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Something Old, Something New

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After giving birth to the Niagara hockey program in 1996 and serving as its only head coach until leaving for UMass-Lowell last spring, Blaise MacDonald might have been forgiven if he’d gone to the wrong bench for Friday night’s season opener between the two schools.

The diminutive coach quipped, “I went to the one with the extra riser in back.”

Both MacDonald and his former assistant, now head Niagara coach, Dave Burkholder, had mixed feelings about facing each other to open the season, a matchup scheduled long before MacDonald left for Lowell. The two had not only shared five years leading the Purple Eagles, but also a national championship in 1983 as players at Rochester Institute of Technology.

“All week I was pretty excited about it,” said Burkholder, “but when we got to game time it was like, ‘Oh boy, I guess I wish I wasn’t coaching my first college game against him.’

“There were a lot of mixed emotions. One part of me was thinking of how I’d feel if I spoiled his home opener and then I thought, ‘If he blows me out, how am I going to feel?’ I didn’t know if we’d end up fighting in the parking lot.”

MacDonald similarly wanted a win, but preferably not at the expense of the program he built.

Blaise MacDonald is in his first year as head coach at UMass-Lowell, after spending five seasons building the Niagara program from scratch.

Blaise MacDonald is in his first year as head coach at UMass-Lowell, after spending five seasons building the Niagara program from scratch.

“I wanted us to play well and I was excited a lot about that, but I’ll be honest,” he said. “I wanted [Niagara] to play well, too.”

As the game unfolded, many things remained unchanged from last year’s River Hawk team, both on the plus side and minus.

The promotions during intermission still featured students shooting, mostly ineptly, at the net for scholarships, followed one period later by the notorious Chuck-A-Puck contest. Soft pucks rained onto the ice for 100 dollar prizes to those who landed one in the shopping cart pushed by the River Hawk mascot. One puck hit the scoreboard and knocked out a small 3-by-3 square. Presumably, that was not considered progress.

On the ice, Ron Hainsey’s dominant presence was missing, but newcomer Baptiste Amar looked smooth as silk as a potential quarterback replacement. On the down side, last year’s early-season goaltending woes had a nightmarish flashback when Jimi St. John came out of the net to play the puck only to whiff on his clearing attempt, allowing Nick Kormanyos to snare the loose puck at the right faceoff dot and temporarily tie the score at 2-2.

Even the result, a 7-3 win, was similar to last year when the River Hawks opened with wins against nonconference foes and would eventually post a 9-5-0 record outside of Hockey East.

"Culture drives behavior. Behavior drives how things get done. And how things get done drives performance."

— UMass-Lowell coach Blaise MacDonald

Arguably, MacDonald won’t have his greatest impact until his next few incoming classes arrive at Tsongas Arena. (He was hired after offers had already been extended to this year’s freshman class.)

It might be said that MacDonald could recruit a surfer from Southern California to play in Siberia. His record backs up this reputation. As an assistant at Lowell from 1988-1990, he helped recruit the core of the program’s breakthrough 1993-94 team. Led by seniors Dwayne Roloson, Shane Henry, Mike Murray and Ian Hebert, that squad came within a clanged post of reaching the Frozen Four, losing to Minnesota, 2-1, in double overtime.

MacDonald then moved on to Boston University where he served as the associate head coach from 1990-95 and recruited not only All-Americans like Mike Pomichter, Mike Grier, Jay Pandolfo, Chris Drury and Jon Coleman, but also perfect role players like Ken Rausch, now an assistant with him at Lowell.

With the 1995 BU national championship ring on his finger, he took on the challenge of creating a Division I program from scratch at Niagara. Taking primarily those recruits who had been overlooked by the more established programs and able to offer far fewer scholarships than the NCAA limit of 18, MacDonald fashioned a team that not only went 30-8-4 in 1999-2000 to earn an NCAA tournament berth, but also defeated New Hampshire, 4-1, to advance to the quarterfinal game.

Clearly, this was one of the most talented young coaches in the game. Lowell fans might have wondered why a greater effort to retain former coach Tim Whitehead hadn’t been made in light of last year’s impressive stretch run, but once he left there was no arguing with the choice of MacDonald.

Still, it takes time for a new coach to make his mark, especially one with considerable prowess in recruiting. In that arena, improvement is measured in terms of years, not months or even games.

Given that fact and the apparent similarities that fans could see between past editions of the team and its play in Friday night’s season opener, the assumption might be that not much has changed yet.

That assumption would be wrong. It will take years for him to realize his vision of where the program is heading, but MacDonald’s fingerprints are nonetheless all over this team only one game into his tenure.

Just 1:19 into the contest, defenseman Jerramie Domish dropped down from the point and ripped a shot high into the net from the slot for a 1-0 lead. By the final buzzer, three River Hawk blueliners had scored even-strength goals.

“We had trouble with their ‘D’ crashing down,” said Burkholder, who was hardly surprised at the strategy. “That’s how we played with Blaise at Niagara.”

Other than Hainsey, the blue line totaled 12 goals last season. If opening night is any indication, that number will grow considerably this year.

“I look at the Lowell teams that were successful in the past and they had some great [offensive] production from the defensemen,” said MacDonald. “That was true even when they didn’t have the prototypical offensive defensemen.”

Up front, this year’s River Hawks displayed a greater emphasis on speed than their bulkier predecessors like the graduated Beef Brothers, 240-pound Kyle Kidney and 215-pound Jeff Boulanger. Last season, the team dominated physical play along the boards and down low; this year Lowell still cycles effectively, but looks to be emphasizing more of the speed and transition game that MacDonald’s teams displayed at Niagara.

“We’re going to utilize our speed this year rather than our size,” said co-captain Chris Gustafson.

If the way some of the Niagara defenders impersonated turnstiles is any indication, the style change will suit the team well.

Still, MacDonald expects to remain flexible stylistically.

“You need to coach the players that you have and bring out their abilities and talents,” he said. “In a perfect world, I’d like to be an offensive team that can create chances on the initial rush and the counterattack, but we have to take what the game gives us. As long as the red light goes on, it doesn’t really matter how.

“A lot of good teams in college hockey — the Maines and Lake Superiors in the past and even the BU teams — [created offense using different approaches]. There are a lot of ways to get it done. The critical thing is, you have to be well-defined in how you’re going to get it done.”

That said, MacDonald stressed two key goals when he was introduced as the new coach in April, and neither had anything to do with style of play or scoring from the blue line.

One goal was to instill “a very detailed, structured and high-performance culture.”

“Duke basketball has a pretty strong culture there,” he said. “North Carolina basketball when Dean Smith was there did cultural things to develop a tight bond that is unique.

“It’s as silly as: I don’t let guys wear hats indoors. I don’t let guys have their shirts untucked. When we go on the road and eat, we bus our own tables. It’s things like that that create this culture.

“My biggest mission is to instill this culture. I feel very strongly about that. It’s a culture I’ve played in and coached in.

“Culture drives behavior. Behavior drives how things get done. And how things get done drives performance.”

Senior Yorick Treille has already learned some valuable lessons under MacDonald's new regime.

Senior Yorick Treille has already learned some valuable lessons under MacDonald’s new regime.

MacDonald’s emphasis on this culture was front and center one game into the season. While the official game program showed Yorick Treille on the cover, Treille sat in the stands, not on the bench. One of the team’s top players had violated a team rule and was paying the penalty.

“I have no problem with sitting players out,” said MacDonald. “What are your expectations? Are they clearly communicated?

“Consequences were clearly communicated so it shouldn’t be a surprise when [they’re meted out]. Discipline has no handicap of skill level. You don’t say that he’s a good player, so maybe you [let him get away with it].

“You need to be consistent. If you’re inconsistent, then your team doesn’t have trust and you’ve lost your team.”

What does MacDonald say to an offending player that he must discipline?

“You can get bitter or you can get better.”

Treille, who intends to get better, will only miss the one contest.

“He’ll be changing diapers for another week, but it’s only one game,” quipped MacDonald.

As planned, the culture has affected more than just the occasional offender.

“There are a lot of changes,” said Gustafson. “Guys are learning to stay in at night. We have curfews. We have a team environment.

“We’re trying to get together with the rest of the school. Be a family and be as tight as possible.”

The lovely Tsongas Arena; MacDonald's mission is to get more people in its seats.

The lovely Tsongas Arena; MacDonald’s mission is to get more people in its seats.

Which translates into working on MacDonald’s other stated goal: put fans in the stands, especially those from within the school. Empty seats have been a problem since the construction of the Tsongas Arena. In the old Tully Forum, a crowd of 2,000 translated into a reasonably full arena. In the 6,500-seat Tsongas, however, the building looks barren.

The River Hawks share the building with an American Hockey League entry, the Lowell Lock Monsters, which not only creates competition for the fan dollar, but also dictated a much larger building than would have otherwise been ideal for the school. It’s a great venue, but filling those seats has been a priority since it opened in 1998.

“The one thing that is missing that I’m desperate to try to capture is the fan support,” said MacDonald back in April. “If we can do that, the sky’s the limit. … I’ll do whatever it takes to get people to support this team. This team is worthy of it and they deserve it. When we come out here, I don’t want to see a lot of blue seats.”

While he still saw a lot of blue seats on Friday night, there was improvement from comparable games one year earlier. The official attendance was listed at 2,263, a figure better than any nonconference games last year, but a good deal short of his goals.

“I was hoping for about 4,000 people,” he said. “Don’t ask me where I came up with that number. It just sounded good.”

The team has worked hard to foster greater support, especially on the campus itself. Players helped freshmen move into the dorms while MacDonald has spent time in the cafeteria, giving out free tickets to students, going from table to table talking to them about their majors and their interests.

“I’ve been told we get about 100 students to a game,” he said. “We need to get that up to 500-600 students.”

Presumably with that many students — always the most vocal group — the other segments of the fan base will fall in line soon after.

“It’s going to be a long process that we have to persevere through and break down perceptions,” said MacDonald. “But people on the campus are excited about the hockey program because of the success last year. …

“We obviously have to be creative. We’ve got a great product, playing in a great league. It’ll happen. It’ll definitely happen.”

US National Team Pounds ECAC East All-Stars

By David De Remer
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To the surprise of no one, the U.S. Women’s National Team defeated the ECAC East All-Stars at Northeastern’s Matthews Arena on Sunday. The final score of 16-0, however, contrasted sharply with the performance of the WCHA All-Star Team, which lost by the more respectable scores of 3-0 and 6-1 a week before.

U.S. National Team Coach Ben Smith said part of the reason for the discrepancy is that Sunday’s game was his team’s last before it plays a pair with Canada next week.

“Canada is just a week away, so we’re trying to up our tempo in practice,” Smith said. “It’s hard to get game-sharp at any level, so we really wanted to come in here and play sixty hard minutes.”

Smith said he instructed his team to simulate a one-goal lead throughout the game, so the United States never let down. The ECAC East never came close to scoring, rarely controlled the puck past the neutral zone and was outshot 74-15 on the afternoon.

Former Providence star Laurie Baker, who returned to the national team this season after taking off last season, earned MVP earners for netting a hat trick and assisting on two goals. Veteran Cammi Granato, Minnesota-Duluth’s Jenny Potter-Schmidgall, and future Minnesota freshman Krissy Wendell each found the net twice for the United States.

Eleven different players scored in all for the United States, including three defensemen. The team had concentrated on improving its skating skills and encouraging some of its defenseman to overlap and join the attack. Both improvements led to defenseman Angela’s Ruggiero’s goal-the United States’ third-when she finished an odd-man rush off the stick of Princeton’s Andrea Kilbourne.

“I’m given the opportunity to be one of the more offensive-minded defenseman on this team,” said Ruggiero, a Harvard athlete who is one of several U.S. National players who still has college eligibility. “With that I get to rush up with the play and our forwards now to cover my position at defense. It’s fun.”

New Hampshire’ junior Jen Huggon earned the ECAC’s Player of the Game honors for her solid play in net. She stopped 34 of 39 shots and did not allow a soft goal all afternoon. Niagara senior Tania Pinelli had tougher luck, stopping just 25 of 36 shots. She particularly struggled during final five minutes of the third when the U.S. the lit the lamp four times including once on a shot that was intended to be pass.

Another factor in the All-Stars’ struggles was the start of the college hockey season this past weekend. The Providence representatives on the team, sophomore Kelli Halcisak, junior Jenn Bustch and senior Kim Mathias played two games in Minnesota-Duluth over the weekend before landing in Boston to play with All-Stars just 90 minutes before game time.

The ECAC East produced none of the four teams that made the Inaugural Women’s Frozen Four in 2001 or the USA Hockey-sponsored AWCHA championship at Matthews Area in 2000. Though members like New Hampshire, Northeastern and Providence may not be national contenders now, they have produced 10 of the players on the current United States roster, but none older than goaltender Sara DeCosta.

“We’re really appreciative of what the ECAC has given us,” said Smith, who is a former Northeastern coach. “And we’ve been doubly satisfied because so of many our players come from these schools’ rosters. Its an association that’s really great for us to continue.”

The U.S. National Team’s last of four games against college hockey all-stars will be on Oct. 28 against the ECAC North All-Stars at Cornell’s Lynah Rink.

Everybody Has a Heavy Heart

By Adam Wodon
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It’s been a month now since the events that changed and scarred America, and it’s still not easy to digest.

That’s especially true for those who have been directly affected. Among them is St. Lawrence head coach Joe Marsh, who begins his season tonight with a heavy heart.

Two of Marsh’s ex-players, Rich Stewart and Mike Pelletier, were among the thousands killed on Sept. 11 while working in the World Trade Center. They worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, the London-based firm that lost all 700 of its employees that were in the buildings.

"Playing a sport and competing at a high level has tremendous educational value, and I firmly believe that. It’s not the end result, it’s how you go about it. I think we’ve tried to do that to some extent, but now maybe we think things out even more so."

— Joe Marsh

Stewart and Pelletier — both members of the 1988 team that went to the NCAA Finals — may not have been family members to Marsh, but they were part of the tight St. Lawrence extended family. Perhaps that sounds trite and cliche, but it still rings true.

“That team is very close,” Marsh said of a squad that included such future NHL players as Jamie Baker and Mike Hurlbut. “There’s been a tremendous response from those that played here. Many have called here, and that made me at least feel good.

“It’s like calling home. It makes that connection.”

Marsh was in Alexandria Bay, just across the border into Canada, at a benefit golf tournament when he heard the news of the attacks.

MARSH

MARSH

“We play every year on the second Tuesday [of September] for multiple sclerosis,” said Marsh. “A bunch of ECAC coaches play — Don Vaughan (Colgate), Mark Morris (Clarkson), myself … usually Dan Fridgen (RPI) and Mike Schafer (Cornell) play, but not this year.

“It was just starting and all that stuff came in. We didn’t realize all that happened, but I knew a bunch of our guys were down in that neck of that woods. I just hoped [they were OK], but we weren’t so fortunate.”

Eventually, Marsh got word on Stewart and Pelletier from Pete McGeough, who was the captain on that ’88 team.

No less tragic was the additional news he heard, that the hockey world also lost Mark Bavis on that tragic day. The former BU forward, college assistant coach, and NHL scout, was in one of the hijacked planes.

“I was with Mark, and sat with him at a tournament the weekend before,” said Marsh, “Boy, I’ll tell you, I could sit with that guy all day.”

Marsh is one of hockey’s most beloved coaches. His abilities behind the bench are matched by his ability to crack up a room with that Boston-accented wit. But he also takes very seriously his role as an educator.

With that in mind, he soon turned his attention to communicating with his team. After all, it’s not just a hockey team, but a group of young men, at a school of higher learning, whose future was suddenly thrown into major upheaval.

“It’s a pretty teach-able moment,” said Marsh. “You’re at a point in history that’s one of the most significant days in U.S. history. They have all read the impact Pearl Harbor had, this is the same type of thing.

“We wanted them to be aware. They need to be informed. It directly affects a lot of them.”

St. Lawrence opens its season Friday night against Michigan Tech, with hopes of returning to the NCAA tournament for a fourth straight season. Enough time has passed to allow the passion for sport to be renewed, but the world has changed in profound ways, and that won’t be forgotten.

“We’ll still play with passion. People will enjoy that. It’s a good diversion from more harsh things, and that’s a good thing,” said Marsh. “But we all can do some soul-searching in terms of what this means in the grand scheme of things.

“I put energy into what I do, it’s my job. It’s not gonna solve world hunger, but you work hard no matter what your job is. Hopefully people get enjoyment out of it.

“Playing a sport and competing at a high level has tremendous educational value, and I firmly believe that. It’s not the end result, it’s how you go about it. I think we’ve tried to do that to some extent, but now maybe we think things out even more so. Am I looking at guys who may be wearing a different uniform one day? I’ve always said it kiddingly — ‘You guys are worried about the [NHL] draft, you’re lucky it’s not a real draft.’ Now it could be.”

Going forward, hockey is in a unique situation of being the most global of any of the four major team sports played in the United States.

“Our diversity gives our players more a sense of being part of a global family,” said Marsh. “More than anything, that’s what we have to come to grips with and start understanding. The world is smaller.”

This Week in the MAAC: Oct. 11, 2001

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It certainly is early in the hockey season. A lot has happened thus far. North Dakota opened its palace (guess the word barn doesn’t work here); Michigan and Michigan State kissed one another’s sisters in front of the largest audience to watch a hockey game.

But over in the MAAC, the world is quiet: only three games in the first week of collegiate play and all were exhibitions.

UConn was the first MAAC team to show its face, losing handily to McGill University out of Montreal. A night later, Sacred Heart, a team looking to make a statement in the MAAC for the first time, knocked off the same McGill team, 3-1. And Tuesday night, the defending MAAC champion, Mercyhurst, begun its bid for a repeat with a 2-2 exhibition tie against Brock University.

What does this mean? Basically nothing.

For coaches, exhibitions are exactly that: a chance for them to exhibit their talent and, even for themselves, see how some players respond in game situations.

Week two of the MAAC schedule will lend little increase in excitement. Five more exhibitions take place, with Army hosting Seneca for two games, the University of Toronto traveling to Canisius, and AIC and St. Nick’s, the junior home of Hobey Baker himself, squaring off in Springfield, Mass. The next day, St. Nick’s will head east and play Holy Cross.

But fear not, MAAC play with open in traditional fashion (if you can say that for a league only four years old). For the fourth straight year, Quinnipiac and Iona will open the MAAC league slate when the two face off in New Rochelle, N.Y., on Saturday night.

Typically, this would be billed as another chance for Iona to pull off the upset, as the Gaels have been one of the few teams to enjoy any sort of success against the traditional powerhouse of Quinnipiac since the league first started. But this year, the stage is certainly different.

For once, Iona will be the favorite, having been picked second in the league coaches’ poll, compared to the fifth-place favor that the Braves got. Still, it’s hard to imagine, having watched the league since its inception, that Quinnipiac will be an underdog.

The Braves lost 13 players from last year’s squad that was within minutes from a trip to the NCAA championships. But importantly, the Braves do return some solid players, particularly goaltender Justin Eddy and defenseman Matt Erhart. The X-factor that will make or break the Braves is the talent of the 15 incoming freshmen.

Nonleague action, prevalent over the next two weeks, will see Bentley travel to Alabama-Huntsville for two, Findlay and Mercyhurst play a home and home, and Fairfield play a Friday/Sunday doubleheader at Air Force.

All-League, or Not

With little to write about this early in the season, it seems a perfect time to look at the players who might make a difference in the MAAC this season. The league coaches voted the six players they thought should comprise the MAAC’s All-League first team. So now, with pen in hand, here are my thoughts on their selections.

Forwards

Ryan Manitowich, Iona

Of the three forwards named, I think that Manitowich is the most deserving. At 6-foot, 185-pounds, Manitowich has the speed and skill to make him stand head and shoulders above the rest of the league. In two seasons with the Gaels, he’s posted 71 points, with 42 of those being goals. Last season alone, he led the Gaels with 13 multiple point games and five game-winning goals. In this writer’s opinion, he’s impossible to overlook for league honors.

Louis Goulet, Mercyhurst

Mercyhurst last season enjoyed what few college hockey teams ever will. They had the chance to play the role of Cinderella and did so in all splendor. For then-junior Louis Goulet, the stage was set for what possibly could be a senior year to top the prior. Goulet, unlike fellow standouts and graduated seniors Eric Ellis and Jeff Gould, returns for his final season with the Lakers. Having posted the team high in points and assists (43 and 27, respectively — both tying with Adam Tackaberry), Goulet will certainly be expected to shoulder a bit of the Mercyhurst offensive production. This will be the season that Goulet will have the chance to show his net worth. Now, can he produce?

Rae Metz, Fairfield

Fairfield’s Rae Metz could easily develop Rodney Dangerfield syndrome. Metz has certainly proved to the critics that he can play and be an impact player at this level. But without his Fairfield team enjoying a lot of success, Metz may struggle a bit to feel his full value. Consider this: Fairfield only scored 101 goals last year. Metz figured in 38 of them. He was one of only four players to lace up the skates for all 32 Fairfield games last season. With a new dawn upon the horizon and strong potential for Fairfield, look for Metz’s impact to become more noticed day by day around the league.

Should have been there

If it were my ballot, I think I’d be hard pressed to keep Mercyhurst’s Adam Tackaberry and Sacred Heart’s Marty Paquet off the first team. One could argue that Tackaberry and Goulet are interchangeable (they had identical stats last year, ironically). But my vote would go towards the Tack, who stands and plays three inches bigger than Goulet at 6-foot.

Defense

Nathan Lutz, Iona

Similar to Manitowich, Lutz was a pretty easy pick on defense. Every coach I polled towards the end of last season had Lutz on his list of top defensemen. At 6-foot-1, 225 pounds, Lutz stands tall enough to be an impact in front of the Gael net. And his offensive talents are easily recognized, as he sat second on a talented team of offensive producers last season with 38 points (seven goals, 31 assists). He will be the backbone of the Iona defense this season if they are to make the anticipated run toward the league crown.

Steve Tobio, Bentley

In my opinion, it’s hard to choose any defensemen from a team that averaged nearly five and a half goals against per game last season. But the MAAC coaches did exactly that, choosing Steve Tobio from Bentley. Tobio is a player who leads with size, and thus it’s not surprising that Jim McAdam named him the team’s captain as only a junior. He’s certainly the most talented player Bentley has to offer, but that doesn’t say a lot. His offensive skills are hard to match for a blueliner, with a wicked shot on the power play that has led to 21 goals in his first three seasons. But his defense can be suspect at times, which is what makes him a surprise choice in my eyes.

Should have been there

In the biggest overlook of the entire voting, somehow Quinnipiac’s Matt Erhart was left off both the first and second all-league teams. Many coaches have spoken highly about this stalwart defenseman, but obviously, not enough to earn him recognition. To analyze is to see that his offensive numbers did decrease from his freshman to his sophomore season (a difference of eight assists, total). But Braves coach Rand Pecknold would be the first to say that he’d be lost without Erhart.

Goaltender

Peter Aubry

I guess it’s simply impossible not to recognize Peter Aubry as the best goaltender in the league. It was Aubry who kept miracle hopes alive in the NCAA West Regional last season, posting save after save in the game before falling, 4-3, to Michigan. But his effort did not go unrecognized, as the media named Aubry to the All-Regional team, a major national honor for any MAAC player. If he stands as solid in net again this season, it’s almost impossible to think that any team can dethrone Mercyhurst from the top of the MAAC. But you never know what a difference a year can make.

Should have been there

Truly, it’s hard to say that any goaltender besides Aubry should be named the top in the league. But to note a couple who will give him a run for his money: Quinnipiac’s Justin Eddy, Sacred Heart’s Eddy Ferhi, and Canisius’ Sean Weaver, back this season from a knee injury. Goaltending is probably the deepest position in the MAAC this year, which may translate into a more consistent defensive effort and possibly national respect.

This Week in Hockey East: Oct. 11, 2001

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We’ve Never Needed Them More

This season opens on the heels of the worst offseason in memory. On April 10, Northeastern assistant coach Ed Arrington died of carbon-monoxide poisoning. In late August, doctors diagnosed a malignant tumor in Merrimack coach Chris Serino’s neck.

Then came the horrific attacks of Sept. 11. Former Boston University player Mark Bavis, along with all the other passengers and crew on United Airlines Flight 175, died when the plane crashed into the World Trade Center.

While the nation as a whole still grieved, college hockey suffered yet another broadside when Shawn Walsh lost his courageous battle with cancer on Sept. 24.

Now, with U.S. bombers flying over Afghanistan, most of us feel a combination of sadness, resolve and concern over the future. As well we should.

Considering the gravity of current events and all the grief we’ve recently endured, we may also feel some hesitation to enjoy our games to the fullest.

It may seem at first glance that a somber mood is now more appropriate than laughter or jubilation. Let’s not celebrate a goal too much or enjoy a slick stickhandling move or a hard check more than we should. Fun seems almost sacrilegious these days.

Fun, however, is exactly what we need.

Sure, in the grand scheme of things, killing an opposing power play is trivial compared to the deliberate killing of civilians on Sept. 11. Winning faceoff battles is laughably insignificant compared to winning battles against terrorism. Holding onto the puck fades to nothing compared to holding onto the ones we love.

But if we focus only on the grand scheme of things and insist on maintaining a somber seriousness at all times, we’ll all go a little nutty. There’s something cathartic, or at least mildly therapeutic, in losing ourselves in the sport that we love. As the pressures in “the real world” escalate, we need the release that we find in our insignificant-but-significant game more than ever.

And if we are to honor the memories of Ed Arrington, Mark Bavis and Shawn Walsh at all, we won’t hold back on our celebration of the sport they loved. We will instead enjoy it without reservation. To allow our sadness to consume us would be to dishonor their memories, not honor them.

They had fun with this great game, and so should we.

A Very Happy Ending: Curran Walks!

In an otherwise dismal offseason, one story of hope and inspiration stands out like a beacon in the night. Initially it appeared to be a tragic one when Providence goaltender Matt Curran fell off a Florida roof on April 15. Dropping 30 feet onto a concrete surface, Curran fractured his skull in two places, shattered his hip, separated his shoulder, and broke his nose, teeth, fingers and three ribs. Even more ominously, he suffered two broken vertebrae in his back that left him paralyzed.

“I was told by the doctors that the odds were one in 10 million that I would ever walk again,” Curran said to the Providence College Spectrum Digest, the school’s alumni newspaper. “They told me I had the same chance as winning the lottery.”

An outpouring of support ensued not only from family, teammates, coaches and friends, but also total strangers.

“The letters would start out, ‘You don’t know me, but… I’m praying for you,” said Curran.

Six weeks after hearing that he would almost certainly be paralyzed from the waist down, he lay in an Atlanta therapy room with his father massaging his toes. Suddenly, his father felt movement in a toe on his left foot.

The barely perceptible breakthrough led to his knee moving the following day. Telling himself that, “if you think once, just once, that you’re not going to walk, you’re not going to,” Curran put in overtime in the therapy room with his father. Eventually, his right foot responded, too, and he found that, while on parallel bars, he could put some weight on his feet.

On June 20, Curran amazingly walked out of the Shepherd Medical Center using one crutch.

“I didn’t want to go back to PC in a wheelchair,” he said. “Everyone there had done their part [supporting me]. I had to do mine. When I left the hospital, they said it was a miracle.”

Look for more on this story in the coming weeks…

White Out For Serino

When Merrimack hosts New Hampshire next Thursday, Oct. 18, it will not only be the Warrior home opener, but also a chance to give coach Chris Serino an emotional boost. In light of his battle with throat cancer, organizers are hoping to “White Out The Volpe For Coach Serino.” Fans are asked to wear white in a show of support for Serino. A white sweatshirt, jersey, sweater or even T-shirt for the cold-blooded will work.

Of course, this request goes out not just to Merrimack supporters but also the many UNH loyalists who follow their team on the road. Wildcat fans will have more than just the motivation of doing something nice for a fellow human being since Serino served for seven years as New Hampshire’s assistant hockey and head baseball coach before moving on to Merrimack.

Serino has poured his heart into this sport for a long time. It would be great to see a lot of heart going back his way.

Public Safety Night at Mullins

In case you missed the USCHO news brief, UMass-Amherst will open the season with a “Public Safety Night” at the Mullins Center on Saturday, Oct. 13. Local police officers, firefighters and their families will be admitted free to the team’s home opener against Niagara.

“It’s just our way of saying thanks for everything these people do for our community,” said coach Don Cahoon. “It’s unfortunate that it took some tragic events to make most of us realize how important the local police and firefighters are to all of us. This is a small token of our appreciation for what they do on a day-to-day basis.”

That’s a great idea that should be considered at every Hockey East venue.

Shawn Walsh’s Funeral

I didn’t go to Shawn Walsh’s wake and funeral to “cover” the events as a writer, but rather to pay my respects. However, I found myself asking to borrow a pen and jotting down a few notes just so that I would remember the things people said.

Despite the original purely personal motivation, I now offer you some of the most memorable moments, as best as I could capture them. Most are humorous, but few things heal better than humor.

  • “I’m sure Shawn is with God,” said Rev. Gerard G. Gosselin of Bangor’s St. John’s Catholic Church. “He’s probably telling Him how things should be run. Or how to improve His golf swing.”
  • Ted Sator, the former Buffalo Sabres coach who met Walsh at Bowling Green 30 years ago and had remained a close friend ever since, quipped, “I was the exception. I liked him right away.”
  • Sator recalled Walsh’s competitive fire with a story about how Walsh had become the “self-appointed manager” of a sadsack Dairy Queen softball team that was about to play the city champions. “Shawn went out and recruited six former Bowling Green [baseball] players who played pro ball. When the game began, the city champions were shocked to see ball after ball go over the fence. The final score: Dairy Queen 21, City Champs 2.”
  • Alan Miller recalled meeting Walsh at the first tee of a golf tournament. Miller said, “He shook my hand and said, ‘Hi, I’m Shawn Walsh. What’s your handicap and how much money do you want to play for?

    “Unlike Ted Sator, I didn’t like him the first time I met him,” said Miller, who continued with a humorous description of the man who would become a close friend: “Focused, driven, dismissive, brash, arrogant, organized, motivated, cocky and cheap.”

  • Former player Brendan Walsh told of his coach enlisting him to help recruit a potential blue chipper.

    “He told me we had to land this guy and that he wanted to study forestry,” said Brendan Walsh. “He said that after telling him about the arena, the team and the campus, I should tell him how much I loved being in the forestry program.

    “I said ‘Coach, I’m a [communications] major. [I’m from downtown Dorchester, Mass.] I’ve never been in a forest in my life.’

    “He said, ‘Okay, tell him your roommate is a forestry major and how much he likes the program.’

    “I told Coach that my roommates weren’t forestry majors, so he said, ‘Tell him how nice the trees are in Maine.'”

  • Humor aside, there were also moving descriptions of what Shawn Walsh meant to those around him. Brendan Walsh said, “I loved Coach…. He was one great guy. He had a huge impact on my life as well as other lives.”
  • Current Black Bear captain Peter Metcalf said, “He was the type of person who made a difference in your personal life. He made us better people.”
  • Rev. Gosselin told a story from Walsh’s final days. He could no longer speak, so he communicated by writing on a pad of paper. After noting the unusually negative attitude of one person he saw, Walsh inquired as to the reason and was told of some longtime resentment. Close to death himself, Walsh motioned the man to his side and wrote, “Let it go.”
  • Assistant coach and longtime friend Grant Standbrook perhaps summed it up best by saying, “He lived a long, remarkable life in a short period of time.”
  • What I’ll remember most about the funeral, though, is what one parent of a Black Bear senior said to me. “I’ve been hearing my son say things like, ‘Turn a negative into a positive’ and ‘If you don’t have the best of everything, make the best of what you have’ for the past three years. Shawn Walsh is where he got it from.”

Perhaps even more than the two national championships he won, Shawn Walsh’s most enduring legacy may well be all the lives that he molded in such a positive way.

Around the Arenas

Random tidbits from the first week:

  • “I thought we were going to be here until two o’clock in the morning,” quipped Boston University coach Jack Parker after his team’s penalty-filled win over St. Francis Xavier.

    Addressing some of the biggest question marks for the coming season, he noted, “I thought [goaltender Sean Fields] played well…. I was real happy with the freshman; I was real happy with [defensemen Pat] Aufiero and [Chris] Dyment. I thought they played extremely well.”

  • Boston College had the only game that counted last weekend, a 5-1 win at Vermont. Tony Voce showed that he may be ready to fill the enormous void left behind by Brian Gionta, Chuck Kobasew, Krys Kolanos et al. The sophomore registered a hat trick and assisted on the other two Eagle goals. In one of the great no-brainers of all time, he was selected Hockey East Player of the Week.
  • “The first week of practice was obviously a difficult week for us,” said Maine interim head coach Tim Whitehead following an 8-0 win over Moncton. “This week, we got a lot more done. The players were more focused. They were trying to execute what we’ve worked on in practice.”

    Tom Reimann, a forward in his first two years at Maine, moved back to the blue line, but scored a hat trick anyway.

  • St. Francis Xavier defeated UMass-Amherst last weekend, 5-3. The good news about the freshmen included Matt Walsh and Greg Mauldin combining for the first goal. Less encouraging was goaltender Tim Warner stopping only 10 of 15 shots, although the betting here is that Warner will be a good one. No one likes to lose these exhibition games, but ultimately they don’t mean much, if anything at all.
  • UMass-Lowell kicks off its season and the tenure of new head coach Blais MacDonald on Friday against Niagara. Ironically, MacDonald came to Lowell from Niagara. However, don’t expect him to have trouble finding the right bench.
  • Merrimack outshot Ottawa 51-24, but Gee-Gee’s goaltender Jordan Watt kept his team in the game long enough to allow an extra-skater goal to tie it with 10 seconds left in regulation. Coach Chris Serino showed that he may be battling illness, but he’s still as plain-talking as ever.

    “In the first period we played real well,” he said. “Things were going our way until the second period when we just screwed around.”

  • New Hampshire dismantled Ottawa, 9-1, last weekend. Lanny Gare led the scoring with two goals and three assists, Jim Abbott added another goal and three assists while Darren Haydar put two past the Ottawa netminders. Patrick Foley, returning from a year lost to injury, also scored. The power play, a major problem last year, was anything but in this contest. The Wildcats scored five times on the man advantage and another time while shorthanded.
  • Northeastern tied Western Ontario, 2-2. The Huskies led 2-0 going into the third period, but Matt Dzieduszycki scored two power-play goals to deadlock the game. If the name sounds familiar, Dzieduszycki spent time with New Hampshire a couple years ago before leaving for junior hockey. Freshmen Husky defensemen Donnie Grover, Bryan Nathe and Tim Judy reportedly played well, an important sign for the upcoming season.

    “Guys like Donnie and Bryan did a real nice job tonight,” said Crowder. “Judy showed a lot of hustle and will be a great addition to this team. We only had four days of ice [time], so it is early to say how well they will fully adjust. They have a ton of talent and I look for all of these freshmen to be big contributors early on.”

    On the down side — way down — is the injury list. Definitely out for the upcoming weekend are top sniper Mike Ryan (mono) and junior defenseman Brian Sullivan (shoulder). Freshman goaltender Keni Gibson (back) and freshman forward Jared Mudryk (ankle) are likely also sidelined.

  • Providence defeated Western Ontario, 6-1, led by two goals apiece by Peter Fregoe and Peter Zingoni. Game reporter Sean Caruthers summed it up thusly: “as the game wound down, drowning in senseless penalties, [a Western Ontario bench player] waved a towel on his stick, imitating a flag of surrender.”

Quip of the Week

The most amusing line I’ve seen so far in a media guide this year comes from UMass-Lowell’s Ken Farrell. He was asked to finish the sentence, “I never could…” Some of his teammates said that they could never sing or never turn their backs on friends or even never dunk a basketball.

Farrell, however, said he could never “date a stripper.”

Don’t give up, Ken. You may eventually get a phone number from one of them. And it might not even start with 1-900.

Trivia Contest

As with last season, the first person to correctly answer a trivia question will not only be recognized in this column, but allowed to give a brief (roughly one sentence) cheer for his or her favorite team. Note to all the USCHO Message Board rabble-rousers: positive cheers only are allowed. This writer reserves the right to judge what is acceptable.

In honor of the late Mark Bavis, we’ll open with a question regarding his career at Boston University. What BU award did he share with his twin brother Mike, not once but twice?

Mail your responses to Dave Hendrickson.

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

  • The best Broadway-style show this offseason was easily Mamma Mia!, a very clever and addictive musical built around songs by the Swedish group ABBA. I’ve never owned an album by the group and feared it would be another disappointment like Smokey Joe’s Cafe, a show built around a nonexistent story. But Mamma Mia works in every way. It does, however, leave Boston in less than a month so there isn’t much time left to catch it.
  • My favorite recent comment from a columnist came from the Boston Herald‘s Gerry Callahan, who wrote: John Harrington and Dan Duquette pumped more than $100 million into the [Red Sox] this year. [Bruins owner] Jeremy Jacobs, the billionaire, wouldn’t spend that kind of money for eternal life.
  • I don’t care what the C++ gurus say. Instantiate may be the single worst verb invention in the last 100 years.
  • What makes Barry Bonds’ breaking of the home run record even more remarkable is that he did it in the same season in which he broke the record for walks. That record combination may never be duplicated. And to top a slugging percentage mark that Babe Ruth still held just adds more icing to the cake. A truly amazing season for Bonds.
  • I’ve rooted hard against the New York Yankees all my life. I remember Bucky Bleeping Dent and the Carlton Fisk – Thurmun Munson wars and the Bill Lee – Graig Nettles brawl. But my favorite all-time sign at a ballgame may have been the one from the first games following the Sept. 11 attacks. It said, “We’re all Yankees.”

Amen to that.

Thanks to Scott Weighart, Ed Seero, John Gould, Jeffrey Mannix and Sean Caruthers for their assistance.

This Week In The WCHA: Oct. 11, 2001

By
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Why Do It Again?

Jeff Sauer knows for a fact that Wisconsin could pull off a sequel to the “Cold War” staged at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, Mich., last Saturday.

He’s just trying to come up with a reason to do it.

“We could do it here,” Sauer said. “I think we could do it maybe cheaper than they did it, just using their expertise on what they did right and wrong.

“My only concern now is why do it, other than to break the record.”

Sauer already knows it won’t happen next year: the WCHA schedule is already out, he said, and there wouldn’t be an opportunity.

The other catch is that he’d need an opponent that could help fill Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, capacity for football 77,000. The Michigan-Michigan State game set the bar high, so high that only a select few college hockey programs could try to better it.

To hold an outdoor game now, the record must fall. That will be tough, especially outside Michigan.

Sauer has talked to Don Lucia, coach of longtime Badgers rival Minnesota, and gotten a lukewarm response. Sauer said Lucia would listen to the offer, but didn’t sound particularly excited about it.

The other possibilities are North Dakota, which has fans travel anywhere to see it play, and Notre Dame, which is usually a good draw because of its large alumni ranks around the nation.

“Minnesota’s certainly a rivalry to us,” Sauer said, “but our important thing would be to put fans in the building.”

There is a possibility Camp Randall might not even be available. The stadium is set to undergo a major renovation, which could put plans on hold until the facelift is completed, in 2004.

The sticking point for Sauer right now, however, is coming up with a good reason to hold another outdoor game. Camp Randall has the capacity to, if filled, break the now days-old attendance record.

Sauer said, however, that he doesn’t think an event of this magnitude should take place every year.

“I don’t think [Michigan State is] ready to jump back in and do it again next year, and I don’t think there’s a reason to do it every year,” Sauer said. “It just was a very unique event.”

Chances are, it’ll stay that way.

Fine Work, Indeed

In 1997, with their newsroom and printing presses out of commission because of floods on the Red River of the North, the staff of the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald pulled together to cover the disaster in their city out of a school’s computer lab. The effort earned them a Pulitzer Prize.

The staff pulled together once again this summer, this time under much less duress, and assembled a book chronicling the history of the North Dakota hockey team.

They pulled off another masterpiece.

The staff, led by writer Virg Foss, beautifully captures the spirit and sense of history in the program in “Fight on Sioux.”

The book blends a thorough telling of the story of each of North Dakota’s seven national championships with anecdotes, a spotlight on key figures and detailed statistics.

It includes a two-page letter written for the book by UND super booster Ralph Engelstad, who debuted his $100 million arena, a gift to the school, last weekend.

It’s the kind of literature that appeals directly to the college hockey fan with a keen interest in learning about the history of the game. There are few that can present that information better than Foss, who has covered the WCHA since 1969.

“Fight on Sioux,” in addition to the stories behind the teams that made up North Dakota’s glory years, recaps all seven of the Sioux’s national championship victories with a two-page spread on the title game, including a game summary.

The staff of the Herald does well to integrate photographs from its archives and from those of the school. Those photos are as vital to the presentation of Sioux hockey history as the words.

The photos and the detail of the text serve as a reminder that UND hockey is of paramount importance in Grand Forks, and Foss and the Herald do an admirable job of following the team.

The book doubles as a quick reference into Sioux hockey history as well. It features a complete list of letterwinners, captains, year-by-year records, coaches and awards, not to mention the rosters of each UND national championship team.

“Fight on Sioux,” a must-read for any North Dakota hockey fan and still a good read for those less inclined to cheer for the Sioux, costs $19.99 ($29.95 in that wacky Canadian money) and is available by calling the Herald at (701) 780-1100.

Too Many Officials on the Ice

Some may have been confused, and understandably so, about why the WCHA sent out two referees and two linesmen to officiate last Friday’s U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game in Grand Forks, N.D.

Was this a grand new project of the league? Was it a precursor to reverting to the old two-referee, one-linesman system?

No and no, league supervisor of officials Greg Shepherd said. He wanted to give more people a chance to take part in the first game in the new Ralph Engelstad Arena.

“I had two senior men that both deserved the game,” Shepherd said, “and I wanted to give them both a shot at it.”

Tom Goddard, a former UND player, and Mike Schmitt worked the game with the orange armbands.

If it was only as simple as simply sending two referees onto the ice. The NCAA, being the stickler for control that it is, required Shepherd to write a letter asking for permission to break from the standard refereeing practice of one ref and two linesmen.

“It worked fine,” Shepherd said. “I just thought it was a good way of rewarding people on the job they do.”

Just don’t expect the WCHA to field four officials for a game any time soon.

“You won’t see it out of us,” Shepherd said.

Quick Out of the Gate

Out of many positive showings in a 10-1 exhibition victory over Brandon last Saturday night, St. Cloud State coach Craig Dahl glowed the most over one.

He liked the way his freshman forwards produced, albeit against an opponent of a level one step down from upcoming foes. He liked the way goaltender Jake Moreland stepped in for Dean Weasler in the second period and played like the game meant something to him.

His team’s speed, though, was what clinched it for him. Countless times, the Huskies were able to blow past their opponents in races for pucks. While the speed of the opponent will improve drastically in the immediate future, the Huskies now know they can use their speed to a definite advantage.

Forward Matt Hendricks, who scored two goals in the exhibition after scoring just three all of last year, didn’t waver when asked if SCSU was going to have to use its speed differently against Clarkson, its opening-round opponent Friday in the IceBreaker Invitational in Orono, Maine.

“We’re going to make them change their game to match us,” Hendricks said. “We know we’re fast, and we’re going to make the other team prove they can be faster than us. A lot of teams aren’t going to be.”

Practice Quickly

Tournaments this weekend made for short weeks of practice for some WCHA teams — not exactly the kind of thing coaches like to see this early in the season.

St. Cloud State practiced Monday and Tuesday and was scheduled for a brief session on Wednesday before flying out in the early evening.

Denver was scheduled to fly into Anchorage for the Nye Frontier Classic on Thursday, while Boston College and Northeastern were set to arrive on Wednesday to do some sightseeing, Alaska-Anchorage coach John Hill said.

Minnesota-Duluth’s game-week schedule hasn’t been thrown off by the Maverick Stampede in Omaha, Neb., coach Scott Sandelin said. Maybe it’s because the Bulldogs aren’t really in a traditional game-week schedule yet.

“I think after this week we’ll have more of our season routine,” Sandelin said.

The Bulldogs were scheduled to bus to Omaha, leaving Wednesday night with a stopover along the way.

Get a Recording, Please

Joe Marsh and Mike Sertich at the same dais? The mere thought of it makes one chuckle.

Marsh, the St. Lawrence coach, and Sertich, his compatriot at Michigan Tech, square off behind the bench this weekend in Houghton, Mich., but that’s not where the real action is going to take place.

Odds are, these two, being known for their ability to make anyone laugh in any situation, will match each other joke for joke at Friday’s Blueline Club Luncheon.

Look for Sertich to use the home-luncheon advantage and edge Marsh at the wire.

The Battle Begins

Dahl said after Saturday’s victory that he expects to play Weasler in Friday’s game, and that he’s leaning toward playing Moreland in the second game of the Ice Breaker.

Weasler, a senior, and Moreland, a junior, are fighting to be the top goaltender in the absence of graduated star Scott Meyer.

There Are No Winners Here

Doesn’t it seem somewhat fitting that the “Cold War” between Michigan and Michigan State ended in a tie?

No one could really win that other Cold War, either.

The Tournament Planner

New UAA coach Hill has been spared much of the planning for this weekend’s Nye Frontier Classic at Sullivan Arena in Anchorage, leaving him with more time to prepare his team for games against Northeastern and Boston College.

“We’ve had the tournament for a number of years and we have a large committee that has been involved with it since its inception,” Hill said. “Actually, the group of people takes care of everything. I’ve had to do very little.

“They’ve alleviated a lot of the pressure that I probably would have felt if I had to do more.”

Hill said his share of the planning came in getting in contact with the coaches of the three other teams and scheduling ice times. That’s crucial because the time a new coach spends with his players before they take the ice for their first game is invaluable.

What Was That?

Was that true hockey or mere shinny Minnesota and North Dakota played in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game last Friday? The 7-5 score, in favor of the Gophers, suggests the latter.

Jordan Leopold’s shorthanded toss down ice that bounced through UND goaltender Andy Kollar’s legs for a goal was reminiscent of another Sioux goaltending mishap.

In the infamous Water Bottle Game of 1982 against Wisconsin, UND goaltender Jon Casey fell victim to the same kind of embarassing mistake. Off a faceoff in the Wisconsin end, Badgers defenseman Chris Chelios ripped a slapshot out of his zone from the goal line. It took one hop, Foss writes in “Fight on Sioux,” changed directions and went in the net.

Not that Minnesota starter Adam Hauser had much of a game, either. He allowed four goals on eight shots and was yanked after the first period. Without needing stellar math skills, one can calculate that’s a .500 save percentage and a 12.00 goals against average.

Without needing stellar intellect, one knows that’s bad.

The Sioux and the Gophers showed us that it, indeed, was the first game of the year. But that excuse only goes so far.

The Rotating Captaincy

Jaron Doetzel is Michigan Tech’s captain … for now.

Sertich has decided to play the season with captains decided on a month-by-month basis. That makes Doetzel, a senior forward, Mr. October. He had four assists in Tech’s 11-0 thrashing of the U.S. Under 18 Team last Thursday.

One Ref Out, One Ref In

WCHA referee John Seidel retired in the offseason, Shepherd said, and the supervisor of officials replaced him with former linesman Randy Schmidt.

That’s right: now the WCHA lists a Schmidt and a Schmitt as referees. This from the USCHO “Know the Referee You’re Criticizing” committee.

He Said It

“I like the 4 o’clock games. I wish we played Saturday and Sunday afternoons, to tell you the truth.”

— St. Cloud State coach Craig Dahl, whose team plays Clarkson at 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday in the Ice Breaker Invitational.

Events That Shaped the WCHA: The Interlocking Schedule

Editor’s note: As the WCHA celebrates its 50th anniversary this season, USCHO will take a look at major events in the history of the conference.

A large part of collegiate athletics is dedicated to inter-league play. In hockey, teams supplement their conference schedule with a number of games against teams from other conferences.

In 1984, though, the WCHA and Hockey East shook up the definition of a nonconference game.

The interlocking schedule was born, and with it came Minnesota-Boston University regular-season games that counted in the WCHA standings.

For five years in the 1980s, the lines between Eastern and Western college hockey were blurred, and that fact helped form some of the rivalries and friendships we see today.

“It really jump started college hockey to another level,” said Sauer, who was in his third season at Wisconsin when the interlocking schedule started. “It was basically because those teams came into our buildings on a regular basis and they saw how the WCHA treats hockey as a Division I sport. I think that more than anything is what propelled the Eastern schools to make the next step hockey-wise.”

It’s critical to remember the WCHA was not as strong in 1984 as it is today. At the start of the 1984-85 season, the league added two members — Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan — to get back to eight teams.

It played three seasons as a six-team league after Tech, Michigan, Michigan State and Notre Dame left to join the CCHA in the summer of 1981.

For the players and coaches, it was just nice to see someone other than the same WCHA teams week in and week out, and to play them for points was even better. It also helped build the league pride that is still evident today nationwide.

“I think we took a lot of pride in the fact that we were the WCHA,” said Sandelin, who played at North Dakota in the first few years of the system. “You wanted to win those games as badly because of the pride thing within your league. I think that’s how I looked at it as a player, and how everybody looked at it.

“I think it’s the same way now when you play teams outside your league. You’re going to approach those games in that you want to win those games because of that pride thing and certainly some ramifications with postseason stuff.”

When the interlocking schedule started, Sauer said, people around the college hockey world thought the WCHA had lost its marbles.

As it turns out, it became a unifying event for the game.

“It turned out to be fun, and it brought the hockey community together better,” Sauer said. “The East coaches and the West coaches, it really became a rivalry, but they also became friends.”

This Week in the ECAC: Oct. 11, 2001

By Becky Blaeser and Jayson Moy
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Scheduling…

Scheduling. It’s not a lost art, but it’s something that oftentimes gets overlooked in the face of preseason excitement. It’s a behind-the-scenes process that entails countless phone calls, painstaking negotiation and hundreds of dollars worth of travel money. It’s something that head coaches finesse, muscle and throw their heart and soul into each and every year.

You are only as good as your last game, and scheduling is the process of making sure that each game means something.

The ECAC, more than any other league, is a true study in the art of scheduling. No other conference is presented with such a variety of conflicts. The Ivy League will not allow its teams to step on the ice before October 15. The ECAC limits its teams to 32 regular-season games per year (for more on this topic see below). The Ivy League permits teams to play only 29 regular-season games. Harvard has to make room for two Beanpot games on the first two Mondays in February. All teams have to respect the month-long hibernation by Harvard and Princeton in January due to exam periods. In short, there is nothing easy about scheduling in this league, especially when it comes to nonconference contests.

And contrary to popular belief, the goal is not just about strength of schedule. Teams in the midst of rebuilding need to provide their players with a healthy mix of competition that will promote both challenge and confidence. Other, most mature teams, look to face the best in the country in order to establish themselves on a national level.

Teams like Brown spend more time focusing their efforts on the in-league schedule as a means of building in to out. Wasting energy and effort on nonconference games has only caused the team to tire out heading into crucial stretches of its league schedule. After finishing with a 2-5 nonconference record last season, head coach Roger Grillo always has only seven out-of-league contests lined up each year.

“I’m not too concerned with my out-of-league coaching record,” said Grillo. “I just want to prepare the guys and play the best teams. I feel confident that we can knock some of these teams off.”

Other teams like St. Lawrence and Clarkson — two teams that have experienced the most success in the league over the past few years — have more aggressive, ambitious nonconference schedules that include games against teams such as North Dakota and New Hampshire. Even teams rising to the top like Harvard are starting to decorate their nonconference schedule with marquee matchups at Michigan and Colorado College.

“This is an easy school to schedule for, believe me,” said Harvard head coach Mark Mazzoleni. “People remember the years from 1983 to 1993 when Harvard was in the NCAA tournament. It can be done at a school like Harvard. We can still compete for a national championship. I wouldn’t have taken the job if it wasn’t in our grasp.”

Most teams are not in a position to book the marquee games at this stage of the program, but all head coaches have their sights set on the day when they can have that luxury. They also know that challenging nonconference schedules invariably lead to better recognition for the league as a whole.

“We’ve had a couple of tough seasons. We’ve had some great teams, but we haven’t had as much success as we would have liked in the national scene,” said Union head coach Kevin Sneddon, who has been able to match his team up against the likes of Notre Dame and UMass-Lowell this season. “We would like to have more than two teams in the NCAA’s. You look at the SLUs and Colgates and the tremendous runs they have, you think we’ll get back there. I think it’s just a matter of time before one or two of our teams emerge and becomes a national champion.”

“The ECAC has always been a strong league,” said Princeton head coach Len Quesnelle, who has seen the league evolve over the years, first as a player and now a coach. “It’s one of oldest leagues in the country. The ECAC is strong from top to bottom, athletically and academically. We have a reputation for that.”

34: The Magic Number?

In conjunction with the ever-present scheduling, there is a new wrinkle to the mix for next season. The passing of the rule that allows the ECAC teams to play up to 34 regular-season games.

Under the new guidelines, the regular-season game limit will be expanded from 32 to 34 for all men’s ECAC Division I institutions in ice hockey.

This immediately affects only six teams — Clarkson, Colgate, Rensselaer, Union, St. Lawrence and Vermont — because the other six institutions in the ECAC are also members of the Ivy League. Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and Yale, under Ivy guidelines, are only permitted to play 29 regular-season games, meaning that Ivy League directors would have to vote to accept the ECAC’s new limit to make the full 34 games available to Ivy schools.

It certainly provides some interesting questions to the scheduling question. The main question would be, how do teams find those extra two games next season? Almost all of the other 48 Division I schools have their schedules full at the present.

It should prove to be interesting next year when the schedules come out. In fact, it is probably interesting right now, as six coaches try to fill those two games.

The Battle Begins In Earnest

Four teams get underway for the first time this season, while one gets ready for its second battle.

Erasing A Bad Memory

The Clarkson Golden Knights had won the regular-season title and were at home in Cheel Arena for the playoffs. The Knights had never lost at Cheel in the playoffs. But game one went to Vermont.

The Knights came back to win game two in overtime to force a game three, but again in overtime, the Knights fell for the second time that weekend and left the ice for the last time that season.

“Ending the season on the note it ended on was tough to swallow, but that also acts as incentive for us to be play extremely determined this season,” said head coach Mark Morris. “The chain of events that led to us being left out on the outside looking in, left a nasty taste in our mouth and we want to make things right.”

This is a new season, and the Knights are right back at it. They head to Maine, where they will be the ECAC participant in the Ice Breaker this season. The Knights will take on the defending WCHA tournament champions, St. Cloud. Then they will follow with either Maine or Bowling Green.

The Knights hope that a successful Ice Breaker will get them rolling this season, which follows with a tough Miami team the next weekend.

“Momentum is such a critical thing in college hockey that good teams get better over the course of the season, as our guys mature we hope to get more and more solid,” said Morris. “We like to get off to a solid start. There’s some competition that will heighten our awareness as to where our weaknesses lie. St. Cloud won’t be a pushover nor will Bowling Green and Maine. That should be a huge challenge and then we turn around and play a good Miami team. We’re going right into the heat of battle in a hurry and it’s important that we get off to a good start.”

Go To The U.P. Young Man

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan — for the second straight time — is where the two-time defending ECAC champion St. Lawrence Saints are headed to begin the season. First it’s off to Houghton to take on Michigan Tech, and then to Sault Ste. Marie to take on Lake Superior State.

Saints fans are starting to wonder if they’ll ever see the Saints at Appleton playing more than one or two nonconference games. Last season the Saints spent some time on the road as well.

“We traveled to North Dakota, Michigan and Maine and we didn’t win any of those games,” said head coach Joe Marsh. “But I thought we got a lot out of it. You can come away with some real good experiences out of that. It impresses upon the guys where they’re at and how hard they have to work.

“We’ve got a little history with Lake State and people look at me like I am out of my mind. You get on the road and it’s time to bond a young team. We want to have the best schedule year in and year out.”

This team will be young as the Saints lose student-athletes such as Erik Anderson, Mike Gellard, Alan Fyfe and Matt Desrosiers.

“You don’t…can’t…replace the things that guys like last year’s senior class brought to the table,” said Marsh. “They played in three straight ECAC championship games and won two of them, and made three straight NCAA appearances.

“They did, though, leave us something…they taught the younger guys how to go about it, and now this year’s seniors and juniors will do the same for this year’s incoming class. It is one of the bigger ones we have had lately, but we as a coaching staff feel it has a lot of potential.”

To The Golden Dome

The Union Skating Dutchmen got off to a great start last season, going 6-1-2 to begin the season and cracking the national polls. But it went south from there; the Dutchmen were humbled, but remained strong — a lesson coming into this year for their pair of season-opening games at Notre Dame.

“We learned a lot last year,” said head coach Kevin Sneddon. “It certainly was a great year and a step in the right direction for our program. I think we learned a lot about what it’s going to take to sustain a high level of play for the entire season. The middle drought last year was a learning process for us.”

The Dutchmen will take the bus all the way to South Bend, but it will allow them a chance to bond and come together.

East To Boston

The Rensselaer Engineers will head to Boston University to open the season for the second straight year. The Engineers won the opener last year against the Terriers and this year’s Engineer squad has many who were there last year to experience that win.

A lot of people have mentioned that this year’s team is very similar to last year’s, with 21 letterwinners returning and five freshmen. But it’s not the same.

“Even though you have only lost one player and you have five guys coming in, you’re a totally different team this year,” said head coach Dan Fridgen. “It’s already evident now. It seems like we’ve got more guys that are focused and we really want to make sure that we start off on a right foot instead of having a roller coaster season to have a more consistent season in terms of our play. You learn from last year, and we’re more experienced. We’ve got more leaders this year ready to apply themselves whereas last year we were too young to have guys step forward.”

Isn’t Anyone Playing At Home?

The fifth ECAC team in action this weekend is Vermont. The Catamounts dropped a home game to Boston College last weekend and now travel to New Hampshire.

Vermont got off to a slow start last season, dropping decisions to Boston University and New Hampshire before getting into a groove. Then it went downhill for awhile after that.

“We were 5-0 and surprised a lot of people. I’m not sure if it was all the energy from sitting still or that they didn’t know what we were up to the year before,” explained head coach Mike Gilligan. “We were a solid team and we ran into a January funk and that is something that we are trying to change a bit. We gave them two weeks off in December and that really hurt us in January.”

The Cats are hoping that despite losing the first game of the season, they will roar back and surprise some people again this season.

If It’s So Easy, You Try It

Well, last season, only one of our challengers defeated us. We will not name him, for we are shamed. It’s time for you, the readers to step up and challenge us once again.

The first episode of the Iron Columnists will take place on November 2. What will you challengers bring to the table? How will the Iron Columnists strike back?

So line up if you are interested in putting your money where your mouth is, drop us an email to be eligible to take on the Iron Columnists this season.

But now, on to the Iron Columnists’ standings challenge. We’ve tallied all of your predictions. We had 32 entries. Of those 32, 14 of you have picked Harvard to win the regular season. Eight of you have taken Clarkson, six Cornell and the remaining four Dartmouth.

When you add up the points, you have collectively chosen Clarkson. The official challenge poll against the Iron Columnists is as follows:

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

Chairman Kaga will be pleased.

To all of those who lost their lives in innocence and acts of heroism on September 11. And for all of those who will continue to fight for our freedom, you are the heroes.

This Week in the CCHA: Oct. 11, 2001

By
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Ministry of Truth

This is what life is like post-Sept. 11, 2001:

  • Films such as Collateral Damage and Big Trouble postpone release because they feature bombs or terrorist attacks.
  • Men in Black 2, which was supposed to include a climactic scene at the World Trade Center, will be revised.
  • The marketing campaign for Robert Redford’s film, The Last Castle, received a makeover, eliminating the promotional shot of an American flag flown upside-down (a universally recognized distress signal).
  • The album cover art — planned before Sept. 11 — for hip-hop artists The Coup has been nixed because it featured one of the group members blowing up the World Trade Center with a detonator.
  • The ripped-from-the-headlines television show based in New York City, Law & Order, may scrap a spring 2002 five-episode mini- series that deals with terrorism in New York. The episodes were planned before Sept. 11.

Ironically, while the entertainment industry works furiously to eliminate potentially insensitive material that alludes to war or terrorism — indeed, while the entertainment industry seems to be bent on actively erasing all pre-Sept. 11 images of the World Trade Center towers — news shows throw around the word war as though the U.S. has actually declared one.

What does this have to do with college hockey? Well, last Saturday, Oct. 6, Michigan and Michigan State skated to a 3-3 tie in a contest dubbed “The Outdoor Game.”

Not everyone in East Lansing, however, got the memo that mandated the event’s change of name; the shuttle buses from the MSU remote parking lots to Spartan Stadium proclaimed clearly that their destination was the “Cold War.”

It seems that revision is the theme of the day. This isn’t “political correctness”; this isn’t even sensitivity. This is revisionist history.

There was nothing whatsoever wrong with calling the Oct. 6 game the “Cold War.” Any human with an ounce of sense understood the play on words, and — jeepers creepers! — the Red Menace is no more!

I don’t want to be told that the government has the corner on the word war. In addition to being an American, I’m a sportswriter. The rhetoric of sports is filled with reference to war. No one expects the good citizens of Buffalo to take arms against Florida when the Bills play the Jaguars this weekend (all jokes about Buffalo’s inability to win a game and the annual “invasion” of Florida by “snowbirds” from Western New York notwithstanding).

Nor do I want images of the pre-attack World Trade Center erased from the public memory.

There’s a lovely scene in Woody Allen’s Manhattan in which he and Diane Keaton talk through the night while watching the gorgeous New York City skyline from Sutton Park, a vantage point from across the East River. The outline of lower Manhattan — accented by the towers of the World Trade Center, silhouetted dark in the soft, pre-dawn grayness — prompts Allen’s character, Isaac Davis, to call New York a “knockout.”

Allen was, of course, referring to the aesthetics of that beautiful city, and we deserve to remember that city the way it was before Sept. 11. This takes absolutely nothing away from the tragedy and heroics that have resulted from the Sept. 11 attack.

Nor does using the word war in a metaphorical sense in any way show disrespect for anything that’s going on in the world today.

One painful lesson we’ve learned in the past five weeks is that the world is not as safe as we thought, and that we are not immune to attacks from enemies beyond our borders. One lesson we should learn, however — before it’s too late — is that we are also not immune from enemies of another kind, those who label us unpatriotic when we express unpopular opinions, those who attempt to dictate the very language we use (either overtly or implicitly), those who attack the First Amendment from within.

Okay. It’s time to drop the puck already.

Games of the Week

The Maverick Stampede

It’s the second annual Maverick Stampede, and it’s a doozy. All games are at the rockin’ Omaha Civic Auditorium.

No. 5 Michigan vs. No. 6 Providence, Friday, 5:05 p.m. CT

Talk about your marquee matchup. The Stampede kicks off with two teams loaded for bear, the Wolverines and the Friars.

Many people — including me — questioned how Michigan would bounce back from offseason personnel losses. Andy Hilbert and Jeff Jillson flew the coup (could the animal imagery get any thicker here?), and the Wolverines graduated Mark Kosick, Josh Langfeld, and Scott Matzka.

Actually, the loss of Kosick and Langfeld could be a plus. Michigan fans can only hope that when Kosick and Langfeld left, they took a whole lot of attitude with them on their collective way out the door.

In their wake enters an extraordinary rookie class, poised, talented, and — seemingly, for now — unpretentious. Anyone who saw Michigan beat Mercyhurst in the first round of NCAA play last year got a glimpse of something wonderful: a Wolverine squad that played with heart, emotion, and love of the game.

Anyone who saw the Outdoor Game against Michigan State Oct. 6 saw the same thing, but with eight rookies whose enthusiasm may be a threat for a long, long time.

Of course, it wasn’t just the exuberant play of guys like freshman forward Jason Ryznar, who notched a goal and an assist in the outing, but there was the seemingly effortless play of Mike Cammalleri, who had a hand in all three Wolverine goals, and the poise of veteran netminder Josh Blackburn, who wasn’t particularly challenged, but looked specifically unrattled during the match.

Michigan has to face a very tough Providence team, a squad that returns its top five scoring forwards from the 2000-01 campaign. Devin Rask had 51 points last season; Peter Fregoe (37), Drew Omicioli (27), Marc Suderman (26), and Jon DiSalvatore (25) round out the quintet of returning 20-point men.

Opposite Blackburn in the Providence net is All-American goaltender Nolan Schaefer, who in 25 games during the 2000-01 season compiled a record of 15-8-2 with a 2.47 GAA and .915 save percentage.

This is just the second time that these two teams meet, and the first time since the 1964 NCAA semifinals (1964 being the year of this columnist’s birth — which makes their last meeting about a hundred years ago). Michigan leads this very short all-time series by the margin of 1-0-0, having won the previous match 3-2 on the Wolverines’ way to the 1964 NCAA championship.

Pick: I haven’t seen Providence play this season, but I have seen Michigan. Wolverines 3-2

Minnesota-Duluth vs. No. 13 Nebraska-Omaha, 8:05 p.m. CT

If there’s one thing Mavericks fans sincerely love — aside from emailing yours truly — it’s winning in the Omaha Civic Center, where they sell beer.

(Why is it important to note that beer is sold in the Civic Center? Beats me, but it sure seems to make a lot of Mavs fans happy.)

UNO should play the inhospitable host in its first game this weekend, and Mavs fans should rejoice.

The Bulldogs finished 7-28-4 last season, scoring just 103 goals for the year (2.64 per game). On the plus side, Duluth returns its top eight scorers, including Tom Nelson (40 points), Nate Anderson (28), Andy Reierson (22), Jon Francisco and Judd Medak (21 each), and Beau Geisler (20).

Minnesota-Duluth’s primary weakness is defense, from the net out. Returning goaltenders Rob Anderson (.895 SV%, 3.80 GAA) and Adam Coole (.869 SV%, 4.27 GAA) will need to improve if the Bulldogs are to be competitive in the WCHA — and this game.

The Mavericks return three of the top players in the league, conveniently one at each position. Junior forward David Brisson led the team in scoring with 47 points. Junior defenseman Greg Zanon is, quite simply, the bomb on the blueline, an All-American and All-CCHA first-teamer. He was also the third highest-scoring Maverick last season, with 12 goals and 15 assists.

Dan Ellis returns in net, and if this sophomore plays like he did in the first round of last year’s CCHA playoffs, watch out. Ellis finished the season with a 21-14-3 record, a 2.49 goals against average, and a .911 save percentage.

And let’s not forget sophomore forward Andrew Wong, who had a dozen goals and a dozen assists in his rookie season.

Minnesota-Duluth actually leads this all-time series, 3-1-0, and the Mavericks are 1-1-0 against the Bulldogs in the Civic Auditorium. UNO junior forward seems to have the Bulldogs’ number, with three goals and one assist against Duluth all-time. The Mavericks won the last contest, Dec. 18, 1999, by the score of 3-2 in Omaha.

Pick: Unless the planets are misaligned, the Mavericks should overwhelm the struggling Bulldogs. Yes, it’s tough to say a team is struggling before it’s even left the gate, but unless the planets are aligned — well, you get the cosmic picture. UNO 4-2

Minnesota-Duluth vs. No. 6 Providence
Third-place game, 5:05 p.m. CT

Pick: There’s no consolation in this third-place game for the Bulldogs. Here’s a genuine dose of East Coast bias. Providence 5-1

No. 5 Michigan vs. No. 13 Nebraska-Omaha
Championship Game, 8:05 p.m. CT

How could I predict any combination other than this for the title game? It’s not merely that I’m a complete homer for the CCHA, but given the respective first-round matches, I honestly think Mavs fans will get exactly what they want: a chance to play Michigan for the whole Stampede shebang.

In this contest, UNO has the edge in net, but Michigan has it in every other way. With no disrespect intended toward the Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks, the players, the coaches, the fans, and the fair city of Omaha itself, Michigan is just that good. Unless the Outdoor Game against the Spartans was a fluke — and wouldn’t everyone else in the league be thrilled if it were? — the Wolverines have the ability to absolutely plough through the competition this season.

Pick: Ordinarily, the Mavericks would also have a home ice advantage, but given that this young Michigan team was utterly unfazed in front of 74,000 fans in Spartan Stadium, I think that’s a moot point. Michigan 4-2

Of Mavericks and Wolverines

Here are a couple of notes of interest.

While Hobey Baker winner Ryan Miller deservedly earned a ton of press for his NCAA shutout record, senior Michigan netminder Josh Blackburn has been quietly amassing shutouts of his own. Blackburn is just three away from setting a new Michigan school record. The previous record was held by Marty Turco (11), who also held the NCAA shutout record before Ryan Miller came along.

In an on-ice ceremony Friday, the Blue Line Club will induct four people to the Omaha Hockey Hall of Fame. Ted Baer, Eddy Bruneteau, Jake Forbes, and Motto McLean are the first inductees in over 40 years. This year, the UNO Blue Line Club wanted to revive the Omaha Hockey Hall of Fame award to reward people who have made a lasting contribution to the Omaha hockey community. The last inductions took place in 1961, the year in which Gordie Howe was honored.

Here’s an omen: The winner of the inaugural Maverick Stampede went on to win the NCAA championship. The Boston College Eagles defeated Nebraska-Omaha in the championship for the Omaha Cup, and were ranked No. 4 at the time. The No. 5 Michigan Wolverines look good, really good…

Here Come the Nanooks!

The CCHA media poll had the Alaska-Fairbanks Nanooks dead last, but this reporter knows better (as, apparently, does Eric Olson of the Omaha World-Herald, who picked UAF to finish ninth — another omen?).

This hard-working team swept Air Force last week by a collective score of 13-3. The series sweep marks the first time the Nanooks have started 2-0 since the 1990-91 season, when they began the season with back-to-back wins over Notre Dame.

UAF posted a team plus/minus of +38 in the two games against Air Force, and nine different Nanooks had goals.

Inside the Numbers: Analyzing The Outdoor Game

By Mark Francescutti
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The outdoor game by the numbers:

38,000,000

Number of homes Saturday’s game reached by cablecast (Fox Sports Net in the U.S. and CTV Sportsnet in Canada).

80,368

Capacity at the Pontiac Silverdome, home of the National Football League’s Detroit Lions, and enough to break the record of Oct. 6. Michigan coach Red Berenson wondered aloud if a hockey game could be played there in a few years.

74,554

QUITE A SIGHT: Spartan Stadium is electric with college hockey.

QUITE A SIGHT: Spartan Stadium is electric with college hockey.

The new world record for attendance at a single hockey game, set Oct. 6 in Spartan Stadium. Michigan and Michigan State skated to a 3-3 tie.

55,000

The former world record (approx.) for attendance at a single hockey game, set March 5, 1957, Lenin Stadium, Moscow. Sweden 3, Russia 2, International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship gold medal game.

28,183

The former North American attendance record. Philadelphia 4, Tampa Bay 1, 1996; National Hockey League playoffs, the ThunderDome, St. Petersburg, Fla.

21,576

The former North American single-game collegiate attendance record, set Dec. 29, 1984; Michigan State vs. Michigan Tech, Joe Louis Arena, Detroit.

18,884

Paid attendance at the Detroit Tigers doubleheader Oct. 6.

17,000

Square feet of frozen water used to make up the rink.

7,121

The former East Lansing attendance record: Michigan State 3, Michigan 1, March 2000.

1930

Year in which Michigan last beat Michigan State outdoors, 7-0, in East Lansing.

290

Number of Michigan basketball games it would take for student season ticket holder attendance to equal that of the Outdoor Game. (Out of over 37,000 students, only about 600 bought season tickets to basketball last year — about half the number that bought hockey tickets).

281

The weight (in tons) of the refrigeration unit it took to keep the ice frozen Saturday.

238

Number of games in the 79-year history between Michigan State and Michigan (Michigan leads the series 122-107-9).

41

Fahrenheit game time temperature at the Outdoor Game.

30

Wind gusts during the game, which blew snow across the ice, creating Michigan’s first glimpse of winter.

16

Seconds remaining in the second period when stadium personnel accidentally shut the lights off thinking it was intermission.

14

(photos by Christopher Brian Dudek)

(photos by Christopher Brian Dudek)

The total number of Canadian players on both teams’ rosters (of 54 total spots).

13

The current streak of consecutive CCHA titles that Michigan and Michigan State have combined to win.

12

The total number of freshman forwards playing for Michigan and Michigan State Oct. 6.

9

Number of Michigan basketball games it would take to equal the attendance of the Oct. 6 Outdoor Game.

9

Number of days it took for regular Outdoor Game tickets to sell out.

6

Number of diary entries written by Spartan defenseman John-Michael Liles, made available on Michigan State’s website. Wrote Liles, “I never even dreamed that it would be this great.”

4

Number of games in Michigan State’s unbeaten streak against Michigan, dating back to last season.

0

The number of college hockey games Netherlands foreign exchange student Thomas Lo Gmas had attended before Saturday’s game. Lo Gmas is currently living in Fowlerville, Mich. with a host family. “It’s super fast, I love all the hits,” he said. (Just don’t expect 74,000 at every game, Thomas.)

Mark Francescutti is a freelance writer and can be reached at [email protected].

Franklin Pierce College to Add Varsity Men’s Hockey

USCHO Staff Report
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The Franklin Pierce College men’s ice hockey team will upgrade to NCAA Division II status and has accepted an invitation to participate in the ECAC Northeast Division beginning in the 2002-03 academic year after nearly 30 years of competition as a club program. The announcement was made today by Bruce Kirsh, Director of Athletics at the College.

logos/fpc.gif

“The College looks forward to making the commitment to fielding an NCAA ice hockey program,” said Kirsh. “We [are] excited about competing in the ECAC-Northeast and recognize the challenge ahead of us.”

The Ravens will become the 19th member of the ECAC’s Northeast Division, competing with the likes of Assumption, Fitchburg State, Plymouth State, Saint Michael’s, Southern New Hampshire and Stonehill. The ECAC also sponsors a Division II Championship that includes Saint Anselm.

The Franklin Pierce ice hockey team is nearly 30 years old, competing as a club program. The Ravens are currently a member of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA) and compete in the Northeast Collegiate Hockey Association (NECHA) with schools such as MIT, Bates, Bridgewater State and Springfield.

The Ravens captured the NECHA Championship in 1994-95 and 1995-96. The team was invited to the ACHA National Championships following the 1994-95 season.

Head Coach Jay McCormack, a 1986 graduate of the College and former hockey player, has been the driving force behind the program’s move and cites this as a personal goal throughout his 12-year reign as head coach.

“While the process didn’t begin in earnest until approximately 18 to 24 months ago, this was always a goal of mine for the program,” said McCormack. “It is the culmination of a lot of hard work by the athletic department and the College administration.”

McCormack has posted a 128-82-11 (.604) career record at the College.

“By attaching the NCAA label to our program, it gives us an added edge in recruiting and will help us bring better student-athletes to our campus,” added McCormack. “The ECAC Northeast is just a perfect fit for us from a competitive and geographical standpoint. So many of the teams are within a short drive of our campus.”

McCormack also notes that three other ECAC Northeast programs (Wentworth, Johnson and Wales and Salve Regina) have their roots in the NECHA.

With Franklin Pierce upgrading its program to NCAA status, there are also talks of the Northeast-10 Conference investigating adding the sport as a future Conference Championship. With Franklin Pierce at varsity status, there will be six NE-10 institutions sponsoring men’s ice hockey, thus making the sport eligible as a future NE-10 Championship sport.

“In keeping with one of the main aspects of the Division II Philosophy Statement, The Northeast-10 Conference is continually evaluating the expansion of the championships conducted,” said David Brunk, Commissioner of the Northeast-10. “With Franklin Pierce committed to varsity ice hockey effective in 2002, this will guarantee the required number of participant teams necessary for recognition in NCAA formulas and provide the opportunity of championship competition for those student-athletes.

“This, as with the addition of any conference sport, will be subject to a recommendation from the Directors Council and formal approval by the Northeast-10 Council of Presidents at their June, 2002, meeting.”

The Ravens begin their final club season on Wednesday, Oct. 17, when they host the Dartmouth club team at 7:30 p.m.

Newly-Named Women’s Leagues Produce 1st Coaches’ Polls

USCHO Staff Report
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Last year’s defending ECAC Champion, Dartmouth, was chosen as the favorite in the ECAC Women’s Hockey League – North Coaches’ Preseason Poll. The Big Green received six of the nine first place votes. The Big Green captured the ECAC Championship last season and lost in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament.

The national runners-up, St. Lawrence, received the other three first place votes and were voted second in the poll. The Saints dropped the championship game to Minnesota-Duluth.

Brown and Harvard were voted third and fourth, while Princeton Cornell and Yale followed them.

Newcomers to Division I play and the league, Colgate and Vermont, were voted to finish eighth and ninth in the league.

2001-2002 ECAC Women’s Hockey League – North Preaseason Coaches’ Poll

1. Dartmouth (6)       62
2. St. Lawrence (3)    58
3. Brown               50
4. Harvard             42
5. Princeton           38
6. Cornell             27
7. Yale                21
8. Colgate             17
9. Vermont              9

New Hampshire was picked to finish first in the ECAC Eastern Hockey League Preseason Coaches’ Poll. The Wildcats received six of the eight first place votes. New Hampshire will host this year’s Women’s Frozen Four.

The Wildcats were followed by the Providence Friars, who received the other two first place votes.

Niagara was voted third, followed by Northeastern, while Maine and Boston College followed.

Connecticut was picked to finish seventh and Quinnipiac eighth in the two teams debut in the ECAC.

The ECAC Womens Eastern Hockey League was created this season after the ECAC Division I Women’s Hockey League was split into two conferences.

2001-02 ECAC Eastern Women’s Hockey League Coaches Poll

1. New Hampshire (6)   48
2. Providence (2)      42
3. Niagara             36
4. Northeastern        32
5. Maine               27
6. Boston College      17
7. Connecticut         15
8. Quinnipiac           7

USCHO.com Recognized Again for Outstanding Coverage

USCHO Staff Report
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USCHO.com added to its recent hardware list when it was named winner of this year’s Murray Kramer/Scarlet Quill Memorial Award by the Boston University Athletic Department during its annual Hall of Fame Banquet.

USCHO.com's Dave Hendrickson and Scott Weighart accept the Scarlet Quill Award at the recent Boston University Hall of Fame Banquet.

USCHO.com’s Dave Hendrickson and Scott Weighart accept the Scarlet Quill Award at the recent Boston University Hall of Fame Banquet.

The award, named in honor of Boston University’s first Sports Information Director, is presented to an individual or organization in recognition of outstanding media coverage or publicity of intercollegiate sports. The recipient is chosen by the Boston University Hall of Fame executive committee.

The award has been given annually since 1965 and USCHO.com becomes only the fourth whole organization to receive it, joining NESN, ESPN and Channel 7 in Boston.

USCHO.com Hockey East Correspondent Dave Hendrickson and Boston University Game Reporter Scott Weighart accepted the award at the Hall of Fame Banquet.

Murray Kramer/Scarlet Quill Memorial Award Past Winners

2001 USCHO
2000 Susan Bickelhaupt/Barabara Huebner, Boston Globe
1999 Sean McDonough, FOX Sports/ABC-TV
1998 Doug Brown, WABU-TV
1997 Ed Carpenter, Boston University SID
1996 Bernie Corbett, BU play-by play, hockey and football
1995 Robert Gordon and Willl Meyl, WABU-TV
1994 Mitchell Freund, Sportschannel New England
1993 John Connolly, Boston Herald
1992 Bob Monahan, Boston Globe
1991 Briant Fitzgerald, B.U. Today
1990 Marvin Pave, Boston Globe
1989 Channel 7 Sports Department
1988 ESPN
1987 Mike Vega, Boston Globe
1986 New England Sports Network
1985 John Connolly, Boston Herald
1984 Jack O’Leary, Boston Herald
1983 Hill Kipouras, Salem Evening News
1982 Ted sarandis, WEEI Radio
1981 Vince Doria, Boston Globe
1980 Frank O’Brien, Boston Globe
1979 Dave O’Hara, Associated Press
1978 Ernie Roberts, Boston Globe
1977 Fran Rosa, Boston Globe
1976 Phil Bissell, Boston Herald-American
1975 Joe Giuliotti, Boston Herald-American
1974 Bob Monahan, Boston Globe
1973 Joe Concannon, Boston Globe
1972 Walter “Red” Smith, Syndicated Columnist
1971 Dick Dew, United Press International
1970 Jerry Nason, Boston Globe
1969 Roy Mumpton, Worcester Telegram & Gazette
1968 Cliff Sundberg, Boston Herald Traveler
1967 Murray Kramer, Boston Record-American
1966 Don Gillis, WHDH-TV
1965 Arthur Sampson, Boston Herald Traveler

A Wide-Open Field

By
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“In years past we probably had a top half and a bottom half. I don’t think there are any halves this season. I think it’s all wide open.”
— New Hampshire coach Dick Umile

“It’s going to be great for the fans and probably brutal for coaches.”
— Northeastern coach Bruce Crowder

In recent seasons it’s been difficult to handicap the race for the Hockey East crown. A year ago, the First to Fourth Lottery pointed to a clear path to playoff home ice for Boston College, Boston University, Maine and New Hampshire. Instead, BU stumbled to a sixth-place finish while Providence crashed the party of the league elites and tied for second place.

BC was atop the world in April, but graduation and defections have hit the Eagles hard.

BC was atop the world in April, but graduation and defections have hit the Eagles hard.

The season before that BC appeared to have the dominant talent to finish first and BU, coming off a down year, seemed primed for an even bigger crash after the graduation of Michel Larocque. Instead, BC’s regular-season inconsistencies held the Eagles to a third-place finish while BU surprised everyone by rebounding to take the Hockey East crown.

Even when the projections look easy, they’re frequently wrong or, at best, half-right.

A definite no-brainer, however, loomed for this year’s pick as regular-season champion. At least it looked that way back in April. The Boston College Eagles had dominated the 2000-2001 Hockey East race and gotten the 2000-pound gorilla off their backs when they won the national championship. Despite graduating a terrific senior class led by Brian Gionta, Bobby Allen and Scott Clemmensen, BC still returned exceptional talent led by a sophomore class that had been the envy of all recruiters last year.

During the offseason, however, all that changed. The Eagles crashed back to the rest of the pack when Krys Kolanos, Chuck Kobasew and Brooks Orpik all turned pro or left for juniors with eligibility remaining.

Now it’s as wide-open of a race as ever. Like last year, four different teams received first-place votes in the preseason coaches’ poll. Unlike any poll in memory, however, a fifth team — Providence — received the most total votes and therefore was projected to finish first… even though not a single coach picked the Friars to finish first. If that bizarre twist doesn’t underline the wide-open field this year, perhaps nothing can.

Even the five “favorites” have major questions. Many include that make-or-break position, goaltender, where the league as a whole lacks the dominant presence it has typically had in a Ty Conklin, Ricky DiPietro, Michel Larocque or Marc Robitaille. Questions exist even for Hockey East’s top two netminders, Nolan Schaefer (Providence) and Matt Yeats (Maine).

While the wide-open race should result in plenty of fan excitement and an even closer gap from top of the standings to bottom, that parity could also mean that no Hockey East teams will be dominant on the national stage. Unless one or two emerge, the league may not have its accustomed position in the polls or, potentially, in the NCAA tournament.

Of course, there’s a lot of hockey to be played between now and then, so let’s take a quick look at the nine teams, in order of predicted finish, with links provided for more detailed analysis. Click on any team’s name for its individual season preview page.

1. Providence

Devin Rask enjoyed a breakout season for the Friars in 2000-01.

Devin Rask enjoyed a breakout season for the Friars in 2000-01.

During the 1976 presidential race, Eugene McCarthy took a vicious swipe at Walter Mondale, saying that his fellow Minnesotan had “the soul of a vice president.” With no malice intended, the comparable question may be asked of the Friars. Will they be comfortable finishing a close second or will they have the fire to claim their first regular season Hockey East title?

The talent appears to be there. On paper, Providence can boast what should be the top offensive club in the league — perhaps by a wide margin — as well as its number-one goaltender, All-American Nolan Schaefer. Schaefer, however, was anything but spectacular over the second half last year. Will he return to his first-half form? And can PC replace defensive stalwarts Matt Libby and Jay Leach?

2. Maine

How will the Black Bears respond to the death of their beloved coach? Will the team find itself adrift without its heart and soul? Or will it draw on the memories of Shawn Walsh and play with the enthusiasm and competitive fire that he embodied?

Maine has the league’s best one-two tandem between the pipes and a deep offense, albeit one without a proven star. There are plenty of candidates for stardom up front, though, so the Black Bears could once again be filling the net early and often. The question lies with a thin defense that could have really used the return of Doug Janik.

3. New Hampshire

Arguably, Ty Conklin meant more to his team last year than any other player in the league. Can either of his backups rise to the challenge of replacing Mr. Irreplaceable? There will be new faces on the blue line, too, which could combine with the new face in the nets to cause problems.

It would be an upset of epic proportions if UNH once again broke the Hockey East record for least goals against like it did last year. However, a strong recruiting class and the return of most of its offense should spell a much more potent attack and playoff home ice, if not more.

4. Boston College

Other than losing Brian Gionta, Bobby Allen, Scott Clemmensen, Krys Kolanos, Chuck Kobasew, Brooks Orpik, Rob Scuderi, Mike Lephart, Marty Hughes and Mark McLennan, there aren’t any questions for the Eagles this year. In case you wondered, those losses included 117 goals, 281 points and one of the top goaltenders in the league. To put that in perspective, those 117 goals exceed last season’s total of five entire Hockey East teams.

As a result, there will be questions in the net, on defense and up front for Boston College. The Eagles ran away from the rest of the league last year in terms of production from their freshman class. They’ll need a similar performance in the months to come to challenge for first place.

5. Boston University

Last year, the Terriers never really recovered from the departure of goaltender Ricky DiPietro to the pro ranks. Inconsistent goaltending, sub-par performances on the blue line and a dearth of scoring combined for a sixth-place finish. Can the defense rebound? Will Sean Fields or Jason Tapp rise to the occasion in the BU nets? Who will carry the offensive load?

Although questions abound, the Terriers could make a run for the title. Their defense should rank among the league’s best from one to six on the depth chart. A stellar incoming class could give the team the same boost it received two years ago. And Fields could be poised for a breakout year.

6. Merrimack

SERINO

SERINO

Of course, concerns over coach Chris Serino’s health overshadow wins and losses. The Ws could also be tougher to come by if the Warriors’ inspirational leader can’t be his fiery self. That said, the Warriors bear watching and could surprise a lot of people.

Anthony Aquino is a great talent. If paired with Marco Rosa and Nick Parillo like last year, the trio will be one of the best lines in the league. Merrimack also returns all but one defenseman from a very young group that matured down the stretch last year. In goal, Joe Exter opened eyes en route to a berth on the league’s All-Rookie team.

If the maturing process continues, the second line contributes a little offense and the incoming freshmen provide a boost, this could be the surprise team of the league.

7. Northeastern

In defenseman Jim Fahey, the Huskies boast one of the league’s top talents. In Mike Ryan, one of its top snipers. In Willie Levesque, one of the hardest workers in the corners. There are certainly some of the ingredients necessary for a championship on Huntington Avenue, but most likely not all of them.

The Huskies will need stronger goaltending this year than last and a lot more scoring, not to mention some new blood to fill the holes on the blue line. That said, their recruiting class looks like a good one and there may be more finesse up front than in many years.

8. UMass-Lowell

The River Hawk roster is much stronger than that of a typical eighth-place team, but trouble lurks in the form of the French Olympic Team. Lowell will lose three of its best players — Yorick Treille, Laurent Meunier and top recruit Baptiste Amar — for up to 8-10 games starting in late January. That potentially amounts to over one-third of the team’s league schedule, which could prove to be a major broadside to its position in the standings.

If not for the departures, the River Hawks would be a strong contender for home ice and a much higher projection. Goaltender Jimi St. John emerged last year and a veteran defense returns all but Ron Hainsey. Up front, there are holes to fill, but Ed McGrane, Treille and Meunier form the talented nucleus of an underrated offense.

9. UMass-Amherst

Following the graduation of eight seniors led by forward Jeff Turner and goaltender Markus Helanen, UMass-Amherst will field an extraordinarily young team. This youth could keep the Minutemen in the Hockey East cellar, but the key for this program is not the short term, but rather the long term. Coach Don “Toot” Cahoon’s first recruiting class is almost exclusively from Massachusetts as he daringly tries to make the state school be the destination of choice for Bay Staters. If the homegrown talent — led by goaltender Tim Warner and forward Greg Mauldin — competes well as freshmen, the long term prospects in Amherst will look bright.

All of which is not to say that the current squad is bereft of talent or has nothing to play for in the short term. Defensemen Samuli Jalkanen and Toni Soderholm, along with forwards Tim Turner and Martin Miljko, are top players who could lead the charge out of the Hockey East cellar.

2001-02 Boston University Season Preview

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Over the last 12 years, BU hockey has experienced only two losing seasons. Unfortunately, those have come in two of the last three years. Has the Terriers’ reign of dominance come to an end or only hit a couple bumps in the road?

Or something in between?

Most likely something in between. It’s hard to see the Terriers snaring NCAA bids the next nine consecutive seasons, but it’s also hard to envision losing records every other year.

Coincidentally, both losing seasons featured the same record: 14-20-3. Two years ago, the Terriers rebounded with a 25-10-7 mark, a Beanpot title, a Hockey East regular season championship, and an NCAA tournament run that was only a quadruple-overtime game away from a trip to the Frozen Four.

Can they fashion another turnaround like that?

“We have to get better goaltending and we have to play with more consistency in our own zone,” says coach Jack Parker. “Our special teams were good last year on the offensive end. We had a great power play last year, but we didn’t kill penalties very well. Those are the areas we’d really like to improve upon.

“It’s a tough league. We could improve upon those areas and not improve our [position in the] standings because this is a great college hockey league and everybody seems to be at the top of their game right now.”

The pivotal position for BU is undoubtedly goaltending. While there were certainly some well-played nights in the Terrier nets last year, there were too many that were not. As soon as Jason Tapp or Sean Fields put a strong game or two together and appeared ready to seize the number one job, he’d toss it back like a hot potato. Not until Fields finally asserted himself in the playoffs did a clear leader appear.

At times, Tapp seemed burdened by the number one tag, as if he had to replace the departed Ricky DiPietro all by himself. Fields, the more athletic of the two, was a late signee who’d been plucked off the talent tree a year before his time. He still needed time to mature and work on his mechanics a little. Unfortunately, Tapp’s struggles pushed Fields into the limelight while he was still a Not Ready For Prime Time Player.

The hope is that his strength in the playoffs and overall maturing will make him a Very Ready For Prime Time Player this year, while Tapp rebounds in the number two role to play as well as he did when still in DiPietro’s shadow.

“We kind of rushed Fields after DiPietro left us in the lurch,” says Parker. “He should have been a freshman this year instead of last year. I think that in our minds he played real well most of the season. We didn’t give him a lot of games and he played very well in the playoffs.

“We’re hoping that he makes a step up and we’re hoping that Jason can revert back to the way he played his sophomore year. He had some great games that he gave us last year; he just wasn’t consistent enough. But I think that Sean Fields is the guy we’re going to be relying on.”

The offense also struggled last year. The 2.75 goals per game average in Hockey East contests was BU’s lowest figure since Hockey East formed. While admittedly scoring overall is down and the days of averaging five and a half goals (1994-95 and 1995-96) don’t seem likely to return, the Terriers clearly need to elevate their production or risk another 14-20-3 season.

Of course, it doesn’t help that top scorer Carl Corazzini and Dan Cavanaugh (fourth in points) are gone. Still, Brian Collins and Mike Pandolfo produced in the 30-point range last year and return along with Jack Baker and John Sabo. Baker needs to rebound to at least the 30-point plateau he hit as a sophomore before struggling with shoulder injuries last year. Sabo, who has never scored more than 18 points, can perhaps better channel his feistiness and become more of an offensive threat.

It’s way too early to call last year’s freshman class a bust, but the five forwards — Gregg Johnson, Mark Mullen, Frantisek Skladany, Ken Magowan and Steve Greeley — didn’t have a single player top 10 points. This will be a make-or-break year for most of them. Skladany seems the most likely of the five to emerge in a big way.

"Our sophomore class has got to make a big jump from their freshman year."

— Jack Parker

And if none of the above steps up, then perhaps this year’s freshmen will be ready. Most recruiting experts ranked BU’s incoming class as one of the best in the nation, based primarily on snagging four members of the U.S. Under-18 Team. Two of them are forwards, Brian McConnell and Justin Maiser, so they could potentially make an immediate impact.

“I think the freshmen are going to be a big part of our team, but not so much the offense,” says Parker. “I think it’s going to be the sophomores, juniors and seniors that can pick it up. Our sophomore class has got to make a big jump from their freshman year.”

While questions surround the goaltending and forwards, the defense looks like potentially the top group in the league. Pat Aufiero and Chris Dyment were All-Hockey East selections two years ago, but suffered disappointing seasons in 2000-20001. Freddie Meyer, not Dyment or Aufiero, was the Terriers’ best blueliner and could be an All-Hockey East choice this year. Following the three potential all-stars on the depth chart are juniors Mike Bussoli and John Cronin.

In addition to the returning starters are freshmen Ryan Whitney, one of the highest-rated recruits anywhere, and Bryan Miller. Both were offensively adept blueliners on the U.S. Under-18 Team.

“We have to get Dyment and Aufiero to play as they did their freshman and sophomore years,” says Parker. “They had off years last year, but if they [rebound] we certainly will have a lot of depth and we’ve added two great freshmen.

“I think Freddie Meyer is the best defensemen in the league and Cronin and Bussoli will give us solid performances. So we’re going to be very solid there, no question about it.

“The questions are, will we get a little bit more offense out of that group than we did last year and can we get their confidence level back to where it should be?”

2001-02 UMass-Amherst Season Preview

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When you finish in last place and then graduate your top goaltender, one of your top two scorers and four other forwards, you’d better have a vision for where the program is going because there may not be a lot of instant gratification in the offing. Fortunately for UMass-Amherst, second-year coach Don “Toot” Cahoon has just that vision.

Most observers would suggest that a Massachusetts state school can’t do what the University of Minnesota does, namely thrive using almost exclusively home-grown talent, because there are so many others vying for those players. Between Hockey East and the ECAC, there are seven Division I programs in Massachusetts and 12 in New England.

The argument goes that Boston College and Boston University have always skimmed off the cream of the local crop, Harvard has taken a brainiac here or there, and the rest of the competition snags most of the remaining local blue-chippers. It logically follows that you can’t win in Hockey East fielding a team consisting of crumbs brushed off of other recruiting tables.

Cahoon, however, has boldly gone after the local filet mignon, attempting to make UMass the place of choice rather than the athletic equivalent of a safety school. Nine of the 11 freshmen on the team are from Massachusetts, another is from New York and only one newcomer hails from Canada. The gamble will only pay off if the local kids can play, but Cahoon is confident that UMass hockey is on the right track.

“We think we’ve made some gains in establishing a recruiting program that has tapped the in-state kid and gotten him interested in what we’re doing here,” he says. “Then we tried to complement that by getting a few players from the outside that we think can bring special qualities to the program and maintain a good mix in a diverse type of environment which is reflective of the university itself. That [approach] has been put into place.

“We’ve also tried to establish the ground rules for the players and the people around the program as to what our culture will be. It takes more time than any 15- or 16-month period would allow, but we think, by in large, that we have at least established the ground rules, whether it be the expected behavior or what the practice settings are going to be like or what game environments are going to be like, what preparation will be required and so on.

“We’re just at the embryonic stage, if you will, of trying to put all these pieces in place. That’s basically been the first year’s endeavor along with creating a mindset for training and a commitment to a sense of purpose to moving this program slowly but surely up the ladder of Hockey East.”

How quickly does Cahoon expect to see dividends? This year? Next year? Two years?

“Everybody asks those questions,” says Cahoon. “Your guess is as good as mine, quite honestly. Do I think we will in subtle ways? Yes, we will, but we’re going to be very young.

“I doubt that there will be a team in Division I college hockey younger than us. With that you’re going to get enthusiasm and you’re going to get probably inconsistent play. I hope that some of our young players are viewed as being promising, real good performers within this league. If they are, then they’re going to be terrific college hockey players and we need to nurture those kids. We need to try and merge that group in with the returning players, the veterans, to try to come up with some kind of team concept that can sustain itself.”

The position of greatest transition will be at forward, where five seniors graduated, most notably Jeff Turner. His brother Tim returns as the leading scorer along with Martin Miljko, who could be poised for a big breakout year.

“[Miljko] has real offensive ability,” says Cahoon. “He shoots the puck as well as any college player I’ve seen in quite a while. He has the ability to be a true goalscorer and he’s come in in good shape and he has a good mentality. He had a great first half of the season last year, but really struggled as the team struggled down the stretch. [In the first 18 games, he scored 11 goals and assisted on eight others, compared to only a single goal and two assists in the final 13 contests.] So we’re hoping that he can put it all together this year.

“Tim Turner has been a productive player for us for two years. It will be interesting to see what Timmy can do without his brother. Clearly he has good ability, he has great passion and he’s a physically strong kid, so I expect him to have a productive year.”

Cahoon also expects big things out of Darcy King even though the senior has never totaled more than 13 points.

“He came here as a very young junior player and I think he’s going to come into his own,” says Cahoon. “He’s really demonstrated a level of fitness that we really didn’t have last year and I think that that’s going to really help him a lot.”

Ultimately, however, the fortunes of the offense will rest on almost as many freshman shoulders as veterans. Of the 15 UMass forwards, seven are rookies. Can such a young group be more productive than last year’s unit which finished last in Hockey East scoring?

“That’s the big unknown,” says Cahoon. “Virtually half of those forwards are going to be first-year players. It remains to be seen how they adjust and what guys get caught up with the transition and what guys can just move forward without much difficulty. It’s virtually impossible to think we’re going to be able to go into the season without having them very much in the mix.

“Quite honestly, we’re thinking all the guys are going to be able to contribute. But Greg Mauldin and Matt Walsh are probably physically as ready as any of the freshmen we have.

“Greg was kind of a late bloomer. He surpassed anybody’s expectations at the college level of what he might become. He continues to show us that he’s still improving on a very consistent basis so we’re excited about working with him. That’s not to say that he’s going to come in here and light it up, but I think he’s going to be a pretty good performer and someone we’re looking forward to having in our lineup.

"You have to make demands and you have to go after it in a big way. But at the same time … if you can’t have a perspective and understand that this game is the game you love and it’s supposed to be, above all, fun and really enjoyable, then it’s not worth doing."

— UMass-Amherst head coach Don ‘Toot’ Cahoon

“Matt Walsh is a little bit more experienced. He maybe is not going to be a big offensive player for us, but I think he’ll get around the rink and he’ll make his presence felt pretty well. He comes from good stock. His dad is Eddie Walsh, who played with me at BU and is a good friend. We’re thinking Matt certainly can step in.”

Goaltender is the other position in transition. Longtime number one netminder Markus Helanen is gone, leaving behind senior Mike Johnson and highly-regarded freshman Tim Warner. Johnson was hardly a benchwarmer during Helanen’s tenure, figuring in 12 decisions last year and posting a 3.81 GAA and a .891 save percentage.

“They’re both going to contribute, but certainly Mike has the advantage in the early going,” says Cahoon. “He knows exactly what college hockey is all about. He understands the level of the competition. He’s logically a few steps ahead of the curve.

“Timmy was a real good get for us. He’s a high profile player. But it’s a big jump from where he’s been and where he is now, so he has his work cut out for him as he knows.

“Well take it as it comes. I’ve always lived by the adage that if you play well, you get rewarded with further play. It’s all based on their performance. If either one of them play exceptionally well, they’ll carry the load, the motherlode anyway. If they both play well, then they’ll both get a chance to contribute.”

Defense marks the point of greatest stability on the Minutemen. Samuli Jalkanen and Toni Soderholm anchor the unit. Junior Kelly Sickavish and senior Randy Drohan also return along with Nick Kuiper, who joined the team in midseason last year. While freshmen will undoubtedly see a lot of time at forward and potentially in goal, this group will be a tougher one to crack for rookies Jeff Lang (NE Prep All-New England), Sean Regan (NE Prep All-New England) and Dusty Demianiuk.

“I think we’ll get some help from the younger players on defense, but our defensive core is the veteran group,” says Cahoon. “Certainly if you had a preseason all-league team, Soderholm and Jalkanen should be on the list of players to choose from.

“They are very different from each other. Jalkanen has got the big motor; he has an impact in almost every game he plays. Soderholm, who right now is as healthy as he’s been since I’ve been here, is very clever and more traditionally what you’d expect from a European defenseman. He’ll make the nifty passes and the more difficult plays. He’s maybe not as physical as Sammy, but he’s very gifted with the puck. Those two bring the most experience.

“Sickavish and Kuiper are good players, but they’re going to [have to] come into their own in order to get to the status [of the other two].”

Given that there will almost certainly be growing pains with such a young team, Cahoon will have to work at keeping the optimism high regardless of the wins and losses.

“We try to make the whole experience a real positive one,” he says. “I enjoy what I’m doing and I think that clearly defines the way the team functions. They know there’s going to be a level of enthusiasm and there’s going to be a level of energy regardless of what’s happening winning or losing-wise. That hopefully eases some of the difficulties.

“That’s not to say that I’m easy going and I just accept ill fate. I’m just like any other coach. You have to make demands and you have to go after it in a big way. But at the same time, geez, after what has happened in the last few weeks [the Sept. 11 attacks and the death of Shawn Walsh], if you can’t have a perspective and understand that this game is the game you love and it’s supposed to be, above all, fun and really enjoyable, then it’s not worth doing.”

2001-02 Maine Season Preview

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It’s anyone’s guess how well the Maine team will cope with the death of its long-time leader, Shawn Walsh.

“It’s a huge impact,” says assistant coach Grant Standbrook. “We loved the guy. [Anyone who] saw the team at the funeral would know what I was referring to. They were all in tears and devastated by it.

“I had a long talk with them before we went on the ice for the Blue-White game [on Sept. 30]. I said, ‘Shawn would expect you to just pick up like nothing happened and continue on.’ But, of course, that can’t happen. It’s difficult to get them focused in the moment because of what’s been going on around them.

“[Interim head coach] Tim [Whitehead] has done a great job to date and they like him. His practices have been very crisp and quick. They’ve enjoyed the practices. It’s been an outlet for them.”

If the players can channel their grief into playing with the intensity their legendary mentor demanded of them, the Black Bears may be a very strong team this year.

The strength begins in goal. Senior Matt Yeats backboned the 2000 trip to the Frozen Four and is a proven money goaltender. He did open last year with an inconsistent start, though, so he may have a little extra to prove. Fellow senior Mike Morrison would hold down the number-one position at many other schools. His statistics provide ample evidence: three-year goals against averages of 1.73, 2.67 and 1.96 along with save percentages of .917, .894 and .924.

“Our goaltending is strong,” says Standbrook. “Matt may have had a few games at the beginning of the year when he let in a soft goal, but I think that also speaks of the way our team was playing at that time. We were more inconsistent than it was later in the year. For a goaltender to play well on any team at any level, it’s not just the goaltenders. Your defensive record is expressed in the attitude of the forwards’ backchecking and the way that the defensemen play.”

The way that the defensemen play this year may be the deciding factor in how far this team goes. The Black Bears lost four mainstays on the blue line, including Doug Janik, who left for the pros with one year of eligibility remaining. Peter Metcalf will lead the returning group that also includes junior Cliff Loya and last year’s big freshman defensive surprise, Francis Nault.

The team will need to get significant minutes out of the blueline newcomers: Troy Barnes (COJHL Defenseman of the Year), Jon Jankus, Paul Lynch, Matt Deschamps and Prestin Ryan. Ryan practiced with the team last year after arriving from Saskatchewan, but was not eligible to play until this season.

“If anything, that’s our weakest position,” says Standbrook. “But when I say weak, I mean relatively speaking [compared to our forwards and goaltenders], and I think that we’re going to be very fine. We’ll have a solid nucleus plus some young players who are very promising.

“Our captain, Peter Metcalf, is a solid competitor. Francis Nault gained a lot of experience last year. Obviously we’re going to miss a guy like Doug Janik, who was a fierce competitor. He played with sprained ankles and the worst groin tear our trainer has ever handled. At times in the third period he couldn’t even push with one leg. We’ll miss him, but other guys have got to pick it up.

“Were actually trying out several guys now and it may be a little bit of a different look. We didn’t get very many points from the point last year, but I think we can get a lot more this year. We’ll be better at breaking out. It may mean we’re weaker defensively, but time will tell.”

Even though Maine struggled to score at times last year, the offense has the potential to be very strong. The top three scorers and six of the top seven return, led by Martin Kariya. Kariya’s linemate, Michael Schutte, provides a wealth of intriguing possibilities.

SCHUTTE

SCHUTTE

Schutte moved from defense to forward in midseason and promptly became one of the league’s top snipers, finishing with 15 goals. Certainly the most memorable one was his converting a Kariya feed with three seconds left in regulation to force overtime against Minnesota in the NCAAs. Who knows how many goals the two can produce over an entire year?

“They’re even roommates now,” says Standbrook with a smile. “Schutte was the leading scorer in college hockey the last month of the season. He’s got great hands. He can get his shot off in traffic. He’s got great balance in traffic. Martin Kariya is noted for his intensity and his ability to see the ice and make great plays. They have already formed the basis of one line.”

Niko Dimitrakos may be another offensive explosion waiting to happen. One got the impression in past years that the highly-skilled senior was content to be a very good player when he could have been a great one. Possessing the potential of a 50-point scorer, Dimitrakos has produced between 25 and 27 points all three years, frequently sidelined by injuries or benchings because of indifferent defense or insufficient hustle.

“For the first time I think it’s struck home,” says Standbrook. “There’s been a great difference in his body. He’s playing at eight percent body fat now and you would barely recognize him if you knew him before. So I think he’s turned the corner.

“His skills are immense and now he’s got the condition to go along with it. He’ll certainly be a threat. He made the all-tournament team in the NCAAs when he was a freshman and he had been benched 11 games that year, and he hasn’t done that much in the interim. But look out for him.”

Juniors Chris Heisten, Lucas Lawson and Robert Liscak each totaled over 20 points last year and will fit somewhere in the picture along with Tommy Reimann. While Ben Murphy leads a host of freshmen who will vie for time, the new face in the lineup most likely to put points on the board is Colin Shields, last year’s top recruit who was ruled ineligible.

“He just dances on his skates and he’s got a terrific release,” says Standbrook. “He’ll be a threat every time he’s on the ice.”

2001-02 Merrimack Season Preview

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Amidst all the preseason focus on expected wins and losses, the one W the entire league hopes for is in coach Chris Serino’s battle with throat cancer. If Serino defeats the disease, it will be a successful season no matter what the standings say.

That said, Merrimack fans can hope for a huge victory off the ice for their coach and a lot of big victories on the ice, too. Last year, the Warriors finished in eighth place, only a point out of the cellar. However, that position was also only six points removed from fifth place and 10 points from playoff home ice. The doormat days are long gone.

“The optimism around the program is higher this year than it’s ever been,” says associate head coach Mike Doneghey. “Last year, we brought in 10 freshmen and we had to do a lot of teaching. This year there are two or maybe three [new] guys who are going to be in the lineup. Other than that, it will be sophomores, juniors and seniors, so the teaching will be more fine-tuning.”

The strength begins at forward where Merrimack will have a legitimate candidate for Hockey East Player of the Year in Anthony Aquino. Only Providence’s Devin Rask scored more points among returning forwards. However, to assume that Aquino’s line amounts to a-superstar-and-two-pylons is to make a big mistake.

Dubbed the Ba-Da-Bing Line by the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune‘s Kevin Conway, it also includes sophomore Marco Rosa and senior Nick Parillo. Rosa proved to be a skilled player himself in his first year and Parillo’s 16 goals didn’t all come on easy tap-ins set up by Aquino. Parillo’s excellent speed and nonstop work ethic make him a constant threat.

Ryan Kiley, who contributed 11 goals last year, is the only other proven returning scorer, but Matt Foy is another highly-regarded, younger recruit out of Ontario following in Aquino and Rosa’s footsteps. He’s expected to make an immediate impact along with Taras Foremsky, an older winger from Alberta.

“As of right now, [the Ba-Da-Bing line] is not together,” says Doneghey. “At first when we got back to camp, we had them together and they didn’t miss a beat after the whole summer. If need be, we can go back to them [as a line].

“[But for now] we’ve kept Rosa and Aquino together and put Foremsky with those guys. On the second line, we have Ryan Cordeiro, who transferred in from New Hampshire, centering Parillo and Foy. We’re strong down the middle. I think that our top two lines can skate with anybody in the league.”

Cordeiro may be a bigger contributor than he showed at UNH since his hard work along the boards may be better suited to Merrimack’s rink than the Olympic sheet in Durham.

“He’s a helluva hard worker,” says Doneghey. “I think with Ryan it all depends on what type of role you use him in. He’s not going to be a first-line skill guy who’s going to put up 50 or 60 points. But he can be a second-line or third-line center and maybe get 30 to 35 points.

“We think that he can do some things. We know he’s going to kill penalties. He’s a hard-nosed kid who’s going to be in your face all over the ice.”

Defensively, the Warriors should be much improved over last year’s unit, which allowed more goals per game than any other Hockey East team. Blue line leader Stephen Moon graduated, but seven defensemen who saw considerable ice time return along with Darren Clarke, who was injured early but has the potential to be a very good one.

“Last year we had five freshman defensemen who played every night,” says Doneghey. “With the extra experience alone, they’re going to be better.”

Actually, that experience began to pay dividends late last season. The final two regular-season games were a 1-1 tie with Maine and 3-2 win over Boston University. Then, facing a juggernaut Boston College team in the playoffs, the Warriors surrendered only a fluke goal in a 1-0 loss and were down only 2-1 the following night with three minutes to play.

“At the end of the year, our defensemen took it to another level,” says Doneghey. “That’s probably because Darren Clarke was our oldest defenseman coming in last year and he was injured so he didn’t get to play. Other than that, we had 19-year-old kids who were coming out of prep school.

“Hey, you’re in Hockey East now. You’ve got to play! Once they got adapted to the league and the schedule, it showed.”

"Hey, you’re in Hockey East now. You’ve got to play!"

— Merrimack associate head coach Mike Doneghey, on adapting the Warrior freshmen to the college game.

Goaltender Joe Exter earned Hockey East All-Rookie Team honors last year and will likely shoulder even more of the load this season. Tom Welby has graduated, leaving behind senior Jason Wolfe and freshman Casey Guenther to compete for backup minutes.

“I think Joey Exter is probably one of the top four goalies in the league,” says Doneghey. “He was a game under .500 and we were [six] games under .500. His save percentage was 91.

“Plus, he sat out the whole year before so he was not only a freshman playing-wise, but he hadn’t had the luxury of playing anything the year before besides practice. Now he knows the league and he knows the shooters. He’s a year older and he’s actually going to be an assistant captain.

“I expect Joey to play a lot, but I also expect between Jason Wolfe and Casey Guenther to maybe give Joey a night off here and there. I don’t want to get in a situation where Joey has to play 30 of the 34 games. I’d like him to maybe play 24 or 25 games and maybe the other nights for those two guys to step in. But if they can’t, Joey is used to playing a lot of games.

“Casey has to get a little bit stronger. He’s a Canadian kid and they don’t lift a lot of weights out in Manitoba where he’s from. But he’s got all the tools. He’s quick laterally.

“Jason is a senior, so maybe the bell has gone off in his head and maybe he can do some things for us, too.”

2001-02 UMass-Lowell Season Preview

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The biggest change in Lowell, of course, isn’t the usual departure of graduating players and influx of freshmen, but rather the arrival last spring of new coach Blaise MacDonald. Arguably, former coach Tim Whitehead should have been treated better and still be at the River Hawk helm. He was, after all, a finalist for national coach of the year.

However, once Whitehead and Lowell parted ways, the program could not have made a better choice than MacDonald. The Greater Lowell favorite son was a magician at Niagara, creating a program out of nothing and, in just its fourth year of existence, directing the Purple Eagles to an NCAA berth and first-round victory over UNH. Of course, vaulting to the top of College Hockey America is a much easier task than accomplishing that feat in Hockey East.

“With a team like Lowell, we’re always the hunters,” says MacDonald. “There are always four teams [in Hockey East] that are the hunted. There are two tiers. Maybe one team goes back and forth, but you’ve got BC, BU, UNH and Maine. They are always the hunted. Providence is going to be up in that top tier this year, too, without question.

“So we’re the hunters, but that’s fine. We like that.”

How well they’ll hunt this year remains to be seen. The River Hawks didn’t lose many players from last year’s squad, but the ones they did lose leave behind some very large shoes to fill. Most notably, All-American and First-Team All-Hockey East defenseman Ron Hainsey turned pro with two years of eligibility remaining. Combined with number-three scorer Brad Rooney and largebodies Kyle Kidney (number-five scorer) and Jeff Boulanger, the losses amount to replacing quality, not quantity.

Even more significantly, Laurent Meunier, Yorick Treille and top recruit Baptiste Amar will leave the team in late January to join the French National Team for the Olympics. The trio could miss as many as 8-10 games, of which only one would be a nonconference contest. That stretch run and the injury list at that point could make or break the team in the Hockey East standings.

Had Hainsey returned and the Olympics not claimed three top players, this team might have had a great shot at playoff home ice. Don’t forget that after a disastrous 1-6 start in Hockey East games last year, the River Hawks finished 9-5-3 before toppling New Hampshire in the playoffs to advance to the FleetCenter.

Hainsey, however, won’t be skating on the Tsongas Arena ice this year and the three Frenchmen will be making a jersey switch at a most inopportune time. Nonetheless, MacDonald is nonplussed.

“That’s okay,” he says. “It’s a wonderful [opportunity] for somebody else to have a challenge and to make an impact.”

One such impact player — even though he doesn’t play the position of Meunier, Treille or Amar — is goaltender Jimi St. John. Hockey East doesn’t give a Most Improved Player Award, but if it did the senior would have been a leading candidate. After never posting a goals against average under three or a save percentage better than .874, he improved both numbers to 2.55 and .906, respectively, while stealing the top position from fellow senior Cam McCormick.

Even though St. John played the final 16 games of the 2000-2001 season, however, MacDonald isn’t tipping his hand as to who will be his number one.

“We have two very experienced goaltenders who have played in a lot of big games and been around for a long time,” he says. “I think we’ll see their experience be their strongest asset this season. It should be a strong position for us.”

Except for Hainsey, Lowell returns all its defensemen, including four seniors: Chris Gustafson, Kevin Kotyluk, R. J. Tolan, and Josh Allison. Sophomores Darryl Green and Jerramie Domish also made strong first impressions last year. The group has an abundance of 5-10 blueliners, who have proven that you don’t have to be a redwood to be effective at the position. Added to that mix will be Amar, who is almost certainly the most highly regarded Lowell recruit.

“He’s similar to Ron Hainsey,” says MacDonald. “He can really control the play, can establish a pretty good breakout, make that first pass and really dictate momentum.”

If Amar can fill the quarterbacking role, the blueliners as a unit have the chance to be a special group.

“That’s going to be the strength of our team,” says MacDonald. “We possess a lot of true grit, incredible competitive spirit and a high level of pride coupled with talent.”

Up front, Meunier and Treille, who are both in their last year of eligibility, lead the offense along with junior Ed McGrane, one of the better-kept secrets in the league. The River Hawks finished fourth in scoring last season, but may be hard-pressed to match that without Hainsey, especially on the power play where he was such a force.

“We’ve lost three of our top five scorers,” says MacDonald, mindful that when Treille and Meunier leave for the Olympics that number goes to five of the top six. “That’s a significant hole. We need a lot of shared, increased productivity out of the returning forwards. I think we’ll get that, but there’s an unknown there.

“We’ve had guys make significant jumps in their strength and conditioning — off the chart improvements. The breakthroughs in conditioning their bodies will condition their mind. I can see Tom Rouleau having a big year. I can see Ed McGrane making a quantum leap. There’s a handful of other guys who could have breakthrough years.

“People might look at Lowell as last year being kind of one-dimensional in Ron Hainsey. The players need to change people’s perception.”

2001-02 Boston College Season Preview

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BC coach Jerry York had planned on trying to replace Brian Gionta, Bobby Allen and the rest of the graduated senior class, but what he hadn’t counted on was also losing Brooks Orpik, Chuck Kobasew and Krys Kolanos to either the pros or junior leagues. Nonetheless, the Eagles have hardly gone from the penthouse to the outhouse. While they are no longer the consensus top team in Hockey East, they still have many of the necessary pieces to the Hockey East title puzzle. The question is whether they can develop the rest of those pieces.

“We still have an excellent core of players,” says York. “We’re going to get enough goals, I think, but we’re a little untested in goal and on defense. That’s probably my biggest concern early. We’ll have to really concentrate [on our play] from the blue line back.”

This year’s squad will look very different from recent veteran-laden BC teams. Only two seniors and four juniors populate a roster otherwise filled with 17 freshmen and sophomores. Mindful of that, York will be focusing on developing that young talent in the early going as opposed to staking a claim to first place as in recent years.

“Our goal is to be a much better team in January than we are when we start,” he says. “So I think in our second half we’ll see a team that’s matured a lot and is much more confident. We’re going to try to learn a lot that first semester.”

The biggest challenge will come on defense, where sophomore J.D. Forrest heads a returning class that also includes fellow sophomore Brett Pederson and junior Bill Cass. Forrest, nicknamed Mini-Motts for the way his playing style resembles former BC Hobey Baker winner Mike Mottau, actually tied seniors Bobby Allen and Rob Scuderi for the team scoring lead among blueliners with 23 points. He’ll quarterback the power play and could possibly log substantial playing time like Mottau did.

FORREST

FORREST

“Rob Scuderi, Brooks Orpik and Bobby Allen played the most minutes last year,” says York. “Now we have to play a lot of younger guys. I think J.D. Forrest is a real leader back there. We’ll have to depend on J.D. early even though he’s just a sophomore.”

Freshmen John Adams, Andrew Alberts and Taylor Leahy will all have the opportunity to contribute. Adams is the most offensively proficient of the trio while Alberts provides the most imposing physique at 6-4, 220 pounds. The two Minnesotans appear to have the inside track in the race for playing time. Sophomore Joe Schuman and junior Anthony D’Arpino may have more success cracking this year’s inexperienced lineup than last year’s veteran group.

With such extremely young blueliners, the BC goaltenders will likely be tested more often and more severely than in recent years. Will they be up to the challenge? No one really knows.

As a freshman two years ago, Tim Kelleher outplayed Scott Clemmensen for the first four months of the season. The heir apparent seemed poised to oust the veteran before his time was up. Instead, Clemmensen got hot down the stretch and became The Man for BC’s title drive.

Nonetheless, most expected going into last season that the two would again split most of the time in nets. Unfortunately for Kelleher, he got off to a terrible start and eventually contracted mononucleosis while Clemmensen turned in one rock-solid performance after another. By season’s end, Kelleher had logged only five games in what was personally a lost year.

Having failed to solidify his hold on the job, Kelleher now faces challenges from freshmen Matti Kaltiainen and Robbie Miller. As a fourth-round draft pick of the Boston Bruins, Kaltiainen may be tough competition

“Timmy is in the program now for his third year and he’s capable of giving us some real good goaltending,” says York. “We also think [a lot of] both freshman. But the expectation is that Matti Kaltiainen will be able to adjust from Europe to the United States type of hockey here and will be a real good player for us. I feel good about our goaltending, but we’re very inexperienced.”

Despite the departure of players who scored 117 goals and 281 points last year, offense doesn’t look like a problem. Gionta, Kolanos, Kobasew and Lephart are gone, but Ben Eaves, Jeff Giuliano, Tony Voce and Ales Dolinar return with a lot more firepower than most fans assume. Their combined total of 123 points tops all but Providence’s top four returnees.

“Those four forwards will supply offense,” says York. “We’ll depend on them a lot more this year. Down the stretch, I thought Ben Eaves was certainly one of the top players in our drive for the national title.

“There’s going to be very different personnel than Eagle fans have had a chance to watch over the last few years. We have youth in a lot of different areas, but we have some very fine players. We’ll just have to be patient as we develop other players up front.”

Freshmen Ryan Murphy and David Spina, both members of the U.S. Under-18 Team, lead a group of five newcomers who are all vying to fill the holes up front left behind by Gionta and Co.

“Ryan Murphy and David Spina might be two names that will stand out, but it’s really early,” says York. “It’s hard to stand out as a freshman, especially when you don’t have a lot of veterans on the club.”

York knows that BC fans, not to mention the coaching staff, may be in for a culture shock in the early going.

“It’s going to be a challenging year, but yet a very exciting and rewarding process that we’ll go through,” he says. “Our goal is to really keep it simple this year. Week by week, to just keep progressing. My overall goal is, ‘Hey, let’s just be way better the second half of the year.'”

2001-02 Northeastern Season Preview

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Northeastern finished a disappointing 13-19-4 last year, making it three straight losing seasons on Huntington Avenue. The Huskies defeated NCAA tournament-bound St. Lawrence and Wisconsin, not to mention New Hampshire, BU, Rensselaer and Harvard, but overall the wins were too few and far between.

The Huskies then lost their top scorer and two key defensemen to graduation. Even so, coach Bruce Crowder thinks he has the ingredients for a turnaround.

“We’re going to be young, but I think we have great leadership in our senior class,” he says. “That combination is going to be good in a way because the freshmen are looking at guys like Willie Levesque and Chris Lynch and Jim Fahey and their work ethic and their desires. I just know it’s going to rub off on them and they’re going to want to compete just as hard just to keep up with those guys.

“I think right now it’s a good mix. It’s a mix that I haven’t had in awhile here at Northeastern and I think you need that type of leadership from the top down.”

As has recently been the case, offense was a problem last season. The Huskies ranked next to last in scoring and then lost top point-getter Greg Mischler, who led Hockey East in assists with 32 while also scoring 10 goals. On the plus side, however, junior Mike Ryan returns, having established himself as one of the better snipers in the league. Hard-working Willie Levesque and Chris Lynch are also back for their senior seasons.

Those three form the veteran core up front, followed by junior Joe Mastronardi and sophomores Scott Selig and Trevor Reschny.

“Mike Ryan had a breakout year, going from four goals to 17,” says Crowder. “We need him to take that type of leap again going into his junior year. He’s a very skilled individual.

“Willie Levesque is a guy that we’ve got to have shoot the puck more. Statistically, Willie’s shooting percentage was one of the best in the league. His shooting percentage was 23 percent, but he only took 56 shots. So he’s a guy that has to shoot the puck more. He has a good shot and should play to his strengths.

“Chris Lynch needs to rebound a little bit. He didn’t have the same production last year that he did his sophomore year. Those are the guys that we really need to count on.”

Crowder will also be counting on his freshman class to make an immediate impact up front. On paper, it’s an impressive group led by Jared Mudryk (102 points, AJHL), Jason Guerriero (NAHL MVP) and Jaron Herriman (MWJHL MVP).

“It’s probably the most skilled forward freshman class I might have ever brought in anywhere,” says Crowder. “They all come in with different awards and accolades. We felt recruiting-wise we needed more skill up front and that’s what we feel we went out and got. We won some recruiting battles and that’s big. Now we need those kids to step forward and crack the ice a little bit.”

Unlike many of their more rugged predecessors, the three incoming freshmen emphasize speed and skill over size. Guerriero stands 5-8, 175 pounds, Herriman 5-10, 190, and Mudryk 5-6, 165.

“We hope we can surround those guys with pretty good guys that can grind and muck it up a little bit,” says Crowder. “You look at guys like Eric Ortlip, who I thought had a decent freshman year. We can get more out of him. And Joe Mastronardi, we can get more out of him. Even Leon Hayward, a guy that’s a senior. We need more from him.

“I don’t think we’re going to be a team that’s as rugged in slamming people, but maybe a little more a finesse, skilled team that will compete at 110 percent level at every game.”

Jim Fahey (Second-Team All-Hockey East) and Arik Engbrecht will lead a very young defensive corps. Brian Sullivan and Joe Mancuso are the only other returning blueliners, and Mancuso may be moved up front. As a result, immediate contributions will be needed from the incoming class of six recruits led by Brian Nathe (US Under-18 Team), Tim Judy (USHL Second-Team All-Star) and Donnie Grover.

“We have Fahey, of course, but we also need Arik Engbrecht to be healthy,” says Crowder. “He can be a great defenseman in this league. One of his goals to be healthy all year. If he is, that’s going to be a huge plus for us.

“Brian Sullivan is a kid that has put on about 10 or 15 pounds over the summer. He’s got to step it up as a junior coming back.

“I look at us as maybe being in a similar position to what Providence went through last year. They had two senior defensemen, [Matt] Libby and [Jay] Leach, and a lot of young guys. The two seniors kind of settled the fort [for the young guys.]

“To have that happen for us, we need our goaltending stepping up to the point where everybody can play with a lot more confidence.”

It’s not a coincidence that Northeastern’s last winning season was in 1997-98 when Marc Robitaille was in the nets. Since that time, the Huskies have tended to get average or inconsistent goaltending, at best. Both Mike Gilhooly (8-14-4, 3.15 GAA, .890 Sv%) and Jason Braun (5-5-0, 3.57 GAA, .895 Sv%) have had their bright moments, but .890 and .895 save percentages aren’t going to lead many teams to winning records.

“I don’t care what level you’re at, you have to have somebody who can get the job done in goal,” says Crowder. “If you have the best forwards in the world and the best defense in the world, but your goaltender is a guy that’s going to let the soft one in, it just starts to snowball.

“Not to throw everything on the goaltenders. It would be nice if we could score a few more goals to maybe take the pressure off our defense and goaltender. It’s kind of a catch-22.”

All too often over the past few years, the Huskies have held territorial advantages in games only to lose because the forwards weren’t scoring and the goalies weren’t coming up big. As a result, it wasn’t a surprise to see the push for more skill up front and more competition in the net. The latter comes from freshman Keni Gibson (COJHL Goalie of the Year), who was second in all Canadian junior leagues in goals against average and save percentage.

“There’s no doubt that Michael Gilhooly, in our opinion, has the ability to do what he needs to get done for us to be competitive,” says Crowder. “At the same time, Keni Gibson coming in as a freshman can really push [Gilhooly]. And we still have Jason Braun. If for whatever reason, things don’t get done, he’s a guy that’s played some games and won some games for us.”

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