said jokingly.

But Deraney doesn’t play the nation’s toughest opponent right away without a purpose. History has been kind to teams that play Minnesota-Duluth to open the season. When St. Lawrence did it two years ago, the Saints ended up as the Bulldogs’ unexpected opponent in the first NCAA championship game. It wouldn’t be too farfetched for the Friars to expect the same.

“It’s good to play [Minnesota-Duluth] at the beginning of the year because we’ll find where our strengths are and where our weaknesses are,” Deraney said. “Hopefully we’ll see them again in the final game of the year.”

Hockey East 2002-2003 Season Preview

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The unique characteristic of Hockey East is its parity.

Hockey East couldn’t have done a much better job of selecting teams from the now-defunct ECAC East to ensure that parity, though that was not the primary intent. The only two ECAC teams not invited to the new league were the head and the tail of the beast — Niagara, which won 19 of 21 league regular-season games, and Quinnipiac, which lost all 21.

With Hockey East retaining the inner core of the teams from the first and only edition of the ECAC East, a heated, unpredictable battle for the league crown is upcoming.

The primary example of its wide-openness: this year’s consensus pick for last place, Boston College, beat preseason favorite Providence on the final weekend of last year’s regular season. Friar coach Bob Deraney remembers that defeat well, and he speaks of his league’s competitiveness with pride.

“We don’t have haves and have-nots,” he said. “We have six teams that can beat anyone on any given night. We’re all playing a schedule where night-in, night-out, it’s an absolute ride.”

What Hockey East doesn’t appear to have, however, is a favored candidate to reach the Frozen Four. At present, women’s D-I college hockey has half as many teams as D-I men’s, but a tournament only one-fourth as large. That makes national postseason play extremely competitive, so it’ll be difficult for any Hockey East team to dominate the league sufficiently to get there.

The other side of the coin, according to Deraney, is that there are advantages to Hockey East having a stronger bottom half than the other conferences.

“The Hockey East schedule is going to prepare whoever’s fortunate enough, if we have a team, to move onto the national championship,” he said. “They’re going to be more prepared than anyone else because they had to go through such a grueling season to get there. I’m really excited for what our league brings to women’s hockey.”

The parity in Hockey East could be as good as any league in the history of women’s college hockey, and that should make it exciting for all involved.

“It’s nice to see this whole group start a new league and move forward,” said Maine coach Rick Filighera. “The coaches do a good job preparing the teams to play in this league, and that’s what’s going to make it fun for the players.”

What’s also fun for the players is that they finally have a home. Now their league opponents might actually be the same year in, year out for the foreseeable future. That hasn’t been the case as teams have bounced from the ECAC, to the ECAC East, to Hockey East in the past three years.

“It’ll be nice to finally have things set in stone rather than jumping around from league to league,” said senior Melanie Ruzzi of Providence.

Boston College and Connecticut might be the preseason favorites to miss out on Hockey East’s four playoff spots, but the pair has been improving at a faster rate than the bottom programs of the other three leagues. Connecticut brings in just its second full recruiting class, and Boston College continues to add funding to its program. The race for the playoffs is by no means predetermined.

In the upper half of the league, both Northeastern and New Hampshire are in somewhat of a transition phase — the Huskies have a 24-player roster with 12 freshmen, while the Wildcats are the league’s only team with a new head coach in Brian McCloskey. Both teams may need some adjustment, but they nevertheless expect to be in contention for the league crown in March.

The one team that truly could finish anywhere from first to last in the Hockey East standings is Maine. The Black Bears have two of the league’s top three returning scorers and a goaltender with Canadian national experience. While Maine scored goals in bunches last season, the question will be whether the team’s new defensive recruits will mesh with the current players and keep enough pucks out of the net to win games.

At the top, the Friars are the first and only ECAC East champion. With most of that talent returning, they are the preseason favorites, and deservedly so. But the task will be to prove which Providence team was an aberration: the one that placed a disappointing fourth in the Hockey East standings, or the one that ran the table to close out the postseason.

Capsule profiles of each team follow. Click on any team’s name for its individual season preview.

Boston College
Coach: Tom Babson, 21-68-6 (3 seasons)
2001-02 overall record: 9-19-4
2001-02 ECAC East record: 5-13-3 (7th)
Returning-Lost-Newcomers: 18-4-8
Notes: The Eagles have tripled their scholarship offerings since Babson arrived. Assistant captain Gen Richardson will miss time with U.S. Select team at the Four Nations Cup.

Connecticut
Coach: Heather Linstad, 14-31-3 at UConn (2 seasons), 175-102-30 overall (10 seasons)
2001-02 overall record: 11-21-3
2001-02 ECAC East record: 7-12-2 (6th)
Returning-Lost-Newcomers: 16-3-5
Notes: The upcoming season will be UConn’s second with a full recruiting class. Sophomore Kimberly Berry scored twice as many goals as anyone else on the Husky roster. She has also made the U.S. Select team for the Four Nations Cup.

Maine
Coach: Rick Filighera, 62-72-10 at Maine (5 seasons), 86-81-2 overall (7 seasons)
2001-02 overall record: 16-15-4
2001-02 ECAC East record: 8-10-3 (5th)
Returning-Lost-Newcomers: 17-7-6
Notes: The Black Bears have two of the top three returning scorers in the league in juniors Meagan Aarts and Karen Droog. Junior goaltender Lara Smart played for the Canadian U-22 team this summer.

New Hampshire
Coach: Brian McCloskey, first season
2001-02 overall record: 19-12-5
2001-02 ECAC East record: 11-6-4 (3rd)
Returning-Lost-Newcomers: 20-4-3
Notes: Sophomore Steph Jones was tied for second in the nation in game-winning goals last season. Two of the Wildcats’ top four returning scorers are defensemen-Allison Edgar and U.S. U-22 national defenseman Kristen Thomas.

Northeastern
Coach: Joy Woog, 43-22-2 at Northeastern (2 seasons), 54-32-3 overall (3 seasons)
2001-02 overall record: 27-7-1
2001-02 ECAC East record: 15-5-1 (2nd)
Returning-Lost-Newcomers: 12-9-12
Notes: No team in Hockey East lost more to graduation than Northeastern, but the Huskies still return the league’s top-scoring forward in Brooke White, the top-scoring defenseman in Kim Greene, and the nation’s top goaltender in terms of save percentage in Chanda Gunn.

Providence
Coach: Bob Deraney, 58-37-10 (3 seasons)
2001-02 overall record: 20-13-4
2001-02 ECAC East record: 11-7-3
Returning-Lost-Newcomers: 16-8-4
Notes: No team plays more people or spreads out its offense more than Providence. The Friars return eight players with 18 or more points, including leading scorer Jenn Butsch and Rush Zimmerman, both members U.S. U-22 Select team. U.S. Olympic goaltender Sara DeCosta will serve as a volunteer assistant for the Friars.

Connecticut 2002-2003 Season Preview

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Fourteen sophomores and five freshmen make up the bulk of Connecticut’s ever-developing women’s hockey program. There are two juniors as well, and naturally, with no seniors, they’re both captains. Such are the circumstances Heather Linstad faces in her third year as UConn head coach, her second with a full recruiting class.

“I wouldn’t have taken on the job if I didn’t want the challenge of it,” said Linstad.

Faced with the challenge of recruiting without an established name or tradition, Linstad delivered a class last year which carried the team to upset victories over some of the biggest names in college hockey, namely New Hampshire and her former employer Northeastern. UConn also posted a 2-0-1 record over Boston College.

Connecticut’s biggest need for improvement is on the offensive end, where sophomore Kimberly Berry had a fine rookie campaign with 23 goals and 12 assists, but only one other player cracked double-digits in goals.

“We only had one key scorer last year,” Linstad said. “We need two, three, four kids to step up and help us out in that regard.”

Linstad expects that the improvement will come primarily from the sophomore class, where several players didn’t do as well as they had hoped in their opening seasons.

Improvement has been the defining characteristic of Linstad’s first full class from the get-go. In the 2001-02 team’s debut, the Huskies were pounded 10-1 by Wisconsin. The next day, a 1-1 tie was the result.

UConn, with Shannon Murphy earning the majority of the starts, rarely allowed more than four goals all season.

The main impetus for improvement, with another class of recruits coming in, will be the intrasquad competition that naturally results. Linstad also expects that with the new depth from the recruits, her squad will vastly improve its special teams, which ranked near the bottom of the league last season.

One advantage UConn players have over any other school in the Hockey East is that they’ve been forced to become leaders at a young age by necessity. Linstad hopes that will help the team down the road.

“I think being around players that are starting something brand new is a fun thing,” she said. “They are the pioneers of this program and they’ve put their names on it.”

New Hampshire 2002-2003 Season Preview

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Of the six coaches in Hockey East, five of them have been with their programs for at least two years. The only new guy in town is New Hampshire’s Brian McCloskey, who steps over from the associate men’s coach position to become just the third coach in the 25-year history of the women’s program.

McCloskey and his players have more to learn than any of the other teams in Hockey East, but he expects to be caught up within due time.

“We’ve spent the lion’s share of the first couple weeks here introducing systems that have been a little different for the kids,” McCloskey said. “We’re just trying to get them comfortable with where they fit in individually in learning their roles.”

McCloskey’s primary duties with the men’s program, beyond recruiting, included a focus on offense and training. Such skills will be crucial to a program that has struggled to put the puck in net and outscored only Boston College and Connecticut among current Hockey East teams.

“Offensive production was an issue for our program last year and I can’t assume we’re going to suddenly emerge,” McCloskey said. “We do have some players who have gained another year’s experience. We do have a few new faces who can contribute offensively.”

Among the Wildcats’ top returning talent up front is sophomore Steph Jones, who became the first Wildcat freshman in five years to lead the team in goals. She also led the nation in game-winners.

Sophomore Randi MacMaster, who played on the first line with now-departed Kira Misikowetz, will look to step up. Junior Carolyn Gordon, who was second only to Misikowetz on the team in assists, will continue to be the team’s best option in the faceoff circle.

The Wildcats bring in just two recruited forwards to assist the 11 returnees, including Lindsay Hansen, a former club teammate of MacMaster’s, and Vicki Davis, an Edmonton, Alb., native.

McCloskey expects to rely on a balance attack, rather than one or two superstars. That offense will be spread out between not just the top three lines, but also among the defensemen. McCloskey has two of Hockey East’s most prolific scorers in junior co-captain Kristen Thomas and classmate Allison Edgar. Edgar was second on the team with 15 goals last season, while Thomas tallied 19 assists.

New Hampshire’s main strength should remain its goaltending, where Jen Huggon and her 1.78 GAA ranked among the nation’s best.

“I think our goaltending should be status quo. Jen Huggon’s a senior and I expect she’ll have a great year again for us,” McCloskey said.

So while the Wildcat players might take some time to buy into McCloskey’s system, and McCloskey will need time to learn the strengths and weaknesses of his team, the Wildcats expect to grow into a legitimate Hockey East contender by the end of the season.

“There may be a slight disadvantage in knowing my team right out of the gate, but over the course of the season that’ll play itself out,” McCloskey said.

Boston College 2002-2003 Season Preview

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Boston College may have won just nine games last season, but those nine were the best output in the young program’s history. Now coach Tom Babson is expecting to make it to the next level. The goal of reaching the Hockey East playoffs by finishing in the league’s top four, he feels, is within reach.

“It’s exciting and the kids feel it,” Babson said. “They’re no longer thinking the self-image, ‘This is BC they haven’t supported us, and we’re the bottom of the barrel.’ They’re ready to compete.”

BC has given its women’s hockey program more support in recent years. Because the Eagles made Title IX-inspired additions to women’s sports before women’s hockey was prominent, the BC women’s hockey program has struggled for recognition. But the team’s scholarships have tripled since three years ago, when Babson earned the head-coaching job, and now the much-anticipated arrival of Hockey East can only improve the image of the team on campus.

The competitive performance of the team on ice hasn’t hurt either. The Eagles scored a 1-0 victory over eventual ECAC East playoff champ Providence and took both ECAC East regular-season titlist Niagara and ECAC North regular-season champion Dartmouth to OT last season.

“Hockey is such a momentum kind of team thing,” Babson said. “If they think they can do it, they can do it. We saw that at Dartmouth. Two years before they were laughing at us, they were just playing with us. They didn’t play with us last year, and they won’t play with us this year.”

Now, Babson expects to win more of those games.

The Eagles’ offense will have to produce without last year’s top two goal-scorers in Kelly McManus and Missy Barsz, but the team returns junior Alaina Clark, who doubled her freshman-year scoring total in one season and is capable of doubling it again. Jaclyn Kryzak, a senior forward, led the team with three-game winning goals last season.

Babson sees depth on his roster, and he plans to play four lines — a far cry from years ago when he could barely field three.

BC assistant captain Gen Richardson is the biggest name on the Eagle roster. Though Richardson doesn’t grab headlines with her scoring prowess, she was talented enough to be named to the U.S. team for the Four Nations Cup. Richardson will lead the defense in front of ECAC East Rookie Goaltender of the Year Lisa Davis, who kept the team in games with her 2.59 GAA average.

“No one’s going to count us out,” Babson said.

2002-2003 Northeastern Season Preview

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Northeastern coach Joy Woog’s master plan for the inaugural Hockey East season is to emulate the growth of a successful team from the 2001-02 ECAC East season.

No, it’s not last year’s Huskies, who started the year with 10 straight wins and finished 27-7-1. Rather, Woog wants to be like last year’s Providence team — a young squad that might struggle at the outset, but still emerge as the team to beat come March.

With freshmen making up half of her 24-player roster, Woog isn’t expecting another school record 27-win season. But that won’t necessarily prevent the Huskies from delivering a successful season.

“We’re not at that [high] level, and we know that — it’s going take experience and game time,” Woog said. “Providence, they went through this process last year. They had so many young players and by the end of the year, they come on strong.”

Woog knows all too well how Providence rose to the top at the conclusion of last season. Northeastern beat the Friars three times during last year’s regular season by a combined score of 14-6. But when the two teams met a fourth time in the ECAC East Final, Providence scored a shocking 1-0 victory. That defeat not only denied the Huskies the league title, but possibly a Frozen Four berth as well.

So it comes as no surprise that Northeastern stands behind Providence in the first Hockey East preseason poll. Woog calls the Huskies’ second-place preseason ranking higher than she herself would have placed them. But she wants to be the team that makes the Cinderella run in the end.

“As a coach I’m not worried about winning today, but winning in March,” Woog said.

In the meantime though, Northeastern is more than capable of stealing a win from anyone in the country in spite of its youth. Like Erika Silva before her, second team All-American junior Chanda Gunn maintained the Huskies’ tradition of great goaltending. Gunn led the nation with a .950 save percentage and finished second nationally with a 1.37 GAA. Woog fondly remembers how Gunn caught everyone by surprise last season.

“No one knew what she was capable of,” Woog said. “They all thought, ‘Erika Silva is gone. Now we can beat Northeastern.’ No one knew about this little unknown, Chanda Gunn, who was sitting on the bench backing up Silva for the entire year.”

There’s a tight bond between Woog and Gunn, as Gunn is the only junior left on the Husky roster. Gunn was a freshman during the 2000-01 Husky season, in which Woog took over the program just weeks before the season’s beginning after Heather Linstad’s departure to Connecticut.

Gunn, in more ways than one, is in a class by herself.

While Northeastern’s scoring defense was tops in the country, its scoring offense ranked just 12th, even with All-American Brooke Whitney. Now that the 2002 Kazmaier winner has moved on, Woog expects that returning players, especially the seniors, will fill that gap right away.

“Instead of saying, ‘Brooke’ll score, Brooke’ll score,’ they’ll say, I’ve got to score,” she said. “So I think you’ll see a lot of people stepping up.”

Whitney’s graduation won’t stop anyone from expecting a Brooke to score for Northeastern, because the Huskies still have a prolific scorer in Brooke White on their roster. White, a speedy player who made the U.S. roster for the Four Nations Cup, tied for the national lead with 34 assists last season, and scored 18 goals herself. While White has never been the team’s most prolific goal-scorer, her skating skills make her immediately noticeable against any opponent.

Between Gunn, the two Brookes and senior defenseman Kim Greene, Woog had a tougher job of any other coach in the East of nominating two Patty Kazmaier candidates last season. Greene finished atop the conference in scoring among defenseman, and earned a spot at the U.S. National Festival in the summer.

With 12 freshmen on the roster, Northeastern will need big contributions from its younger players to ultimately have a successful season. Among those expected to step up right away are defenseman Rachel Bertram, who Woog called a hard-nosed, physical player, one seasoned by years of playing against boys in California. On the offensive end, Wisconsin native Cyndy Kenyon has already earned a spot on the second line.

Among the Northeastern traditions that will be infused into the players is the Beanpot. The local tournament hasn’t been kind to the Huskies, as Harvard beat them each of the past four years in overtime. So while Woog would ultimately like to win in March, a pair of wins in February would mean a lot as well. She relishes the underdog position.

“You have to build that into them, that tradition,” she said. “Only a few of us have been around that long [for the four losses]. We have to let those 12 freshmen know how important it is, what that Beanpot means.”

But judging by the character of her players, Woog does not expect motivation to be a problem with this team.

“I think we’re young, but as those young players get more and more confidence, we’re going to be tougher to beat,” she said.

Maine 2002-2003 Season Preview

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Just three years ago, Maine was a six-win team. Today, the Black Bears are coming off back-to-back above-.500 campaigns, and coach Rick Filighera thinks his program can compete with anyone this year.

“All of sudden, we show up a rink, we can win that game now, but we can also lose that game,” he said, in contrast to two years ago, when Maine lost to pretty much everybody. “If we execute we’re as good as anyone.”

Filighera’s views are justified as Maine took points from all of the Hockey East teams last year, including a 6-0-1 stretch where the Bears beat New Hampshire and Northeastern and tied Princeton. But the Black Bears struggled with consistency throughout the year.

Experience is what Filighera believes can elevate Maine this season. The Black Bears feature two of the top three returning scorers in Hockey East in Meagan Aarts and Karen Droog. The pair each put up 25 goals last season, and they accomplished that feat as sophomores.

The Black Bears also have an exceptional goaltender in Lara Smart, who earned time with the Canadian U-22 team over the summer. Senior Dawn Froats is also a strong, well-tested starting candidate.

While Maine scored goals at a higher rate than anyone else in the ECAC East last season, if the Black Bears are to improve, they’ll need greater contributions defensively. Filighera brought in a three defensemen, and he expects them to make an impact right away.

That could be the missing piece that makes the Black Bears a legitimate Hockey East contender. Time will tell.

“How they emotionally handle each game, each week will go a long way with our success,” Filighera said.

Potulny Injury More Severe Than Thought

USCHO Staff Report
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Minnesota forward Grant Potulny, who scored the game-winning goal in the 2002 NCAA championship game, will miss up to four months after breaking his leg and tearing ligaments in his ankle.

Potulny

Potulny

Potulny was injured in Saturday’s game against Ohio State, but the severity of the injury was not known until X-rays were taken Monday. Even then, it was originally believed Potulny would miss just 4-6 weeks with a broken fibula, but further tests revealed extensive ligament damage.

At the time, the junior captain of the Gophers did not think he was seriously injured.

“I’ve never had an ankle sprain or a break so I didn’t know what that would feel like,” said Potulny to the Associated Press. “This is just the way things happen. I’m glad it happened early in the season.”

Potulny had missed just one game in his first two seasons with Minnesota.

The top-ranked Gophers are at No. 3 New Hampshire for a pair of big non-conference games this weekend.

This Week in the CHA: Oct. 17, 2002

By Geof F. Morris
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Great Expectations

As the member schools of College Hockey America finish their staggered season kickoff with Alabama-Huntsville’s sojourn to Wisconsin, everyone from the top to the bottom is excited about the joys that the new season will bring to fans of the CHA.

Let’s start at the top, where Commissioner R.H. “Bob” Peters is worked up about the prospects of an automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament.

“This campaign is going to be simply marvelous, and we’re ready to explode on the scene. We’ve got the toughest nonconference schedule of any conference,” said Peters. “The CHA nonconference schedule can’t be described as ‘lightweight.'”

No matter their place in the conference — expected to repeat (Wayne State) or hoping to escape the cellar (Findlay) — coaches and fans understand that this year means business.

“We’re happy to be No. 1, but we’ve got to step up and take that pressure. We’re expected to win, and sometimes you play better when you’re not expected to win,” said Warriors coach Bill Wilkinson. “I don’t know which team is going to come out as champion. The tournament in Kearney is going to be a fabulous event, and whoever comes out will play very respectfully in the NCAAs.”

“We obviously were very disappointed with last year,” Findlay coach Craig Barnett said. “Our goal was to win the league, and we missed that. … Anytime you fail you can gain some positives out of it.”

Of the preseason prediction by his peers that the Oilers would bring up the rear in the CHA, Barnett added, “I want to use last year as a motivation for this year.”

The coaches in the middle think that it’s a tussle. Said Bemidji State’s Tom Serratore, “The carrot is out there for us, and I think we’re going to work for it. We could win it, or we could finish sixth. Whoever is sent to the NCAA tournament will be a great representative.”

That sentiment was echoed by Air Force coach Frank Serratore, who said, “I will guarantee you that our champion will not embarrass the league in the tournament.”

Strong Showings

The CHA is competitive internally, as the teams are all close enough in talent level to make special teams and goaltender play the keys for winning a short series. But how about outside the league?

So far, the CHA is 0-3-0 against the “Big Four” conferences, but that includes Niagara’s game against Michigan, No. 6 in the latest USCHO.com Division I poll.

Sure, it was a 3-0 loss, but consider this: Dave Burkholder played three freshmen on his blue line, and he also had freshman, Jeff VanNynatten, in goal. If I’m Burkholder, I’m happy with the effort, but he wasn’t.

Said Burkholder, “I’m not happy; we didn’t get it done [Friday]. We had some good chances and our young guys played great, but we could not produce on our power play, and that let us down.”

Yes, the Purple Eagles were 0-8 on the power play, but with a young team. They certainly have proved to me that they’re better than last place in the conference.

Alabama-Huntsville can have another strong showing for the conference this weekend against Wisconsin. Is it too much to expect a CHA team to come out strong against the Badgers in the early going?

History says no: Wayne State went up to Wisconsin this time last year and picked up a split. Of course, last season’s upset came in the Badgers’ first series, and while Wisconsin did fall, 5-1, to Rensselaer in the opening game of the Ice Breaker Cup last weekend, the Badgers won the consolation game against Northern Michigan by a 4-3 score.

“We’ve got one hell of a schedule this year, opening up with Wisconsin, Denver, and Minnesota,” said Charger coach Doug Ross. “Playing those teams will only make you better. Wayne State took it to Wisconsin last year, and we’re hoping to take it to them.

“We’re going to get a lot of good exposure and good experience.”

CHA teams went 38-45-3 against nonconference opponents last season, although that mark was padded by a 25-7-1 record against MAAC foes. The league that rode the CHA the hardest? The WCHA, which sent the young conference packing with a 4-18-0 blemish. Of course, that record was an improvement on the previous two seasons, when the CHA went 0-17-0 [2000-01] and 2-13-1 [1999-2000].

Exhibition Fever

Findlay and Wayne State both treated Wilfrid Laurier to a little CHA home cooking last weekend. The Oilers put up a five-spot in their shutout win on Friday night, and the Warriors did them one better with a 6-0 victory Saturday. The difference? Findlay played goalies Kevin Fines and Jamie VandeSpyker for 30 minutes apiece in their win, while Dave Guerrera bore the entire load for Wayne State.

Consider that an omen of things to come.

Air Force bounced back from a tough opening weekend to drop a 9-1 win on Windsor. The scariest statistic for that game comes in the shots department: Air Force 39, Windsor 4. Sure, one goal allowed on four shots isn’t going to help Mike Polidor in the stats department, but can you blame him? With that kind of domination, most of us would be trying not to fall asleep in the net.

Bad Boys, Bad Boys

I get interesting tidbits from the various sports information directors around the CHA each week. The most interesting one this week comes from Huntsville’s Jamie Gilliam, who notes that the Chargers finished tenth in Division I last season with 17.9 penalty minutes per game. That may not seem shocking, but it turns out to be the school record for the fewest minutes per game in a season. The Chargers also averaged a school-low 7.5 trips to the sin bin last season. Are the Von Braun Bullies losing their edge?

Stay Tuned

Check back next week for information from the various tilts around the CHA, as member schools play teams from four of the other Division I conferences. Niagara picks up games against Union from the ECAC and UMass-Lowell from Hockey East, while Findlay, Air Force, and Bemidji State all take on MAAC foes.

The game this week with the greatest fun potential has to be Sunday’s NU-UML tilt, as former Niagara coach Blaise MacDonald renews acquaintances with his old school.

Serino Returns

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Last year [nl]Merrimack coach Chris Serino would say, “Write about the team. I don’t want to be a distraction. I don’t want to be the focus. Write about the kids.”

After he made his full-time return to the bench in Saturday’s season opener against Union, he reiterated the theme. “Let’s not make this about me.”

When the score reads Good Guys 1, Cancer 0, however, the request must be respectfully declined.

A year ago, doctors stunned Serino with the news that he had throat cancer. He informed his team with characteristic wit, saying, “I have bad news and good news. The bad news is I have cancer in my throat. The good news is I can’t yell at you that much anymore.”

Had anyone been in a joking mood, the punchlines would have been countless.

Chris Serino has returned from cancer surgery for his fifth season behind the Warrior bench. (photo: Jim Connelly)

Chris Serino has returned from cancer surgery for his fifth season behind the Warrior bench. (photo: Jim Connelly)

Chris Serino without his voice was like Jay Leno without his chin. Chris Serino without his voice was like Mick Jagger without his lips. Chris Serino without his voice was like Pamela Anderson without her…

But no one was joking. Maine coach Shawn Walsh was already fighting for his life in a battle with cancer that within weeks he would lose.

Serino’s plight was horrifying news. He might bellow at his players or a referee, but he also was a man with a big heart and an affable personality.

Despite undergoing aggressive chemotherapy and radiation treatments for the malignant tumor, Serino continued to coach until he finally stepped down at the beginning of November.

“I’m frustrated because I’ve had to make a decision that really hurts me,” Serino said at the time. “But I know it’s the right decision to make. I looked at myself the other day [on a game tape] and said, ‘You’ve got to be asinine to be doing this.’ Sunday I was having trouble just talking.”

Other than a brief return for two games at the end of December and then again in March for Senior Night, Serino remained on the sidelines, putting his energies into beating the cancer.

Eventually, his doctors gave him a clean bill of health and in May he was feted at a fundraiser that was attended seemingly by everyone who was anyone in Eastern college hockey. The outpouring of support was indicative of not only the tightly-knit nature of the sport’s community, but also the esteem with which Serino was held.

The season opener might be five months away, but it was something to savor after all he’d been through.

For his players, his return sank in much earlier.

"It’s the greatest thing for our program to have him back. Just having him there as a regular coach — never mind what he’s been through — is an inspiration."

— Merrimack captain Joe Exter, on Chris Serino’s return

“We’ve been going at it for about a month now,” said senior captain Joe Exter after the game. “It was more of an issue back then. Now he’s right back into a groove and it’s like he never was gone…. It’s the greatest thing for our program to have him back. Just having him there as a regular coach — never mind what he’s been through — is an inspiration.”

For Serino, though, his first official game back held a special significance.

“Even last year when I was sick, the three or four games when I was behind the bench was the only time when I felt like myself,” he said.

As a result, Serino felt the anticipation mount as the dropping of the first puck grew closer.

“You know at Christmas time, the day before Christmas when it’s leading up to it and it’s kind of more exciting than when you’re actually opening the presents?” he asked. “That’s kind of what it felt like for me.

“The things that really hit me were getting ready for the game, getting prepared to get there and go on the ice and all the things that go with the pregame part of it, being in the building, walking around and seeing people.

“It’s exciting. It’s like when you coach your first game. It’s like when you don’t know if you’re ever going to be [behind the bench] and then you get there and you feel like your old self.

“We could have been playing the North Andover Pee Wees and it would have been exciting.”

Once he was behind the bench, though, the sense of anticipation was gone. Back in his realm, he was all business.

“Once the game starts, those thoughts don’t go in your mind anymore,” Serino said. It’s ‘Go get the game. Win the game. Do what you have to do to win the game.'”

Which characteristic self-deprecation, he then added, “Or in my case, maybe get out of the way and don’t bother anybody.”

Not surprisingly, the experience of fighting cancer has left its mark.

“It’s different,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you it isn’t different. It’s very different because [your] perspective is a lot different. When something goes wrong now, I just think of where I was last year at this time and it ain’t so bad.”

Which is not to say that he’s suddenly become a stoic behind the bench.

“I’m never going to be a guy that just sits there and does nothing,” Serino said. “That’s not me. I could be in a wheelchair and I’d [be active]. I think this whole thing helped me as a coach. Emotionally, I can keep my emotions better under attack and appreciate what’s going on out there.”

A Hollywood ending called for an emotional Warriors squad coming out firing on all cylinders and winning the game for their returning coach. They did, indeed, come out firing on all cylinders, grabbing a 3-0 lead by the 11:27 mark of the first period. The Hollywood ending, however, was marred by a Union extra-skater goal with 50 seconds remaining that forced Merrimack to settle for a 4-4 tie.

Nonetheless, Serino remained upbeat after the tie-that-felt-like-a-loss, looking at the big picture and saying, “We’ve got some good young kids who work hard and are skilled… This will be a great year because what I love to do is teach.”

The coach is back behind the bench. The teacher is again teaching. Tie or no tie, at Merrimack life is good.

Thanks to Kevin Conway, whose special reports last year to USCHO on Serino’s health provided the quote about his decision to step down.

This Week in the MAAC: Oct. 17, 2002

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MAAC Smackdown

Don’t worry, folks, the WWF (or, to show that I’m not too far behind the times, the WWE) is not coming to Fairfield University anytime soon. But for most of the teams in the MAAC, last week’s nonleague play looked like Hulk Hogan (now I’m really dating myself) taking out his frustrations on the MAAC brethren.

Last weekend, MAAC teams posted a dismal 0-5-0 record in nonleague play. That, though, was hardly the story. The average margin of defeat in these five games: a frightening 6.4 goals per game. And had not Quinnipiac respectably hung in against Lake Superior State (a team that itself was an 8-1 loser the next night to Maine), the margin would have been much worse.

The tough times started Friday night with Northeastern’s 10-1 drubbing of Connecticut, a result which might set a not-so-good tone for UConn’s season, one in which coach Bruce Marshall might be hoping for a return to the big time after two mediocre seasons.

The second walloping Friday night came in a more expected way: North Dakota putting an 8-0 beating on one of the league youngest teams, Canisius. Playing in the HSBC Arena, home of this year’s Frozen Four, the Griffs were simply overmatched by a North Dakota team looking for its return to national glory.

On Saturday, the beatings continued along the expected line. Iona, which matches Canisius in the inexperience column, got bumped around in Providence to the tune of 11-0 — the weekend’s most lopsided tally.

The other two losses — Quinnipiac’s to Lake State and Canisius’ second loss of the weekend, 4-1 to Niagara, comprised the rest of the 0-5-0 nonleague week, possibly one of the worst in the conference’s four years of play against the “Big Four” conferences.

Now you’re probably waiting for me to beat my chest and take a stand that the MAAC needs to schedule more conservatively and save itself some embarrassment. But I’m going to do exactly the opposite.

Last weekend was not the ideal start to season number five for the MAAC, but the most important thing that happened was that the MAAC was placed on a national stage. The fact that the show that the MAAC staged would get panned by any critic isn’t as important as the fact that the curtain rose and fell, and we’re all still here to talk about it.

Northeastern’s Bruce Crowder, a coach who over the last couple of years hasn’t been bashful in scheduling nonleague games against MAAC teams, said that interleague play is critical to the game at this point.

“For us, the way the NCAA system works makes it necessary for us to play MAAC teams,” said Crowder. “You have to prove the strength of your conference, and the only way to do it is to take a chance playing every other conference.

“[Here was] UConn facing a tough test in [Northeastern], and next weekend, we’ll be faced with the same thing when we play Denver.”

The silver lining for the weekend was the performance of Quinnipiac at the Black Bear Classic. The newly-named Bobcats couldn’t muster the final goal against Lake State to advance, but then forced a 2-2 non-NCAA tie in the consolation game against Canadian school New Brunswick (two notes about that game: one, New Brunswick took Maine to the buzzer in Friday’s other semifinal, falling by a similar 2-1 score and, two, Quinnipiac unfortunately had to take fourth place in the tournament, losing a shootout, 3-2, after the teams played five minutes of sudden-death overtime).

Looking ahead to week two of the nonleague clashes, might show some light. Mercyhurst and Sacred Heart, two of the conference’s stronger horses, will travel to Lake Superior State and Bemidji State respectively. The Soo Lakers will be back on heir home ice this weekend, maybe making Mercyhurst’s task a little tougher.

But to file under the “still getting thumped” category: Iona is heading to Alaska-Fairbanks to play the host Nanooks on Friday and nationally-ranked Colorado College on Saturday in the Nye Frontier Classic. It will be a bit of a homecoming for Gaels coach Frank Bretti, who served as an assistant at UAF before becoming head coach at Iona. Still, don’t expect a happy welcome for Iona as neither of the club’s opponents pose any less of a threat than Providence did before last week’s 11-0 whitewash.

Weekly Awards

The MAAC league, with a sparse schedule last week, didn’t hand out weekly awards. So in a substitution for the regular awards committee, here’s my picks for Offensive and Defensive Players of the Week.

Offensive Player of the Week

It doesn’t take a genius, particularly after reading the column, to know that scoring was hard to come by last week. Still, the league’s only multiple-goal scorer of the week, Quinnipiac’s Matt Froelich, deserves recognition. Granted, his goals came in a meaningless third-place game versus New Brunswick, but it gave the Bobcats and the league the only shining moment of the weekend.

Defensive Player of the Week

Quinnipiac’s Jamie Holden didn’t have the best memory to end his freshman year last season. Highly-touted entering the NCAA Regional game versus Cornell, Holden was pulled almost immediately after a couple of first-period miscues. So there’s no doubt that Holden more than wanted to return to the ice last weekend, and with a matchup against Lake State, he knew he’d have to be one his game.

That he was, stopping 31 or 33 Laker shots and giving his club the chance to win late in the game. Though the Bobcats couldn’t deliver the tying goal, Holden’s performance is worthy of recognition.

Short But Sweet

These early-season columns are the toughest to write. As the MAAC teams begin to ease their way onto the ice for actual NCAA matchups, the meat that I can talk about will increase. So this week, we’re in a short, but relatively sweet format.

Looking ahead to the key matchups, you can’t look past this weekend.

Mercyhurst’s road to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for a two-game set with Lake Superior has the potential for a MAAC milestone: the league’s first win against a CCHA opponent. The Soo Lakers are on the downside, barely getting past Quinnipiac on Friday before Maine hammered them, 8-1, on Saturday. So one might think that Lake State is ripe for the picking.

In Southern Connecticut, the Q-Cup tournament, Quinnipiac’s annual four-team matchup, has gone with an all-MAAC field this year. With AIC, Fairfield and Bentley — last year’s three no-playoff teams, and picked again to hold that destiny — one has to wonder if Rand Pecknold is hosting the tournament just to bring home a win (similar to what Maine did a week ago inviting Lake State, Quinnipiac and New Brunswick to the Black Bear Classic). But then again, hardware is hardware, and you can always put “2002 Q-Cup champion” on a resume.

In the coming weeks, Iona will continue its masochistic ways by traveling to RPI, while Sacred Heart will look for another ECAC upset against Don Vaughan’s Colgate squad.

This Week in Hockey East: Oct. 17, 2002

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Let The Chest-thumping Begin

Hockey East got off to a great start last weekend with a 7-1-2 record against nonconference opponents, outscoring the bad guys, 53-6, in the seven wins.

“Look at the top 15 in the country,” says Massachusetts-Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald. “There are five Hockey East teams and we might be 17th or 18th if you continued on in the rankings based on the points. That’s pretty darned good. Our league is going to be [so tough].

“Buckle your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. I don’t know who’s going to win it. It’s crazy. It depends on whoever can stay healthy, whoever can get on a roll and stay on it and whoever can get the right goaltending at the right time. Anything can happen.

“We could be kind of sneaky, too.”

Indeed. Perhaps the most impressive performance of the weekend was not how the acknowledged league powerhouses took care of business — mostly with a flourish — but rather how a young River Hawks squad projected for seventh place gained a split with then 10th-ranked Colorado College.

“That’s a set-up weekend,” says MacDonald. “It’s such a tough trip. The travel. The altitude. It was their homecoming. There was nothing good that could come out of that thing.

“But we kind of surprised ourselves a little bit.”

After losing the opener, 6-4, Lowell rebounded with a 4-1 win, paced by goaltender Chris Davidson’s 36 saves.

“We played a good road game the second night, just hung around there, played well without the puck and when we had our chances we buried them,” says MacDonald. “We’re pretty intelligent. Our freshmen have picked up the systems pretty well. We got better goaltending than I probably would have expected.

“And our special teams were better the second night. We changed our penalty-killing schemes. We got two power-play goals and held them [0-for-6] where they were 4-for-8 the first night.”

He then adds with a grin that can be heard over the telephone line, “So, of course, that was all coaching.”

Take Two?

Of course, one weekend does not a season make.

There will be three major nonconference matchups this week pitting powerhouses from the East against those from the West. Third-ranked New Hampshire hosts top-ranked Minnesota for a Friday-Saturday doubleheader. No. 2 in the country, Denver, visits No. 7 Boston College before moving on to Northeastern. And fifth-ranked Maine plays No. 11 Colorado College in Alaska-Anchorage’s Nye Frontier Classic.

If Hockey East again posts a record like last weekend, then league officials, coaches, players, fans and media members may be forgiven if they go from boastful to downright insufferable.

The Olympic Faceoff Rule

As most everyone knows by now, college hockey is borrowing a rule from the Olympics, giving players 15 seconds to get to the faceoff circle and then dropping the puck. Although this is a major hardship for some broadcasters who now have insufficient time to get their advertising spots in, it’s a boon for fans, who see no merits in deliberate attempts to slow down the pace of the game.

Connecticut goaltender Artie Imbriano found out, much to his chagrin, just how serious officials are about enforcing the rule. With a faceoff in the UConn defensive zone to Imbriano’s left, the netminder was left defenseless when no teammate was there to take the draw in time and the puck was dropped anyway. Northeastern’s Jason Guerriero collected the loose puck and skated untouched to the net and stuffed it home.

“I hope I can get one of those in the Hockey East finals,” said NU coach Bruce Crowder after the game. “Guerriero would like that. I think everybody in the building but Guerriero was shocked that [the linesman] dropped it without anybody being in there.”

Based on viewing just two games under the new rule, you may see some players this year skating faster to the faceoff dot than on the backcheck.

Phantom Assist Of The Year?

Perhaps I missed something on the faceoff goal just described, but I’m at a loss to understand how Mike Morris was awarded an assist on the play…

The Net Dislodged Rule

The new rule allowing a referee to award a goal despite the net being dislodged came into play at Merrimack on Saturday. Union’s third goal came a fraction of a second after MC goaltender Joe Exter knocked the net off its moorings while attempting a stacked pad save. Although many Warrior fans unaware of the rule vented their displeasure, there were no on-ice complaints since it was clearly the right call.

An Eligibility Question

When Lowell defenseman Baptiste Amar flew back from France to begin the semester, he never suspected that a potential problem awaited him. One of three UML Frenchmen to play in the Olympics last year, Amar looked forward to leading the River Hawk blueliners in his final year of eligibility.

Or so he thought.

Instead, a Hockey East coach has contended that last season, Amar’s first in collegiate hockey, was his only year of eligibility.

“He’s surprised by it,” says MacDonald. “We’re all surprised by it.”

In most cases involving European athletes such as Amar, a school will send the player’s transcript to the independent Center for Documentation, which determines what previous coursework is at a college level and is transferable and what is not. Then each school is empowered to determine his eligibility with the decision handed down by a committee chaired by the faculty representative.

When the challenge to Amar’s eligibility arose, Lowell requested a decision from the NCAA and even flew the defenseman to Colorado last weekend with the hope that one would be announced in time for the first game. When none was forthcoming, MacDonald was left with no choice but to sit Amar. If he played and was later ruled ineligible, all wins and ties with him in the lineup would be rendered forfeit losses.

Lowell is still waiting.

“There’s no news to report,” says an unusually tight-lipped MacDonald. “Anytime the NCAA is involved, there’s always concern.”

For the best comparison, a fan should think of being audited by the IRS. Even if you’re squeaky-clean honest, the pulse rate still quickens and the blood pressure rises. So it is for Lowell and Amar.

Even if vindicated, Amar has already lost two games and faces another two down the drain this weekend if word doesn’t come out quickly enough.

In this writer’s opinion, it’s hard to fathom why any challenge wasn’t made long before this date. Amar was in the league last year and the assumption that he had two years of eligibility was public knowledge. Why wait to bring the challenge until he’s flown over from France? Why wait until the kid has spent an offseason in preparation for one last year? Why wait until he’s closed the door to other opportunities?

People on both sides of the fence can debate eligibility questions, but the timing of this challenge seems hard to defend.

A Great Start

Admit it. You hadn’t heard of Nick Pomponio, right? To be honest, neither had I.

But Pomponio, a 5-10, 170-pound Merrimack forward, made a great first impression in his debut last Saturday against Union, scoring two goals. The 18-year-old also had a goal and an assist in a lopsided exhibition win over Queens.

“We had a guy from Toronto last week, Kevin Burkett, who coached [last year] in the league against him,” says Merrimack coach Chris Serino. “He said, ‘When you took that kid, I didn’t know why you took him. But boy, he’s a pretty good player. He’s a much better player than he was last year.’

“But I took him based on where he was going and not where he’s at. In our case, sometimes you have to take those chances. If he was that good last year, we probably wouldn’t have gotten him.”

The freshman wasn’t celebrating after the game, despite getting his first goal on the second official shift of his career and adding another one later.

“It does feel pretty good, but we didn’t win,” he said. The Warriors had to settle for a tie after a Union extra-skater goal in the final minute of regulation. “I wish we could have won. It’s a team game.”

He at least cracked a smile, though, when it was playfully noted that he is on pace for a 72-goal season.

“We’ll have to see about that,” he said.

Quip Of The Week

With Merrimack taking on sixth-ranked Michigan this weekend, Serino was asked how he would wipe out of his youngsters’ mind the difficulty of invading such a hostile territory.

“Fear,” he said.

You just knew that every writer in attendance was going to use that one.

(Serino elaborated, “Guess what? If they don’t play there, they get run right out of the building.”)

Hockey East And The MAAC

MAAC-bashers may have come out of the woodwork last weekend after Providence clobbered Iona, 11-0, and Northeastern delivered a similar fate to UConn, 10-1. “Why bother with the MAAC?” the bashers might say.

“You have to with the NCAA RPI,” says Crowder, making reference to the Ratings Percentage Index, one of the criteria used for selection to the national tournament. “You’ve got to find a way to distinguish your league versus the other leagues. If you don’t put them on the schedule, there’s no real way of doing that.

“And in all fairness, they’re a young league and you want to give them the opportunity to improve their league. That’s only going to be good for college hockey. And they’re going to get better.

“Just like us next week against Denver. They’re number one in the country so I’m going to learn a lot about my team, win or lose.”

Faked Right Out Of His…

You’ve heard of an athlete getting “faked right out of his jock,” but last Saturday’s Merrimack – Union contest took that to a new level. Suddenly an athletic cup appeared on the ice along the boards opposite from the benches.

Do we really want to know the answers to the following questions: How did it fall out? How long were the family jewels placed in jeopardy? And didn’t linesman Steve Arnold even think about using something to pick it up before grabbing it with his bare hands and bringing it to the Union bench?

No, we really don’t want the answers. There are some things humans are just not meant to know.

Liking It On This Side

Northeastern junior Brian Tudrick expressed the sentiments of every kid who has paid his dues with a redshirt year followed by some more games spent watching from the stands.

“It’s much easier on this side of the boards,” he said after scoring two goals last Friday. “Much, much easier. But it gives me motivation as well, because I know what it’s like to be [back in the stands] and I don’t want to be back there again.”

Trivia Contest

The first trivia question of the season concerns New Hampshire’s walloping of Vermont last weekend, 10-0. Over the past 10 years, the Wildcats have put the exact same hurting on two other teams. Name the teams and the season(s).

Email Dave Hendrickson with your wild guesses or actual informed answers. The winner gets to provide a one-sentence cheer in support of his or her favorite team.

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

  • It’s sad to see the Red Sox sitting at home, but at least the Yankees are, too.
  • Trade Nomar? Using the Seattle Mariners’ trades of Ken Griffey and Randy Johnson as examples of how to improve by trading your stars? Tell me, exactly how many World Series has Seattle gotten to, let alone won, using this strategy?
  • I’d welcome Mo Vaughn back in a Red Sox uniform as soon as I’d welcome Richard Nixon back as President. And, yes, that factors in that Nixon is dead.
  • I thought the European Ryder Cup team was the biggest bunch of whiners imaginable three years ago. But the thumping it put on the US team a couple weeks ago was stunning. My hat is off to the Euros.
  • Although when ‘Zinger holed out from the bunker to keep the American team in it, I wondered if perhaps a miracle was once again in the works.
  • I’m not sure who said it first, but one of the saddest truisms in sports is that Phil Mickelson is the Red Sox of golf.
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