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This Week in the SUNYAC: Feb. 21, 2002

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Holy Mini-Games, Batman!

Love it or hate it, the mini-game is sure to generate discussion by fans, produce heartstopping action, leave some jumping in joy, and others suffering in agonizing defeat.

That’s exactly what happened in both of the play-in rounds of the SUNYAC playoffs. Both times, the mini-game was decided with just one goal, one of them in overtime. When all the dust settled, the home teams moved on to play another week.

Geneseo defeated Potsdam after dropping the second game of the series, and will now play Plattsburgh. Cortland barely escaped being knocked off, scoring a late game comeback on Saturday, and then continuing the momentum to defeat Buffalo State. The Red Dragons will play Oswego.

At the rate the playoffs are going this year, bring your heart monitors to the Saturday game, and don’t plan on getting home at a reasonable hour.

Escaped By The Hair on Their Chinny-Chin-Chin

Six minutes, twenty-six seconds. That is how close Cortland came to being eliminated from the playoffs. That is how close Buffalo State came to pulling off a stunning upset.

Jeff Olsen scored the go-ahead goal at that moment in the third period, and for the first time Cortland led in the two-game series.

Up to that point, Buffalo State had the series in control. In the first game, the Bengals shut out Cortland, 4-0. Newly-crowned SUNYAC Player of the Year Todd Nowicki showed his stuff by scoring a hat trick with Henry Jurek getting the other goal. Nick Berti stopped all 37 shots.

Buffalo State picked up where it left off in the second game. The Bengals jumped out to a 2-0 lead on a pair of goals by Josh Bluman, and even when Cortland came back to tie it thanks to Jeff Olsen and Matt Donskov goals on the power play, Buffalo State could still have advanced with the tie.

Then the roof caved in for Buffalo State. Cortland ripped off three goals in a 2:50 span, with Olsen completing the hat trick and Chris Cullen getting the finale. The 5-2 victory meant a mini-game was to follow.

Olsen continued to be the hero, scoring the solitary goal at 14:10 of the mini, saving the Red Dragons from a disappointing ending.

A Rare Commodity

Goals were as good as gold in the Potsdam-Geneseo series. The Ice Knights got the final rush, scoring at 4:36 of the first overtime period in the mini-game to knock out the Bears, 1-0.

Defense was the name of the game in the first contest. Andy Rice scored late in the first period for Geneseo, but it took another 37 minutes before Tony Scorsone made it 2-0. Anthony Greer cut the lead with 4:10 left in the game, but Potsdam was unable to get the equalizer. All the goals came on the power play.

Brett Walker made 26 saves in the win, while Ryan Venturelli made 21 saves.

The next night, it took over 50 minutes for the red light to go on. John Bernfell gave Potsdam its first lead of the series and Scott Craig made it 2-0. With the goalie pulled, Geneseo’s Brian Avery scored, but Greer came back with an empty-netter.

The goaltending battle continued with Venturelli making 24 saves and Walker 25.

To the mini-game the teams went, and that ended in a scoreless tie. The first overtime was held up due to ice problems, but hometown hero Tony Scorsone will never complain about the delay after getting the series winner.

Geneseo coach Brian Hills won’t complain, either, about Scorsone not coming off the ice.

“When we broke out of our zone, I was yelling for him to get off the ice. After the celebration, Boudette asked me, ‘Do you still want Tony to come off the ice?'”

Playoff Previews

Geneseo (7-5-2, 11-14-2) at Plattsburgh (13-1, 18-7)

This is a familiar scene, the third year in a row that Geneseo won a play-in series only to travel to face the powerhouse Cardinals. The past two years, Plattsburgh moved onto the finals.

This year also looks like the same should happen. Geneseo coach Brian Hills is under no illusion.

“We’ll go in with the me-against-the-world attitude. We have nothing to lose,” he said.

How close this series is will depend on Brett Walker of Geneseo. Forget about trying to run him, as he has put his antics behind him. It’s a futile attempt now to get him stirred up — just ask the opposition the past few weeks.

Walker will be calm. The question is, will he be strong? He was outstanding against Potsdam, but the last time he faced Plattsburgh, he let in seven goals. True, his team may have failed him on some of those, but against Plattsburgh, it will happen again. And Walker is going to have to make some big saves to overcome those lapses.

Geneseo got outshot in both games against Potsdam. Plattsburgh is a much better offensive team, second in league goals with over five a game. Geneseo has the third-best defense, but the third-worst offense,

Translated: the Ice Knights can’t afford to fall behind too far.

Geneseo also has the league’s second-worst power play, but it won’t matter much since Plattsburgh takes the fewest penalties, not to mention that Plattsburgh has the best penalty kill. On the other end of the spectrum, Plattsburgh has the second-best power play while Geneseo is third-best in killing penalties.

Though Geneseo has a strong first line, it cannot match the depth of Plattsburgh, which includes Jason Kilcan (22 points), Mark Coletta (17), Guy Come (17), Brendon Hodge (16), Paul Dowe (14), and Adam Richards (14). And those are just the guys in the top 20 in league scoring. There’s a lot more behind them.

And they have the top SUNYAC goalie in Niklas Sundberg with a .931 save percentage. However, right behind him is Walker at .920.

Plattsburgh won the previous meetings, 3-1 and 7-0. They will win the next two as well. By how much is up to Walker.

Cortland (7-5-2, 14-10-3) at Oswego (10-3-1, 16-8-1)

Cortland struggled to get by the first round, and Oswego finished the season with a stumble. Which teams are going to show up in the Golden Romney Fieldhouse?

First, Oswego has to decide which goalie to go with, Joe Lofberg or Tyson Gajda, or continue to have them share duties. They both have a .918 league SV%, so any choice is a good one. Cortland will put John Larnerd between the pipes.

As for offense, Oswego looks to SUNYAC Co-Rookie of the Year Andy Rozak (two goals, 15 assists), Brian St. John (5-11-16), and Rob Smith (9-6-15). Overall, Oswego has the top offense in the league, averaging 5.14 goals per game.

Cortland has some scorers, too, including Jeff Olsen, Matt Donskov, and Trevor Bauer, all of whom are in the top six in league scoring. The Red Dragons are third in scoring and tops in the power play.

Based on the 9-6 game these teams ended the season with, they are not afraid to use those powerful offenses, which means it could come down to who makes the fewest defensive mistakes.

On paper and based on previous results, this should be an Oswego sweep. However, the way these teams are playing lately, and based on Oswego’s recent playoff history, expect anything. We’re going to expect a mini-game.

Eating Crow

There are some who believe one should never reveal more information than necessary, since it increases the risk of making a mistake. I should have taken that advice last week when I answered the previous week’s trivia question.

Instead of just giving the answer — of Jeff Lupu scoring eight seconds into the national semifinal game, which was correct — I went on to provide information about Fredonia’s results past that game, that Fredonia went on to also lose the third-place game to Salem State.

That, of course, was absolutely, completely, positively, totally wrong. Fredonia bounced back to defeat Salem State, 7-4, to finish third in the nation with a single loss. My apologies to the Fredonia faithful.

There were plenty of folks, including former players, who wrote to set me straight. Looking at it optimistically, it’s nice to see that so many people pay attention to this column, and even more so, that former players, students, and fans who have moved away continue to follow their favorite sport and team through USCHO wherever they now live.

Looking at it pessimistically, I’m an idiot.

SUNYAC Trivia

Last Week’s Question

Who is the only player to win SUNYAC Player of the Year twice outright (that is, without sharing it with anybody else)?

This one, we’re pretty sure we are going to get right.

Three players won the SUNYAC Player of the Year award twice, each time in back-to-back years, but two of those shared it for one of those seasons.

Those two include Mike Snell of Oswego, who won it in 1986 and 1987, but shared it in the first year with Howie Vandermast of Potsdam. Recently, Tracey Belanger of Plattsburgh won it in 1998 and 1999, but also shared it in the first year with Brian DeFeo of Oswego.

The only player to win it twice outright did so in the first two years the award was handed out. Brian Bell of Potsdam won it in 1984 and 1985.

This Week’s Question

Who is the only player to win the SUNYAC Rookie of the Year and then later win the SUNYAC Player of the Year?

ECAC Women’s Championship Will Be Televised

USCHO Staff Report
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The ECAC has announced that the 2002 ECAC women’s championship title game will be aired by New England Sports Network (NESN) and Empire Sports. Empire will air the game live, while NESN will air it on a tape-delay basis March 20 at 7 p.m.

The championship weekend begins with a semifinal doubleheader on March 16 starting at 1 p.m. The title contest will begin at 12 noon on March 17. As in 2001, the event will be hosted by Dartmouth in Hanover, N.H. All games will be played in Thompson Arena.

On the broadcast, Tom Caron will handle the play-by-play while Ellen Weinberg will provide the analysis.

The top four teams in the ECAC Division I Women’s Hockey League-North advance to the ECAC Championship. Eight teams will begin the tournament with a best-two-of-three quarterfinal series hosted on campus sites by the higher seeds on the weekend of March 8-10.

The tournament is in its ninth year of existence. Last year it was hosted and won by Dartmouth, both firsts for the program. Brown served as host the two preceding years, and also won the event in its home arena in 2000.

This Week in the ECAC West: Feb. 21, 2002

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The headline for last weekend could have been “Stunner Saturday.”

RIT defeated Elmira with a stunning two seconds remaining. Hobart routed Manhattanville by a stunning margin. Utica and Neumann completed their seasons with a stunning, ice-clearing brawl. And all that occurred within a six-hour span on Saturday.

Stunner Number One

“Stunner Saturday” started at 4 p.m. at the Geneva Recreation Center. Just eight minutes into the game, Hobart freshman Craig Levey (13-14-27) scored his first of three goals in the game and got the Statesmen off to the races. Before the carnage was over, Hobart would score a total of seven goals, while giving up none, and roll to an easy 7-0 win over Manhattanville.

“We played awesome. There were some opportunities they gave us and we didn’t miss,” said Hobart coach Mark Taylor. “On the bench, I just tried to stay out of the way.”

With the win, Adam Lavelle (.904 SV%, 3.53 GAA) set a Hobart record for most wins by a goaltender in a season with 10. Manhattanville is still winless at the Geneva Rec Center, having a 0-2-1 record in three trips there.

It was the players who came together before the game and decided to put the emphasis on playing a strong game.

“It was our senior night, and some of the players wanted to make it special,” said Taylor. “It was a sign of leadership from the co-captains [senior Dan] Bush and [junior Matt] Daley, and from the young guys as well.”

Manhattanville’s weakness in the game was something that has been a strength all season, namely goaltending. Even after the debacle, the four goaltenders on the Valiant roster have combined for a .896 save percentage and 2.76 goals against average for the season. Pretty good numbers. But against Hobart in this game, they couldn’t stop a beach ball as three rotated in and out of net.

“Our goaltending was atrocious,” said Manhattanville coach Keith Levinthal. “Our team wasn’t good enough to overcome bad goaltending.”

“But I can’t put all the blame on the goaltenders,” continued Levinthal. “All week, the coaches worked with the forwards and defensemen, laying out goals and exactly what we wanted them to work on and improve on to get ready. We kind of neglected the goaltenders because they have been so solid since the holidays. In some ways we may have taken their good play the last few week’s for granted.”

Stunner Number Two

“Stunner Saturday” continued into the evening. RIT’s Ritter Arena was packed to the rafters with over 2,100 fans of both RIT and Elmira persuasions. Just as the singing of the National Anthem began, a phone rang in the Press Box updating everyone on the final score from the game at Hobart. As the Anthem continued, the media folks began picking their collective jaws off the floor as they heard the results. You had the feeling that the wild ride was just beginning.

Elmira dominated the game through two periods of play. The Soaring Eagles played nearly flawless hockey, causing RIT fits with an aggressive forecheck, and watching Rob Ligas (.908 save%, 3.05 GAA) stone those chances that the Tigers did get on net. Elmira’s senior captain Steve Kaye (12-14-26) led the charging forecheck and was outstanding all night long.

The Soaring Eagles had built a 3-1 lead by the end of two periods, and looked well on the way to winning the regular-season crown.

RIT was able to solve the Elmira forecheck a little better in the third period, and the Tigers started to pour pressure on to Ligas in the Soaring Eagle net. The work finally paid off at the 8:19 mark with a power-play tally.

Then less than two minutes later, Elmira made its only major mistake of the game. Elmira got caught with all its players on one side of the ice in its zone. RIT’s Lanner Fayad (11-8-19) and Ryan Fairbarn (5-26-31) were able to combine all alone down the slot for the game-tying goal.

The war continued as the third period wound down, and it looked like the two teams were headed for overtime. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, RIT’s David Bagley (15-27-42) dumped the puck deep into the Elmira zone. Mike Tarantino (22-19-41) collected the puck in the corner and found linemate Sam Hill (10-18-28) all alone in front of the net. Hill one-timed home the pass, with only two seconds remaining on the clock, to give RIT the 4-3 victory in stunning fashion as the RIT side of the stands erupted in joy.

Stunner Number Three

The fact that Utica beat Neumann in the final contest for both teams wasn’t so surprising. The score may have been a little higher than many would have expected, with Utica winning 11-3. But what earned this game’s inclusion in the “Stunner Saturday” group was the brawl that occurred early in the second period.

“Frustration kind of set in on Neumann’s part, and some on ours also,” said Utica coach Gary Heenan. “Neither of us were playing for anything, and things got a little out of control.”

Five players from each team, including both goaltenders on the ice, were given game disqualifications. By the end of the game, one more player from each team had earned early trips to the showers. So each team was skating with a very short bench in the third period.

“We started our third goalie, it was his first start of the year,” continued Heenan. “He didn’t hesitate to skate the length of the ice to join the melee. So he gets his first start and only plays one period.”

ECAC West Playoff Watch

With the win over Elmira on Saturday, RIT has sewn up the regular-season title. The title also earns RIT the right to host the ECAC West playoffs, to be held on March 1 and 2.

Elmira, with two games remaining, has clinched the second seed in the ECAC West playoffs.

With Utica’s and Neumann’s seasons complete, the only thing left to decide is who will finish in third and fourth place. Hobart jumped over Manhattanville into third place with its win on Saturday.

If a tiebreaker is needed between Hobart and Manhattanville to award third place, here is how the two teams compare:

1) Head to head – Tied 1-1
2) Number of conference wins – Advantage Hobart: five wins vs. Manhattanville’s four
3) Record vs. common opponents – Advantage Manhattanville: 9-5-2 vs Hobart’s 8-8
4) Overall record – Advantage Manhattanville: 15-6-3 vs Hobart’s 10-14

Conclusion: if Manhattanville ties Elmira and Hobart loses to Elmira, then Hobart remains as the third seed in the tournament by having more league wins. If Manhattanville beats Elmira, and Hobart ties Elmira to maintain the tie in league points, then Manhattanville would earn the third seed because of a better record against common opponents. A win by one team and a loss by the other gives third place to the victor.

NCAA Pool B Bid Possibilities

It is still a neck-and-neck race between Elmira and RIT for the NCAA Pool B bid. Let’s break it down using the same selection criteria as the NCAA.

For all but the last of the criteria below, only in-region games count in the statistics. All games against NCHA and MIAC opponents are ignored.

The NCAA Championship Handbook states that the committee must review all of the criteria in the order that they are listed. However, it allows the committee latitude on how much weight to apply to each criteria.

Criterion No. 1 – Season Record. Advantage RIT.

The first criterion is composed of Winning Percentage, Head to Head Results, and Results Against Common Opponents.

  • Winning Percentage – Advantage RIT. Assuming Elmira wins its last two regular-season games, the Soaring Eagles would have a .842 winning percentage, and RIT sits at .905.

    If Elmira wins the ECAC West tournament, the Soaring Eagles would move up to a .857 and RIT would drop to a .870, which could change this category to a push.

    If RIT wins the ECAC West tournament, the Tigers would improve to .913 while Elmira drops to .810.

    Obviously, Elmira needs to win all of its remaining games, including both regular-season contests, to keep this category close. Dropping either of those contests, and the gap gets pretty wide.

  • Head to Head – Push. Elmira and RIT have split their regular-season contests, each winning one. If they meet again in the ECAC West championship game, the winner would get a huge advantage, as the Selection Committee has stated that the Head to Head category carries a lot of weight.
  • Common Opponents – Advantage RIT. Once again, assuming Elmira wins its remaining regular-season games, the Soaring Eagles would finish with a 10-2 record against common opponents. RIT, which has already played its last regular-season game, finished the season with a 13-0 record against those same teams.

    If both pass through the semifinal round of the tournament unscathed, the final numbers would be 11-2 for Elmira and 14-0 for RIT. The Tigers edge Elmira in this category.

    Using a mathematical formula that equally weights the three components of Criteria No. 1 amongst all the Eastern teams, RIT ends up ranked No. 2 and Elmira No. 6.

    Criterion No. 2 – Strength of Schedule. Advantage Elmira.

    This is the category where Elmira holds a distinct advantage. As of today, Elmira has a Strength of Schedule (SOS) of .562, third in the nation in Division III. RIT’s SOS is much weaker at .513, tied for the 22nd spot.

    Assuming both teams pass through to the championship round of the conference playoffs, these numbers will most likely not change very much.

    Criterion No. 3 – Teams in the Tournament. Push

    This category is hard to figure, since we don’t know who is in the NCAA tournament yet. However, if we consider Elmira’s and RIT’s record against teams that are still participating in their respective tournaments, then we can get a decent idea.

    This is finally a category where Elmira can benefit from all of the out of region games that it played.

    Elmira played games against St. Norbert, Plattsburgh (twice), St. Thomas, Lebanon Valley, Amherst, and Oswego. The Soaring Eagles amassed a 5-2 record against those teams.

    RIT had contests against Johnson & Wales, Wentworth, Amherst, and Oswego(twice), and tallied a 4-1 record. I wonder if RIT coach Wayne Wilson wishes he had that loss against Wentworth back?

    While Elmira enjoys a slight lead in this category, it is still probably too close to give either team a distinct advantage overall. Who wins the auto-qualifiers from the other conferences could swing this category in favor of one team or the other.

    Conclusion

    Elmira is still very much in the hunt for the NCAA Pool B bid. RIT has the advantage in two categories, while Elmira takes one category, and two are pushes. One of those pushes, Head to Head, could be the deciding factor. And that means that the bid could very well come down to a potential meeting in the ECAC West championship.

    Game of the Week

    Elmira can decide whom it wants to face in the semifinal round of the ECAC West playoffs this weekend. It plays both Manhattanville and Hobart, the two teams vying for third place. If Elmira wins both games, Hobart remains in third and would face Elmira again in the semifinals. However, if Manhattanville manages to get by Elmira, and Hobart doesn’t, then the Valiants would move into third.

    It isn’t often that a team gets to decide its playoff opponent. I’m not sure Elmira has a preference, but it is an interesting topic for the fans.

    The flip side of this is that Elmira really can’t afford to lose or tie either game if it wants to keep pace with RIT for the NCAA Pool B bid.

    • New Haven Lands 2004 Women’s Frozen Four

    USCHO Staff Report
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    The bid to host the 2004 Women’s Frozen Four, the NCAA annual women’s hockey championship, has been awarded to New Haven. The announcement was made jointly Wednesday by co-hosts the New Haven Coliseum, Yale University and the ECAC.

    The semifinals will be played on Friday, April 9, with the consolation and championship tilts on Sunday the 11th. Times have not been determined.

    The 2004 event will be just the fourth NCAA Women’s Hockey Championship. The 2001 Frozen Four was played in Minneapolis, and 2002 is set for Durham, N.H., on the campus of New Hampshire. Next spring, the event will be hosted by Minnesota-Duluth.

    The 8,000-seat New Haven Coliseum (NHC) first opened in 1972. While it turns 30-years-old next October, the first women’s hockey contest in the building was this winter. The U.S. National Women’s Hockey Team played an exhibition game on Dec. 15 and drew 3,276 for its win over Sweden.

    “SMG and the Coliseum Authority are pleased to have joined forces with Yale University and the ECAC to land such a prestigious event,” said Coliseum General Manager Lisa Audi. “With national television coverage, numerous out-of-town guests and college hockey’s women’s championship to be crowned at the Coliseum, this is a great day for the city of New Haven.”

    The 2002 championship will be broadcast live on CNN/Sports Illustrated and the New England Sports Network (NESN).

    The Yale men’s hockey team has had 16 games at the NHC and averaged 4,579 fans. It was the site of the largest home crowd in the history of Yale hockey, when 7,460 showed up for the Bulldogs’ first game at their home away from home, the 1979 Harvard meeting. The Yale women’s program, which began in 1977, has played all of its home games at Ingalls Rink (cap. 3,486).

    “We are proud and extremely excited to be a host of a national championship. The New Haven Coliseum is an excellent venue, and we will do what ever it takes to make this a great experience for the athletes, coaches and fans,” said Yale athletic director Tom Beckett.

    This Week in Division III: Feb. 21, 2002

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    Home Stretch

    As I write this, only three regular-season games remain. By the end of this coming weekend, we will know:

    1. The MCHA champion
    2. The two SUNYAC teams that will meet for the title
    3. The matchups for the MIAC semifinals
    4. The matchups for the ECAC West semifinals
    5. The matchups for the NESCAC semifinals
    6. The matchups for the ECAC East semifinals
    7. The matchups for the ECAC Northeast semifinals

    We already know the final four NCHA teams.

    All this will conclude with a cornucopia of conference championships on March 1-3, but before we get there, let’s examine the possibilities.

    ECAC East

    Quarterfinals are Saturday. The pairings are:

    No. 8 Skidmore at No. 1 Norwich: The Cadets are just 5-4 after a 16-0 start. Skidmore (2-19-3), which lost to Norwich 3-1 a month ago, hasn’t won since January 4.

    No. 7 UMass-Boston at No. 2 New England: The defending ECAC East champion Pilgrims (13-10-2) just defeated the Beacons (4-17-3) 8-2 last Saturday.

    No. 6 Babson at No. 3 MCLA: The MCLA Mohawks have overachieved this season, posting a winning record (12-10-3) for the first time since the school as known as North Adams State. Babson lost to MCLA 5-2 in their only meeting this season.

    No. 5 S. Maine at No. 4 Salem State: The Vikings (14-10-1) held second place for most of the season, but are just 2-3-1 in their last six games. The Huskies opened the season 0-6 but battled back to finish 10-12-3. The teams last meeting was back in November, with Salem State coming out on top, 4-1.

    ECAC Northeast

    Quarterfinals are Saturday and Sunday. The pairings are:

    No. 8 Plymouth State at No. 1 Lebanon Valley (3/24): The Flying Dutchmen defeated the Panthers 8-2 back in December. Plymouth State (7-13-1) comes into the playoffs with a two-game winning streak, its longest of the season. Lebanon Valley (23-3-1) has lost just once since dropping its first two games of the season.

    No. 7 Salve Regina at No. 2 UMass-Dartmouth (3/23): The Cosairs have the better record (18-5-1 vs.9-12-2), but the Seahawks are 1-0-1 against UMD so far this season.

    No. 6 Fitchburg State at No. 3 Wentworth (3/23): The Leopards won the only meeting this season between the teams, 4-1. The Falcons have righted the ship at the right time, winning four in a row after dropping four of six before that.

    No. 5/4 Curry vs. No. 4/5 Johnson & Wales (3/24): If Curry beats W. New England on 3/21, it will host; otherwise the game is at J&W. The Curry Colonels are one of the biggest surprises and one of the hottest teams in Division III. They’ve won eight in a row.

    ECAC West

    RIT and Elmira have locked up the number-one and -two positions, respectively, and Utica and Neumann are done for the season. The only suspense is which of Hobart (10 points) and Manhattanville (nine points) will finish third. Both face Elmira this weekend in the final games of the 2001-2002 regular season.

    MCHA

    The MCHA will be the first conference to crown a champion, on Sunday at host Lawrence. Northland will square off against the host Vikings on Friday in a battle of four and five seeds. The winner will play top-seeded Marian on Saturday in one semifinal, while No. 3 Minnesota-Crookston meets No. 2 MSOE in the other.

    Marian is the heavy favorite to repeat as conference champions. The Sabres were a perfect 16-0 in conference, outscoring their opposition 100-22.

    MIAC

    The MIAC has gone to a Final Five format this season, with a play-in game between No. 5 Concordia (11-11-1) and No. 4 St. John’s (14-9-2) this Saturday. The Johnnies swept their weekend series with the Cobbers this season.

    The winner will face off against top-seeded St. Thomas (20-5) on March 1, while No. 3 Augsburg (14-8-3) and No. 2 Gustavus Adolphus (13-8-4) will meet in the other semifinal. The winners play for the MIAC championship (and NCAA auto-bid) on March 2.

    NCHA

    The NCHA has also changed its format to single-elimination semifinals and final. The quarterfinals were last week, so the teams take a weekend off before the semifinals and finals on March 1 and 2.

    Top-seeded St. Norbert will host, and takes on Wisconsin-River Falls in one semifinal. The Green Knights completed the first undefeated season in NCHA play since Bemidji in 1984.

    In the other semi, No. 3 Wisconsin-Stevens Point squares off against second-seeded Wisconsin-Superior. The Pointers come in with the hot hand, undefeated in their last 10 games. The YellowJackets are an impressive 7-1-3 in their last 11.

    NESCAC

    Middlebury has clinched the top spot and has a bye this weekend. The next six seeds face off in first-round action this Saturday:

    No. 7 Amherst at No. 2 Bowdoin: The Polar Bears defeated the Lord Jeffs 8-2 last Friday. Both teams come into the playoffs cold — Bowdoin has lost three of four after going undefeated in its first 20 games. Amherst has won just twice in its last nine games.

    No. 6 Colby at No.3 Hamilton: This is a matchup of teams going in opposite directions. Colby was in third place for most of the season, but dropped to sixth, while Hamilton won four in a row to gain home ice. The Continentals defeated the White Mules 5-2 last Friday.

    No. 5 Williams at No. 4 Trinity: The Bantams are 10-2-1 since the holidays. Willaims, which has played one of the toughest schedules in Division III this season, lost to Trinity 4-1 on February 9.

    SUNYAC

    The top seeds advanced last weekend, both in mini-games. No. 4 Geneseo now travels to Plattsburgh for the semifinals for the third year in a row. The Knights (11-14-2) were swept the previous two seasons, and were 0-2 against the Cardinals (18-7) in the regular season in 2001-2002, losing the two games by a combined score of 10-1.

    Cortland (14-10-3) travels to Oswego (16-8-1) for the other semifinal series. Oswego won both meetings this season, including a 9-6 shootout on February 12.

    Chances Are

    Not that anyone should or will place any wagers on the Division III postseason, but as a public service, here’s one man’s estimate of the odds at this point for each team to win it all:

    Middlebury, 2-1: The Panthers are an easy choice. Ranked number-one in the USCHO.com poll, Middlebury has lost just once this season, and is one of the few teams that knows it’s going to the NCAA tournament, as either the NESCAC champ or an at-large team.

    St. Norbert, 3-1: The Green Knights are another team that has virtually locked up an NCAA bid, win or lose in the NCHA playoffs.

    Norwich, 4-1: The Cadets have one of the easiest roads to the NCAAs, as they have dominated their conference all season.

    RIT, 4-1: The Tigers must beat Elmira to make the nationals, but if they do, they will host a quarterfinal series.

    Plattsburgh, 4-1: The Cardinals will have home ice throughout the SUNYACs, and it’s tough to beat them twice at home, as the format requires.

    Wisconsin-Superior, 4-1: The YellowJackets have a decent shot at the NCHA title and a good chance for an at-large bid.

    St. Thomas, 5-1: The Tommies have also dominated their conference, and have a decent shot at an at-large bid if all the other favorites win.

    Wisconsin-River Falls or Wisconsin-Stevens Point, 6-1: Both must probably win the NCHA to make the NCAAs, but either could play well enough to win next weekend.

    Bowdoin, 8-1: The Polar Bears were a lock for at least an at-large bid three weeks ago, but going 1-3 since has hurt their chances.

    Oswego, 12-1: If anyone can knock off Plattsburgh, it’s the Lakers. They’ll have to in order to get into the tournament.

    Lebanon Valley, UMass-Dartmouth, Wentworth, 20-1: First they have to beat each other, then the winner will have a long road to the NCAA title.

    Rest of the field, 50-1: We might get one team not mentioned here (like NEC last season), but merely getting in means an uphill battle in the NCAAs.

    Rants

    I haven’t had one in a while, but I’ve got two this week.

    The first one I’ll call “Stuff That Doesn’t Count, But Should.”

    1. Points scored by players in exhibition games — players try to win every game, be they NCAA or not. Tell RIT and Bowdoin that their games against the U.S. National Development Team this season were mere friendlies. Players worked as hard for those goals as they did any other game. I can understand the NCAA not counting them, but Sports Information Directors, please include them in your players’ overall and career statistics.

    2. Points scored in minigames — these are arguably the most important points a player can score, and yet they don’t count in NCAA stats. You can’t even get boxscores for these “games.” Tell Geneseo’s Tony Scorsone that his overtime minigame score that eliminated Potsdam and sent the Knights into the SUNYAC semifinals wasn’t a real goal. Please.

    3. Non-region games — in an attempt to discourage East and West teams from playing each other during the regular season, the NCAA refuses to consider the results of these games when selecting at-large teams and seeding the field for the NCAA tournament. This robs players and fans from having the best games possible, and seeing teams that they normally don’t get to watch. A very bad move.

    The other I’ll simply call “Pool B.”

    It might not happen every year, but this season, one of the top five teams will not make the NCAAs. Either Elmira or RIT will not play in the nationals, and that’s a shame. The teams have split their regular-season series, and RIT holds a slight advantage in the other selection criteria.

    But get this: Elmira has a great shot at making the nationals if it can beat RIT again. The two teams will meet again in the ECAC West Finals if each wins its semifinal game. If they don’t meet, RIT will go as the Pool “B” winner. So RIT is actually better off from an NCAA tournament standpoint if it loses in the ECAC semifinals. What a spectacular flaw in the system. Of course, the Tigers wouldn’t tank a game anyway, and especially not with a chance for a conference title and a home NCAA quarterfinal series on the line.

    But it’s still wrong.

    This Week in the CHA: Feb. 21, 2002

    By Geof F. Morris
    -

    Spoilers!

    Leave it to Air Force to upset the CHA Beat’s prediction of a No. 2 seed for Alabama-Huntsville. Leave it to Air Force to finally live up to all the touting that we’ve given it over the year, even when its on-ice play in conference hasn’t merited it.

    Leave it to the CHA to be its usual wacky self.

    The Alabama-Huntsville Chargers flew out to Colorado Springs to face the Falcons at the Cadet Ice Arena. After sophomore netminder Mike Polidor (9-12-1, 3.67, .879%) pulled his groin during warmups for Friday night’s game, freshman Zachary Sikich (3-3-0, 3.84, .884%), a favorite of the CHA Beat, took the ice for the Falcons. Sikich looked strong in net in relief of Polidor back when the Falcs played in Alabama in the fall, and he looked solid this past weekend.

    Alabama-Huntsville’s goalie situation had been good: junior Mark Byrne (9-9-0, 3.56, .895%) hadn’t give up more than four goals in a conference game since December against Niagara, an 8-1 defeat. Byrne, who broke both wrists this offseason, started slowly but has come on to play well in the last few weeks, and had extended the UAH career shutout record to eight in January against MSU-Mankato. But Byrne and sophomore Adam MacLean (4-7-1, 4.35, .864%) each gave up six goals in games against the Falcons.

    The sweep gave Air Force new life for its run at the fifth seed in the upcoming CHA Tournament. AFA will need some help, but as it’s just two points behind current No. 5 Findlay, it could happen. Not bad for a team that lost its first seven conference matchups this year, eh?

    The losses crippled UAH’s chances at the No. 2 spot. With six points to make up on Bemidji State and Niagara positioned between the Chargers and their hope for a first-round bye, it seems likely that the Chargers will be playing on Thursday night.

    Purps Step Up

    Into the breach left by the southernmost team in the CHA stepped the Purple Eagles of Niagara. They are just three points behind Bemidji for the No. 2 spot, but can they hold up? This season, as Rob Bonk has gone (16-10-0, 3.00, .884%), so have the Purps. Dave Burkholder’s boys have been mercurial all season, which might fit the hotheadedness of their coach. They broke a four-game conference losing streak last weekend with a sweep of the Beavers, leapfrogging into the No. 3 spot.

    This weekend, they’ll face the upset-minded Falcons, whom they shut out 4-0 in Colorado back in January. Which Rob Bonk will show up for the game? Fans of the Purps can only hope it’s the injury-free, focused Bonker that CHA fans have come to love (or hate, depending on one’s affiliations). When he’s good, he’s very good; but when he’s bad, freshmen Mike Pataran (0-1-0, 2.99, .884%) and Ryan McNeil (1-2-0, 4.88, .805%) get looks.

    Standouts

    Wayne State is clearly the class of the CHA this season, living up to the billing given the Warriors by the CHA coaches in the preseason. At 12-2-2, they’ve played the most consistent hockey of any CHA team this season. They hold their fate in their hands: they end the season with series against the current No. 2 and No. 3 seeds. While it’s possible that Bill Wilkinson’s team could slide down to second, we don’t consider it very likely. After all, this is a team on a six-game winning streak.

    Spoilers?

    Findlay has its last shot to upset the CHA apple cart this weekend as host to Alabama-Huntsville. The young Oilers were swept in Alabama by the Chargers, and it’s very possible that it could happen again. The key for the Oilers will be the play in net: Jamie VandeSpyker (7-11-1, 4.05, .889%) has had a tough run of late, and Kevin Fines (3-7-1, 3.57, .903%) hasn’t seen as much ice time as we would think. The CHA Beat thinks Fines the better goalie, but Craig Barnett is going with the man he thinks can best do the job. Who are we to disagree?

    Weekend Matchups

    With just four games left for each team, the heat is on. The tournament bracket will be a cinch to predict after this weekend’s games, but we have to get through them first, eh?

    Air Force at Niagara

    Common sense says that the Purps will sweep the Falcons at home. Common sense hasn’t been a very good guide this season, however. We asked Dave Toller at the Air Force Sports Information Department about Polidor’s injury status. The answers: Mike Polidor is questionable for the weekend, and it’s pretty likely that Zach Sikich will play at least one game, if not both, depending on how Polidor feels.

    We’d like to take this opportunity to wish Polidor good health, but in the meantime, we think this gives Niagara an advantage. The Purps have the No. 8 offense in Division I, and while Sikich is a good goaltender, he’s but a freshman. Given the instability of the goalie situation and the fact that Niagara is the home team, we give NU the edge and figure that they sweep at home.

    Alabama-Huntsville at Findlay

    Which Chargers team shows up: the one that played the Oilers two weeks ago or the one that played the Falcons last week? Barnett hopes for the latter. This is, however, a battle between the two worst defensive teams in the CHA, and that probably won’t change this weekend. Expect two high-scoring affairs, and Findlay should pull at least a split at home due to the Chargers’ injury situation and general streakiness.

    Wayne State at Bemidji

    Bemidji went into Detroit back in the early winter and stole three points from the Warriors. Wayne State will likely be looking to do the same in Bemidji. The story here is Bemidji Offense v. David Guerrera. Guerrera got his first career shutout last weekend against Findlay (we can’t believe it took him this long!), and he’s improved steadily as the season has progressed. Bemidji is good enough to come away with a point, maybe two, but that’s it. We’re going to pick a tie on Friday night, knowing Bemidji’s propensity to fall back on Saturday night. It’s hard to pick against a team that’s gone 10-1-1 in their last 12 conference tilts, as the Warriors have.

    To all fans headed to the CHA Tournament: the CHA Beat will be there! If you want to catch up with the Beat, shoot an email to [email protected] and we’ll set something up. Nothing like March in Niagara.

    This Week In The WCHA: Feb. 21, 2002

    By
    -

    Me And My Shadow

    The common perception is that this weekend’s Denver-St. Cloud State series –the Clash for the Cup, so to speak — will be a phenomenal matchup between the Huskies’ big scorers and the Pioneers’ standout goaltenders.

    Somewhere, Dean Weasler is probably waving his arms over his head, yelling, “Hey, I’m pretty good, too.”

    While Denver’s Wade Dubielewicz, along with sidekick Adam Berkhoel, gets most of the attention when it comes to WCHA goaltenders, there’s Weasler, his shadow in every goaltending category.

    Winning percentage? Dubielewicz .875; Weasler .840.

    Goals against average? Dubielewicz 1.63; Weasler 1.93.

    Save percentage? Dubielewicz .947; Weasler .933.

    So when someone, like North Dakota coach Dean Blais, says, “It’s probably going to get down to goaltending,” don’t necessarily count the Huskies out.

    For as equally matched as the goaltenders are, so are the teams as a whole, statistically speaking anyway. That’s what has created the buzz that surrounds this weekend’s series at Denver’s Magness Arena.

    Oh, that and the fact that Denver’s one point up on St. Cloud with four games to play in the race for the MacNaughton Cup. If the Pioneers sweep, they get the Cup. If the Huskies sweep, they’re three points up with two games to play.

    Still, goaltending will probably end up being the biggest factor in the games.

    “You try to evaluate what’s going to happen, but the one person that always leaves a stamp on that game is the goaltender,” Denver coach George Gwozdecky said. “I think it’s going to come down to goaltending both nights.”

    If it does, it’ll probably be because these teams have clearly defined themselves as the top two in the league — in the statistics as well as the standings.

    In the 24 WCHA games the teams have played to date:

  • St. Cloud has the top offense (4.42 goals per game); Denver is second (4.00).
  • The teams are tied in defense, each allowing 2.08 goals per game.
  • St. Cloud is tops on the power play (33.1 percent); Denver is second (24.6).
  • St. Cloud has the best penalty kill (87.9 percent); Denver is second (87.0).

    “They say they play good defense. We’re going to find out, because that’s what it’s going to come down to — that and specialty teams,” Huskies coach Craig Dahl said of his team. “People say we have good offense. Well, we’ll find out.”

    Only one team has been able to beat both Denver and St. Cloud this season, and its coach doesn’t even know which way to call this series.

    “They’re two different teams. They’re both the same as far as how good they are, but they’re good different ways,” said Colorado College coach Scott Owens, whose team is 2-2 against both the Pioneers and the Huskies this season. “I think Denver’s got a little advantage playing on the smaller sheet with their defensive corps and their goaltending. But St. Cloud is just so good up front with their depth.”

    One thing is sure as this series approaches: If you don’t have a ticket, get ready to cozy up with your television. The series has been sold out for weeks.

    “It’s an impossible ticket to get right now,” Gwozdecky said.

    Trickle-Down Effect

    The sweeps last weekend by Denver and St. Cloud State did more than just set up this weekend’s winner-just-about-take-all series in Denver. Moving a few spots down in the standings, it served to push the race for fifth place closer to the wire.

    Even after a home sweep by the Pioneers, Wisconsin (23 points) leads Minnesota State-Mankato by one point and North Dakota and Alaska-Anchorage by three points for the last home-ice spot.

    St. Cloud swept Anchorage last weekend, and North Dakota climbed into a tie for seventh with the Seawolves after its sweep of Michigan Tech.

    The situation is urgent for the Mavericks and the Seawolves, who play their final WCHA series this weekend.

    So if Wisconsin emerges from this weekend’s games with a lead over Mankato and Anchorage, it will contend only with North Dakota in the last weekend.

    The Badgers hold the tiebreaker over North Dakota (3-1 this season), will probably hold the tiebreaker over Mankato (though it could come down to the last tiebreaker — conference goal differential) but don’t have the advantage over Anchorage.

    Teacher Meets Pupil

    Dean Blais likes what he sees from his protege.

    Minnesota-Duluth coach Scott Sandelin, Blais’ understudy for six years at North Dakota, doesn’t have a flashy win-loss record. He does appear to have the Bulldogs going the right direction in the essential area of recruiting.

    “It takes years sometimes to get that tradition and ability to get the good players,” said Blais, who takes his team to Duluth this weekend. “Well, he’s in on the good kids right now.”

    It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Sandelin would be good at recruiting for a team of his own. He helped get North Dakota to national prominence as an assistant.

    “Recruiting, as much as you’re trying to sell yourself and your program and facilities, it’s kind of a system as much as anything,” Blais said. “I learned from Gino Gasparini, Scott’s learned from me and you pass that on to the next guy. And he’s done that very well.”

    Still, the record is the first thing most people see from a hockey team. For the first half of the season, the Bulldogs couldn’t find a league victory.

    In the second half, though, they have claimed shockers over Minnesota and St. Cloud State as well as a sweep of Alaska-Anchorage and three points on the road last weekend against Minnesota State-Mankato.

    They appear head and shoulders above last year’s 7-28-4 team.

    “I just think he’s done a tremendous job,” Blais said. “If it wasn’t for maybe George Gwozdecky or Craig Dahl … maybe Jeff Sauer, Scott would be my choice” for coach of the year.

    It’s His Ship

    Barring the unforeseen and taking Minnesota coach Don Lucia at his word, the goalposts at Mariucci Arena belong to Adam Hauser for the rest of the season.

    Hauser, a senior — in fact, the only non-freshman of the Gophers’ goaltending trio — will get the starts as far as he takes the team.

    This development would have taken place last weekend, but for an ankle injury that kept Hauser out of Friday’s loss to Colorado College. He was back as the starter, though, for Saturday’s game, and isn’t expected to relinquish that spot to freshmen Travis Weber and Justin Johnson.

    “We let the freshmen have their games,” Lucia told reporters last Saturday, “but this is the time when you’ve got to let your experience take over.”

    The Gophers host Wisconsin in the Border Battle this weekend. In Hauser’s first appearance against the Badgers this season, he was pulled after allowing five goals on 23 shots through two periods.

    There’s no question that experience will be on the mind of some this weekend.

    You Look Familiar

    Hey, I know you. Yeah, you in the North Dakota 35 sweater. Aren’t you the guy that won the WCHA Final Five two years ago?

    Yup, that was Andy Kollar in net last Friday for the Sioux’s victory over Michigan Tech. And no, you haven’t missed much of his season if you haven’t paid attention to the Sioux since early December.

    Last Friday’s start was Kollar’s first since a 7-6 overtime loss at Wisconsin on Dec. 7 and his first victory since Nov. 16.

    “The guys were probably scared to see me in net because I haven’t been in there for so long,” Kollar deadpanned to USCHO’s Patrick C. Miller.

    Blais said the goaltending situation is wide open entering the last two weeks of the regular season. Kollar has a chance to take over, but so do Josh Siembida and Jake Brandt.

    “What I’m trying to do right now [is] find a guy that’s going to take it and go,” Blais said. “They all have played well, but at this time of the year, the next guy that plays a good game is going to get an opportunity to follow it up with another one.”

    Signing Off

    One of the WCHA’s legendary voices signs off from the MacInnes Student Ice Arena for the final time Saturday night.

    Bob Olson, the longtime Michigan Tech announcer, is retiring at the end of the season after 31 years behind the microphone.

    With Tech at Colorado College next weekend and on the road for the first round of the playoffs, this is the last homestand for Olson.

    Late-Season Border Wars

    It’s probably not a coincidence that some of the best Minnesota-Wisconsin games in recent memory have taken place late in the season.

    Add the adrenaline from a race to the finish to an already stirred pot between the teams and you’ve got a fantastic atmosphere for hockey.

  • In Madison in late February 1996, the Badgers scored 6-3 and 7-4 victories — the latter coming after UW was down 4-0 in the second period — to continue a late-season run that culminated with a trip to the Final Five. There, however, the Gophers got revenge, eliminating the Badgers in overtime in Milwaukee.
  • On March 1, 1997, the Gophers claimed a share of the MacNaughton Cup with a 7-3 victory over the Badgers. Some of the fans stayed around afterward to listen to the radio broadcast of North Dakota’s 5-0 loss to Denver, which allowed the Gophers to return to the ice to celebrate the title.
  • In February 1998, the Badgers entered Minneapolis with a 13-game unbeaten streak. They left with humbling 4-1 and 7-0 losses.
  • In March 1999, the Badgers got a 6-4 win and a 2-2 tie at Mariucci Arena to clinch fourth place in the standings. It was the first time UW claimed a point at the new Mariucci Arena.
  • In 2000, the teams met three times late in the season, all in Minneapolis, and the Badgers won all three, including a semifinal game at the Final Five. The Badgers went 5-0 against the Gophers that year.

    What story will be written this year? Will it be the Badgers locking up a home-ice spot with an improbable sweep at Mariucci? The Gophers staying in the hunt for a first-round bye by winning the season series (it’s tied at 1)?

    The odds are good it’ll be something special when the Badgers and the Gophers play late in the season.

    The Big Move

    There’s something about an 8-1-1 stretch that the computer that spits out the Pairwise Rankings seems to like.

    Before that stretch, Colorado College was hanging around the 10th and 11th positions in the Pairwise, a spot that isn’t bad, but doesn’t do much for the nerves come selection Sunday.

    Bolstered by a strong 11-3-2 record in its last 16 games — one of the Pairwise factors — the Tigers are sitting sixth in the Pairwise. Stay there, and they can count on being in the big dance.

    With the possible exception of the sixth-best RPI ranking, the biggest thing keeping the Tigers from making a move up the ranks is an 8-6 record against teams under consideration — the 28 other teams that, as of Thursday, were at or above .500.

    Chances are, they won’t be able to better that record anytime before the Final Five. They play Alaska-Anchorage (seven games below .500) this weekend and Michigan Tech (don’t go there) next, so those games won’t count toward teams under consideration.

    North Dakota is one game under the .500 mark and Minnesota-State Mankato is two games beneath it, but CC is just 3-3 against those teams, so it might be better for the Tigers if those two teams ended the season outside the TUC zone. Also, Clarkson, which CC beat twice this season, is at .500 and in danger of falling out of consideration.

    While that’s enough to give anyone a headache, Owens, confident his team has played itself into a NCAA bid, is having his team focus on the short-term goal of edging Minnesota for third place.

    “We think our Pairwise will be good enough to get us in the tournament, but we just want to make sure that we can possibly take third place,” Owens said, “to avoid possibly North Dakota [in the first round], to avoid the Thursday-night game [at the Final Five].”

    There are too many games left for everyone to start predicting Pairwise outcomes, but if CC is going to make a run at the top four, it’s going to happen at the Final Five, where they would likely play teams under consideration. That low record against teams under consideration is holding them back.

    “We’ve talked about it before, a chance to be in the top four,” Owens said. “But the only way we can do that is if we beat some people in the tournament, or those people get upset.”

    Got all that? There will be a quiz in St. Paul at the Final Five.

    Making The Rounds

    Alaska-Anchorage coach John Hill has pulled his starting goaltender from the Friday night game in each of the last two weekends.

    On Feb. 8, third-stringer Kurt Johnson replaced Kevin Reiter after two periods in a 5-4 overtime loss to Minnesota State-Mankato. Chris King was serving a one-game suspension that day, one assessed by the school for an inappropriate gesture with his hand (yeah, you know the one) after the brawl with Wisconsin.

    Last Friday, it was Reiter being yanked after allowing seven goals in the second period against St. Cloud State. King replaced him.

    Finishing Them Off

    Minnesota State-Mankato coach Troy Jutting has lamented at times this season about his team’s lack of goalscoring punch.

    In the stretch, though, one of his key scorers has started to find the touch.

    Junior captain B.J. Abel has six goals in his last six games, giving him nine for the season.

    The Mavericks are 3-2-1 in that stretch, but are winless in their last three games.

    Chalk One Up

    Congrats to Clay “Woodrow” Wilson, who notched his third goal of the season last Friday night against North Dakota.

    The Michigan Tech freshman defenseman slapped in a shot from the point on a 5-on-3 power play to even the game at 1.

    We just won’t mention that it was a 12-2 Sioux victory. … Oh, well.

    He Said It

    “It’s so nice I made our kids take off their boots before we came in for practice yesterday.”

    –Michigan Tech coach Mike Sertich, on his first experience at the new Ralph Engelstad Arena, to a luncheon crowd in Grand Forks last Friday.

    • This Week in the ECAC Northeast: Feb. 21, 2002

    By Ed Seero
    -

    The Losing Effort

    It seems that in hockey, especially hockey, players are trying to constantly delay the inevitable, to play as long as they can. Think about it. Why do you play all year round when you’re growing up? Why do you lift weights and do plyometrics during the summers and in the fall? Why do you go to prep school, or play juniors, or what have you?

    It’s all a means to an end.

    Almost all hockey players try to delay, as long as possible, the time when they have to take off the jersey for the last time. You try to get better, so you can play at a higher level, so you can play longer. But it happens, and there is nothing, except to keep winning, that you can do about it.

    You can feel each second tick off the clock, a surreal slow-motion experience as if in a movie. You look at the clock and — click — you’re another step closer to the end. Your heart flutters. The coach starts calling your name a lot more. Even if you never did before, you begin to play on penalty kills and power plays and your line goes out there just a little bit more than usual on regular shifts. You tend to stay out a little bit longer on each shift, too, because you know that you’re getting closer to the end.

    Parents shift uncomfortably in their seats. What are they going to do when it’s over? It’s been years they’ve been doing this. You’re tired because it’s the end of a game at the end of the season. But this is the season, your senior season. This is your last game of your last year.

    Many seniors will experience this soon. Some already have.

    It happens too quickly and it isn’t fun.

    When the final buzzer sounds and you’re on the losing side — after all, only one team isn’t on the losing side at the end of it all — it’s like a giant weight suddenly drops out of the sky onto your shoulders, forcing the wind out of your lungs. You begin to hyperventilate, forcing back tears. You think, ‘Am I doing this right?’ You don’t want to be a spectacle. You want to go out with dignity. But you can’t. It’s over and you know it.

    Your body knows it.

    You take a look around and try and take it all in, remember what the banners hanging in the rink look like, what the final score was, how your skates felt on your feet, how your shoulder pads felt perfect when shifted a little bit to the right. Every detail.

    Across the rink the other team is celebrating. It hurts. You shake hands. Maybe an old teammate is on the other side; he can tell you’re having a tough time with it. He’s glad, but he doesn’t gloat. He hugs you and tells you something nice. Every hockey player is genuine in moments like this. And then you shake the opposing coaches’ hands, and wish them luck.

    Then it’s over. It’s really over. You step off the ice and into the rest of your life.

    Soon you’re in the locker room. The coach makes a speech thanking the seniors for all they’ve sacrificed over the years, all they’ve done for the program, for being good role models for the young guys. And they all give you a hand. And it too is a very real moment. Again, players are genuine in these circumstances.

    Pretty soon there’s a procession of younger guys who are glad they aren’t you right now. They shake your hand and tell you how much they admired you and looked up to you. They respected you, not only for how you played or what you said in between periods, but for the person you were. You were their teammate. And they appreciated that.

    The key word being “were.”

    You fight to hold back the tears. You’re not doing a very good job. Your eyes begin to ache like you’ve been up for 48 hours.

    The mind races, thinking back to the street hockey games after school at your best friend’s house in seventh grade … the learn-to-skate clinic where you pushed a chair around for the first hour … your first goal … your first hat trick for which you got one of those cool patches … your peewee state tournament team … your high school team or prep school team or junior team.

    All the steps it took to get you to where you are now. The sacrifice, the hard times, the slumps, the medals, the trophies, they are all a part of you — of who you are, your identity. “I am a hockey player,” you think, but not anymore. Not in any meaningful capacity, anyway. You’ll never put on a uniform in any meaningful game from this point on, no.

    You take as long as you possibly can to take off your equipment and you don’t do it in the same order you usually do. You leave the jersey for last because it, like all the memories and broken sticks of the past, is a part of who you are. Maybe you pull it off a little bit and use it to hide behind, covering your face as you sob, almost uncontrollably, like when you were a little kid and you cried so hard that you started to convulse a little bit with each sob. That’s how you are now.

    You think all the guys and the good times, the bad times, the 6 a.m. practices, the postgame get-togethers. And you love them. All of them. Even the ones you didn’t like. They are your teammates. They will be forever. Never again will you be this close to a group of people. You cannot replace that and you know it. That’s when you pull yourself together, for them more than for yourself. It’s your last duty as a member of a team, the last personal sacrifice you’ll have to make.

    Slowly, ever so slowly, you begin to pull the jersey off. First over your head, then one arm and then the other. You might hold it for a while, smell it. You always loved the fabric softener the equipment guy at school used. Maybe, if you’re a neat guy, you fold it. Maybe you bundle it up and then, as you place the jersey in the shirt bag (you do it yourself because you want to be the last one to touch your jersey), you’ve touched the badge of honor, courage, sacrifice, all those years of effort, for the last time. And it hurts. But it’s worth it.

    You know that scene at the beginning of one of the Rocky movies where it’s just Rocky alone in the shower, letting the water, mixed with tears, pour over him? You could see his pain. That’s what your shower feels like.

    The bus ride home is dead silent at first. You stare through the clouded windows at the trees flashing by towards your return to school. “What if I had done this?” “What if I hadn’t done that?”

    What if? Replaying each and every shift of the game in your mind. If you only beat that guy to the puck that one time, that one time, maybe … no. It’s over.

    People begin to talk, low mumbles about emotionless things at first. “Toss me that pillow. Can I get by? I gotta go to the bathroom.”

    But then someone will bring up a memory about sophomore year when it was just us at the dorms. Just us. Just the team. For the last time, you take advantage of it. Being a member of the team is a privilege you earned. Slowly the ride lightens up and people are together, talking and joking.

    “This is it,” you think. “I might as well make the best of it.”

    And, before you know it, you’ve told every story, some rehashed, some new. And then the bus driver — Gus or Johnny or Jacko — makes that final turn into the school.

    You watch the sign as the bus crawls by. The coach says some more nice words. There is one last round of applause. The bus slows to a halt and everyone gets up and strolls off one by one. Guys grab their equipment; some, including you, for the last time. Hands are shaken again. It’s probably cold. Campus is probably jumping (these things happen on weekends, usually).

    You walk back to the dorm, your apartment, whatever, and you’re again lost in your thoughts.

    Months later you’ll probably talk about it with the other seniors. What they felt is almost exactly what you felt. And you’ll agree. Sure, it’s over. It’s really over now. But it was all worth it.

    We are hockey players. We always have been, we always will be, and it’s great. But you didn’t want it to end. You’d give anything for one last shift. Anything.

    And that is why the playoffs are so important.

    It’s ECAC Northeast Playoff Time

    The battle to keep playing is officially underway. Winners move on. Losers go home.

    ECAC Northeast Quarterfinal: No. 8 Plymouth State at No. 1 Lebanon Valley

    Plymouth and Larry Forgue came through in the clutch last week, earning a 1-0 shutout over Worcester State to vault themselves into the playoffs. Second-semester newcomer Bichal Bodnar scored the Panthers’ lone goal. Fantastic. Except for the fact that they earned the right to get on a bus and travel to Hershey, Penn., to take on the Flying Dutchmen of Lebanon Valley. This is a tall order, to say the least. However, in hockey anything can happen, especially in the playoffs. Just ask Team Sweden or Tufts (which lost to Salve in last year’s playoffs) last year. Both teams heavily favored and both teams went down. I know I’ve hammered this point home time and time again but I’ll say it again, they play the games for a reason.

    ECAC Northeast Quarterfinal: No. 7 Salve Regina at No. 2 UMass-Dartmouth

    Unlike last year’s playoffs, Salve is kind of crawling into the tournament this year. They lost their last two games and both were against other playoff teams, Curry and Fitchburg. UMD, on the other hand, is riding high after spanking JWU and having a full week off to prepare for the game. This is not a good sign for the Seahawks. The interesting thing about Salve is that they have already beaten UMD once in overtime and tied them early in the season. So they have to be brimming with confidence. UMD’s record and fantastic depth, scoring, defense and goaltending — they have no weaknesses really — should propel them past Salve, but you never know. Again, the game will be the story.

    ECAC Northeast Quarterfinal: No. 6 Fitchburg State at No. 3 Wentworth

    This could be the best battle of the weekend. This is a rematch of last year’s quarterfinal round, a 7-2 pasting by Wentworth, and the championship from the ’99-’00 season, a 5-1 whupping by Wentworth. But his is a different year altogether for both teams. Can Fitchburg buck the trend? The Falcons were 8-4 in the second half and they won their last four games. Wentworth has won its last three games by a combined score of 26-6. They are obviously clicking on all cylinders. Thus we have a matchup between two smoking-hot teams. Wentworth has been here before and been successful. Fitchburg has to be fired up beyond belief to play their nemesis of the last two years.

    ECAC Northeast Quarterfinal: No. 4/5 Curry vs. No. 4/5 Johnson and Wales (If Curry defeats WNEC, at Curry, else at Johnson and Wales)

    This is a great contest as well. The Colonels and Wildcats are two young teams with firepower. Neither team has much playoff experience so that should make things interesting. Curry dominated the Wildcats on February 9 in a game that saw the teams combine for almost 200 penalty minutes, including seven game misconducts and two disqualifications. Don’t expect that kind of mindless play; this is the playoffs. But there is obviously bad blood here and it should make for an interesting game.

    Division II

    Guess what? Not only are the ECACNE playoffs getting underway this week, but the Division II pursuit of the national championship begins this weekend as well.

    Here’s a breakdown of this tournament, featuring three ECACNE teams, Assumption, SNHU and Stonehill.

    The seeds are:

    1. St. Anselm
    2. St. Michael’s
    3. Southern New Hampshire
    4. Stonehill
    5. Assumption

    The preliminary game will be a play-in. Assumption travels to Stonehill on Saturday at 6 p.m., at the Bridgewater Ice Arena. The winner earns the right to take on ECAC East foe St. Anselm, the first seed in the playoffs, on Wednesday at the Tri-Town rink in Hooksett, N.H. The semifinal game begins at 7 p.m.

    SNHU will travel to St. Michael’s on Tuesday. The puck will drop on that one at 7 p.m.

    If St. A’s wins the game against Assumption/Stonehill, the championship will be held at Tri-Town Arena on Saturday, March 2, at 4 p.m. If St. Michael’s beats Southern New Hampshire and St. Anselm loses its semifinal game, the final will be played at 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 2, at St. Mike’s.

    If SNHU beats St. Michael’s and St. Anselm loses its semifinal game, Southern New Hampshire will host the championship game at 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 2, at Tri-Town.

    Let the games begin.

    Until next week…

    This Week in the ECAC: Feb. 21, 2002

    By Becky Blaeser and Jayson Moy
    -

    With only two weekends of regular-season action left, it appears that the ECAC playoff race will come down to the final day of play. Aside from Cornell — the only team that has displayed consistent play over the latter half of this season — the rest of the crew will be fighting it out for home ice and even playoff life come the final days of February and early days of March.

    Are you surprised? If so, you haven’t been following this league very long. More so than any other, the ECAC has a unique knack for allowing just about anything to happen. It’s a Cinderella team’s heaven.

    To prove the point:

  • Second-place Dartmouth has swept only two league weekends this year, the second of which came last weekend. Normally, you would expect your second-most dominant team to display a bit more consistency, no? This hasn’t helped debunk public opinion that the ECAC is a one-team show this year.
  • Harvard hasn’t played good hockey for months now (aside from the 6-0 thrashing of Vermont) and is 1-5-1 since exam break let up, yet the team is still solidly in third place and has already secured a playoff spot.
  • After collecting only four league wins in the first two and a half months of play, Brown has won four straight ECAC contests and is all of a sudden only two points out of home ice.
  • Colgate. If there was a ever team that embodied the parity of the league, the Raiders are it. The team once destined to fight Vermont for 12th place is now fighting for home ice.

    So where does everyone stand? Here is our weekly catalog of the week’s illustrious Winners, frightful Losers and those that fall somewhere in the middle.

    The Winners

    Dartmouth — A huge weekend for the Big Green has them in second place and in position to clinch the Ivy title. The Big Green are peaking at the right time.

    Brown — Yann Danis is the story here as he shuts out the North Country — in the North Country. The Bears are rolling, two points from home ice.

    Rensselaer — Another four-point weekend for the Engineers has them one point out of home ice and two points out of third. Who would have thought that a month ago?

    Losers

    Vermont — The only good news is that Princeton didn’t sweep, keeping the Cats alive in the playoff hunt. They can still finish ninth.

    Yale — Two more losses for Yale and the gap to the playoffs widens.

    Harvard — The Crimson did manage to pick up one point, but after being second when the weekend began, are now tied for third and two points out of losing home ice. But they are in the playoffs.

    St. Lawrence — The Saints blew two points and took one when they tied Harvard on Saturday after amassing a 3-0 lead. The Saints have a tough road to go.

    We Did Okay

    Cornell — The Big Red did get two points, but didn’t clinch. They can do that on Friday.

    Clarkson — The Knights came out on fire and picked up two important points on Harvard on Friday, but then faced Yann Danis. They were in second, now tied for third and two points away from a home-ice spot.

    Colgate — The Raiders had a chance to solidify home ice with two wins, but picked up two points and are now just one point away from losing that home ice.

    Union — The Dutchmen had a chance for four points to keep pace with Rensselaer. But the loss to Princeton on Saturday now puts them three points out of home ice.

    Princeton — The Tigers picked up two important points on Saturday and put some distance between themselves and Yale.

    Kissing Your Sister

    Thanks to a three-goal comeback in the third period, Harvard pulled out a tie against St. Lawrence on Saturday night to avoid an 0-for weekend in the North Country. For a team that is experiencing a late-season lull, one point has never been so important. The tie was also encouraging considering the fact that the team was playing with only 17 skaters and without the services of two of the top three scorers on the team — Tyler Kolarik and Brett Nowak.

    Unlike past years, the Crimson is relatively healthy heading into the final weekends of play, but the coaching staff felt they needed to send a message to the players.

    “I think the message that was trying to be sent was that this is a team; we have to play like a team all the time, and no one person is bigger than the team,” said Harvard captain Peter Capouch following the St. Lawrence game. “We have a lot of great players and everybody can contribute. That’s what we need down the stretch.”

    This tactic is nothing new for Mazzoleni, who has already benched Dominic Moore on one occasion this season.

    Motivation for this team is coming from Capouch, who rallied his team for the big third-period comeback.

    “I just told [the team] that if we were going to come back we had to compete harder,” Capouch said. “Over the last six or eight games we haven’t been, and that’s obviously shown in our record. With the playoffs coming up soon we had to start playing better. I said what I felt, and fortunately it turned things around.”

    Jekyll and Hyde

    One question over the past few weekends has been “What happened to Yale?” The Bulldogs stormed out of the blocks at the start of the season and have since fallen apart. The team has lost six straight league games and is in 11th place, three points out of the last playoff spot. Two months ago, the Bulldogs were in a legitimate position to fight for home ice.

    A big factor has to be confidence. Prior to last weekend’s pair of 5-2 losses to RPI and Union, seven of the team’s nine league losses have been one-goal games, if you include the 7-5 loss at Clarkson where Kerry Ellis-Toddington deposited the empty-netter with 51 seconds left in regulation.

    “Our intensity and forechecking were the best it’s been in a long time,” said Yale head coach Tim Taylor following Saturday’s loss. “It’s tearing my heart out that we don’t get any wins with our guys playing like that.”

    Although Taylor questioned his team’s discipline on Friday night, this is a team that Taylor has liked all season long. He has continually praised their effort and intensity, and it surely has been a huge blow to see the results not follow. One big factor has been the dropoff in offensive production from freshman phenom Chris Higgins. After collecting four points against Clarkson and St. Lawrence three weeks ago, Higgins — who still leads the team with 21 points — has been held scoreless in the team’s last four games.

    “In a lot of these games, if our power play was a little better, we would win,” Taylor said. “We can’t hope to win in this league if we’re only putting in two goals each night.”

    The Bulldogs are also missing the services of Nick Deschenes, who was injured in a practice a few weeks ago, cut with a skate blade on his thigh. He’s missed six straight games now.

    With its back against the wall, Yale will have to find a way to break the winless streak and hope that road partner Princeton stumbles a bit down the stretch. Otherwise, the Bulldogs’ season will face a premature end.

    Stopped in Their Tracks

    The Cornell senior class has a lot of awards and championships to hang their hats on. One thing that they failed to do over the past four years, however, was beat Dartmouth. In the biggest upset of the weekend, the Big Green shut down the Cornell offense and — powered by a superb, 34-save performance by Nick Boucher — denied the Big Red a chance to secure the regular-season championship title, at least for this week.

    “You could call it a goaltenders’ duel, but I thought both teams were piss poor on their ability to finish tonight,” said Cornell head coach Mike Schafer, whose team has been averaging 3.1 goals per game over the past 10 contests. “I was especially disappointed with our guys. We had opportunities around the net that we squandered. Both teams had great chances, but those were washed away but the inability to finish.”

    The loss to Dartmouth is a mere bump in the road as far as Cornell fans are concerned, since the eighth-ranked Big Red will have another shot at clinching the league title on Friday night against St. Lawrence — this time in front of the Faithful.

    Something To Show

    The Princeton Tigers outshot Rensselaer 40-19, but lost 5-3 on Friday evening. Frustrating, and it left the Tigers feeling a little desperate.

    “We’ve been in desperation mode for the last couple of weeks,” said head coach Len Quesnelle. “I told the guys that you can get high and you can get low during a season and this is one of those times when you can’t get too low. You can’t feel sorry for yourself because you had nothing to show for a great effort.”

    But the Tigers came back the next night and came through with two points as they defeated Union, and it felt good to have something to show for a hard weekend of work.

    “I think the guys on this team are starting to feel better about themselves,” Quesnelle said. “If we continue to play our best hockey we’ll be fine.”

    Rethinking

    Well, at the beginning of the year, we challenged you, the fans, to compete with us in picking the ECAC. Here were the picks.

    Challenge        Range    Becky and Jayson
     1. Clarkson  (8) 1- 4    1. Cornell
     2. Harvard  (14) 1- 7    2. Dartmouth
     3. Cornell   (6) 1- 6    3. Harvard
     4. Dartmouth (4) 1- 6    4. Clarkson
     5. St. Lawrence  2- 7    5. St. Lawrence
     6. Rensselaer    2-10    6. Vermont
     7. Vermont       5-10    7. Rensselaer
     8. Union         8-11    8. Union
     9. Colgate       7-12    9. Colgate
     10. Yale         6-12    10. Yale
     11. Princeton    7-12    11. Princeton
     12. Brown        9-12    12. Brown

    Here are the standings:

    1. Cornell
    2. Dartmouth
    3. Clarkson
    3. Harvard
    5. Colgate
    6. Rensselaer
    7. Brown
    8. Union
    9. St. Lawrence
    9. Princeton
    11. Yale
    12. Vermont

    We’ll apply the ECAC playoff tiebreakers.

    Clarkson wins the tiebreaker over Harvard, going 1-0-1 against the Crimson this season.

    St. Lawrence wins the tiebreaker over Princeton because of winning percentage over the Top 5.

    So the standings for our purposes.

    1. Cornell
    2. Dartmouth
    3. Clarkson
    4. Harvard
    5. Colgate
    6. Rensselaer
    7. Brown
    8. Union
    9. St. Lawrence
    10. Princeton
    11. Yale
    12. Vermont

    Now let’s do our comparisons, with the points (scoring system in places off the prediction, low score therefore wins) in parentheses.

    1. Cornell — Fans (2) / Becky and Jayson (0)
    2. Dartmouth — Fans (2) / Becky and Jayson (0)
    3. Clarkson — Fans (2) / Becky and Jayson (1)
    4. Harvard — Fans (2) / Becky and Jayson (1)
    5. Colgate — Fans (4) / Becky and Jayson (4)
    6. Rensselaer — Fans (0) / Becky and Jayson (1)
    7. Brown — Fans (5) / Becky and Jayson (5)
    8. Union — Fans (0) / Becky and Jayson (0)
    9. St. Lawrence — Fans (4) / Becky and Jayson (4)
    10. Princeton — Fans (1) / Becky and Jayson (1)
    11. Yale — Fans (1) / Becky and Jayson (1)
    12. Vermont — Fans (5) / Becky and Jayson (6.

    Guess what? The Iron Columnists are winning, 24-28. Hah.

    If It’s So Easy, You Try It

    The Iron Columnists are coming back. After two great weeks by Mike Johnson, we didn’t think he could make it last any longer. Unfortunately, we were wrong, which we seldom are.

    The competition thus far:

    Vic Brzozowksi t. The Iron Columnists — 7-2-1
    The Iron Columnists d. Vic Brzozowksi — 8-3-1 to 7-4-1
    Ben Flickinger d. The Iron Columnists — 11-4-2 to 10-5-2
    The Iron Columnists d. Ben Flickinger — 5-1-4 to 4-2-4
    John Beaber and Lisa McGill t. The Iron Columnists — 6-7-0
    The Iron Columnists d. John Beaber and Lisa McGill — 7-5-3 to 6-6-3
    Mike Johnson d. The Iron Columnists — 10-3-1 to 6-7-1
    Mike Johnson t. The Iron Columnists — 5-5-2
    Mike Johnson d. The Iron Columnists — 6-5-1 to 5-6-1

    So, Mike, take another shot at the Iron Columnists! The Iron Columnists are even angrier now; you have invoked their wrath! Whose picks will reign supreme?

    The Picks

    Friday, Feb. 22

    St. Lawrence at Cornell
    Mike’s Pick — Cornell 5, St. Lawrence 1
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Cornell 4, St. Lawrence 1

    Clarkson at Colgate
    Mike’s Pick — Clarkson 3, Colgate 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Clarkson 4, Colgate 3

    Rensselaer at Harvard
    Mike’s Pick — Harvard 3, Rensselaer 1
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Harvard 4, Rensselaer 3

    Union at Brown
    Mike’s Pick — Union 3, Brown 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Brown 3, Union 2

    Princeton at Dartmouth
    Mike’s Pick — Princeton 3, Dartmouth 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Dartmouth 3, Princeton 0

    Yale at Vermont
    Mike’s Pick — Vermont 5, Yale 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Yale 3, Vermont 1

    Saturday, Feb. 23

    St. Lawrence at Colgate
    Mike’s Pick — St. Lawrence 3, Colgate 1
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Colgate 4, St. Lawrence 2

    Clarkson at Cornell
    Mike’s Pick — Clarkson 4, Cornell 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Cornell 2, Clarkson 1

    Rensselaer at Brown
    Mike’s Pick — Brown 4, Rensselaer 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Brown 3, Rensselaer 2

    Union at Harvard
    Mike’s Pick — Harvard 4, Union 1
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Union 5, Harvard 4

    Princeton at Vermont
    Mike’s Pick — Vermont 4, Princeton 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Princeton 2, Vermont 1

    Yale at Dartmouth
    Mike’s Pick — Dartmouth 5, Yale 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Dartmouth 6, Yale 3

    And remember that if you are interested in putting your money where your mouth is, drop us an email to be eligible when Mike bites the dust.

    Thanks to Dave Sherzer and Ron Vaccaro.

    • AHCA Recognizes 2002 Award Winners

    USCHO Staff Report
    -

    The American Hockey Coaches Association announced its annual awards winners, honored for contribution to amateur hockey. This year’s recipients include three from the U.S. college level.

    Steve Cady of Miami received the Jim Fullerton Award, given to a special contributor to ice hockey — coach, fan, journalist, official — who captures the pure love of the game exemplified by the former Brown head coach. Cady coached at Miami from 1976 to 1985 and was responsible for taking the program from club hockey to the Division I level. Cady currently serves as Associate Athletic Director at Miami.

    The John MacInnes Award is presented to the head coach who has had exceptional success with athletes on and off the ice. This year’s winner is Ed Saugestad from Augsburg. Saugestad compiled 503 career wins in his 37 seasons (1958-1996) behind the bench at Augsberg, second only to Don Roberts of Gustavus Adolphus among Division III coaches. He was a three-time NAIA Coach of the Year and his teams were three times NAIA National Champion.

    Kevin Houle of Plattsburgh is the recipient of the Terry Flanagan Award, named for the former Bowling Green assistant coach to recognize a career body of work from an assistant coach. Houle has spent the last 13 years with Plattsburgh despite opportunities to pursue other head coaching positions. Over his tenure, the team has compiled a 304-87-27 record and captured two NCAA National Championships.

    In addition, Bette Blair of USA Hockey was given the Joe Burke Award for contribution to women’s ice hockey; Gary Dineen of the Springfield ‘Pics/New England Coyotes was named recipient of the John “Snooks” Kelley Founders Award for contributions to the growth of U.S. hockey; and Lou Cotroneo of St. Paul (Minn.) High School was named the winner of the John Mariucci Award, which recognizes a top high school coach.

    All awards will be presented at the annual AHCA Coach of the Year Banquet on Saturday, April 27, at the Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club in Naples, Fla.

    Wethington to Step Down at SCSU

    USCHO Staff Report
    -

    St. Cloud State women’s hockey coach Kerry Brodt Wethington has announced that she will resign from her position effective June 30, 2002.

    “At this stage of my life I want to focus on my family,” said Wethington.

    Wethington became the first women’s hockey coach in SCSU athletics in the summer of 1998. She has transformed the program from what was essentially a college club team to a competitive program at the NCAA Division I level.

    Wethington will complete her fourth season as head coach this year. She has compiled a 38-47-7 record in her first three seasons and led the Huskies to fourth-place WCHA finishes in 2000 and 2001. Last year, she was voted the WCHA co-Coach of the year.

    A 1995 graduate of SCSU, Wethington majored in physical education with a minor in coaching. She gained All-American golf honors with the Huskies and was the team captain for three seasons. She also played club hockey at SCSU.

    A true pioneer in the sport of women’s hockey, Wethington played at all levels of youth hockey and competed with the Minnesota Blue Jays of the Senior A women’s league that won a national title in 1998-99.

    “It has been my pleasure to work with Kerry over the past four years,” said SCSU athletic director Morris Kurtz. “She has been a capable leader, a diligent worker and a highly professional person. Kerry has played an invaluable role in the development of women’s hockey here at St. Cloud State, but more importantly, played a significant and positive role in the lives of numerous student-athletes.”

    According to Kurtz, the search for a new coach will begin following the completion of the hockey season.

    Nowicki, Emery Highlight SUNYAC Year-End Awards

    USCHO Staff Report
    -

    The 2001-02 SUNYAC postseason awards roster, as announced Friday:

    Player of the Year: Todd Nowicki (Buffalo State)
    Coach of the Year: Bob Emery (Plattsburgh)
    Co-Rookies of the Year: Brett Walker (Geneseo) and Andy Rozak (Oswego)

    SUNYAC 2001-02 All-Conference First Team

    F: Todd Nowicki (Buffalo State)
    F: Jeff Olsen (Cortland)
    F: Jason Kilcan (Plattsburgh)
    D: Peter Ollari (Plattsburgh)
    D: Nate Elliott (Oswego)
    G: Niklas Sundberg (Plattsburgh)

    SUNYAC 2001-02 All-Conference Second Team

    F: Christian Fletcher (Fredonia)
    F: Rob Smith (Oswego)
    F: Brian St. John (Oswego)
    F: Brendon Hodge (Plattsburgh)
    D: Chris Lee (Potsdam)
    D: Dave Weagle (Potsdam)
    G: Brett Walker (Geneseo)

    Women’s Division III Postseason Outlook

    By
    -

    2002 is set to be a banner year for women’s hockey. The number of girls and women playing the game is growing by leaps and bounds. The U.S. national team is expected to have a strong showing the Olympics, and is off to a fast start. And in the college ranks, Division III will have its inaugural NCAA women’s championship, joining the NCAA Division I Frozen Four that began with the 2000-2001 season.

    For the past several seasons, the American Women’s College Hockey Alliance has sponsored a four-team Division III tournament, held at a neutral site, usually in conjunction with the Division I tournament that was conducted prior to 2000-2001.

    Now the NCAA will hold its own tournament, which will be run under a format similar to the men’s D-III championships.

    Instead of four teams, there will be six, and the games will all be held at campus sites.

    Three of the six bids are Automatic Qualifiers (AQs) awarded to the playoff champions in the NESCAC, MIAC and ECAC East.

    Two bids are Pool “C” at-large spots for teams from the above conferences who do not win the title, but make a strong showing.

    And finally, one Pool “B” bid is available to independents or teams from conferences that do not have AQs: the NCHA and the ECAC West. Neither has the required minimum of seven teams in order to be granted an AQ.

    Selection of the Pool “B” and Pool “C” teams, as well as seedings for the tournament will be based on the following criteria, in priority order:

    1. Winning percentage, head to head results and results against common opponents
    2. Strength of schedule as determined by opponent’s winning percentage
    3. Results against teams already in the tournament

    The top two seeds will have a bye in the first round, which will be played on March 5. The two first-round winners will meet the top two seeds for semifinals and finals on March 8 and 9.

    Here’s the way things are shaping up.

    ECAC East

    Manhattanville needs just a single point in its last two games to lock up the regular-season title, which comes with a first-round playoff bye and the right to host the ECAC East semifinals and finals on March 2 and 3. All of the Division III teams in the conference make the playoffs: MIT, Rensselaer, RIT, Salve Regina, Southern Maine and Union. The Division I and Division II teams in the conference — Holy Cross, Sacred Heart and St. Michael’s — will have a separate playoff hosted by Holy Cross on February 23 and 24.

    The winner of the ECAC East tournament gets an automatic qualifier to the NCAA tournament. Manhattanville is the favorite and would likely take one of the Pool “C” at-large slots if it does not win the playoffs. The rest of the teams probably need to win the title in order to make the NCAA tournament.

    ECAC West

    In only its first year of existence, the ECAC West has made waves in Division III with the success of Elmira and Plattsburgh. Elmira has won the regular-season title and will host the semifinals and finals on February 23 and 24. Plattsburgh and Utica have also clinched playoff berths, and Cortland and Buffalo State will battle this weekend for the fourth and final spot.

    There is no AQ for the ECAC West, so Elmira will find itself competing with teams from the NCHA for the lone Pool “B” spot.

    MIAC

    The top five teams make the playoffs, with the four and five seeds squaring off in a play-in game on February 26, followed by semifinals and finals hosted by the top seed on March 2 and 3.

    Gustavus Adolphus, St. Mary’s , Concordia and St. Thomas have all clinched playoff berths, leaving St. Benedict and Augsburg to battle for the final spot.

    The winner of the MIAC championship gets an AQ, and the runner-up will be in strong consideration for a Pool “C” bid.

    NCHA

    The playoffs are set with one weekend to go in the regular season. Wisconsin-Stevens Point has already locked up the regular-season title and will host the finals and semifinals on February 22 and 23. The Pointers will host Wisconsin-Eau Claire, while Wisconsin-River Falls and Wisconsin-Superior square off in the other semifinal.

    The tournament champion does not get an AQ, and must compete with the ECAC West for the lone Pool “B” slot.

    NESCAC

    Middlebury can take the regular-season title with a win against Bowdoin on Saturday. The top seed gets a first round bye and the right to host the semifinals and finals the weekend of March 1-3.

    Middlebury, Bowdoin, Colby and Williams have clinched playoff berths, leaving the other five teams to fight for the remaining three spots.

    The winner of the NESCAC title gets an AQ, and Middlebury will get a Pool “C” bid if it stumbles in the playoffs. Otherwise, Bowdoin and Colby are both in contention for an at-large bid should they finish second to the Panthers.

    Check back for weekly updates as the countdown to the first-ever women’s NCAA Division III championship continues.

    This Week in the ECAC West: Feb. 14, 2002

    By
    -

    The regular season isn’t over yet, but playoff-style hockey is already the name of the game in the ECAC West. With playoff berths and seeding positions on the line, teams are playing with the single-game mentality in every contest.

    Battling for the Final Playoff Spot

    Utica and Hobart faced off Wednesday night, battling for that fourth and final playoff spot. Utica needed a win to make the playoffs, Hobart only needed to win or tie to clinch the position.

    The game was a hard-fought affair. Hobart built up to a 3-0 lead through two periods of play and looked to be in control. But Utica showed surprising character for a young team in the third period, scoring two goals in the opening seven minutes to close the gap to 3-2.

    Hobart was able to hold on through the storm, and freshman Jesse Desper scored the insurance goal with less than seven minutes remaining in the game to give Hobart the win.

    “My hats off to our guys,” said Utica coach Gary Heenan. “It’s an accomplishment to play for the playoffs in the second to last game of the season. But it’s still a disappointment. We still feel that we underachieved. This has to be another step on that learning curve.”

    Neumann is Family

    Neumann travelled to play Hobart and RIT last weekend, and Manhattanville on Wednesday, and got thoroughly thumped in all three contests. However, even through all the adversity there just might be a little light at the end of the tunnel for the Knights.

    Kudos have to be given to the Neumann players for their attitude during the second half of this season. The Knights have been thoroughly outplayed and outscored in every game since the holidays. However, from coach Nick Russo on down, everyone still has a positive attitude and is still enjoying playing each and every game.

    This team could have easily degenerated to the depths of frustration, despair, and disappointment. And they could have played headhunting hockey, looking to make each game a bloodbath. However, the Neumann program has more class than that.

    I watched one of Neumann’s games last weekend, from right next to their bench. I was amazed at how supportive the players were of each other, joking, enjoying the experience, and helping each other out. If you were watching that bench, you would have thought Neumann was well above .500, and not in the process of getting beaten 7-1. This is a team that is a family, something great to see at any level of sport.

    Some may not believe it with Neumann’s 2-22 record this season, but statistically the Knights are doing better than they did last year as independents. Here are some numbers to compare:

    2000-2001: 1-19 NCAA record, .4539 strength of schedule
    2001-2002: 2-22 NCAA record, .5432 strength of schedule

    Neumann has played a significantly tougher schedule this season as it entered the ECAC West. And yet the Knights have been able to keep their record above last year’s.

    So, maybe I am being an optimist here, but also maybe a couple of good recruiting classes will allow Neumann to dig out of the pit of despair on the way to gaining some respect around college hockey.

    Playoff Watch

    The countdown to the playoffs continues, with only two weekends of regular-season play remaining.

    With Hobart’s win over Utica on Wednesday, we now know the four participants in the playoffs. Seeding still has to be determined by the remaining games.

    Manhattanville and Hobart are jockeying between third and fourth place. They square off in Hobart on Saturday afternoon.

    “Now that we are in the playoffs, all we can do is go as far as we can go,” said Hobart’s Mark Taylor. “I’m glad that our league is to the point that you have to really push to make the playoffs. I think you are seeing the benefits of adding new teams to the league in just the first year.”

    First place can be decided this weekend, also, if RIT manages to defeat Elmira in the Game of the Week. Remember from last week’s column that RIT owns the tiebreakers on Elmira. However, if Elmira wins, then all it needs to do is not stumble in its two remaining games next week to claim the title, and very likely the NCAA Pool B bid.

    As a reminder, the tiebreaking criteria once again:

    1) Head to head
    2) Number of conference wins
    3) Record vs. common opponents
    4) Overall record

    By The Numbers

    As the regular season winds down, there are some amazing numbers associated with teams throughout the ECAC West. Here are a few highlights that I found interesting.

  • RIT has the top three points-per-game scorers in the nation: Mike Bournazakis with 2.62, Jerry Galway with 2.05, and David Bagley with 1.95.
  • Hobart has learned to play with a lead later in games this season. The Statesmen are 7-0 when they are leading at the end of two periods of play.
  • RIT leads the nation both in scoring offense (7.09) and in scoring margin (5.32)
  • Manhattanville’s strength is in the second period, outshooting its opponents 333-217 and outscoring them 42-23.
  • The Neumann goaltenders have faced 1,228 shots this season, averaging 51.2 shots per game. That’s more shots in a season than some goaltenders face in a career.
  • RIT has the top two assists per game leaders in the nation with Bournazakis (1.71) and Galway (1.43).
  • Utica starts its games with a rush, outscoring its opponents 27-23 and outshooting them 231-212 in the first period. Unfortunately, the Pioneers have shown their youth by being outshot and outscored in the second and third periods consistently throughout the season.
  • Elmira is tied for the second-longest winning streak in the nation at eight games. Elmira has not lost since January 6. The Soaring Eagles had an 11-game winning streak last season spanning November through January.
  • RIT’s Jason Chafe and Bournazakis are tied in leading the nation in game-winning goals with five each.
  • Elmira has scored seven shorthanded goals this season, and only allowed four.
  • Utica has amassed an 8-5-2 record outside of the league this season, respectable for a first-year program.
  • Galway leads the nation in points per game for a defenseman (2.05).
  • Adam Lavelle (Hobart) has tied the school record for most wins in a season with nine. Mike Silva, a 1989 Hobart alum, also won nine games during his senior year.
  • Rob Ligas from Elmira leads the league in save percentage (.960), goals against average (1.25), and has a perfect 4-0 record in league play.
  • RIT leads the nation in power-play conversion rate (42.7) and penalty-killing (92.2).
  • Elmira is outscoring its opposition by a 45-19 margin in the third period.
  • Manhattanville has three freshmen included in its top five scorers: Brad Olson (15-14-39), Jason Kenyon (9-16-25), and Lee Stubbs (10-15-25).
  • RIT has killed off the last 33 penalties it has faced. The last power-play goal it gave up was in the third period against Fredonia on January 12.
  • Manhattanville doesn’t relinquish leads in the third period, tallying a perfect 14-0 record when leading at the end of two.

    Game of the Week

    Once again, it comes down to Elmira and RIT battling it out at the end of the season for the title. This is the 60th meeting between these two teams, and the series is tied, 28-28-3.

    The big prize that goes along with winning that title is the right to host the league playoffs. And that home rink advantage can be huge.

    Elmira enters Ritter Arena on Saturday with a perfect 7-0 league record, ranked No. 8 in the nation, and defeated RIT 4-2 earlier in the season. RIT skates on to the ice as the three-time defending ECAC West champion and ranked No. 2 in the nation.

    “This game is the kind of atmosphere that we like to play in, a full house and a great opponent,” said RIT coach Wayne Wilson.

    The question is whether RIT can overcome Elmira’s penchant for defeating nationally-ranked teams this season. Everything is on the line — just the way it should be at this point.

    • This Week in the CCHA: Feb. 14, 2002

    By
    -

    Reduced CCHA

    The issues of the league are these:

    First place.

    Home ice.

    Which team will have to travel to the north
    To face Alaska when the playoffs start?

    Eh, you, Brutus?

    So Foul and Fair a Game I Have Not Seen

    Round about the leaders go
    Throughout Joe Louis, to and fro.
    But the game is all for naught
    Unless for PairWise rankings sought.
    On one end Miller paces pipes
    But Michigan for first is ripe.
    The Spartans late have stumbled some.
    In six games last — three, two, and one.
    And Wolverines seem poised to make
    a peaking run; there’s much at stake.

    Alas! This seems so far from fair:
    No points to gain. Quel le cauchemar!

    A Good Old Commander and a Most Kind Gentleman

    Mason retiring. New MSU AD.

    It’s official: look!

    Who will follow? Not he.

    When the Hurlyburly’s Done

    Six teams stay home, and six will travelers be,
    And seven less than UNO, ND.
    While in between four squads will fight for points.
    By season’s end, positioning anoints.
    Tie breakers will determine who plays whom,
    And most league wins is first to spell the doom.
    Then next, it’s head-to-head for breaking ties.
    And who scored more in those is next. The wise
    Know win percentage versus other foes
    In conference (from first on down) then shows.
    The final is a simple act of chance:
    Just toss the coin to see who gets the dance.

    So. After iambic pentameter, what is there?

    Fairbanks. Rolling, but only two conference games left with four points at stake. Games at home. Bobby Andrews needs four points for a career 100.

    Nebraska-Omaha. Four conference games left. Peaked too early? School record eight-game win streak broken by Michigan last weekend. Ellis? Shutout streak ended at 212:44. Power play: struggling.

    Northern Michigan (24 pts.), Ferris State (23 pts.), Western Michigan (23 pts.), and Ohio State (22 pts.): six games left each.

    Northern. Swept by OSU. Swept by Western. Split with Ferris. Split with Notre Dame. Kowalski? Streaky. Cockburn, Gobert, a go? I dunno. Cockburn + Theuer = goals.

    Ferris. Split with Northern. Loss and tie to Notre Dame. Swept OSU once, but two games left with clustermate. Have yet to play Western. Controls own destiny.

    Western. Swept NMU. Split with FSU, win and tie against Notre Dame. Swept by OSU. Peaking now? Riding season’s longest win streak (four games). Are 12-4-2 at home, but four of remaining six games on road.

    Ohio State. Swept NMU. Swept WMU. Swept by FSU, with two games pending this weekend. Split with Notre Dame. And, if it comes down to it, split with UNO. Riding seven-game winless streak. Betz: as good as the team in front of him. The team in front of him: inconsistent.

    Notre Dame. Four league games left. New candidates for hardest-working team in college hockey. Snapped six-game losing streak in style last week by snapping MSU’s ungodly unbeaten streak at home. Cey? For real. Irish: tenacious enough to sneak up there for home ice.

    Games

    But soft! What bones in Value City break?

    Ferris State (14-13-1, 11-10-1 CCHA) at Ohio State (14-12-4, 9-9-4 CCHA)
    Friday, 7:35 p.m. and Saturday, 7:05 p.m., Value City Arena, Columbus, Ohio

    Bulldogs bounced Buckeyes, Dec. 14-15, 5-2 and 3-2.

    OSU leads all-time series 46-30-10, 12-5-1 in last 18 meetings.

    Last FSU win in C-bus? Nov. 18, 1995.

    Last games at the Schott? Mar. 12-13, 1999. First round of CCHA playoffs. OSU 4-2, 3-1.

    Bulldogs swept Bowling Green last weekend, 5-2, 6-3. Buckeyes went to Alaska. That’s all they’d like you to know. UAF 6-3, 6-1.

  • Goals scored per game: FSU 3.5, OSU 2.6.
  • Goals allowed per game: FSU 2.8, OSU 2.8.
  • Power play: FSU .160, OSU .131.
  • PK: FSU .815, OSU .826.
  • Shorthanded goals: FSU 11, OSU 1.
  • PIMs per game: FSU 22.0, OSU 16.6.

    Ah! That last stat is most telling. None on either squad was there when Selleke bit Harrison in Big Rapids, but all act as though they were. Umberger tossed in the first meeting this season; Steckel’s three consecutive penalties hurt the Buckeyes in that same game.

    There is no love lost between these teams. The gates of the bin shall open wide, and often. Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished.

    Collins, Kunitz … psychic? Passing: amazing. Skating: yup. Scoring? Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business.

    Jason Basile: penalty shot goal last weekend. Matt York: 12 points in last eight games. FSU: four or more goals in last six games.

    Steckel, Umberger — separated. Scoring? More so. Winning? Not yet. Umberger’s goals:

    When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds
    And sails upon the bosom of the air.

    Paul Caponigri: 13 points in last 12 games. Buckeyes: peppered UAF with over 70 shots last weekend, but only four goals to show. OSU: 8-3-4 at home this year.

    Daniels:

    “I think it’s going to be good hockey, probably two really close games. I imagine at the end of the weekend you’d say they’re two games that probably could have gone either way.

    “They [OSU] outplayed Fairbanks. It was just the bounce of the puck. We’re a streaky team ourselves. If you look back at our season, you see it’s a season of streaks.

    “When we’re hot, we play better on specialty teams. The specialty teams for us have been the most inconsistent all year. One night, we’ll get two or three on the power play, and then we can go three games without a power-play goal. Same with the penalty kill. We do well for a while, and then all of a sudden we give up five against Bemidji in one night.”

    Daniels on goaltenders Mike Brown (2.51 GAA, .918 SV%) and John de Caro (3.19 GAA, .892 SV%):

    “At the beginning of the year, I wouldn’t say it was a lack of confidence, but just not knowing. Now, guys have complete confidence in both goalies.”

    Daniels on home ice:

    “You know what? I think we’re optimistic that we can play well enough to get it, that if things go right we can certainly get it, but I don’t think we’re at the point here where we feel it’s a done deal. We know we’re right in the thick of things.

    “Obviously everybody wants to get home ice, including us, but I don’t think that this year is going to be the same as other years, where home ice is really going to give you a huge, huge advantage because I think the series are going to be so close.

    “What you’re going to see once we get close to playoffs is that certain teams, if all of a sudden they get hit with a rash of injuries, there’s going to be an awful lot of jockeying.

    “Home ice won’t be a guarantee to get to The Joe this year.”

    Markell:

    “We still have a possible eight points after this weekend, but we have to take care of matters at home. We’ve got a good home team, and we want to continue that way. There’s a way to play to be successful in this league. We know what that is. We keep testing ourselves.

    “We have to play physical, and we have to play good team defense. When we do that, everything else seems to work out for us. It’s the only way to get it done.

    “With understanding where we have to get to, we have our backs against the wall.”

    Markell on losing in Alaska:

    “It’s humbling when you go up there and get beaten like that. We have to accept the fact that…the offense has to join the defense quicker, and the defense has to join the offense quicker. Plus you need solid goaltending. It was all aspects of our game.

    “When you pour 75-76 shots on net and you score four goals, you’d better be playing good defense.”

    Markell on losing twice to Ferris earlier this season:

    “We’re a different team now. Then, it was just before break. I don’t think we were mentally prepared to play a tough series like that. It could have gone either way; they’d just gotten back from Alaska, and we had opportunities to score goals. Again, we didn’t score, and we never put them back on their heals.

    “There was a lot of emotion in that [second] game, and it didn’t end up well for us in specialty teams. We’ve addressed all that. We think we’re a different team and we’ve made adjustments.”

    Saturday night’s the night for seniors. Jason Crain, Mike McCormick, and Yan Des Gagne — last weekend, regular-season home game. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

    Pick: OSU 3-2, 3-1

    Grudge

    Ibid.

    Valentine’s Day

    If hockey be the food of love, play on.

    Tu-whit, Tu-who: A Merry Note

    Post Feb. 8. Mercury direct.

    All’s well that ends well.

    Moxy.

    • This Week in the ECAC Northeast: Feb. 14, 2002

    By Ed Seero
    -

    It’s That Time Of Year Again

    Get out a pen and paper. A calculator wouldn’t hurt, either. That’s right, folks, it’s almost playoff time. Time to figure out who could finish where and how.

    Before we begin, let’s go over the rules. For those already familiar, a quick brushup might be in order. If you feel you have a firm grasp of how and why things will be the way they will be next weekend, scroll down to the next section.

    The top eight teams in the league are in. The rest go home. This week will be their last week of competitive hockey, and the top four teams get home ice advantage in the first round. The top eight teams are determined by the regular season conference standings, via the standard point system: two points for a win, one for a tie and none for a loss.

    Ties are broken based upon criteria established by the athletic directors which involves games in hand and a slew of other things that I won’t get into. For now, we’ll stick with wins, losses and ties.

    First-round games will be held on Saturday and Sunday, February 23 and 24, with the eighth seed visiting the first seed, seven at two, and so on. The winners of those four games move on to the semifinals to be held on Wednesday, February 27. The two top seeded teams retain home ice for the semifinals.

    The semifinal winners will play for the ECAC Northeast championship on Sunday, March 2.

    Okay, that’s out of the way. Let’s do some analysis.

    Who’s In?

    UMass-Dartmouth currently sits atop the league in first place with 24 points. They have one game remaining on Saturday, at home against Johnson and Wales. The worst they could finish is fourth. In other words, they have locked up home ice.

    Lebanon Valley is alone in second place with 23 points. They have two games remaining, both at home. They will play on Saturday against Stonehill and on Sunday against WNEC. Like UMD, they have locked up home ice. The worst they could finish is fourth.

    Johnson & Wales and Wentworth are tied for third. The two teams are in. Each team has two games remaining.

    JWU has the short end of the stick. The Wildcats have to go through UMD and Wentworth to get first place and win the right to play the eighth seed. In other words, it’s a tall order. But they could do it. That’s why they play the games.

    Wentworth hosts Framingham on Saturday and travels to Providence to take on JWU on Sunday. With two wins they could capture first place if UMD does not win its remaining two games. If they only win or tie one of those games they are guaranteed second place at best. The worst they could finish is a tie for third. So they have home ice as well.

    This is where it gets tricky.

    As of press time on Thursday night, Curry has three games on its schedule. Thursday at home against Assumption, next Tuesday at Salve, and next Thursday against WNEC. If they win all three games, the best case scenario for the Colonels is a tie for third broken by the criteria agreed upon by the athletic directors. So they will have to win all three of the remaining games to secure home ice. If they stumble at all, they will be visiting one of the top four teams next Saturday. In other words, it’s crunch time for the Colonels.

    No Home Ice For You

    First year coach Chris MacPherson has had a stellar debut behind the bench no matter what happens in the coming weeks.

    Salve Regina is tied with Curry at fifth place as of Thursday night. They play at Fitchburg on Saturday and at home against Curry. If Curry wins the next three the Seahawks will finish sixth at best. However, if Curry stumbles and Salve can win its next two the Seahawks could finish in fifth.

    Either way, they are on the outside looking in as far as home ice goes. But they are in the playoffs and you can never count out the Seahawks. They are as dangerous as they come in the playoffs.

    Fitchburg is in the playoffs for the 17th time in coach Dean Fuller’s career. That is out of 18 tries. Pretty good.

    The game on Saturday against Salve could prove to be gigantic should Fitchburg beat Suffolk on Thursday night. If there is a winner and a loser in the Curry/Salve game on Tuesday and one of those two teams loses the other games, Fitchburg could vault over one of them with a win in its next two games. Best case scenario? Fifth place. I told you it was tricky.

    On The Bubble

    Plymouth and Worcester are currently tied for eighth place. If either team wins the next two games (one of them won’t because of a Sunday matchup between the two squads) that team could potentially finish in a tie with Fitchburg for seventh place if Fitchburg miraculously loses both of its remaining games.

    Basically, they are battling for the playoffs and Sunday’s game is the most important of the year for both teams. The winner will move on, the loser will call it a season after the last regular season game.

    WNEC will be able to play for something in these last few games. They can play the role of spoiler at the very least. They have to win the remainder of the four conference games on their schedule and hope for a miracle in selection criteria. They have to win. That is the bottom line. Good luck coach Enroth and Co.

    Who’s Out?

    Suffolk will play the last game of its season on Monday at home against Southern New Hampshire. Better luck to those guys next year. Here’s hoping the young guys can get better and coach Horan can bring in a good class to propel the Rams into the show come this time next year.

    Nichols is also done. They will take on Westfield State on Saturday. The good news? Literally the entire team will be back next year as the Bison carry exactly zero seniors on the roster.

    Framingham can also play the role of spoiler, or at the very least upset the apple cart a little and mount some momentum and good feelings for next year.

    The Rams will play at home against WNEC on Thursday night and travel to Wentworth to try and throw a giant monkey wrench into everything at the top of the league on Saturday.

    You have to be rooting for the Rams. They have not gotten a lot of coverage as a result of the record and they have taken their lumps in quite a few games. But coach Bob Lavin is a savvy recruiter and a good coach. Remember, he is the guy who laid the foundation blocks for where Salve is today. Anyone who remembers the Salve of old knows that he did a phenomenal job there. Expect good things to happen in Framingham in the next few years. I mean that.

    Got that? I think I do. But hey, that is the math of a former English major who took all of one non-credit math class in college. The lesson there is, take a good look at the standings and double and triple check my work.

    And Another Thing

    Good for Lebanon Valley finally getting some hard earned and well deserved respect. The Dutchmen are in the USCHO top ten this week. Not only are the Dutchmen in, but UMass-Dartmouth got a vote as well. Fantastic. Good for the schools. Good for the league. Good for the coaches and players. This is a good thing.

    Congratulations are in order for…

  • Wentworth junior Jamie Weiss, who became the fourth member of Wentworth’s 100-point club with his assist on Tim Yakimowsky’s first goal against SNHU last week.
  • T.J. Brown, a senior at UMass-Dartmouth, who leads all ECACNE scorers with a 73-76–149 career line.
  • SNHU’s Nick Nugent. He has played in al 98 games of his four year career and, barring injury, will become just the fourth player in school history to play 100 games for the Penmen.
  • Stonehill’s Jeff Rowe (42-56–98) and Brendan Flemming (48-46–94), each just shy of 100 career points.
  • Assumption senior goaltender L.J. Goldblatt, who waited a long time to entrench himself as the permanent number-one goalie for the Hounds. That has finally happened. Good luck to the Hounds, who will be jockeying for positioning for the Division II playoffs this week.

    Till next week…

    • This Week in the MAAC: Feb. 14, 2002

    By
    -

    For Once, Praise

    Over the past years, this page has, at times, been filled with criticism of the officials who run the MAAC league. Though I’ll suggest that league issues such as scholarship limits and start-of-season legislation still aren’t handled perfectly, in the same breath I can tell you that MAAC commissioner Rich Ensor is doing his best to make the league successful and competitive.

    All that said, it is time to give the league some praise. Since its acceptance into NCAA Division I, the MAAC has worked tirelessly to expand the national scope of college hockey. A major part of that growth has been a goal to expand the current 12-team field for the national tournament to 16 teams.

    Two years ago, some believed that hurdle was close to being scaled. A vote by the NCAA Championship Cabinet earmarked ice hockey as one of the Division I sports to expand. At the time, though, there was a pecking order for budgetary distribution to make these expansions.

    As the result made clear, hockey wasn’t high on the list.

    Now understand, throughout the process, the MAAC has received strong support from other conferences: everyone within the game would like to see a 16-team, four-regional tournament. It’s quite possible this is the first time that the MAAC has ever felt it has the full support of the “Big Four” conferences. Still, their support was not enough.

    For the tournament to expand, two things would have to mesh: a clear revenue potential to cover the costs, and gender equity. That concept seems pretty simple. The men’s hockey tournament has always been one of the top three most profitable championship tournaments conducted by the NCAA, so finances aren’t a problem. And some believed that to boost the men’s tournament by four teams, a reciprocal move within the women’s tournament would seem fitting.

    But women’s hockey is new. Having only conducted one NCAA-sanctioned Frozen Four to date, it would seem too early to expand. That, again, is where the MAAC came in — particularly Jack McDonald, athletic director for Quinnipiac, chair of the men’s ice hockey committee and a founding father of the MAAC Hockey League.

    McDonald had a concept, a plan, if you will. He sought out other sports that also wanted to expand. His idea would be to group together these sports — though only if they made the proposal more financially viable and created gender equity. Though meeting the main criteria for expansion, by grouping the plans together, the other sports would not remain ahead of college hockey in the NCAA’s pecking order, but instead would stand side-by-side.

    Upon careful review, McDonald found two such sports: men’s lacrosse and women’s softball. Men’s lacrosse is in a similar situation to hockey — there is currently a 12-team field and the sport continues to grow. Women’s softball, though, has a large field of 48 teams, using eight regional sites of six teams. Softball sought to balance its regional sites and thus needed 16 more teams — two for each region.

    Both softball and lacrosse faced financial hurdles in their expansion. Lacrosse is close to being a profitable tournament, last year losing only $94,727. Among Division I men’s sports, lacrosse ranks eighth in profit/loss. Women’s softball, on the other hand, is one of the biggest financial losses for the NCAA. Having lost $1,401,524 last year, the tournament ranked second behind only women’s basketball for the largest tournament expense.

    Though the NCAA earmarks funds every two years for tournament expansion, sports like softball would need additional financial support. Enter hockey. Being the third-most profitable sport last year behind men’s basketball and baseball (remember, the football bowl season is not an NCAA tournament), the expected profits that can be realized from expanding the hockey tournament can be used to offset the loss from softball.

    Thus, McDonald’s plan gained financial viability. The only other issue was gender equity. It doesn’t take a genius to recognize the proposal covers that. Sixteen additional women’s teams in softball, compared to eight combined men’s teams in lacrosse and ice hockey covers this.

    Last week, the NCAA Championship Cabinet once again ratified the proposed expansion. Unlike two years ago, though, the Cabinet recommended that this proposal be at the top of the list of expanding sports.

    A conversation with McDonald last week gave me hope. There was considerably more excitement his voice; though two years ago McDonald knew hockey had taken a big step in getting the Cabinet’s approval, at the time there was a sense of realism about the likely chances of final approval. That has given way to optimism.

    For McDonald, this is truly a culmination of four-plus years of hard work. The work isn’t dissimilar to that which earned the MAAC its first autobid to the NCAA Tournament last year. But at that time McDonald and the league were seen by some as stealing a spot in the tournament.

    Truly, it was more like a loan: if this expansion is agreed to by the NCAA Management Council and Board of Directors, it will be McDonald’s concept that earned college hockey four additional tournament-bound teams.

    I have to admit that a part of me wishes the timing was different. With McDonald the outgoing chair of the ice hockey committee, he won’t have the privilege of seeding the first 16-team tournament. That will be left to his successors.

    Maybe, though, Quinnipiac will be the first MAAC team to receive an at-large bid in the 16-team format.

    In the meantime, let me offer my praise to Jack McDonald and everyone around the college hockey game for working hard for tournament expansion. Hopefully in April their efforts will be recognized.

    Weekly Awards

    ITECH MAAC Hockey League Co-Players of the Week:

    Brad Olsen, Mercyhurst, Sr., C, Calgary, Alberta

    Olsen figured in six of Mercyhurst’s eight goals as the Lakers posted a tie and a win on the weekend. He tied the game at 2-2 in the second period of Friday’s 3-3 overtime draw at Sacred Heart and had a goal and four assists in Saturday’s 5-1 win at AIC. His four assists and five points Saturday tied his prior single-game high, set in 1999. Olsen has scored at least one goal in five of the last six games.

    Steve Tobio, Bentley, Sr., D, Belmont, MA

    Tobio had a five-point weekend, assisting on one goal on Friday night and adding one goal and three assists in Saturday’s 5-4 victory over Fairfield. Tobio was a dominant force on the ice this weekend for the Falcons. With the five-point weekend, Tobio tied Bentley’s defenseman all-time scoring record.

    ITECH MAAC Hockey League Goalie of the Week: Peter Aubry, Mercyhurst, Sr., G, Windsor, ONT

    Aubry stopped a combined 70 of 74 shots in a 3-3 tie at Sacred Heart Friday and a 5-1 win at AIC Saturday. Aubry is now 15-0-2 in the MAAC with a save percentage of .946 and a goals against average of 1.62. He also has three shutouts.

    ITECH MAAC Hockey League Rookie of the Week: Jon Ames, UConn, Baldwinsville, NY/Forward

    Ames scored two goals and an assist in UConn’s 2-0 weekend over Iona, including the game-tying goal with a little more than five minutes remaining in the second period on Friday night. He also set up UConn’s first goal of the game. On Saturday, he scored the game-tying goal on an unassisted tally with less than five minutes remaining in the second period.

    Mercyhurst Close To Magic (Number)

    And then there was one. One point, that is.

    That’s all that separates Mercyhurst from defending its regular-season title. Either one point in the standings for the Lakers or a loss or a tie for current second-place Quinnipiac and the Lakers will win the regular season in back-to-back years.

    With the clincher likely to come this weekend, the Lakers will have something to celebrate for the second week in a row. This past weekend, by virtue of a tie and win against Sacred Heart and AIC respectively, the Lakers clinched home ice in the first round of the playoffs. That feat in itself is satisfying to Lakers head coach Rick Gotkin.

    “I don’t think people realize the travel that we go through,” said Gotkin, whose team has either made an eight-hour bus trip or flown to games eight times. And that’s not even all of it, as the Lakers will close the season at Army and Iona. “You throw in stuff like tests in school and girlfriends, and it becomes a grind. Our easiest trip is to Buffalo once or twice a year, and that’s still more than an hour away.”

    From the beginning of the year, Gotkin has said that his team’s goals are simple: Make the playoffs, clinch home ice, and win the regular-season title. With two of those out of the way and one on the verge, the Lakers can now look to a something that probably wasn’t on the radar screen in the beginning of the season.

    Currently with a 17-0-3 record in MAAC play, the Lakers could become the first team to complete a league season without a loss. Quinnipiac came close two years ago, posting a 23-1-3 record, its only loss coming on Nov. 6 — ironically at Mercyhurst. The 6-4 decision that night saw the Lakers rally from a 4-1 deficit, scoring once in the second and four times in the third period.

    “We’ve never talked about being [unbeaten],” said Gotkin. “It was never one of our goals. Bottom line, we’re undefeated in the MAAC, but we’re not undefeated. We’ve lost to some good teams in Hockey East and ECAC and CHA.

    “I think it would be terrific if we could do that. But if someone told me come Feb. 11 you won’t have lost a MAAC game, I’d tell them they’re crazy.”

    A season ago, Mercyhurst was the best team in the MAAC as displayed through a league championship and playoff champion. To think that this team could improve was possible. To know that it actually happened, though, is something else.

    In league play, the Lakers have been dominant. Outside of the MAAC, the outcome hasn’t been as good, although excluding one night that Gotkin will want to forget, a 8-0 drubbing at Clarkson, the Lakers have been in every non-league game right to the wire. One-goal, two goal games. Empty-netters. That’s been the story of the Lakers’ non-league season.

    In essence, the season outside the MAAC has been similar to last year. One exception is that Mercyhurst finally broke through with a non-league win: a 5-2 victory versus Colgate this past Decemeber. It has to give one hope that the Lakers could again represent the MAAC in the NCAA tournament and maybe this time take things one step further.

    What’d I Tell Ya

    A week ago, I said it right here: If then-seventh place UConn could win half of its remaining games, it would finish in a position for home ice. One week later, I thank the Huskies for making me look like a noble prognosticator.

    Last weekend, UConn swept a reeling Iona team, winning its sixth game in a row to move into a tie for fifth place — only two points out of second! Granted, given the state of the middle of the MAAC last weekend, we all knew that major movement was possible, but the chance that in a span of two weeks it is possible for UConn to move from seventh to second almost seems unreal.

    When asked how and why this is happening, UConn coach Bruce Marshall said it simply: “I think our seniors are playing with that sense of urgency. Every day is one less they’re going to have as a group.

    “I think we’ve learned that all the games are going to take three periods. There have been games that we’ve found ways to win right now.”

    That was the case last weekend in the sweep of Iona. Both nights the Huskies trailed — Friday by one and Saturday by two. Friday night it was a lucky bounce in overtime that resulted in a 3-on-1 and the game-winning goal. Saturday it was battling from 2-0 down to score the final three goals.

    This weekend, though, the test gets harder. The Huskies travel to the unenviable destination of MAAC West — better known as Mercyhurst and Canisius. Obviously, Mercyhurst is number-one on the list of “Places You’d Rather Not Play.” The Lakers are a near-perfect 8-1-1 at home this season. Canisius isn’t much friendlier, as the Griffs hold a 7-2-2 record on home ice this season.

    “You can’t come back from [this weekend’s trip] without any points and still think you can control your own destiny for home ice,” said Marshall. “If you come out with some points, the next weekend we play Holy Cross, and they’d be right next to us [in the standings].”

    Marshall, though, is secure in the fact his team is prepared for this trip and the rest of the season.

    “I think our schedule has helped us,” said Marshall. “We’ve had to go to Vermont, Providence and Brown and play there. Those games will help us going into the playoffs.”

    Tube Audience Grows

    The league office announced this week that the MAAC championship game, to be played Saturday, March 16 at Holy Cross at high noon, will be picked up live on the New England Sports Network. This adds to the already announced package of MSG and Empire Sports — two New York-based cable sports outlets — that will bring the MAAC title tilt to the most houses of the six major college leagues.

    It is the second consecutive year that all three networks will broadcast the game, though the first time that it will be live. In the past, NESN has tape-delayed and broadcast the game one day later. This past week, NESN televised the 50th annual Beanpot tournament, its first Division I games of the year, after ending a four-year agreement with the ECAC.

    This Week in the ECAC: Feb. 14, 2002

    By Becky Blaeser and Jayson Moy
    -

    Winners And Losers

    Once again, last weekend saw all 12 ECAC teams in action twice with league games.

    The Winners

    Cornell — Another four-point weekend for the Red, and a widened lead in the ECAC. Clinched a playoff spot, and with one more point, will clinch home ice for the playoffs. Rensselaer can still catch the Red.

    Rensselaer — A big four-point weekend for the Engineers, topped off with a comeback overtime win over Clarkson on Big Red Freakout night. The Engineers, out of the playoffs two weeks ago, are now tied for sixth place.

    Colgate — The Raiders also picked are starting to gain a foothold for home ice in the playoffs. A big game with Dartmouth looms this weekend.

    Brown — Four points for the Bears as well, putting them into a tie for eighth place with momentum on their side. A big test in the North Country this weekend, though.

    Harvard — The only ECAC game of the week was a win, but coupled with losses by Dartmouth and Clarkson, Harvard is in second place with three weeks to go.

    The Losers

    Vermont — The Cats are sinking deeper into the cellar. A combination of three points lost between them and Princeton and the Cats are done for the season.

    Yale — Another weekend of one-goal losses for the Bulldogs. Out of a playoff spot at the moment, they are shaking their heads.

    Union — Two weeks ago, the Dutchmen had a great shot at solidifying home ice for the playoffs. Now, two points and four games later, they are hanging on to sixth place.

    Dartmouth — The Big Green had one game last weekend, and did not capitalize as they lost to Brown. A chance to move up in the standings became a tie for fourth place.

    We Did Okay

    St. Lawrence — The Saints really had a must-win game against Union on Saturday and came through on the shoulders of Kevin Ackley. Eighth place, but barely.

    Clarkson — The Golden Knights had a chance to take three points on the weekend and move into second; instead, they dropped an overtime decision to Rensselaer, and are third.

    Princeton — One point for the Tigers, giving them an edge over Yale by one point for the last playoff spot.

    Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

    The Big Red continue to roll, as they took their eighth straight ECAC contest and have a solid seven-point lead as they head to Dartmouth and Vermont this weekend.

    “We need to take care of ourselves and focus on what we’re doing here,” said head coach Mike Schafer. “It’s the time where everyone starts looking ahead and we go back up against Dartmouth, who beat us at home. That loss at home had the same effect on us as the loss at Harvard; our guys will be very focused on that.”

    “We’ll be ready for Dartmouth. Our guys were extremely disappointed that we lost here, and more importantly, in how we lost the game and the power-play goals that we gave up. Our guys are going to be very focused to go back up to Dartmouth; [they] were talking about it after the game on Saturday.”

    Note; Cornell’s senior class has never beaten the Big Green.

    Raiding The Top Half

    The Raiders just keep rolling. A three-point weekend has the Raiders tied for fourth place with Dartmouth. With six games left, only one is with a team ahead of them in the standings — Clarkson.

    The Raiders got strong goaltending from David Cann, and another Raider stepped up his game as P.J. Yedon scored twice and helped the Raiders to the tie against Princeton on Friday night.

    “That was the best game that [Yedon] has ever played here. The kid was in the zone,” said head coach Don Vaughan. “That line has played well for us. Brad [D’Arco]’s been playing well too. They like playing together and are best friends. But Yedon was the best player on the ice [Friday].”

    The Raiders face a huge matchup against Dartmouth on Saturday, one that could determine playoff positioning as the last two weekends approach.

    Freaking Out

    The Rensselaer Engineers took two games this weekend at home. In one, the Engineers never trailed, winning 3-2 over St. Lawrence, and in the other, they never led until the final second ended. That night, Carson Butterwick capped a comeback as the Engineers overcame a 3-0 deficit with 12:43 left to play and won 4-3 in overtime.

    “They didn’t throw in the towel, they didn’t give it up,” said Engineer head coach Dan Fridgen. “We had opportunities but we just kept coming at them and it paid off. They understand how hard it is to come back; the momentum was with us in overtime and it was a great play by Carson.”

    The Engineers will head to Princeton and Yale and look to keep the momentum of a four-game unbeaten streak going. They are now three points out of home ice for the playoffs, but have a hard road to go through.

    Rebounding For The Bears

    The Brown Bears were swept the previous weekend, but came back strong with a weekend sweep of their own, taking down Dartmouth and Vermont to climb into the playoff picture once again and move into eighth place, just four points from a home-ice spot.

    It wasn’t easy, as the Bears took a 3-1 lead over Dartmouth and held on for the next 40 minutes, then had to battle Vermont until the very end.

    “I didn’t think we played a great game tonight,” head coach Roger Grillo said after the 3-2 win over Vermont. “But we turned it on when we had to in the third. We’re in a position where we can’t sit back now — we have to go out and try to grind out wins just like this one.”

    The Crimson Luck Out

    The Crimson were fortunate in that they saw their second-place standing remain after Rensselaer came back on Clarkson, but it wasn’t all luck. The Crimson did what they had to do, winning their only ECAC game of the weekend. With the 6-0 defeat of Vermont, the Crimson are seven points behind Cornell, but still have a chance for the Cleary Cup.

    “I was very pleased with the way our team played,” said Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni. “We knew coming into this game that if we have aspirations of a first- or second-place [finish in the ECAC], that this was a must-win for our team.

    “I thought we came out with a real attitude tonight. We had a great four-line rotation and played with a lot of energy and on-puck intensity. We kept the puck moving and got it to their net.”

    The Crimson head to the North Country and the big battle will be Friday as the Crimson take on Clarkson for second place.

    An Observation

    Cornell is opening up a huge gap in the ECAC. We wonder how many ECAC supporters would love for the Big Red to run the table until the ECAC championship game, then lose it?

    Why, you ask?

    Well, perhaps with that run, the Big Red could get an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament and the tournament champion would get the autobid — two teams in from the ECAC.

    Don’t tell me that this hasn’t crossed the minds of many.

    Possibilities

    The playoff possibilities this weekend include:

  • Cornell can clinch home ice in the first round of the playoffs and reduce the number of teams that can catch them for the Cleary Cup to just two — Clarkson and Harvard.
  • It might be only one team, depending upon who wins the Clarkson-Harvard game as well.
  • Cornell can also clinch the Cleary Cup this weekend if Harvard and Clarkson each take a loss and Cornell sweeps.
  • Vermont can be eliminated from the playoffs if Princeton sweeps and Vermont doesn’t get two points.
  • And that’s about it!

    Rethinking

    Well, at the beginning of the year, we challenged you to see who was better at predicting the ECAC’s year-end standings. Here were the picks: 

    Challenge        Range    Becky and Jayson
     1. Clarkson  (8) 1- 4    1. Cornell
     2. Harvard  (14) 1- 7    2. Dartmouth
     3. Cornell   (6) 1- 6    3. Harvard
     4. Dartmouth (4) 1- 6    4. Clarkson
     5. St. Lawrence  2- 7    5. St. Lawrence
     6. Rensselaer    2-10    6. Vermont
     7. Vermont       5-10    7. Rensselaer
     8. Union         8-11    8. Union
     9. Colgate       7-12    9. Colgate
     10. Yale         6-12    10. Yale
     11. Princeton    7-12    11. Princeton
     12. Brown        9-12    12. Brown

    So how are we doing? If you give one point for every place away from an exact pick of the current standings, whoever has the fewest points is leading. So who is it?

    Let’s take the standings.

    1. Cornell
    2. Harvard
    3. Clarkson
    4. Colgate
    4. Dartmouth
    6. Rensselaer
    6. Union
    8. Brown
    8. St. Lawrence
    10. Princeton
    11. Yale
    12. Vermont

    We’ll apply tiebreakers as the ECAC does for the playoffs.

    The Colgate-Dartmouth tiebreaker goes to Colgate, as the Raiders defeated the Big Green, 3-2, a few weeks ago.

    The Rensselaer-Union tiebreaker goes to Union, as the Dutchmen are 1-0-1against the Engineers this season.

    The Brown-St. Lawrence tiebreaker goes to Brown, as the Bears defeated the Saints, 3-2 in overtime, earlier this year.

    So the standings for our purposes:

    1. Cornell
    2. Harvard
    3. Clarkson
    4. Colgate
    5. Dartmouth
    6. Union
    7. Rensselaer
    8. Brown
    9. St. Lawrence
    10. Princeton
    11. Yale
    12. Vermont

    Now let’s do our comparisons with the points in parentheses.

    1. Cornell — Fans (2)/Becky and Jayson (0)
    2. Harvard — Fans (0)/Becky and Jayson (1)
    3. Clarkson — Fans (2)/Becky and Jayson (1)
    4. Colgate — Fans (4)/Becky and Jayson (4)
    5. Dartmouth — Fans (1)/Becky and Jayson (3)
    6. Union — Fans (2)/Becky and Jayson (2)
    7. Rensselaer — Fans (1)/Becky and Jayson (0)
    8. Brown — Fans (4)/Becky and Jayson (4)
    9. St. Lawrence — Fans (4)/Becky and Jayson (4)
    10. Princeton — Fans (1)/Becky and Jayson (1)
    11. Yale — Fans (1)/Becky and Jayson (1)
    12. Vermont — Fans (5)/Becky and Jayson (6)

    We’re even in points once again this week at 27 each. Will someone get a leg up here?

    If It’s So Easy, You Try It

    The Iron Columnists are coming back after a tie this week by Mike Johnson, but we don’t think he can make it last any longer.

    The competition thus far:

    Vic Brzozowksi t. The Iron Columnists — 7-2-1
    The Iron Columnists d. Vic Brzozowksi — 8-3-1 to 7-4-1
    Ben Flickinger d. The Iron Columnists — 11-4-2 to 10-5-2
    The Iron Columnists d. Ben Flickinger — 5-1-4 to 4-2-4
    John Beaber and Lisa McGill t. The Iron Columnists — 6-7-0
    The Iron Columnists d. John Beaber and Lisa McGill — 7-5-3 to 6-6-3
    Mike Johnson d. The Iron Columnists — 10-3-1 to 6-7-1
    Mike Johnson t. The Iron Columnists — 5-5-2

    So, Mike, take another shot at the Iron Columnists! The Iron Columnists are still angry! Whose picks will reign supreme?

    The Picks

    Friday, Feb. 15
    Harvard at Clarkson
    Mike’s Pick — Clarkson 6, Harvard 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Clarkson 4, Harvard 1

    Brown at St. Lawrence
    Mike’s Pick — Brown 4, St. Lawrence 3
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — St. Lawrence 4, Brown 2

    Rensselaer at Princeton
    Mike’s Pick — Rensselaer 3, Princeton 1
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Rensselaer 3, Princeton 1

    Union at Yale
    Mike’s Pick — Union 4, Yale 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Yale 4, Union 2

    Colgate at Vermont
    Mike’s Pick — Colgate 7, Vermont 1
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Colgate 5, Vermont 1

    Cornell at Dartmouth
    Mike’s Pick — Cornell 3, Dartmouth 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Cornell 4, Dartmouth 1

    Saturday, Feb. 16

    Harvard at St. Lawrence
    Mike’s Pick — Harvard 5, St. Lawrence 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — St. Lawrence 5, Harvard 3

    Brown at Clarkson
    Mike’s Pick — Clarkson 6, Brown 1
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Clarkson 5, Brown 2

    Rensselaer at Yale
    Mike’s Pick — Yale 4, Rensselaer 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Yale 3, Rensselaer 2

    Union at Princeton
    Mike’s Pick — Princeton 3, Union 2
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Union 3, Princeton 2

    Colgate at Dartmouth
    Mike’s Pick — Colgate 6, Dartmouth 5
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Dartmouth 4, Colgate 2

    Cornell at Vermont
    Mike’s Pick — Cornell 9, Vermont 0
    Becky and Jayson’s Pick — Cornell 7, Vermont 0

    And remember that if you are interested in putting your money where your mouth is, drop us an email to be eligible when Mike bites the dust.

    Thanks to Jon Paul Morosi, Alex Clark and Sean Peden.

    • This Week in Division III: Feb. 14, 2002

    By
    -

    Let the Irregular Season Begin

    The regular season has concluded in the SUNYAC and NCHA, and will come to a close this weekend in the MCHA, MIAC, ECAC East and NESCAC.

    As teams either begin the postseason or jockey for playoff position, let’s break down each of the conferences.

    ECAC East

    Who’s in: Norwich has locked up the top seed and will host either UMass-Boston or Skidmore in the quarterfinals. Salem State has clinched a home playoff game, while MCLA needs just a single point in its last two games to get a quarterfinal playoff game, the first since MCLA was known as North Adams State. Southern Maine and New England College will battle for the right to host the fourth and final quarterfinal game. Babson knows it will be on the road next Saturday.

    Who’s not: The two Division II teams in the conference, St. Anselm and St. Michael’s. Both will participate in an ECAC Division II Tournament along with Assumption, Southern New Hampshire, and Stonehill from the ECAC Northeast.

    Who’s on the bubble: Nobody, since everyone makes the playoffs

    Who will play in the NCAAs: Norwich probably doesn’t have a strong enough ranking to make the tournament as an at-large team, particularly if the Cadets lose another game or two. The other teams definitely must win the ECAC East title to advance on the basis of the automatic qualifier (AQ) awarded to the playoff champion.

    ECAC West

    Who’s in: RIT and Elmira will finish first or second — the order will probably be determined this Saturday when the teams tangle at RIT. Manhattanville and Hobart have clinched the other two playoff spots.

    Who’s Not: Utica and Neumann

    Who’s on the bubble: Nobody. The playoff teams have been determined.

    Who will play in the NCAAs: Either RIT or Elmira will make the NCAAs, but not both, since there is only one Pool “B” spot available. Pool “B” is made up of independents and teams from conferences that do not have AQs — the ECAC West and the MCHA. Head-to-head play will be a major factor in deciding who goes to the big dance, and Elmira leads in that category, 1-0.

    ECAC Northeast

    Who’s in: UMass-Dartmouth and Lebanon Valley have each clinched home quarterfinal games, while Johnson & Wales and Wentworth need a single point in their last two games to lock down the other two home games. Curry, Salve Regina and Fitchburg have each clinched playoff spots.

    Who’s Not: Suffolk, Nichols, W. New England and Framingham State have all been mathematically eliminated. Stonehill, Assumption and S. New Hampshire will all play in the ECAC Division II playoffs.

    Who’s on the bubble: Plymouth State and Worcester State are tied for the final playoff berth. They play on Sunday, winner take all.

    Who will play in the NCAAs: Despite the advances made by the ECAC Northeast the past two seasons, it doesn’t look like an at-large bid will be available, meaning that only the champion will move on. And it should be a real battle. “You have four very strong, equal teams,” said Lebanon Valley head coach Al MacCormack of frontrunners UMass-Dartmouth, Johnson & Wales, Wentworth and his own Flying Dutchmen. The record bears this out. UMass-Dartmouth has beaten Wentworth, which defeated Lebanon Valley. Johnson and Wales has lost to Lebanon Valley, and will play the other two squads this weekend.

    MIAC

    Who’s in: St. Thomas has clinched the regular-season title.

    Who’s Not: Hamline, St. Olaf and Bethel are out. Hamline has already finished its season while the other two will try to play spoilers in their final series of the season this weekend.

    Who’s on the bubble: Just four points separate the teams in second through sixth place. Augsburg (19 points), Gustavus Adolphus (19), St. John’s (16), St. Mary’s (16) and Concordia (14) are still in the hunt for the remaining four playoff berths.

    Who will play in the NCAAs: St. Thomas is in very good shape, and will be a strong contender for an at-large bid even if it doesn’t win the MIAC title. All the other teams must win the MIAC championship to make it to the Big Dance.

    MCHA

    Who’s in: All five teams qualify for the playoffs. Marian is the regular-season champion, while the other four seeds will be determined from results this weekend, the final weekend of the regular season.

    Who’s not: All teams make the playoffs, with a play-in game between the fourth and fifth place teams before the semifinals begin.

    Who’s on the bubble: Ditto.

    Who will play in the NCAAs: No MCHA team will be playing in the nationals. The MCHA must compete with the ECAC West for the single Pool “B” slot, and no teams are able to give Elmira or RIT a challenge at this point.

    NCHA

    Who’s in: All teams make the playoffs, which start this weekend. Top seeded St. Norbert will host St.Scholastica, seventh seed Lake Forest travels to number two Wisconsin-Superior, number six Wisconsin-Stout is at third seeded Wisconsin-Stevens Point, and fourth seed Wisconsin-River Falls hosts number five Wisconsin-Eau Claire. These are all two game series with a possible minigame.

    Who’s not: All teams make the playoffs.

    Who’s on the bubble: Ditto.

    Who will play in the NCAAs: This one is wide open between the top four seeds. Any can win the title, and any can claim an at-large bid with a strong showing. The lower four seeds must all win the tournament to make the nationals.

    NESCAC

    Who’s in: Middlebury has clinched first place, which carries a lot of benefits under the NESCAC playoff structure. The Panthers not only get a bye in the quarterfinals, but also will host the semifinals and finals the first weekend in March. Bowdoin has locked up second place, good for a first-round home playoff game. Williams, Hamilton, Trinity and Colby are in the running for the remaining two first-round home games.

    Who’s not: Wesleyan and Tufts are out and will finish their regular season this weekend.

    Who’s on the bubble: Amherst and Conn. College are eligible for the seventh and final playoff berth. The Lord Jeffs are two points ahead and hold the tiebreaker with two games to play, but Amherst has to travel to Bowdoin and Colby, while the Camels have games with Trinity and Wesleyan.

    Who will play in the NCAAs: Baring a major disaster, both Middlebury and Bowdoin are in, unless neither wins the NESCAC title. If that happens, then Middlebury has the edge. The remaining playoff teams must likely need to win the NESCAC title.

    SUNYAC

    Who’s in: The playoffs begin this weekend. Plattsburgh and Oswego have first-round byes. Buffalo State travels to Cortland, while Potsdam is at Geneseo for two-game-plus-minigame series.

    Who’s not: Fredonia and Brockport have finished their seasons.

    Who’s on the bubble: Nobody.

    Who will play in the NCAAs: Plattsburgh has an outside shot at an at-large berth if it doesn’t win the SUNYACs, but it would need some help. The rest of the teams, and probably the Cardinals as well, need to win the SUNYAC championship.

    Lions and Christians

    That’s what was running through my mind as I did color commentary for the Neumann-RIT game last Friday. The final score was 24-0, and as strange as it sounds, it wasn’t as close as the score indicated.

    RIT has been criticized for running up the score on the Knights, and if I hadn’t seen the game for myself, I would probably agree.

    The Tigers had to tread a fine line between embarrassing their obviously outmatched opponent on the scoreboard by continuing to play something that resembled hockey, or the alternative of not really playing by actually trying not to score. Doing either shows up your opponent.

    Other teams have had more shots on Neumann (which has been outscored 204-34 and outshot 1228-512) this season, but the problem last Friday was that nearly one out of three went in for the Tigers.

    At what point do you stop shooting? RIT only took shots from the point in the third period, and still six went in. Several players passed on breakaways and easy scoring chances, and a good portion of the frame was played at half speed with little or no checking.

    “You just wanted it to end,” said RIT head coach Wayne Wilson.

    I think everyone associated with this game felt that way.

    Behind Every Good Head Coach

    …is a great assistant. The American Hockey Coaches Association recognizes the work of assistant coaches each year with the Terry Flanagan Award. For the first time, a Division III assistant coach has won the award: Kevin Houle from Plattsburgh.

    The award recognizes Houle’s 13 seasons at Plattsburgh, during which time the Cardinals have a record of 304-87-27, including two national titles.

    According to Houle, there are both personal and professional reasons for his decision to pass up other opportunities to remain Bob Emery’s right-hand man.

    “Plattsburgh has been a great place to coach,” said Houle, who was a teammate of Emery’s at Boston College from 1982-1986. “We’re part of the community, and we have family here.”

    Family is the other main reason for Houle to stay at Plattsburgh. His son was diagnosed with leukemia, and family and community were important to his treatment.

    “We got through all the chemotherapy, and now he’s a perfectly healthy second-grader,” said Houle.

    Best wishes and congratulations to Kevin and his family.

    This Week In The WCHA: Feb. 14, 2002

    By
    -

    Surprise Times Two

    So what’s more surprising: that four of the top six teams in the PairWise Rankings are from the WCHA or that those four teams are the extent of the WCHA’s involvement in the PairWise?

    Sure, the league is dominating the top of the rankings this week — yeah, we know, let you know when it means something — with Denver on top, St. Cloud State in second, Minnesota in fourth and Colorado College in sixth.

    (Wouldn’t it be something if three of the four first-round byes went to WCHA teams? That whole five-team argument of last year would be trumped in an instant.)

    The rest of the WCHA is noticably absent, however, from the PairWise. To put it bluntly, no one else qualifies.

    Even in the USCHO.com poll, much more subjective than the numbers-driven PairWise, voters are realizing that the WCHA is a four-team league as far as the postseason is concerned.

    Other than the big four, Wisconsin is the only other team to have received a vote — at No. 15 by one lonely soul.

    “The dropoff surprises me a little bit,” CC coach Scott Owens said, “with Wisconsin in particular.”

    Remember that the Badgers were in the same league position last year, but had a stronger record and, therefore, a better position in the PairWise. This year, they’re still two games away from being eligible for inclusion in the rankings.

    “Wisconsin’s a pretty good hockey team,” Owens said. “The problem is they’re just not .500.”

    Where It Stands

    Three teams know they’ll be at home for the first round of the playoffs. Another is on the verge of joining them.

    Denver, St. Cloud State and Minnesota all have clinched home-ice spots for the WCHA first round, March 8-10. Colorado College is one point away from that status.

    On the other side, Minnesota-Duluth and Michigan Tech have been eliminated from contention for a home-ice spot.

    That leaves Wisconsin, Minnesota State-Mankato, Alaska-Anchorage and North Dakota fighting for the fifth spot. Even with a loss and a tie last weekend at CC, the Badgers are in a good position to hold onto fifth.

    Mankato and Anchorage, the teams immediately behind Wisconsin, have each played two more games. The Badgers need seven points over the last three weeks to lock up fifth, but can still finish fifth with less points and more help in losses by Mankato, Anchorage and North Dakota.

    Stay Away From Four

    What is it about fourth place that’s so repulsive? No one ever seems to want it.

    Well, that’s not completely true. There are six teams that would be pretty happy with a fourth-place finish in the WCHA.

    But because of the league’s Final Five format, a fourth seed in the playoffs has a tough road. That’s why this weekend’s Colorado College-Minnesota series takes on a little extra significance.

    Assuming the top four seeds all win their first-round playoff series, that fourth seed gets the unenviable task of having to win three games in three days to win the Broadmoor Trophy. It’s never been done. Teams that get to the championship game after two victories inevitably run out of gas.

    With six games left in the regular season, Colorado College is in that fourth position, but is only one point behind Minnesota for third.

    “That’s a tough spot to be in, in that 4-5 game, and then if you win that to play three games,” said CC coach Scott Owens, whose Tigers were the fourth seed last year and went 2-1 in the Final Five. “We’re one point out, series at Minnesota, that’s what we’re shooting for right now.”

    Those games undoubtedly have PairWise implications. But Minnesota coach Don Lucia pointed out that the chance to play three games that weekend can actually help a team’s PairWise standing.

    Take last year’s CC team for example. After beating Wisconsin in the Thursday night game, it lost the next afternoon to North Dakota. On Saturday, it beat Minnesota in the third-place game. That’s 2-1 on the weekend, which looks a lot better than just 1-1.

    “On the one hand, you’d like to be in the top three,” Lucia said. “On the other hand, you finish fourth, you’ll play against a better team and if you win, that helps you. If you win a couple games in the Final Five, two out of three, that can help as well. It’s the unknown.”

    Drop The Puck

    WCHA coaches and officials have been watching the Olympic hockey games, and they see something they like.

    It’s called the fast faceoff, where the drop of the puck works around the linesman’s timetable, not the players’.

    In essence, after a whistle stops play, each team gets five seconds for a line change — first the visitors, then the home team. After five seconds with his hand up — a signal for the home team that it can make its change — the referee drops his hand.

    That is also a signal to the linesman, who blows his whistle and counts to five, then drops the puck, no matter who’s ready (or not).

    The idea is a great one: eliminate the heel-dragging that slows games down to a crawl. There’s no more time for players to talk to each other and delay the drop of the puck.

    “Do I like it? I love it,” WCHA Supervisor of Officials Greg Shepherd said. “This year it’s in the [college] rule book that it’s five seconds between line changes. It hasn’t changed. The [assistant referees] do the best they can to get the teams in there and everything else, but it’s still a pain. This way, if they’re not in there, they put the puck down. Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

    St. Cloud State coach Craig Dahl, a proponent of making games shorter — even suggesting that games could go down to two 25-minute periods — said it would be interesting to see that rule in play in college hockey.

    “I think that would be an excellent experiment from our standpoint,” Dahl said. “You have to make your line changes, you have to get them out there and let’s rock. It would be an interesting move.”

    Said Owens: “It’s something that we’ve talked about in our league. I think it’ll speed the game up; the games definitely go much faster. I kind of like it.”

    There are potential pitfalls to the rule, though. What’s going to happen the first time a team scores directly off a faceoff because the puck was dropped when the defense wasn’t ready?

    “Then all hell breaks loose,” Shepherd said.

    One alternative Shepherd mentioned is to use the fast faceoff only for neutral zone draws.

    Discussion of the fast faceoff, used widely in international hockey, has already taken place at the college level, but not to the point where it’s the next big thing to happen to collegiate hockey.

    “We brought it up last year at the coaches’ meetings down in Florida and they weren’t too in favor of it,” Shepherd said. “Maybe they will be after they see the Olympics.”

    No Looking Ahead

    While there are plenty of intriguing matchups around the WCHA this weekend, one can’t help but look at one series that stands out next weekend.

    Second-place St. Cloud State at first-place Denver. The battle for the MacNaughton Cup, right?

    Well, they have to get to that position first. Denver plays at Wisconsin this weekend; St. Cloud hosts Alaska-Anchorage and tries to keep focused on the present.

    “Our players understand that this weekend is extremely important, just like they did last weekend,” Dahl said. “We have to take care of this business first. We have to worry about what we’ve got at hand first. We’ll worry about next week when it comes.”

    The Huskies appear as though they’ve outgrown a stretch where they may have been looking back a bit too much. A few sub-par games turned into a mini-slump a few weekends ago at Wisconsin, where they claimed only one point.

    Losing those points may have proved a point to St. Cloud.

    “What our guys are finding is that when you’re a highly rated team, the teams you play are always going to be trying to play their best against you, trying to knock you off,” Dahl said. “Our players have to understand that when that happens, you have to expect the challenge and you have to meet it. I think it took our players a while to work through that mentally.

    “Just because these teams are below you in the conference standings doesn’t mean they’re going to lay down and die for you, they’re going to play as hard as they can and you’d better be on your game.”

    A Frustrating Position

    The depths of Michigan Tech coach Mike Sertich’s frustration are starting to show. Then again, so is his positive outlook for the Huskies.

    “They don’t give trophies for second place and good efforts,” Sertich told USCHO’s Eric J. Habermas after losing 4-3 and 3-2 to St. Cloud State last weekend. “Kids need more than that. They need some reinforcement. That’s the hard part. They also know that there’s still season left and I don’t think we’re done yet.”

    Dropping a D

    If Rob Vega’s injured ankle prevents the Wisconsin defenseman from playing against Denver this weekend, the Badgers are prepared to play with five defenseman against the nation’s top-ranked team.

    That would still be a step up from the four-defenseman set the Badgers used in last Friday’s 5-5 tie at Colorado College. That manpower situation was caused by game disqualification penalties to UW defensemen Brian Fahey and Jon Krall from the previous game.

    Splitting It Up

    You may have noticed earlier this season that the teams that were doing the best were the ones that regularly used two goalies.

    Some of that has changed recently.

    Sure, Denver still has what is probably the best 1-2 goaltending tandem in the league, maybe even the country, and is on top of the nation.

    But one of the Pioneers’ goaltenders has hit a slump recently. In his last five starts, Adam Berkhoel is 2-2-1 with a 3.56 goals against average and a .880 save percentage.

    Wade Dubielewicz has remained solid for the Pioneers, but there’s been no indication that they will stray from the goaltending rotation that has taken them to the top of the league.

    At Minnesota, Lucia threw everyone a curveball last Friday night at North Dakota when he started freshman Justin Johnson in goal. The Gophers had been slumping in the first game of a series with Adam Hauser or Travis Weber in goal, but Lucia said that had nothing to do with the decision.

    “He hadn’t had an opportunity to play on the road, and we wanted to throw him in that tough environment,” Lucia said, “just to see how he would do, as much for next year as for Friday night.”

    Hauser played in Saturday night’s game and collected his 72nd career victory. He’s one behind Robb Stauber’s school record and also one behind Graham Melanson’s WCHA record of 140 games played.

    St. Cloud State’s Dean Weasler has been the mainstay in net since Jake Moreland broke his catching hand trying to glove a Mark Hartigan slap shot in practice last month.

    Weasler, who had been splitting time with Moreland, will be the Huskies’ goaltender for the stretch run.

    “Unless he doesn’t play well, that’s what our plan is,” Dahl said. “With the injury to Jake Moreland, that certainly took him out of the lineup for a while, and Dean played fairly well in his stead.”

    Consistently Inconsistent

    Two weeks ago, Wisconsin seemed poised to go on a late-season run. Despite losing its starting goaltender, it had taken three points from St. Cloud State.

    This was going to be the time the Badgers put it all together and started playing consistently — in a positive sense.

    Fooled you, the Badgers did.

    Since, they’ve lost two points and their cool against Alaska-Anchorage and lost a three-goal lead against Colorado College, starting a downward spiral that led to a tie and a loss in Colorado Springs.

    “It comes and goes,” Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer said, “and that’s the problem. Our consistency has been the problem. When we’re playing strong, we can master the system and do a pretty good job.”

    When they’re not playing strong, it’s a challenge for the Badgers.

    Who’s Next?

    With Denver coach George Gwozdecky having pulled his name out of the hat — he claims it was never in the hat to begin with — for the head coaching openings at Wisconsin and Michigan State, many people’s favorite to get the job is off the board.

    But Wisconsin is sure to see the applications fly in now that the opening has been posted (deadline March 7, bachelor’s degree needed if you’re interested).

    The job posting says the anticipated start date for the new head coach is March 9. It may be a formality in the job search, but it’s sure not much of a vote of confidence about the expected depth of the Badgers’ run in the playoffs. March 9 is the same day the Badgers will be playing Game 2 of a best-of-three, first-round WCHA playoff series.

    Points On The Other Side

    After 18 assists, Minnesota State-Mankato freshman Steven Johns finally got his first collegiate goal last Friday night.

    He scored on the power play to tie the Mavericks’ game with Alaska-Anchorage at 2 in the first period.

    Woody Update

    There were no Clay “Woodrow” Wilson sightings reported on last weekend’s Michigan Tech scoresheets, so the freshman defenseman remains at two goals and six assists for the season.

    What exactly do Clay Wilson and Woodrow Wilson have in common, you may ask? Well, Clay spent many years living in Alaska. In 1915, the former president authorized funds for the construction of the Alaska railroad. Coincidence?

    He Said It

    “It is my sincere hope that the distraction regarding my future has now been eliminated, and we can concentrate on achieving our season-long goal of winning the NCAA championship.”

    — Denver coach George Gwozdecky, on closing the book on rumors of his departure with a contract extension.

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