No. 1 ranked Hobart looks to complete a perfect first half when Trinity visits the Cooler on Saturday night (Photo by Kevin Colton – Lead Photographer/HWS Athletics)
It is the final weekend of the first half of the season and there are a lot of teams seeking victory to send their players into finals and home for the break feeling very good about where they are at this point of the season. I am seeking the same validation on my weekly picks as I finished at a less than stellar 6-4-2 (.583) last week to move to 41-21-6 (.647) on the season. Nothing like super sizing the list of the picks to finish strong in December and with plenty to look forward to in the second half in January. The schedule has some great non-conference action, battles of east v. west and travel partner games before the break. Lots to choose from so here are this week’s picks to close out December:
Wednesday, December 7, 2022
(7) Endicott v. Wesleyan
A great non-conference battle that should produce a lot of goals with both teams having depth and balance upfront. The Cardinals are off to a great start and won’t let the Gulls diminish a terrific first half of the season that includes an upset over a ranked team – Wesleyan, 6-5
Salve Regina v. Plymouth State
The Seahawks go north to take on a Panther team that is very similar to them in style of play. This one may need extra time or a late power play to decide a winner. Special teams dominate the score sheet – PSU, 5-4
Thursday, December 8, 2022
New England College v. Salem State
The red-hot Pilgrims face a longtime/old time rival on the road and this one should have fans entertained for the full 60 minutes. A fast start helps the visitors hold off a determined Vikings squad that come up a little short – NEC, 4-2
Friday, December 9, 2022
(6) Geneseo v. Brockport
The Knights have had a challenging first half with injuries but need to continue to amass points in a SUNYAC contest before the break. Coach Schultz’s teams know how to rise to the occasion and do so against their travel partner when it counts in the third period – Geneseo, 4-3
Stevenson v. Trine
The Mustangs picked a killer road trip to close out the first half starting with a Trine team that tied Utica at “The Aud.” If a split is in the cards (Mustangs are bigger underdogs playing Adrian on Saturday) then Coach Dawes team really needs to build momentum with a solid 60 minutes on Friday resulting in a “W” – Stevenson, 3-2
Canton v. Potsdam
The Kangaroos genuinely enjoy playing and beating anyone in the SUNYAC and the Bears are a winnable game for the visitors, but home team has some swagger after Plattsburgh win. Third period rally gets it done in dramatic fashion for the Bears – Potsdam, 4-3
Williams v. Amherst
The two teams both wear purple and are rivals in every sport they play against each other in. Throw out the records when they play because there are always surprises. Better goaltending the difference for the visitors who also find the rest of their offensive game – Williams, 3-2
Lebanon Valley v. Chatham
The Cougars better be wary of the Flying Dutchmen who can play a stifling game that frustrates opponents. Do not expect a lot of scoring in this one as the goaltending will be outstanding – Chatham, 2-1
Saturday, December 10, 2022
Post v. Assumption
A NE-10 battle that should be a close contest between two teams that compete hard every time they step on the ice. Christopher Stalmok has shown off his goal-scoring prowess a bit this season and will be a factor in the Greyhounds win – Assumption, 5-4
Trinity v. (1) Hobart
Last year Hobart traveled to Trinity to close out the first half and got stunned by the Bantams. Turn- about is fair play and the Statesmen get to return the favor this year on their home ice. Afterall, it’s not them making the long bus ride this time around– Hobart, 4-2
Morrisville v. (12) Plattsburgh
The Cardinals have demonstrated they are a contender in SUNYAC this season so not beating Morrisville would be a setback for a team that has proven resiliency all season to date and needs a bounce back from back-to-back losses to Potsdam and Norwich. Start fast, finish strong – Plattsburgh, 5-2
Connecticut College v. Bowdoin
This Camels have had their struggles early in the season while Bowdoin has enjoyed some early season success under new coach Ben Guite. Expect the Polar Bears to continue their strong play to close out the first half in NESCAC play with a win – Bowdoin, 4-2
Westfield State v. Worcester State
The Owls are in every game they play with solid defense and the excellent goaltending of Valtteri Valtonen. They will need V2 to play large against a Lancer team that always attacks with five players. Visitors steal one on the road – Westfield State, 3-2
Wentworth v. University of New England
The Nor’easters started out great but have not been on their game the last few weeks until rebounding last weekend. The Leopards may see an opportunity to pounce on the defending CCC champions but home ice, home crowd and lots of pride lead to a win – UNE, 5-3
Anna Maria v. Southern Maine
The AmCats have been interesting to watch as they have won a lot of statistical battles in games but not necessarily the one that counts on the scoreboard. Big win over Massachusetts-Dartmouth on Tuesday provides some momentum. Check both boxes here as the visitors win a close one over a determined Huskies squad – AMC, 4-3
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Alvernia v. Wilkes
The new kids certainly represented their institution well in the first half and what a way to close it out if they could beat Wilkes on the road. It is not easy. In fact, it may take some extra time beyond sixty minutes – Alvernia, 4-3
What a terrific first half of the season – I expect battles to the final whistle with everyone having lots of time to recover before their teams lace them up again after the holidays – “Drop the Puck!”
Philip Svedebäck has had success in his freshman season at Providence (photo: DSPics.com).
Nate Leaman is obviously pleased his Providence team is playing well enough to find itself near the top of a crowded Hockey East with one game to go before the holiday break.
Be he knows in a heartbeat, things can change.
“Northeastern won the league in the last minute of a game last year on a faceoff,” Leaman said. “It’s a great league. (Every) game’s meaningful, every game is really good hockey.”
Following a weekend split of a home-and-home series against Boston College, the Friars are in second place in the league with a 6-0-5 record (9-3-5 overall) and is 10th in the latest DCU/USCHO.com D-I men’s poll.
Providence is four points behind league leader Connecticut (8-3-2 Hockey East), but only three points separate the next four — Providence, Northeastern, Merrimack and Boston University.
Leaman touted his team’s depth on offense as one of the keys to its success so far. The Friars’ roster features 17 skaters with at least one goal and 22 with at least one point.
Leading the way in goals is sophomore Riley Duran with seven and junior Brett Berard and freshman Jaroslav Chmelar with six apiece. Berard leads all Providence scorers with 15 points.
“He’s dynamic,” Leaman said about Berard. “I think he’s one of the top forwards in the league. When the puck’s on his stick, he can break guys down and he can make plays out of nothing. His motor’s really been there this year.”
Berard was injured in Friday’s game at BC, which Providence won in a shootout, and did not play the next night, in which BC earned the split with a shootout win of its own.
Goaltending-wise, Philip Svedebäck of Växjö, Sweden, has gotten the majority of starts, and through 15 appearances touts a 2.27 goals-against average and a .904 save percentage. He made 39 saves total in the two-game series vs. BC.
Following a Friday night showdown at home vs. Merrimack on Friday, the Friars will be off until Dec. 30 when they play Yale of ECAC Hockey in the opener of the Ledyard Classic in Hanover, N.H. Merrimack and host Dartmouth (ECAC Hockey) will also participate in the four-team tournament.
Senior captain Parker Ford said continuing to work hard will be the key to staying at or near the top of the Hockey East standings.
“That’s our identity,” said the forward from Wakefield, R.I. That’s when we’re playing our best — when we’re in on the forecheck, finishing our checks. That’s Friar hockey, and what we build off of every game.”
After the Ledyard Classic, Providence returns to the Hockey East grind on Jan. 6 vs. UNH.
Alex Young tallied a hat trick to lead Colgate past No. 7 Harvard 6-4 at the Class of 1965 Arena Saturday evening (photo: Brian Miller).
Every conference has that one team that sets the bar for the rest of its league.
It isn’t the best team in the standings – those teams are usually the ones who exceed the bar – but it’s the one team that can compete with anyone on any given night. It can play any style, which from a hockey sense means it combines solid offense with a well-spaced, experienced defense that plays in front of a goaltender capable of answering the bell on any shot.
Special teams aren’t a problem, and its compete level never wavers, even if games don’t always end with points or wins.
It’s also not hard to identify which teams fit that bill, and in ECAC Hockey, the way Colgate’s played over the last two decades built the Raiders into a program that could win from anywhere in the standings.
The program advanced to consecutive ECAC Hockey third-place games by finishing 12th in 2011 and fourth in 2012, and its ability to spot a trip to the league’s final postseason weekend produced an NCAA tournament appearance in 2014. In 2020, the eighth-place Raiders swept Brown before their season was ended by COVID-19, but they rallied to finish last season in fifth after playing out 2020-2021 as one of ECAC Hockey’s four participating teams.
The Raiders gained a reputation along the way as being a team that’s usually difficult to defeat, and after last season’s trip to Lake Placid, the only remaining centered on their ability to crack back into the top four spots or advance to an NCAA tournament. And while it’s an unanswered dilemma, a six-point weekend to wrap up the first half of the season indicated that all roads have to pass through Hamilton, N.Y., even if they don’t necessarily lead there.
“In our approach to games, we’ve been very dialed in and focused on our league games,” said Colgate coach Don Vaughan. “That’s important, and we talk a lot about it, but it’s crazy how hard it is to win [every game]. We had a couple of nice wins out of conference against Merrimack and Arizona State, but it’s a crazy game that makes you respect your opponents, regardless of who you are or who you’re playing.”
The Raiders ended their first half in third place after beating Dartmouth and Harvard this past weekend, but the way they won the games stole some thunder away from the breakaway pack comprising the Crimson and first place Quinnipiac because it was the quintessential Colgate weekend.
The win on Friday included three goals in the first period and two goals across the second and third to cruise to a 5-1 victory over the Big Green, and it preceded a Saturday classic that saw the Raiders rally from a 3-1 deficit against a team bidding for at-large positioning in the early Pairwise Rankings.
Harvard had scored three consecutive goals in the second period after Colgate grabbed a 1-0 lead in the game’s first 90 seconds, and the Crimson used two Sean Farrell goals to take the lead over a 35-second stretch in the early second. Marek Hejduk scored halfway through the period to grant his team a two-goal lead, but Colgate clawed back with Alex Young scoring twice on the power play in rapid succession.
It was a pure success to the system, and after Alex DiPaolo scored 31 seconds into the third, a Colton Young short-handed bid staked the Raiders to a 5-3 lead that was stamped only by Alex Young’s hat trick goal.
“When you get down 3-1 quickly against such a talented team, you think in the back in your mind that the chances of coming back are daunting,” Vaughan said, “but we scored those quick power-play goals and boom, next thing we know, we’re tied after two, so our locker room came alive. The guys were good on the bench even when we were down, and I think that spoke to the maturity of our group. We’ve got a pretty good veteran group that have been through [those games], and coming off of a good year last year, they were able to draw on that experience.”
Every ounce of that Harvard game illustrated why Colgate is a reckoning.
Alex Young’s four-goal weekend pushed him to the top of the Raiders’ stat line, but it only further distributed the numbers among the six players with 10 or more points. Nearly a dozen players have multiple goals scored, and seven players sit with a positive plus/minus level. On the defensive end, Pierson Brandon and Tommy Bergsland are the clear leaders in blocked shots, but another eight players are at or around 10 blocks.
Even trips to the sin bin are evenly distributed, and nobody has 10 penalties called. Two players are over 20 PIMs, but with the exception of Young’s six power play goals, the rest of the team spread its remaining 10 man-up goals over seven players, none of which have more than three.
“We’ve been at our best when we’re able to roll four lines of forwards,” Vaughan said. “You have to put three guys in the fourth line spot, but it’s not necessarily that they’re the fourth line. We’ve experienced some of that this year, and I thought Saturday’s night’s game against Harvard was the best example we’ve had in terms of each guy accepting their role. Alex Young was one of our more skilled guys and we had him playing on our line that was matched up against Harvard’s top line. He was with Arnaud Vachon and Ryan McGuire, and he goes out and scores three goals. Going into that game, he was dialed into playing those hard minutes, but there’s been that attitude that guys are starting to accept whatever role we throw at them on any given night.”
It has Colgate hitting a stride right in time for the first half to close. Five straight wins over ECAC Hockey opponents date back to a mid-November trip to the North Country, and the only two losses to league competition occurred when the Raiders traveled to Quinnipiac and Clarkson.
Both were considered the preseason cream of the conference, and even with the Golden Knights’ slow start, the loss at Cheel Arena remains one of two lopsided defeated from a year that left the first half with a 6-2 league record despite a sub-.500 overall record arising from losses to Northern Michigan and Niagara with splits against Arizona State and Merrimack.
“Our guys have been really dialed into league play,” said Vaughan. “Our non-conference record is what it is. These are all smart guys, and they realize that for us to make it into the tournament, we are probably going to have to win the league. But our focus has really been on [in ECAC Hockey play]. We only have two non-conference games left [against Maine at the end of the month], and we’re focused on being really prepared to play the league games. The non-conference portion really prepares us for what we consider our hardest and most important games, and that’s within ECAC. There’s so much parity that records aren’t reflective of how teams are playing.
“That’s college hockey. There’s a lot of parity, and you have to be ready to go every single time you step over the wall.”
From left, Jason Polin, Collin Graf, Ryan McAllister and Chad Veltri (photos: Western Michigan Athletics, Quinnipiac Athletics, Niagara Athletics).
The Hockey Commissioners Association has announced the four men’s college hockey award winners for Nov. 2022.
Western Michigan’s Jason Polin and Quinnipiac’s Collin Graf are co-players of the month, while WMU’s Ryan McAllister is rookie of the month and Niagara’s Chad Veltri is goaltender of the month.
Polin scored 10 goals in November as part of a 10-5-15 line in just seven games. He opened November with a bang, becoming the first NCHC player to record hat tricks on back-to-back nights, doing so Nov. 4-5 in a sweep of Miami.
Graf’s 5-10-15 output led QU to a 9-0-1 November. He had a hat trick against Yale and a seven-game point streak.
McAllister continued his hot start, repeating as NCHC rookie of the month and leading the conference with both 16 points and 14 assists in seven games. His 2.29 PPG in the month was also tops among all NCHC players.
Veltri led the Purple Eagles to a perfect 4-0-0 record. He posted a 1.49 GAA and a .957 save percentage, averaging 33.5 saves per game and 35 shots per game.
Alaska Anchorage’s Carter Belitski gets a shot in tight on UNLV goalie Landon Pavlisin in a game earlier this season in Anchorage (photo: Skip Hickey).
Their teams don’t compete at the same level of college hockey, but with regards to scheduling games, there’s a lot to the shaded area of the Venn diagram for Alaska Anchorage coach Matt Shasby and UNLV’s Anthony Vignieri-Greener.
Shasby, an Anchorage native and former UAA player, was introduced in Oct. 2021 as the Seawolves’ seventh head coach in program history, but their first since the program was eliminated 14 months earlier as a cost-cutting measure. UAA hockey was reinstated last year after fundraising totals surpassed $3 million.
On Nov. 1 of that year, Shasby’s first day on the job, he immediately turned his focus toward scheduling games for the 2022-23 season. That work is always going on, and it’s particularly tough for teams like UAA and the Nanooks of Alaska, six-hour drive away in Fairbanks. Not belonging to any conference hurts, and they get limited relief from having home games exempt from visiting teams’ 34-game scheduling limit.
“Being an independent, you’re battling every single year to find those games,” Shasby said. “Especially home games, because convincing people to come up to Alaska is a real tough sell.
“You’re literally making cold calls to everyone in college hockey and just asking for open dates. As you slowly get them, you piece your schedule together and hope that teams continue to have slots available, or you have slots available. Thirty-four games is a pretty reasonable number to put together, and it doesn’t take much, but you’re so at the mercy of college hockey teams who build schedules two years out.”
Shasby scheduled what he could get for this season, but he had more options than just scheduling other NCAA Division I teams.
Last year, when scheduling exhibition games against Canadian opponents was curbed amid pandemic-related border restrictions, the NCAA allowed member men’s and women’s hockey teams to schedule non-counters against other college hockey teams. These included programs playing in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA), a non-scholarship organization with over 460 colleges and university-affiliated teams across five divisions: three men’s, and two women’s.
This opened the door for ACHA coaches like Vignieri-Greener, who for years wanted to schedule games with NCAA Division I teams. Suddenly, this season, UNLV got four. The Rebels opened Oct. 1 at Denver, visited UAA two weeks later for a weekend set and then played the Seawolves on Nov. 16 in Henderson, Nevada, 12 miles from the Las Vegas Strip.
Scheduling those games was, at least in part, circumstantial.
Denver had faced ACHA competition before, hosting Lindenwood last season, and the Pioneers’ 10-0 win over UNLV came into being after Colorado College and Air Force scheduled an exhibition together.
UAA might have gotten the better deal out of scheduling UNLV, despite two of the Seawolves’ three wins against the Rebels being decided by one goal.
Getting the Rebels home-and-home worked out logistically, too. UAA bused to Nevada following a series at Arizona State, and before that, the Seawolves visited Air Force at the start of what became a 16-day road trip.
“I knew Matt was with a first-year team that needed to get some games, and he obviously wanted some home games, and we knew that to play them, we’d need to go up there,” Vignieri-Greener said. “That was easy for us, and when they were coming to Arizona, I was like, ‘Hey, do you want to pick up an extra game?’
“We had Liberty coming in to play us (on Nov. 18-19), and I had to talk to them but we could get an extra game for Anchorage there, too. There were a couple phone calls, texts, emails and whatnot, and then we got it locked in.”
UAA beat UNLV 8-0 in Anchorage on Oct. 14, then squeaked past the Rebels twice more and thumped Liberty 9-1 on Nov. 17 in Las Vegas. Those wins helped the Seawolves’ (2-8) confidence in what has otherwise been a tough first season back.
But what are NCAA-versus-ACHA games like to play in, and might we see more of them in the future?
‘We got our ass kicked’
Rick Zombo has led Lindenwood’s men’s hockey program since 2010, but more eyes have been trained on the Lions this season, their first at the NCAA Division I level. They’re fresh off an ACHA Division 1 national championship, won on their home ice, but three games into their 2021-22 campaign, they fell 9-1 at Denver.
Does Zombo remember much about the Lions’ visit to the eventual Frozen Four champions?
“I do, we got our ass kicked,” he said. “We had the puck in the neutral zone four times in the second period, and the day we got in there, we practiced and 15 minutes in, our young guys were really struggling because they weren’t used to the altitude.
“You don’t realize that it’s a factor until you’re there, but there’s also the skill and depth of Denver. They were far superior, never breaking stride, never looking down. They were very connected and very organized as a team, and they were just awesome to watch. Unfortunately, it was against us.”
Lindenwood is a different team now. Different, even, than the Lions were at the start of this season. They opened 0-4 with two losses apiece at No. 2 Minnesota and No. 7 Michigan, but won four of their next 10 games.
By the end of this season, Lindenwood will have played four weekend series against Big Ten teams, and two more against NCHC foes. That’s a tall order, but Zombo hopes it’ll pay off down the line as he looks to get big-name teams to visit the Centene Community Ice Center, a three-rink facility Lindenwood calls home and where the NHL’s St. Louis Blues train.
“That’s a focus of our program: to sell college hockey in St. Louis,” Zombo said. “These are 100-year-tradition, championship programs we’re playing against, so we want to make sure not only that we have a litmus test for where our program needs to get to, but that we can market it to our community and to our recruits.”
Lindenwood also hosted Air Force for two games last season, losing both by a combined 13-4. There can be lumps to take when ACHA teams schedule these games, but as Shasby pointed out, respect goes both ways.
“I was very, very impressed,” he said of UNLV and Liberty. “There’s not a massive difference between, I would say, the bottom 10 teams in (NCAA) Division I hockey and all the top teams in Division III, or with these club teams.
“I think they’re getting a lot more attention, and there’s a lot more kids considering ACHA Division 1 hockey. It’s becoming more organized, and there’s more money going into it. The skill level and their compete level was great. Obviously, they’re probably getting up for those games more than others so that they can prove something and say they can beat a NCAA Division I team, but both those teams were very well coached with good goaltending.
“UNLV’s compete level was very impressive, and Liberty’s size and skill set was really good,” Shasby continued. “It was significantly better than I thought it was going to be when I scheduled those games, so I was really happy with the overall outcome.”
With one eye to the future, Denver coach David Carle was similarly complimentary toward both UNLV and Lindenwood.
“We thought Lindenwood was a good experience for our players but also for them, in trying to grow the game of college hockey and giving them a taste of what it’s like,” Carle said. “When we knew CC and Air Force would play each other, we tried to look around at who would be another good team at that level Lindenwood was at last year, and maybe has had rumblings of wanting to look (at transitioning to NCAA) D-I.
“It’s also a situation where we wouldn’t have to return the trip, per se. If you play another D-I school, they’re going to want you to go back to them, and it’s probably not something we’re very interested in, as far as playing an exhibition game on the road. We just felt like it was a really good synergy to invite UNLV out to play us, and I thought they were very good and that it was a really good experience for us, and hopefully for them where it opens their eyes a little bit even more to, ‘Hey, this is something we maybe want to try.’
It’s not that easy
There may be more money in and attention toward ACHA hockey these days, but not all ACHA programs are equal.
UNLV’s program operates in relative luxury. However, holding the ACHA Division 1’s No. 4 ranking at the time of writing, the Rebels draw a healthy fan following in a city where there famously is always something happening.
The Rebels play their home games at City National Arena, the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights’ practice facility. On weekends when the Knights are on the road and there aren’t Ultimate Fighting Championship events or major concerts to contend with, UNLV often sells out a venue that seats around 700 fans and accommodates another 400 in standing-room-only sections. When the Rebels brought UAA to Henderson, on a Wednesday night, 2,100 fans were there.
UAA had a good turnout there, too, as around 30 Seawolves fans were in attendance. Previously, when UAA visited Arizona State, the visitors had an estimated 100 fans at Mullett Arena. Shasby expects that games at ASU will be the Seawolves’ biggest draw for fans either willing to fly down, or are in the area already.
UNLV usually takes four plane trips per season, and busing for the rest makes an annual team budget of just under $600,000 — which includes coaches’ salaries — seem even better than it already was.
“I wish we ran a half-million dollar budget at the ACHA level,” Zombo said. “We did not, but NCAA Division I is four times, five times more expensive.
“You’re not allowed in the NCAA (Division I hockey structure) unless you have the finances to do it, and the wherewithal to have shelf life. An appropriate budget, staffing, scholarships, you need all that.”
The move promises to have been worth it for Lindenwood, and while there’s hope that other ACHA powers might move up, too, more potential NCAA-versus-ACHA games might depend on it.
Denver won’t play exhibitions over the next two seasons: the Pioneers visit Alaska next year, and UAA in 2024. Shasby said he’s open to scheduling ACHA teams again, but not just for the sake of getting a weekend spoken for.
“The main reason why we played UNLV is because we’re trying to convince them and help them and help their administration start thinking about maybe becoming an NCAA team,” Shasby said. “If there are any other schools out there that are considering it, it has to be a part of our overall vision to help them along so that we can maybe start another conference here.
“We would play them again, but it would need to have a purpose other than just a hockey game. Having only 34 games in your season, it’s so limited where you need to be playing at whatever level you’re at, but if there’s a team that says, ‘Hey, if you play us, then our (program) is going to go Division I next year,’ we’ll find a way.”
It might even help teams like the two Alaska schools find a new, geographically-sensible league home.
“The independents have had conversations, but right now, we’re too spread out,” Shasby said of a group that includes Lindenwood, Arizona State and East Coast teams Long Island and Stonehill
“There’s six teams, but it’s Alaska to New York and Arizona. It doesn’t make sense for that group to get together, so we just need to encourage and help teams, whether they’re in California, Utah, Vegas, Oregon, Washington. We need a couple more to come online and get this ball going.”
Shasby is confident the next ACHA program to make the jump to NCAA Division I would be UNLV, but the Rebels’ coach thinks room for growth extends not only to Las Vegas, but the Pacific Ocean.
“That is a goal down the line, and I think that our school sees that there’s potential and a hockey market,” Vignieri-Greener. “We’re really competitive at this level, and obviously ACHA isn’t (NCAA) Division I, but there are some really good ACHA D1 teams in the top 20. To keep the ball rolling and maybe get a feasibility study done over the next year would be great, and then we’d just see where it goes, but I feel there will be at least two to five more schools in the west in the next five to eight years that will get NCAA Division 1 teams, or should.
“Hockey’s growing so fast, especially in the west. The talent pool in California is crazy, and if all the California kids stayed at home and played for UCLA, USC, they’d be top-10 teams. They just need to get a school to grow the game, and I think the way the game is trending and picking up in popularity, we’d really be shooting ourselves in the foot as a hockey community if schools in the west didn’t start going (NCAA) Division I.”
Potential NCAA hockey newcomers would do well to get a sense of what they’d be in for. Zombo could tell them plenty, as he put together Lindenwood’s 2022-23 schedule over eight days this spring, after the Lions won their fourth ACHA Division 1 national title.
It’s not that easy making the jump, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“There’s a lot of ACHA teams that want to make the move up,” Zombo said. “Some are more geographically suited than others, but there’s also internal and outside perceptions.
“Nobody had any inkling at all that Lindenwood would win what we have, and we’re very competitive. I wish everybody the best, but I know there’s a lot of work that takes place.”
Merrimack downed UConn 7-3 last Saturday night (photo: Merrimack Athletics).
Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Dan: It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve been able to jump back into this space with anyone, but I’m glad that I picked this week for my return.
Why, you might ask? Well, it’s because I can take a victory lap around last week’s USCHO Edge column and podcast and, more specifically, the Michigan-Wisconsin game. If you take a look at the picks, only one intrepid reporter chose Wisconsin to win at home… (holds thumbs out) and it was THIS GUY.
I’d like to think I knew something there, but truthfully, I outlined why I picked Wisconsin on the podcast. I don’t need to go back over that.
What I DO need to go over is exactly where I’m starting this week with you, Mr. Connelly: the upsets.
It felt like there were a good chunk of them this week, and outside of Wisconsin’s win over Michigan, we saw some teams really step up to the plate to shock college hockey out of its post-Thanksgiving slumber.
Between Wisconsin, Colgate’s win over Harvard, Merrimack stepping up to the plate and beating Connecticut (which I wouldn’t consider an upset), and even Colorado College’s win over Minnesota Duluth, what stuck out to you among this weekend’s results?
Jim: Honestly, I think you missed the biggest upset of the weekend, which was Ferris State’s two-game sweep of Minnesota State. And while many of these results impacted the PairWise, I’m not sure if any team feels like the Mavericks did this past week.
Talking PairWise, I’m finally comfortable talking about the ranking system that determines the at-large bids for the national tournament as every team, most importantly the Ivies, have cleared the 10-game mark of their season.
Looking at the current PairWise, there are a number of teams that I believe had extremely high expectations that had a lot of work to do to climb the rankings. Minnesota State is one, but Northeastern (25th), North Dakota (22nd) and Cornell (t-19th) all have a lot of work ahead of them.
Do you have some concerns or observations when looking at the current PairWise?
Dan: I’ve been waiting for a few years to see teams reach out for the proverbial brass ring, and this year finally feels like it’s happening. It’s almost like the sports gods heard my cry for help from about a month ago in this very space, but when we look at the Pairwise Rankings as of this week, things are very, very different from what we’d expect.
We still have teams like Minnesota and Denver carrying most of the water weight atop the rankings, but Quinnipiac is in the No. 2 spot as the team with the least amount of losses among elite level contenders. Boston University, finally, is back, and Connecticut, who I thought was the best team in the country a few weeks ago, is holding strong in eighth. Merrimack – MERRIMACK?! – is sixth. And none of this is a fluke.
Take those Warriors, who are 11-4 on the season with a 7-2 record in Hockey East. They beat Clarkson to start the year and later beat Colgate, a team that just swept Harvard and Dartmouth and are replacing the Golden Knights in that vaunted top tier of four teams in ECAC. The UConn loss on Tuesday was the first time they’d dropped a game since late October, and they’ve been dominant in beating teams that they honestly, at this point, should be beating (sorry, Maine, Sacred Heart and Holy Cross). Merrimack is for real, and though there’s a lot of hockey remaining, I think they’re my biggest pleasant surprise this year.
So apologies to all the good folks in North Andover when the roof collapses on their season because I said that. I really do apologize for the inevitable jinx and hex I just put on you. Like Bruno in “Encanto,” I just knocked on wood, threw salt over my shoulder, and crossed my fingers (that reference, by the way, definitely shows how I have a child at home).
More seriously, I do think that Hockey East as a whole is really driving much of the way I’m viewing the Pairwise Rankings. Yes, Northeastern is outside the bubble, but the rest of the league, at least this year, caught up to the Huskies. Providence has done a great job of not losing hockey games, and the divide between the upper tier and the lower tier in the league means that those top teams should be able to push one another to heights as long as they don’t all suddenly start losing every game. Outside of that, I’m pleasantly surprised by Harvard’s emergence into the next bubble, though I think it’s going to take some work to get into the tournament because the bottom part of ECAC is dragging the rest of the league’s coefficient down.
What say you here? Is Hockey East a league that we can objectively look at this year as the cream of the nation? I know that the Big Ten probably has something to say about it, but it does appear at a surface level that the league has reclaimed some of its spark.
Jim: Hockey East has put itself in a wonderful position, certainly. But the thought of the league getting six teams into the NCAA tournament is still difficult.
Look at the current positions. As you mentioned, Merrimack is sixth but that is the top Hockey East team. There are too many teams in the bottom of the top 16, which means the second half of the season will cannibalize some of these bubble teams.
In my opinion, the league in the best shape is the Big Ten. Five of the seven teams would make the tournament today and even if a few teams crush others out, four of seven is still more than half the league. The elevated non-conference winning percentage makes this pretty understandable, but still it is shocking to see more than 70 percent of the league in NCAA position.
Dan: That’s a fair assessment, and conversely, while I don’t think its glory days are over, we’re seeing the aftereffects of the past few years finally cycle through the NCHC, which outside of Denver and St. Cloud is staring at having nobody in the top part of the college hockey world.
It’s a stark contrast to me how that’s happened, but remember that it’s all relative. If the Big Ten and Hockey East monopolize those spots right now, then every other league gets pushed down. But even with a thinning out or a regression to a mean, NCHC is the one league that is struggling.
Throughout all of this, I’m actually intrigued at how teams will break into the second half. We’ve seen teams explode after Christmas and catch fire, and leagues now lacking those extra at-large bids may take on a different tenor. It’s what we’ve seen in Atlantic Hockey for years.
But one last point and question from me. I’ve largely eschewed talking about the AHA for some time this year, but it’s clear that the league already has a breakaway pack that’ll be difficult to catch. But that’s also been the case for a few years now with AIC running the show.
For a league built around parity, is this throwing back to the days when Air Force and RIT, when it was a two-horse race with a churning and chaotic undercard?
Jim: For me, the most difficult part of looking at the AHA standings isn’t a runaway pack. With three points on the line every game, I feel like you’re still going to have a crazy run for teams battling for a first-round home-ice spot.
And while the top feels a little crazy right now, I’m more shocked by the bottom. I had high expectations for Bentley and Air Force, two schools that are struggling. Canisius has wins against Ferris State (which just swept Minnesota State) and Rensselaer (a decent ECAC team) but hasn’t performed well in league.
Sometimes league play becomes the ultimate cannibalization moments in a season. Not just in Atlantic Hockey but in all leagues. If your league’s out-of-conference winning percentage is strong (i.e. B1G, Hockey East and NCHC), maybe you don’t worry. But in leagues where out-of-conference play has been a struggle, a touch league slate kills some many NCAA dreams.
Gustavus remains a perfect 10-0 after sweeping Saint Mary’s 4-0 & 3-0 (Photo by Jordan Modjeski – Gustavus Athletics)
Another week passed in D-III Women’s hockey on the western side of things. No surprises or huge game results unlike last week, however, this week will be huge for some west teams and these games will certainly influence the polls/pairwise standings. Meanwhile, the NCHA conference is showing its strength, boasting three-ranked teams who have a combined overall record of 27-2-3 and are outscoring opponents by a combined total of 163-29… Impressive numbers.
Gustavus stays perfect
Gustavus has earned themselves the #1 ranking in the polls for the second straight week as they hold a perfect 10-0 record after the weekend sweep of Saint Mary’s. The only other remaining undefeated teams are #3 Adrian (9-0) & #7 Colby (5-0). In the two wins over Saint Mary’s, the Gusties seemed to not have many struggles, winning 4-0 & 3-0, goaltender Katie McCoy making 25 saves over the two games, earning two shutout victories. Brooke Power (1 goal, 2 assists)& Brooke Remmington (3 assists)led the way for Gustavus with three points apiece.
Currently, Gustavus is outscoring their opponents 46-4, winning six of their ten games via shutout. They’ll be given their first real test this season in terms of opponent strength as they face #2 UW-River Falls in a home-and-away series this week on Wed. Dec. 7 at 7:05pm (at River-Falls) & Sat. Dec. 10 at 2pm CT (at Gustavus).
It will be interesting to see these two teams face off as their RPI numbers (ratings percentage index) are very similar with Gustavus holding the top spot for obvious reasons, but River-Falls has been tested more to start the season. Gustavus has played one opponent who’s been ranked at one point in time this season, Augsburg (5-4-1). Whilst UWRF has played four, and won three of four, (Augsburg 5-4-1, UW-Eau Claire 7-2-0, Plattsburgh State 9-2, & Middlebury 4-3) their only loss coming on opening night to Augsburg, they’ve been unbeaten since.
These two games this week will tell us more about Gustavus than it does UW-River Falls. River-Falls has proven they can beat anyone after winning games against the former #1, #3, & #8 ranked teams, while Gustavus hasn’t shown us their skills yet against a team ranked higher than #13 based on how their schedule has panned out so far.
St. Norbert keeps rolling
#15 St. Norbert (9-1-2), are unbeaten in their last 10 games (8-0-2) and unbeaten in NCHA league play (6-0-0), leading top competitors in Aurora (5-0-1) & Adrian (4-0-0). Most recently, Norbert won a pair of games vs fellow NCHA opponent Concordia Wisconsin 3-0 & 5-1. Goaltender Brynn Waismann recorded two wins, making a combined total of 33 saves. Other leaders for the Green Knights were Natalie Hogan (4 goals, 1 assist), Morgan Olson (4 assists), and Courtnie Hogan (2 goals, 1 assist). In their last seven games, they’ve outscored opponents 45-2.
St. Norbert sweeps Concordia Wisconsin 3-0 & 5-1 to improve to 9-1-2 (Photo by Patrick Ferron)
St. Norbert’s upcoming schedule is an interesting one, they visit Augsburg Dec. 10 and then they fly to Tempe, Arizona to play two exhibition games vs Arizona State University (ACHA-D1). ASU goaltending & mental performance coach Kaley Marino is a St. Norbert College alumnus where she played four years and was a team captain for two. They then have two huge series of games after that vs UW-Eau Claire & Aurora.
Aurora’s dominating
Aurora is another NCHA team who’s continuing to stay on track after their hot start to the season, they’re now #12 with a 9-1-1 record. They’ve outscored their opponents this season 62-9. Currently, the NCHA has three-ranked teams in it, consisting of #3 Adrian, #12 Aurora, & #15 St. Norbert, so this means the league games and conference tournament will be very interesting. Surprisingly enough, their only loss came to Bethel, who’s currently 1-7.
This past weekend, the Spartans won both games vs Lawrence University 5-0 & 11-1. It’s worth noting that despite the 5-0 loss for Lawrence, goaltender Charlie Prior had a great game, making 56 saves. The leaders for Aurora were: Darci Matson (3 goals, 4 assists), Madison Gasper (3 goals, 1 assist) & Peyton Elliott who had a hat-trick in game-two.
Aurora sweeps Lawrence 5-0 & 11-1 to end their first-half of the season 9-1-1 (Photo by Steve Woltmann)
Aurora has a long layoff, they don’t play another game until January 7/8 in a two-game home series vs Northland College. They’re then given their biggest challenge yet in St. Norbert, a two-game home series January 12/13.
Other Notable Results
#10 UW-Eau Claire shutout Northland 6-0, Hallie Sheridan led the way with 1 goal & 2 assists, while goaltender Stephanie Martin had a relatively easy night, needing to make only six saves in the shutout victory.
Trine swept Marian, winning both games 4-3, getting their first two wins of the season.
Hamline swept Concordia Minnesota, winning 4-3 OT & 2-0.
Augsburg swept St. Olaf, winning 2-0 & 6-0.
Looking Ahead
Besides the #1 vs #2 matchup we have this week between Gustavus and UW-River Falls, #3 Adrian will be put to their biggest test as of yet. They will be making the 12-hour drive to Northfield, VT for the Norwich East-West Hockey Classic where they face #5 Norwich in game one, and will either face #4 Plattsburgh or #8 Elmira depending on the results of both games. Adrian’s biggest tests have come so far vs #14 Oswego State (8-4) and Augsburg (5-4-1) who they beat handily, only allowing one goal in the four games. All three teams in this tournament besides Adrian have played top-5/top-10 competition, so it’ll be interesting to see how Adrian fares. This is similar to the UW-River Falls vs Gustavus matchup in terms of we’ve seen UWRF play top tier opponents unlike Gustavus who hasn’t faced a team inside the top-12, Adrian enters with the least amount of games played vs top-10 opponents in this tournament, but hold the highest ranking at #3. This will be a great tournament to focus on to see how they fare.
After a relatively quiet week out west, we now return with plenty of enticing matchups to follow and keep our eyes on. Many games this week may hold implications later on this season in terms of NCAA Tournament At-Large bids due to some conferences having a plethora of ranked talent within them. Should be another great week!
Dawson Sciarrino helped lead UW-Stevens Point to a pair of wins. (Photo Credit: Kelcey Clark, UW-Stevens Point Athletics)
Wisconsin-Stevens Point turned in a stellar performance over the weekend, winning both of its games, including a 3-2 win over UW-Superior in overtime on Saturday. The Pointers are now ranked 15th in the national poll.
But their win over the Yellowjackets didn’t come easy. UW-Stevens Point scored twice in the final 2:33 of the action to tie the game and then got the game winner from Dawson Sciarrino, who tapped it in to lift the Pointers to one of their biggest wins of the season.
UW-Superior led 1-0 after the first period and were up 2-0 just eight seconds into the second period of play.
From there, the Pointers began to sway the momentum in their favor. They gave up only six shots on goal the rest of the way while getting goals from Noah Finstrom and Evan Junker to tie the game.
UW-Stevens Point won Friday’s game against UW-River Falls by a 3-1 score. Junker, Andrew Poulias and Sciarrino all scored goals for UW-Stevens Point in the win over the Falcons.
The Pointers have now won four consecutive games and are 6-1-3 overall and 4-0 in the WIAC.
Check out more recaps from the weekend below.
Oles split with Auggies
As expected, St. Olaf and Augsburg played a tightly contested series over the weekend, with the two MIAC teams coming away with a split.
The Auggies won the opener 6-5 in overtime before the Oles bounced back on Saturday with a 4-3 win in a matchup of the two teams that played for the MIAC tournament crown a year ago.
The Auggies, ranked fourth in this week’s DCU/USCHO NCAA Division III men’s poll, won Friday’s game on the strength of a hat trick by Jarod Blackowiak. That effort included the game-winning goal a little over two minutes into OT. It was the second multi-goal game of his career and his first collegiate hat trick.
The win was the sixth in a row for the Auggies (6-2-1, 3-1). Augsburg trailed 3-1 early in the second period before mounting a comeback. Austin Dollimer’s goal with 34.8 to play in regulation forced OT.
On Saturday, the Oles (8-2-1, 4-2) rallied from a 2-0 deficit to secure the win. Jonathan Young led the comeback as he scored the game-tying goal and the game winner in a span of five minutes. It’s the second two-goal game of his career.
St. Olaf, which received 28 votes in this week’s national poll, ended up with four of the six points up for grabs and is now in first place in the MIAC standings. The victory was also the Oles’ second against a top two team nationally since the beginning of the 2006-07 season.
Lukas Haugen stopped 32 shots and is still unbeaten on the year Jack Robel stopped 23 shots.
Royals earn split
After losing Friday’s game to Saint John’s, Bethel bounced back with a 2-1 win on Saturday to improve to 8-3-1 overall and 3-2-1 in the MIAC.
Justin Kelley’s sixth goal of the season put the Royals up 1-0 and a goal by Tyler Braccini made it 2-0 a little over six minutes into the second period.
Spencer Kring finished with two assists for the Royals, who also got a 21-save performance from Austin Ryman.
The Johnnies fell to 5-5-1 overall and 3-21 in the conference. Peter Tabor scored the lone goal for Saint John’s.
Cobbers wins two in a row
Concordia entered the weekend series against Hamline on a four-game winless streak. The Cobbers ended that streak with a pair of wins over the Pipers. They won Friday’s game 6-3 and closed out the series with a 2-1 win.
Concordia improved to 4-4-1 overall and 2-2 in the MIAC. Hamline fell to 3-6-1 overall and 1-5 in the conference.
Hunter Olson and Ben Luedtke both scored goals for the Cobbers while Aaron Dickstein made 24 saves. He didn’t give up a goal until the final 13 seconds of the game.
In Friday’s win, Isaac Henkemeyer-Howe came through with a hat trick. He scored the first three goals of the game for the Cobbers. He has five goals on the season.
Yellowjackets knock off Blugolds
UW-Superior won its fourth consecutive game on Friday by knocking off UW-Eau Claire 2-0. The Blugolds came into the weekend ranked 11th in the nation and sit in 14th nationally this week. The win over UW-Eau Claire was the third consecutive shutout for the Yellowjackets. Dylan Meilun got the win and became the first UW-Superior goaltender in more than two decades to start his career 6-0-0. He made 28 saves.
Tristan Therrien and John Stampohar both scored goals for UW-Superior, who are 8-4 overall and 4-2 in the WIAC.
Bulldogs dominate series against Raiders
Adrian took care of business against MSOE over the weekend, winning Friday’s game 5-1 before wrapping things up with an 8-4 win.
The Raiders had closed the gap to 4-3 in the second period of Saturday’s game before the Bulldogs pulled away in the third.
Matus Spodniak scored twice and also dished out two assist in the finale. Alessio Luciani tallied three assists. Ty Enns also scored two goals in the win as the Bulldogs improved to 7-2-1 overall and 4-2 in the NCHA. MSOE dropped to 7-4 overall and is 3-3 in the conference.
Five different players scored for Adrian in Friday’s win. The Bulldogs have won five consecutive games against the Raiders.
Thunder roll past Sabres
Trine stepped up over the weekend in a series against Marian, winning both games over the Sabres, including a 5-0 win on Saturday. Trine won Saturday’s game by a 6-3 score.
On Saturday, Sam Antenucci scored twice for the Thunder, who improved to 6-5-1 overall and 4-3-0-1 in the NCHA.
Christian Wong-Ramos recorded the first shutout of his career. He made 28 saves.
Spartans dominate Vikings
Aurora won a pair of games over the weekend against Lawrence as it extended its win streak to three games.
The 11th-ranked Spartans remain unbeaten at home after beating the Vikings 4-0 and 5-0.
Kolby Thornton made 39 saves in the victory while Jack Jaunich fueled the offense with a hat trick. Aurora is 9-2-2 overall and 6-0-2 in the conference. Tanner Marshall was in goal for Aurora on Friday and made 25 saves in the win. Akl Hassan tallied a goal and an assist. The shutout wins are the first two of the season for Aurora.
Green Knights bounce back
St. Norbert dominated Concordia in an NCHA series, winning 4-1 on Friday and 8-0 on Saturday as it got back on track after getting swept by UW-Eau Claire last weekend.
The fifth-ranked Green Knights closed the series in convincing fashion against the Falcons, holding a 34-14 edge in shots as they improved to 7-2-1 overall and 6-0 in the conference. Michael McChesney scored twice for St. Norbert and also dished out two assists.T.J. Koufis tallied a pair of goals and an assist. Colby Entz made 14 saves.
In Friday’s game, the Green Knights held an impressive 58-24 advantage in shots. Liam Fraser came through with a goal and two assists to help lead the way. Johnny Roberts was in goal and made 23 saves.
Denver hosted and swept Arizona State last weekend (photo: Clarkson Creative).
With 29 first-place votes, Denver remains the top-ranked team in the DCU/USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll.
Quinnipiac is again No. 2, picking up 12 first-place votes in this week’s rankings.
Minnesota is up one to No. 3, getting six first-place votes, while St. Cloud State falls one to No. 4 with three first-place votes.
Penn State rises one spot to No. 5, flipping with Michigan, while Boston University is up two to sit seventh, Connecticut holds steady at No. 8, Harvard falls two to No. 9, and Providence is again tenth.
RIT, unranked last week, comes in at No. 20, while Minnesota State was the big drop this week, tumbling from No. 11 to No. 16. Western Michigan also fell to No. 17 from No. 14.
In addition to the top 20 teams, 12 other teams received votes this week.
The DCU/USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll is compiled weekly and consists of 50 voters, including coaches and media professionals from across the country. Media outlets may republish this poll as long as USCHO.com is credited.
DCU (DCU.org), a not-for-profit financial cooperative owned by and operated for its members, is the sponsor of this poll. DCU serves more than 900,000 members and their families in all 50 states.
Hosts Jim Connelly, Derek Schooley, and Ed Trefzger look at the games of the past weekend and the news of the week in this D-I college hockey podcast.
This podcast is sponsored by DCU – Digital Federal Credit Union – at dcu.org
Topics include:
• Denver’s game-winning goal on Friday vs. Arizona State leads into some lively and detailed discussion on video replay and its faults as it exists now
• A look at the top four teams: Denver, Quinnipiac, Minnesota, St. Cloud
• Our first dive into the PairWise Rankings, including a conference-by-conference look, discussion of teams on the bubble, and teams that might move into the top 16
Utica celebrated their annual Teddy Bear toss game in style winning 4-0 over a ranked Oswego team on Saturday night (Photo by Utica Athletics)
The calendar may have changed to December but the never ending feast of surprise scores continued this weekend with ranked teams like Oswego, Babson, Plattsburgh and Trinity all finding themselves on the losing end of the scoreboard at least one time this weekend. On celebratory note Amherst coach Jack Arena picked up his 500th career win when the Mammoths knocked off Trinity on Saturday. There was a lot of great action elsewhere including several overtime games. Here are the highlights from this weekend:
CCC
Endicott swept a pair of games from Wentworth by scores of 4-2 and 4-0 to remain unbeaten in CCC play. On Friday, two power play goals from Zach Mazur led the offense in the win. On Saturday, the goaltending for both teams was outstanding as Connor Beatty scored on the power play with just seven seconds remaining in the second period to break the ice for the Gulls. Goals in the third by Jackson Sterrett, Andrew Kurapov and Jack Ring sealed the win with Atticus Kelly earning the 33-save shutout.
On Saturday, Curry took advantage of five special teams’ goals on the way to a 7-1 rout of Salve Regina. Timmy Kent scored a shorthanded and a power play goal for the Colonels who moved to 5-2-0 in conference play.
In a pair of games that saw a lot of scoring, Western New England swept Nichols to extend their current win streak to four games. On Friday, Shane Miller was the offensive star as the defenseman scored a goal and added four assists in the 6-4 win over the Bison. On Saturday, the Golden Bears used two goals in the third period from John D’Aniello to rally from a 3-2 deficit and Miller added an empty net goal to secure a 5-3 win. Matt Dougherty had a four-point game for WNE with a goal and three assists.
Independents
After losing an overtime game in the final five seconds to Massachusetts-Boston, 3-2 on Friday, Anna Maria took on Johnson & Wales on Saturday in another close contest. The battle of the Cats saw a seesaw affair ending in a 3-3 overtime tie. Despite outshooting J&W by a 44-30 margin, the AmCats needed a power play goal from Cam Tobey and a shorthanded tally from Brandon Della Paoler in the third period to earn the tie.
After a scoreless first period, Rivier took a 1-0 lead over Framingham State on a goal by Josh Sanchez in the second period. Dylan Marty responded for the Rams in the third period sending the game to overtime where Avery Arnold scored in the final minute of the extra session to give the Raiders a big home win.
MASCAC
On Thursday night, a fast start from Plymouth State gave them a 3-0 lead after one period of play against Framingham State. The Rams answered back with three goals of their own in the second period leaving the game to be decided over the final 20 minutes of action. Connor Tait’s rebound goal midway through the period gave the Panthers the lead and Ethan Stuckless added some insurance with a goal in the final three minutes for a 5-3 win. Stuckless was back at it on Saturday with a goal and an assist in a 6-2 win over Salem State to remain unbeaten in MASCAC play at 6-0-0.
Brendan Ronan helped Worcester State jump out to an early 2-0 lead over Salem State with assists on both first period markers. The Lancers would build a 3-0 lead only to see the Vikings rally back to within a goal in the third period. Ronan sealed the win with an empty-net goal and a three-point night in a 4-2 Lancer win. Goaltender Jakub Kubik stopped 40 of 42 shots in the win for Worcester State.
Westfield State jumped out to an early 2-0 lead over Fitchburg State on Thursday night, but the Falcons rallied quickly to level the game at 2-2 by the end of the first period. Toivo Kramer and Michael Macchioni scored to give the Falcons a 4-2 lead after two periods and Hunter Fortin iced the game with a late goal for the 5-2 win. Fortin finished his night with a goal and two assists as the Falcons moved to 2-1-2 in MASCAC play. A three-goal second period helped jumpstart the Falcons to a 5-1 win over Worcester State on Saturday. Hunter Fortin picked up a goal and an assist in the win.
NE-10
The battle of Manchester resumed with Southern New Hampshire visiting St. Anselm for two games over the weekend. There must be something about Friday nights with the Hawks as they have yet to win a Friday game on home-ice this season. The Penmen took advantage of an early goal by Connor Ball and a pair of third period goals from Matt Amante and James Nash for a 3-0 road win. Adam Mercer made 23 saves to earn the shutout win. On Saturday the Hawks flipped the script in their own 3-0 win to split the weekend series. Goals from Tommy Schwartz, Max Burum and Mark Blaney were more than enough for Nick Howard who stopped all 37 shots he faced for the shutout.
Franklin Pierce swept a weekend series from Post to move to 5-3-0 in NE-10 play. On Friday, the Ravens took advantage of a strong performance in goal by Kyle Martin who made 28 saves to earn his first shutout of the season. Jason Ladzinski, Chis Stevenson, and Dom Norris provided all the scoring in a balanced win for FPU. On Saturday, Conor Foley and Matt Horan each recorded a goal and two assists in a comfortable 6-2 win for the Ravens.
NEHC
Hobart moved to a perfect 10-0-0 on the season and 6-0-0 in NEHC play with wins over Castleton and Skidmore. On Friday, Brandon Picard gave the Spartans a 1-0 lead in the first period before goals from Ignat Belov in the second period and third period finally gave the statesmen the lead. Matthew Iasenza and Luke Aquaro added some insurance in the 4-1 win. On Saturday, a ranked Skidmore team came in hungry after their loss at Elmira on Friday night. Neither team could score in the first period as Skidmore’s Blaine Moore and Hobart’s Damon Beaver were outstanding in goal. The Statesmen erupted for three goals in the second period including two from Jonah Alexander on the way to a 4-0 shutout win.
New England College extended their current win streak to four games with road wins over Southern Maine and Babson by identical 4-3 scores. On Friday, the Pilgrims raced out to a 3-0 first period lead only to see the Huskies come back to tie the score on a goal by Curtis Judd midway through the third period. With less than three minutes to play in regulation, Bernie McGovern scored the game winner for NEC. Spencer Kozlowski was great in net stopping 38 of 41 shots in the win. On Saturday, the Pilgrims faced a tough Babson squad that had just tied Norwich 1-1 on Friday night. Babson came out with the jump in the first period scoring three times including power play goals from Colby Bailey and Wyatt George but NEC kept it close with goals from Jhuwon Davis and Alex LaPlante to end the period a goal down at 3-2. In the second period Manny Cabral and David Novotny provided all the goals Andrew Kormos would need in goal as he made the 4-3 lead standup making 62 saves in the win.
NESCAC
Four teams entered the weekend unbeaten in NESCAC play but only Colby and Amherst remained that way after games were finished on Saturday.
Amherst’s 3-2 win over Trinity on Saturday gave head coach Jack Arena his 500th career win in his 39th season coaching at his alma mater (Photo by Amherst Athletics)
Wesleyan visited Amherst on Friday and although the game had good pace the first period ended scoreless. In the second period, the Cardinals took a 2-0 lead on goals by Colin Cobb and Emmet Powell setting up an exciting third period. The Mammoths finally got on the board on a goal by Ben Kuzma with just over three minutes remaining on the clock. Quinton Fox tied the score at 2-2 with a minute and a half remaining and the game would go to overtime. Matt Toporowski scored the winning goal with just over a minute remaining in the extra session to give the Mammoths a thrilling 3-2 win. On Saturday, a struggling Trinity squad that lost to Hamilton on Friday came to Orr Rink and Amherst secured a big 3-2 win over the Bantams. After yielding an early goal to Riley Prattson, the Mammoths would score the next three off the sticks of Kuzma, Fox and Josh Burke to take a 3-1 lead very early in the third period. Prattson would score his second goal to cut the lead to one goal, but Alex Wisco would surrender nothing else making 27 saves for the win. The win was coach Jack Arena’s 500th career win, making him just the 10th D-III coach to reach that milestone.
Colby hosted Bowdoin with both teams entering the big rivalry game at 4-0-0 on the season. The game lived up to its billing as the visitors took a 2-1 lead on goals from Gabe Shipper and Jack Studley to start the third period. The Mules rallied with three unanswered goals from James Tepper, Henry Molson and Drew Burke to skate away with he 4-2 win and a 5-0-0 start on the season. Molson finished the night with three points and goaltender Andy Beran stopped 28 shots in the win.
Tufts dropped their Friday game with Williams by a 4-1 score but rebounded nicely on Saturday to pick up their first NESCAC win on the season with a 5-0 shutout over Middlebury. Jack Hughes scored a pair of goals while Cole Dubicki and Sam Miller each recorded three points to pace the offense. Goaltender Gustave Bylin made 19 saves to earn his second shutout of the season.
SUNYAC
After dropping the championship game to Skidmore at the Thoroughbreds Thanksgiving tournament, Oswego had the opportunity to get back on their game at home against Morrisville and in advance of Saturday’s big non-conference game at Utica (details in UCHC section below). The Mustangs weren’t going to make it easy for the Lakers and goals from Jacob Black and Chris Mott just seconds apart in the first period gave the visitors an early 2-0 lead. Trent Grimshaw would cut the deficit to one goal but Cameron Clark’s unassisted shorthanded tally in the third period sealed the 3-1 win and handed Oswego their first loss in SUNYAC play.
Potsdam also fancied playing the role of the spoiler and did so on Saturday night with a 5-2 win over Plattsburgh. After Bennett Stockdale gave the visiting Cardinals an early 1-0 lead, Nolan Towne and Michael MacArthur gave the Bears a 2-1 lead to close out the first period. Jack Bloem scored his first of two to extend the lead before Jack Ring answered for the Cardinals. In the third period Jack Loran and Bloem sealed the deal for Connor Green who made 41 saves in the upset win.
Geneseo captured a pair of SUNYAC wins to extend their unbeaten streak to five games. On Friday night, Tyler Vanuden and Nikita Kozyrev gave Buffalo State a 2-1 lead at the end of twenty minutes of action. The Knights would rally on the strength of their power play as Peter Morgan scored on the man advantage in the second period before Domenic Garozzo tallied his man-up marker midway through the third period for the 3-2 win. On Saturday, another Morgan goal and two more on the power play from Alex Dameski and Nicolas Elia spearheaded a 4-0 win at Fredonia. Matt Petizian stopped all 27 shots he faced to earn the shutout win.
UCHC
Utica played their annual Teddy Bear toss game in front of a packed house on Saturday in what everyone expected to be a great matchup against Oswego. While Mic Curran’s first period goal triggered the teddy bear onslaught on the ice, it was a three-goal second period that gave the host Pioneers a decisive and complete 4-0 win over the Lakers. Dante Zapata, Khristian Acosta, and John Moncovich scored in the middle frame that put the game out of reach for Oswego who couldn’t solve goaltender Bryan Landesberger. Landesberger made 23 saves in the shutout win and the Pioneers extended their unbeaten streak to nine games.
Wilkes and Chatham played a weekend series and Friday night’s game had a playoff vibe to it. Both Michael Paterson-Jones for Wilkes and Ricardo Gonzalez for Chatham were terrific in their respective goals as neither team could score in regulation time. The Cougars carried a power play over into the overtime period and Andrew Warhoftig wasted no time in scoring just 59 seconds in to give Chatham the 1-0 win. On Saturday, Wilkes’ Ben Stefanini scored a hat trick to lead the Colonels to a 4-2 win and a split of the two-game series.
Stevenson hosted a red hot Nazareth squad and came out on fire themselves scoring three goals in the first period on Friday night. Connor MacDonnell, Jake Roberts and Evan Beers gave the Mustangs a 3-0 lead and they raced to a 7-3 win with MacDonnell scoring two goals and adding an assist. On Saturday, it took both teams a long time to find the back of the net and it was Nazareth that scored three unanswered goals to put the Mustangs in a hole. Joshua Dressler scored a pair of goals and Henry McKinney scored a goal and added two assists in the 4-1 win for the Golden Flyers that moved them to 6-2-0 in UCHC play.
Three Biscuits
Shane Miller – Western New England – the Golden Bears’ defenseman provided a five-point night with a goal and four assists on a 6-4 win over Nichols on Friday night.
Andrew Warhoftig – Chatham – scored just 59 seconds into overtime to give the Cougars a dramatic 1-0 win over Wilkes on Friday night.
Andrew Kormos – New England College – after surrendering three goals to Babson in the first period, Kormos held the Beavers scoreless over the next 40 minutes making 62 saves in total in the Pilgrims come-from-behind 4-3 win on Saturday.
Bonus Biscuits
Matt Toprowski – Amherst – netted the overtime winner in a 3-2 victory over Trinity that moved the Mammoths to 3-0-0 in NESCAC play and earned head coach Jack Arena his 500th win.
Ben Stefanini – Wilkes – recorded a hat trick in Wilkes 4-2 win over Chatham on Saturday helping the Colonels earn a weekend split with the Cougars.
Connor Green – Potsdam – the Bears’ netminder made 41 saves in a 5-2 upset win over Plattsburgh on Saturday night.
The rankings will be a mess again this week but isn’t that what we want to be seeing as we close out the first half over the next week. Congratulations to Coach Arena and Amherst on the 500th career win – a lofty milestone only achieved by ten other D-III coaches. Coach Arena has always been a class act and very generous with his time and knowledge for this writer over many years. It is always great to see good things happen for the great people in the game.
Minnesota Duluth and Ohio State played a spirited series over the weekend in Duluth, Minn. (photo: Dave Harwig).
(1) Ohio State at (8) Minnesota Duluth
UMD came out firing on Friday, outshooting the Buckeyes 34-27 overall and 20-7 in the third period, but could not overcome the 2-0 lead OSU built as Ohio State took a 2-1 win. Paetyn Levis scored on the power play in the first to give the Buckeyes the lead and Emma Maltais doubled it in the third. Kylie Hanley nabbed a goal with the extra skater in the final minute, but UMD ran out of time as OSU took the win. In the second game, the Bulldogs came out firing and took a 2-0 lead before 10 minutes had passed. From there, they would never surrender the lead. Taylor Anderson tapped in a rebound and Clara Van Wieren lit the lamp less than a minute later to make it 2-0. Gabby Rosenthal quickly cut the lead back to one with a quick goal to make it 2-1. Sophie Jaques scored on the power play midway through regulation to tie the game at 2. Nina Jobst-Smith took a cross-crease feed from Gabby Krause on the power play to put UMD up 3-2. Makenna Webster tied it at 3 early in the third, but Kylie Hanley took her own rebound around the net and put it in to give the Bulldogs a 4-3 advantage with about 10 to go in the third. Rosenthal was able to tie the game for Ohio State one more time with a power play goal to force overtime. In the extra frame, UMD showed incredible patience, moving the puck and waiting for their opportunity before Van Wieren’s shot as she moved between the faceoff dots ended the game and gave Minnesota Duluth a 5-4 win.
(2) Wisconsin at Bemidji State
Casey O’Brien tallied six points on four assists and two goals and Britta Curl earned her first career hat trick as the Badgers exploded for an 13-1 win on Friday. Maddi Wheeler, Nicole LaMantia, Lacey Eden, Sophie Shirley, Vivian Jungels, Grace Shirley and Kirsten Simms all also scored for Wisconsin in the win. Mya Hendrick spoiled the shutout and scored for Bemidji. The Beaver defense responded on Saturday, blocking 15 shots and holding the Badgers to just a 1-0 lead into the third. Jungels scored in the early seconds of the second. Curl scored at the start of the third and then Reece Hunt cut into the Badger lead with a power play goal to make it 2-1 with 5:31 to go. Kristin Simms made it 3-1 and Curl added an empty-netter to secure the 4-1 win and weekend sweep for Wisconsin.
(10) Cornell at (3) Yale
Yale jumped out to a 4-1 lead by the midpoint of the game, but Cornell clawed their way back and forced a tie in this close game Friday. Elle Hartje’s backhanded pass was put in the net by Anna Bargman to give Yale the 1-0 lead, but Lily Delianedis even it up for Cornell just 33 seconds later. Less than a minute after that, Jordan Ray used a fast transition to get in on the Bulldogs where she ripped a glove-side shot to make it 2-1. Charlotte Welch extended the lead to 3-1 just before the period break. At the midpoint of the second, Claire Dalton scored off a two-on-one with Carina DiAntonio to stretch the lead to 4-1. Gabbie Rud made it 4-2 and then Izzy Daniel scored unassisted with the closing minute of the second to make it 4-3. Rud added one more in the third to tie the game. Overtime was unable to solve the stalemate and this one ended a 4-4 tie.
(6) Colgate at (3) Yale
Four first period penalties offered a lot of special teams play, but neither team was able to capitalize. In the second, Anna Bargman lit the lamp for Yale 68 seconds in, but the Raiders took over from there. Over the course of just more than 10 minutes, Colgate found the back of the net four times to go ahead 4-1. Tanner Gates, Kaitlyn O’Donohoe, Elyssa Biederman and Sammy Smigliani each scored in that stretch. Carina DiAntonio was able to get one back for the Bulldogs in the final minute of the frame to send the teams to the locker room with Colgate leading 4-2. Kas Betinol scored an empty-netter to make it 5-2 and Elle Hartje tacked one more on for Yale with six seconds left to make it a final of 5-3. Colgate handed Yale their first loss of the season.
(4) Quinnipiac at Union
Maya Labad scored twice and Sophie Urban and Kendall Cooper each added a goal and an assist to lead the Bobcats to a 5-0 win.
(4) Quinnipiac at RPI
Quinnipiac registered their fourth straight shutout and seventh straight win with a 3-0 victory Saturday. Madison Chantler, Veronica Bac and Olivia Mobley each scored for the Bobcats.
Minnesota State at (5) Minnesota
Kennedy Bobyck had the Mavericks up 1-0 at the end of the first on Friday, but the Gophers came out of the intermission and scored scored three in the second to go up 3-1. Abigail Boreen scored twice and Abbey Murphy scored once. Audrey Wethington added a goal in the third to secure a 4-1 win. Taylor Heise had a five point game on Saturday to lead the Gophers to a 6-0 win. She put her team up 1-0 with a shorthanded goal in the first and another goal in the second. Then Abbey Murphy scored her own shorthanded goal to make it 3-0. Boreen scored twice in 24 seconds, both on the power play, to extend the lead and Ella Huber scored on the empty net to close out the game.
(6) Colgate at Brown
Ten different Raiders tallied points and freshman Elyssa Biederman scored her first career hat trick to lead Colgate to a 5-2 win on Friday. Kaitlyn O’Donohoe tapped in a Danielle Serdachny pass to open the scoring. Tanner Gates doubled the lead before Brown responded with a goal from Anna Shelden. It was 2-1 Colgate at the first break. Biederman was responsible for the next three, firing a shot over the goalie’s shoulder on the power play, then tapping in a puck at the back post and scoring off a tic-tac play early in the third to complete her natural hat trick. Anna Gallagher scored for Brown late in the third, but the Raiders took the win.
(13) Vermont vs. (7) Northeastern
With a goal and an assist on Friday, Maureen Murphy scored her 100th point as a Husky, something she accomplished in just 68 games. Chloe Aurard’s first period goal held as the only tally into the third, when Peyton Anderson doubled the lead on a play where she stole the puck and scored unassisted. Corinne McCool scored for the Catamounts to make it 2-1 and Murphy added an empty-netter to secure the 3-1 win. On Saturday, the Huskies took advantage of the power play, scoring twice on the player advantage in the first period. Natalie Mlynkova cut the lead in half at the midpoint of the game, but Murphy and Alina Müller used a give and go to make it 3-1. Katy Knoll and Mia Brown scored in the third to make it a 5-1 win and weekend sweep for Northeastern.
Merrimack at (9) Providence
Alexa Pongo was the star for Merrimack, putting them ahead in both the first and second periods, but the Friars pulled away in the second half of the game to win 4-2. Mégane Quirion had the only assist on each of Providence’s final three goals. Reichen Kirchmair scored on the breakaway early in the second game to give the Friars a 1-0 lead. The game then went scoreless for 40 minutes. Early in the third, Noemi Neubauerova extended the lead to 2-0. Less than two minutes later, Rachel Weiss made it 3-0. Madison Oelkers put Merrimack on the board to make it 3-1, but Sara Hjalmarsson’s goal four minutes later ended any hopes of a comeback and gave Providence the 4-1 win and weekend sweep.
(10) Cornell at Brown
Jade Iginla scored short-handed and on the power play to have Brown up 2-0 on Cornell late in the second. It looked like that’s how the teams would go to the locker rooms, but Izzy Daniels responded for the Big Red in the final minute of the period to make it 2-1. Lily Delianedis scored twice in two minutes and Daniel added another goal to complete the comeback for Cornell as they took a 4-2 win.
Harvard at (11) Clarkson
Clarkson withstood an early push from Harvard, who out-shot them 7-0 to start the game, before finding settling in and pulling away. Jenna Goodwin tallied the Golden Knights’ first shot of the game and it found the back of the net to put them up 1-0. Nicole Gosling doubled the lead a few minutes later to send Clarkson to the locker room up 2-0. Florence Lessard extended the lead to 3-0 in the second. In the third, Gabrielle David and Olivia Hanson made it a 5-0 game. Anne Bloomer spoiled the shutout, but Clarkson earned a 5-1 win.
Dartmouth at (11) Clarkson
Gabrielle David showed out on Saturday, scoring a natural hat trick that had a short-handed goal, an even strength tally and a power play goal. Anne Cherkowski and Olivia Hanson also scored to give the Golden Knights a 5-0 win.
Syracuse at (12) Penn State
On Saturday, Kiara Zanon, Izzy Heminger, Alyssa Machado and Tessa Janecke scored to lead Penn State to a 4-0 win. On Sunday, the Nittany Lions offense exploded for 11 goals – a program record for a single game. Zanon led the team with a hat trick (her first) while Olivia Wallin and Eleri MacKay each had two goals and two assists as Penn State swept with a 11-3 win. Madison Primeau, Lauren Bellefontaine and Mae Batherson scored for Syracuse in the loss.
(14) Connecticut at New Hampshire
Nicky Harnett made 28 saves and earned a shutout to lead UNH to a 4-0 win on Friday. Kelly Harty, Emily Rickwood, Nicole Kelly and Marina Alvarez each lit the lamp for the Wildcats in the win. On Saturday, it was UConn goalie Megan Warrener who led the way with 27 saves. Claire Peterson’s first-period goal was all the Huskies needed to secure a win and weekend split.
(15) Princeton at RPI
Maggie Connors scored early in the first to put the Tigers up 1-0, but Hannah Price responded with just three seconds left in the frame to tie the game at 1. In the second, Sarah Fillier scored twice, notching her 50th career goal. She’d end the night with five points. Mariah Keopple and Connors scored in the third to secure the 5-1 win.
(15) Princeton at Union
Union earned their first win over a ranked team with a 4-1 win over Princeton on Saturday. Sophomore goalie Sophie Matsoukas made 56 saves and the team was a perfect 8-for-8 on the penalty kill. On offense, the Dutchwomen scored four goals on just 15 shots. Riley Walsh scored in the final minute of the first period to put Union up 1-0. Emily King doubled the lead to 2-0 early in the second. Maggie Connors scored for Princeton to close the gap to 2-1. Ashley Adams scored on the breakaway and Maren Friday added an empty-netter to give Union just their second ever in over Princeton.
St. Cloud State players mob Zach Okabe after his hat trick goal against North Dakota Saturday night (photo: St. Cloud State Athletics).
Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
1) Minnesota makes a statement that it’s the team to beat in the Big Ten
Count me among those who thought upstart No. 13 Michigan State could grab a split from No. 4 Minnesota at home.
The Golden Gophers shut out the Spartans 5-0 on Friday, giving goaltender Justen Close his third shutout of the season. Close also made a career-high 40 saves in Saturday’s 6-3 win over the Spartans.
The sweep opens up a five-point lead in the Big Ten standings for Bob Motzko’s Gophers.
2) St. Cloud State sweeps North Dakota at home for the first time in 21 years
No. 3 St. Cloud State kept within two points of Denver in the NCHC standings with 7-2 and 6-3 come-from behind wins over the Fighting Hawks.
Huskies senior forward Zach Okabe recorded his second career hat trick and his first career natural hat trick on Saturday, helping his team score six straight goals to overcome a 3-0 deficit.
“We asked our guys before the game what our biggest strength was, and they said, ‘Resiliency,'” said St. Cloud coach Brett Larson after the game. “They thought they were willing to stick with it no matter what.”
North Dakota has been struggling defensively and in net. The Fighting Hawks have given up six or more goals four times this season and have a combined .861 save percentage.
3) Ferris State gets the road sweep at No. 11 Minnesota State
Ferris State accomplished something no team had done since 2015: sweep the Mavericks in Mankato.
On Friday, the Bulldogs took a 2-0 lead in the first and held on for a 2-1 win behind a 33-save perfomance by sophomore goalie Noah Giesbrecht. Ferris State blocked 27 Minnesota State shots in the win.
The Mavericks jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first 2:46 of the second game of the series, but the Bulldogs scored twice late in that period to tie it. Stepan Pokorny scored with under five minutes to play to give Ferris State the win. Junior netminder Logan Stein stopped 37 shots for the win.
Minnesota State fell to six points behind first-place Bowling Green in the CCHA with the losses, but the Mavericks have two games in hand.
The Badgers recovered from a 2-0 deficit to down Michigan 6-3 on Friday for their first Big Ten win of the season. Michigan won on Saturday 4-2.
Wisconsin had won four straight coming into the weekend, with non-league sweeps of LIU and Lindenwood. Friday’s win was the Badgers’ first over a ranked team since a sweep of then-No. 10 Minnesota Duluth in October.
Friday night was also a tribute to the Suter family at Wisconsin’s Kohl Center.
5) No. 1 Denver gets a sweep over Arizona State amid replay controversies
A goal credited to Denver’s Carter King at 18:02 of the third period staked the Pioneers to a 3-2 win over the visiting Sun Devils on Friday.
Denver challenged the call on the ice that it was not a goal, as it appeared that it had been played by a high stick. After review, officials ruled that the winning goal had gone in off the glove of ASU’s Tim Lovell. Arizona State challenged that ruling, maintaining that the stick of Denver’s Jack Devine had caused Lovell’s glove to bat the puck in.
Denver coach David Carle credited hockey operations director Travis Culhane for the challenge, saying that Culhane was insistent that Devine had not contacted the puck.
Denver prevailed 5-2 on Saturday, but not without some more replay controversy. The Sun Devils challenged Denver’s fifth goal but were told that the replay system was not operational.
6) Fit to be tied
No. 10 Providence and Boston College each picked up three Hockey East points on the weekend in a home-and-home series. The Friars picked up the shootout win on Friday at BC in a 1-1 game, while the Eagles returned the favor at Providence after a 2-2 contest.
Meanwhile No. 15 UMass and No. 16 UMass Lowell played to a 1-1 tie after 65 minutes, with the visiting River Hawks picking up the extra point in the standings with the shootout win.
Connecticut is on top of Hockey East with 27 points, but with 13 league games played compared to as few as eight by Maine and UMass, the standings are a bit misleading at first glance.
7) No. 7 Harvard sees its first ECAC Hockey loss at the hands of Colgate
After a 2-1 overtime win against longtime rival Cornell on Friday, the Crimson were dealt a 6-4 upset loss to Colgate on Saturday. Harvard led 3-1 midway through the contest before Colgate scored four straight, including two on the powerplay and one shorthanded goal. Junior Alex Young tallied his first career hat trick.
The Raiders’ 5-1 win over Dartmouth on Friday gave Colgate a weekend conference sweep and boosted its ECAC record to 6-2 and third place in conference standings.
8) Rochester Institute of Technology puts up 10 on Canisius
RIT scored six times in the third period to put away Canisius 10-4 on the road Saturday night after dropping a 2-1 overtime loss to the Griffins in Rochester on Friday.
The Tigers were helped by a pair of majors to Canisius with under 2:00 left in the second period. After a Tiger minor expired early in the third, RIT had 3:00 of 5-on-3 and scored three times to open a 7-2 lead.
RIT junior Cody Laskosky had a hat trick in the contest for the Atlantic Hockey first-place Tigers, who are the only team this season to reach double digits in a game.
9) Just where do things stand?
As I mentioned above, the standings in Hockey East are a little hard to decipher with such a disparity of games having been played by each team. That said, you can’t take points away after they’re earned, and UConn is the team everyone else is chasing right now.
Quinnipiac has a five-point advantage in ECAC Hockey as the Bobcats are a perfect 8-0 while second-place Harvard at 7-1 has lost two possible points with overtime wins. Colgate and Cornell are just three points behind the Crimson.
RIT, picked fourth by Atlantic Hockey coaches in the preseason, has earned 30 of 36 possible points, giving the Tigers a seven-point lead over American International and Sacred Heart, though the latter has played two more games than AIC and RIT. Among first-place teams in D-I men’s college hockey, only RIT has more than a weekend’s worth of wins between it and its closest rival.
With its weekend sweep, Minnesota has opened up a five-point lead in the Big Ten over Penn State. Though Notre Dame and Michigan trail the top four with nine league points, both have played two fewer games than the teams above and are a weekend sweep away from them.
Bowling Green’s spot at the top of the CCHA is helped by the Falcons having played two to four games more than much of the conference. BGSU’s sweep of Lake Superior State this past weekend while Minnesota State was swept has given the Falcons a six-point margin over the Mavericks and a one-point lead over Michigan Tech.
The NCHC standings show Denver with a two-point lead over St. Cloud though both have 6-2-0 records. Denver has an overtime loss while the Huskies have an overtime win, accounting for the two-point difference.
10) The circle of suck
The Twitter account @BUHockeyStats has published its 2022-23 College Hockey Circle of Suck. Going counterclockwise around the circle shows wins by teams over the next teams in order. This weekend’s results have closed the circle, which is a nice, non-scientific illustration of how anybody can beat anybody on any given night in D-I men’s college hockey.
Colgate players celebrate a goal during the Raiders’ win over Harvard Saturday night (photo: Colgate Athletics).
Harvard suffered its ECAC Hockey loss of the season in a 6-4 setback at Colgate Saturday night.
Colgate got out to a quick start, scoring early on a long shot from the point through traffic that Matt Verboon deflected in at 1:34.
Aku Koskenvuo (28 saves) was solid the rest of the period as Harvard found its skating legs, stopping the next 11 shots he faced in the frame.
Harvard played a dominant opening 10 minutes of the second period, with Sean Farrell potting two goals in 34 seconds to give the Crimson the lead.
A great shift by Harvard’s third line led to the Crimson’s third goal, as Marek Hejduk curled into the high slot and beat Carter Gylander through a screen in front at 10:23 to put the Crimson up two.
Colgate responded with a power play goal at 11:53 from Alex Young.
Colgate tied it on another power-play goal minutes later from Young at 13:51 to set up a back-and-forth third period.
Just 31 seconds into the final frame, Colgate’s Alex DiPaolo scored off a quick faceoff play to give the Raiders the lead. Then the Raiders added a short-handed goal from Colton Young to make it 5-3 at 9:25, a play that was reviewed as Young bowled into Koskenvuo before the puck crossed the line.
Harvard responded with a quick power-play goal as Alex Laferriere redirected a shot from Henry Thrun past Gylander at 9:51.
Alex Young finished his hat trick with three-tenths of a second left on the clock in the third period.
Gylander finished with 36 saves.
No. 1 Denver 5, Arizona State 2
Jared Wright popped two goals to guide the top-ranked Pioneers to a sweep with a 5-2 win on home ice Saturday night.
Sean Behrens had three points (goal, two assists) and Massimo Rizzo and Casey Dornbach also scored for the Pioneers, who improve to 6-2-0 against non-conference opponents this season.
“I just liked our intensity to start the game,” said DU coach David Carle. “A lot of what we talked about (pregame) was they were probably having a similar meeting this morning that we had last Saturday. You saw they weren’t happy with their effort and how they played yesterday, and we just wanted to make sure that we got to our game quickly and established how we wanted to play. I thought we did that in the first period, and it obviously carried over as well into the second.”
Denver goaltender Matt Davis made his first start since the second game of the season on Oct. 8 against Maine and stopped 18 shots in the victory. Davis improved his all-time record to 5-1-0.
DU outshot ASU 43-20 in the game and 99-40 in the two games over the weekend.
TJ Semptimphelter started for the Sun Devils and made 26 saves while playing the first 40 minutes. Ben Kraws played the third for ASU and stopped 12 shots.
Ryan O’Reilly and Teddy Lagerback scored both of Arizona State’s goals in the third period.
The Pioneers are now 10-2-0 over their last dozen games.
No. 2 Quinnipiac 6, Clarkson 3
Six different players scored for the Bobcats as QU doubled up Clarkson 6-3 Saturday night at home.
TJ Friedmann and Skyler Brind’Amour each had a goal and an assist to pace the Quinnipiac offense.
Yaniv Perets made 13 saves for the win in goal while Ethan Haider stopped 39 in a losing cause for Clarkson.
— St. Cloud State Men's Hockey (@SCSUHuskies_MH) December 4, 2022
Jack Peart added a goal and an assist, Dylan Anhorn and Adam Ingram each had two assists, and Dominic Basse made 23 saves in goal for the win.
In goal for the Fighting Hawks, Drew DeRidder stopped 13 shots while Gavin Hain, Riese Gaber and Matteo Costantini scored. Chris Jandric tallied two assists.
No. 4 Minnesota 6, No. 13 Michigan State 3
Brock Faber tallied three points, while six different players scored a goal as No. 4 Minnesota finished off the weekend sweep of No. 13 Michigan State in a 6-3 win Saturday evening.
Faber recorded a goal and two assists, while Justen Close made a career-high 40 saves as the Golden Gophers secured their third Big Ten sweep this season.
A three-goal barrage in the second period helped the Gophers move to 4-0 in the state of Michigan in 2022-23 as they picked up their 11th-straight win over the Spartans to remain in first place in the league standings.
Seven players recorded multiple points for Minnesota Saturday.
Jimmy Snuggerud and Matthew Knies remain tied for the Gophers’ scoring lead as both put away their 11th goal this season. Snuggerud has points in 13 of his previous 16 contests and six straight, while Knies has recorded seven points over a five-game stretch, including his NCAA-best fourth game-winning goal.
Jeremy Davidson netted two goals for the Spartans and Dylan St. Cyr stopped 35 shots in goal.
No. 5 Michigan 4, Wisconsin 2
Mark Estapa had his first career multi-goal game, scoring twice, including Michigan’s first short-handed tally of the year as the Wolverines earned a split after a 4-2 win Saturday night on the road.
Rutger McGroarty scored the other two goals as he extended his scoring streak to three games.
Mark Estapa with his third goal of the season, an assist from Jackson Hallum and it's 2-2! pic.twitter.com/oSFR3kPVyt
Jakub Dobeš made 37 saves for the Buckeyes, while Mason Lohrei and Cole McWard each had two assists. Jake Wise, Jaedon Leslie, Tate Singleton and Joe Dunlap all tallied for Ohio State.
“I’m really proud of the team,” said OSU coach Steve Rohlik. “I thought we worked hard both nights and were rewarded with a big road win tonight.”
For Penn State, Kevin Wall, Ture Linden and Danny Dzhaniyev scored and Ben Schoen contributed two assists.
In goal, Nittany Lions netminder Liam Souliere finished with 20 saves in taking the defeat.
No. 9 Boston University 3, New Hampshire 0
Vinny Duplessis stopped all 22 shots he faced while Domenick Fensore and Jay O’Brien each had a goal and an assist to lead BU to a 3-0 victory over New Hampshire on Saturday night at home.
Duplessis earned his fourth career shutout thanks in part to a stellar second period in which he made 12 of his 22 stops. His strong play ensured that Fensore’s power-play strike with 1:24 to play in the middle frame stood up as the game winner.
OB finished off a two-point night and extended his point streak to four games with this clutch insurance goal late in the third! pic.twitter.com/0VOgKQIGV5
O’Brien notched an insurance goal when he capitalized on a power-play chance with 3:23 remaining in regulation. Quinn Hutson added an empty-netter just 59 seconds later to complete the scoring.
All six assists tonight came from Terrier seniors.
UNH goalie David Fessenden made 40 saves for the Wildcats.
No. 10 Providence 2, Boston College 2 (BC wins shootout)
Nick Poisson scored both goals for Providence as the Friars and Boston College skated to their second tie of the weekend, a 2-2 stalemate on Saturday night in Providence.
The Eagles earned the extra point with a 2-1 win in the four-round shootout.
Providence goalie Philip Svedebäck had 25 saves and Mitch Benson stopped 33 for BC.
Connor Joyce and Matt Argentina scored the Eagles’ goals.
RIT 10, Canisius 4
Cody Laskosky scored three goals while Kobe Walker added two goals and two assists to lead the Tigers to a 10-4 victory at Canisius Saturday night.
RIT fell behind 2-0 in the first period, but rebounded with seven straight goals, including three during an extended 5-on-3 power play to start the third period, en route to the win.
Carter Wilkie and Gianfranco Cassaro each collected a goal and two assists in the win and Tommy Scarfone picked up the win in goal.
RIT had its highest scoring output since a 10-0 victory at Sacred Heart on Jan. 14, 2012, while the Tigers’ 10 goals tied for the fourth-highest single-game total in Atlantic Hockey history and were the most by an Atlantic Hockey team since AIC shut out host Mercyhurst 12-0 on Nov. 15, 2019.
Jacob Barczewski took the loss in the Canisius cage and also recorded the fourth assist in his career as he was credited with a secondary helper on Stefano Bottini’s first-period goal. His last two assists have both come against RIT with the last one on Nov. 13, 2021.
No. 19 Michigan Tech 3, Northern Michigan 1
Ryland Mosley scored a pair of goals to break a 1-1 tie and lift Michigan Tech to a 3-1 victory over Northern Michigan Saturday in front of a sold-out crowd at the MacInnes Student Ice Arena.
“I really couldn’t be happier with how we played from the goaltender on out tonight and how we played in the third period,” Michigan Tech coach Joe Shawhan said. “It was a great college hockey game and weekend. The atmosphere and quality of play were excellent at both buildings.”
Mosley scored the game-winning goal 13:29 into the second period. He is tied for the nation’s lead after his fourth game-winning goal of the season.
Then 10:44 into the third period, the Huskies finally broke through on their sixth power play of the night when Mosley scored again.
“I wanted to take a big step this year with all the guys that left last year,” Mosley said. “I had a good summer here and at home. It really helped my growth coming in halfway through the year a couple seasons ago.”
Blake Pietila made 24 saves, including a chance on a shorthanded breakaway in the third. Beni Halasz stopped 44 shots for Northern Michigan.
Mike Addesa led RPI to the 1985 national championship (photo: RPI Athletics).
Michael John Addesa, Jr., known to most as the original “Coach Addesa,” passed away peacefully on Nov. 29, surrounded by his loving family.
He was 77.
Born in West Roxbury, Mass., to the late Michael John Addesa, Sr. and Irene Guidi Addesa, he attended Boston English High School and matriculated to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where he was a standout on the football field.
The lifelong educator, hockey coach, advisor, and scout began his career as a high school history teacher and assistant high school hockey coach at St. Mary’s of Lynn. He soon moved into the head coaching position before later serving as the head coach at Randolph High School.
In 1974, Mike was hired as an assistant coach for the men’s hockey team at his alma mater, Holy Cross. After two seasons, he was named the head coach and continued building the Crusaders into a winning program. Soon after, Division I hockey came calling and he was hired as the men’s hockey coach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. During his time with RPI, his teams set multiple team and individual statistical records, many of which stand to this day. Over the course of his 10 years coaching, the Engineers they won two ECAC titles and a NCAA championship, and he guided dozens of players on to the professional ranks.
After his time as a college coach, he spent a year coaching junior hockey for the SJHL’s Notre Dame Hounds. Addesa moved his family back to his home state of Massachusetts after one season in Wilcox, Sask., and became one of the early pioneers of junior hockey in New England, founding the Boston Junior Bulldogs in 1995. While advancing junior hockey on the east coast, he also served as a talent evaluator and player scout for several NHL teams, including the Detroit Red Wings, Calgary Flames, and Vancouver Canucks. Mike had a special knack for discovering the otherwise overlooked athlete, many of whom went on to have very successful professional playing careers.
Most recently he brought junior hockey back to the city of Worcester with the founding and management of the Worcester Railers Junior Hockey Club in 2018.
Throughout his life, Mike had a passion for growing and promoting high school hockey in New England, as evidenced by his support for and contributions to Hockey Night in Boston, from the time of its inception in 1972, all the way through this last summer’s 50th year of HNIB. Mike’s induction into the Massachusetts State Hockey Coaches Hall of Fame in 2002 was one of the proudest honors of his illustrious coaching career. He greatly enjoyed helping young people develop in their hockey playing careers and guiding them through the college selection and admissions process. He was proud to have helped launch the professional playing and coaching careers of many.
Mike’s two favorite places were hockey rinks and Pine River Pond in Wakefield, N.H., where he and his wife Mary have a home. When he wasn’t holding court in the lobby of (insert your favorite New England hockey rink here) you could find him admiring his beautiful view of the water, enjoying the many plants and flowers in his yard, and especially watching his family and friends “play at the lake.”
A loving and dedicated husband, father, and grandfather, he is survived by his devoted wife of 52 years, Mary Donnelly Addesa and their five children, Kimberly (Dunham) and her husband Robert of Danvers, Mass., Michael III and his wife Mimi of Andover, Mass., Christopher and his wife Lauren of Milton, Mass., Brian and his wife Sara of Peabody, Mass., and Matthew and his wife Cristina of Andover. Mike’s 13 grandchildren Charlie, Christian, Emily, Colby, Owen, Teddy, Cooper, Echo, Luke, Sam, Madeline, Grace, and Rosemary were his pride and joy. Mike is also survived by his sister Mary Lemieux of Sandwich Mass., his brothers- and sisters-in-law, and his many nieces and nephews.
In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to The Thomas E. Smith Foundation, a non-profit organization, started by Coach Addesa’s former players, whose mission is to better the lives of those affected by and living with paralysis through financial and emotional support, as well as supporting preventive innovations that decrease the risk of spinal cord injuries. Checks can be made out to The Thomas E. Smith Foundation and the address is: P.O. Box 1624, Andover, MA 01810. Or visit https://thomasesmithfoundation.org
Relatives and friends are invited to attend. Visiting hours will be held in the Robert J. Lawler and Crosby Funeral Home 1803 Centre St. West Roxbury, on Tuesday, Dec. 6, from 3-7 p.m. A funeral mass will be celebrated on Wednesday, Dec. 7, at 10:00am in the Holy Name Church 1859 Centre St. West Roxbury. Private interment.
Minnesota’s offense exploded for five goals while goaltender Justen Close posted a shutout in a 5-0 road win over Michigan State (File photo: Minnesota Athletics).
Wisconsin stretched its winning streak to five games, rallying for a 2-0 deficit for a 6-3 upset of No. 5 Michigan on Friday.
Michigan jumped ahead of first period goals by Rutger McGroarty and Luke Hughes. But the Badgers brought life to the Kohl Center crowd scoring the game’s next four goals, two coming in a 55 second span to tie the game in the first and then another pair in the second to take a 4-2 lead into the third.
Michigan tried to climb back in the game on Adam Fantilli’s goal with 14:56 left, but Wisconsin closed the game with goals from Cruz Lucius and Owen Lindmark.
Ferris State used a fast start, scoring twice on just six shots in the first period, and held on for a 2-1 victory over No. 11 Minnesota State behind 33 saves by goaltender Noah Giesbrecht.
Tyler Schleppe gave the visiting Bulldogs the early lead at 5:55 of the first before Ben Schultheis doubled the lead at 12:27.
Tyler Schleppe's third of the year gets the scoring started for @FerrisHockey in Mankato!
After a scoreless middle frame, Dylan Silye drew the Maverick within a goal at 1:59 of the third. But Giesbrecht shut the door, finishing the final frame with 10 saves.
No. 4 Minnesota 5, No. 13 Michigan State 0
Justen Close made 25 saves for his third shutout of the season and freshman phenom Logan Cooley netted two goals and an assist as Minnesota won going away, handing Michigan State just their second loss in more than a month, 5-0.
Cooley opened the scoring in the first before Rhett Pitlick doubled the lead in the middle from at 17:03.
The Gophers ran away with the third period scoring three times in the game’s final nine minutes for the lopsided victory.
No. 7 Harvard 2, Cornell 1
In the greatest of Ivy League rivalry games, Harvard’s Sean Farrell’s goal at 1:11 of overtime gave the Crimson a 2-1 come-from-behind victory over Cornell.
The game featured just a single penalty and each team mustered just 23 shots a piece.
The Big Red took an early lead on Travis Mitchell’s tally at 2:14. But they could not extend that lead, despite mustering 22 shots over the first period period.
Joe Miller tied the game for Harvard with 1:36 left in the second then then simple stymied host Cornell, allowing just a single Big Red shot through the third period and overtime.
No. 1 Denver 3, Arizona State 2
The nation’s top ranked Denver Pioneers survived a scare from Arizona State, rallying with two third period goals including Jack Devine’s game winner with 1:58 left for a 3-2 victory.
Devine’s goal was originally disallowed as the referee ruled it had been redirected in with a high stick. But after a challenge by Denver coach David Carle, it was determined the puck instead with off the glove of an Arizona State defender, overturning the call on the ice.
The visiting Sun Devils broke a 1-1 tie on Ryan Alexander’s goal at 3:46 of the third. Denver answered less than two minutes later on the power play on Massimo Rizzo’s tally setting up the dramatic finish.
The Denver win spoiled a career performance by Arizona State goaltender TJ Semptimphelter, who made 53 saves in a losing effort.
Samuel Vyletelka and the Auggies face St. Olaf in a key MIAC series. (Photo Credit: Kevin Healy, Augsburg Athletics)
It’s not even Christmas yet, and here we are, with another weekend that brings the gift of more hockey.
A lot of great matchups are in store for the weekend, including a showdown between Augsburg and St. Olaf in a huge MIAC series. That’s playoff worthy hockey in December.
The WIAC should be interesting to watch this weekend as well, especially with UW-Eau Claire coming off that big non-conference sweep of St. Norbert last weekend.
In the NCHA, the series of the weekend has to be the one between Adrian and MSOE. Check out the picks below.
St. Olaf (7-1-1, 3-1) vs. Augsburg (5-1-1, 2-0)
It doesn’t get much better than a series like this early in the season. Both teams played in the NCAA tournament a year ago and the Oles won the MIAC tourney by stunning Augsburg in the final. Both teams can punch the puck into the net, combining for 55 goals on the year, and this should be a fun series to watch because of it. It will surprise me if either team sweeps this series. Augsburg comes in ranked No. 2 in the DCU/USCHO.com NCAA Division III men’s hockey poll. The Oles have a chance to make a statement. St. Olaf, 4-3; Augsburg, 5-4
Concordia (2-4-1, 0-2) vs. Hamline (3-4-1)
The Cobbers are still searching for their first MIAC win. Hamline is looking for its first win since Nov. 12. Sam Dabrowski is one of the top goal scorers in the conference, racking up five, and he’ll be a key to success. Jarret Lalli is a playmaker for the Cobbers, tallying five assists. Hamline, 5-3; Concordia, 3-2
Adrian (5-2-1, 2-2) at MSOE (7-2, 3-1)
The reigning champs,ranked fourth in the country in the latest national poll, hit the road to take on a solid Raiders team. Matus Spodniak is one of the top offensive threats in the conference, racking up 12 goals and dishing out three assists. The Bulldogs have had some tough moments in the early going, but they still have the talent to compete with anyone on any given night. For MSOE, it’s a chance to make a huge statement. Kyle Herbster and Gramm McCormack have tallied 14 and 13 points, respectively, and both will need big games this weekend. Adrian, 5-4; MSOE, 4-3
St. Norbert (5-2-1, 4-0) vs. Concordia (2-7, 2-2)
The Green Knights are looking to bounce back and they are more than capable of doing just that. They have one of the more talented teams in the country, checking in at No. 5 this week nationally, and have scored 28 goals on the year. Johnny Roberts is one of the top netminders in the conference, giving up just seven goals and making 107 saves. The Falcons have played better after an 0-5 start but will need their best effort of the season to hang with St. Norbert. St. Norbert, 5-2 and 4-1
Friday
Bethel (7-3-1, 2-2-1) vs. Saint John’s (5-4-1, 3-1-1)
Bethel is having a solid season and Saint John’s is in the mix for a conference crown as usual. The Johnnies won Thursday’s game by a 4-1 score, snapping a two-game losing streak, and have an opportunity to complete the sweep on the road. But the Royals won’t make it easy, especially at home, and they have a chance to gain some ground in the standings. The Johnnies are trying to keep their grip on first place. Look for this one to be tightly played. Saint John’s, 5-3
UW-Eau Claire 6-2, 2-0) at UW-Superior (7-3, 3-1)
The Blugolds are as confident as ever after sweeping nationally ranked St Norbert last week. They come into this game ranked 11th in the country and riding a four-game win streak. For the Yellowjackets, who have a little confidence of their own, having won three in a row, this is a huge opportunity for them to make an early-season statement. Let’s go with the upset in a game that really could go either way. UW-Superior, 5-4
Saturday
UW-Superior (7-3, 3-1) at UW-Stevens Point (4-1-3, 2-0)
Another big game is on tap for the Yellowjackets as they hit the road to take on the Pointers, who have won their last two games. Two great playmakers will be on the ice for this one. Charles Martin of UW-Superior ranks sixth in the WIAC in assists (7) and Jordan Fader of UW-Stevens Point is tied for seventh (6). UW-Superior, 4-3
UW-Eau Claire (6-2, 2-0) at UW-Stout (7-2 1-1)
The Blugolds and Blue Devils are both playing well. UW-Stout has won its last two and is one win shy of matching last year’s victory total. It features two of the top goal scorers in the conference in Peyton Hart and Jacob Halverson. The duo has combined for 19 goals. UW-Eau Claire, 4-3
Saturday and Sunday
Lawrence (1-6, 1-3) at Aurora (7-2-2, 4-0-2)
On paper, the 14th-ranked Spartans shouldn’t have trouble taking care of business against the Vikings. But hockey games are played on the ice and that’s where anything can happen. Jack Jaunich has played well for the Spartans, scoring seven goals to go along with eight assists. Lawrence is going to need its best effort of the year to pull off the upset. It has shown it can compete, having beaten MSOE once last week and losing two games by just a goal. Aurora, 6-2 and 5-3
Robert Morris announced on Thursday that Liam Cavanagh has been named the assistant coach for the Colonials’ women’s hockey team.
Cavanagh, who spent the 2021-22 season as an assistant coach with Canadian school Dalhousie, is in his second stint at Robert Morris, having spent three years as the director of hockey operations.
“We are extremely excited to have Liam back with RMU women’s hockey,” Colonials head coach Logan Bittle said in a statement. “Liam played an integral part in our success in his previous tenure with our team. He has a tremendous work ethic and bleeds RMU red and blue. He will be an amazing ambassador for our program and a tremendous asset to our current and future student athletes.”
The RMU women’s hockey team will return to the ice with the 2023-24 season as part of College Hockey America.
During the 2021-22 season at Dalhousie, Cavanagh was the primary goalie’s coach as he worked alongside Team Canada’s Olympic head coach Troy Ryan. He helped the Tigers earn a spot in the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) quarterfinal round.
Prior to his stint at Dalhousie, Cavanagh served as the director of hockey operations at UMass Boston for the men’s hockey program for two seasons.
“I’m exceptionally grateful to athletic director Chris King and head coach Logan Bittle for the opportunity to return to Robert Morris University,” Cavanagh said. “It’s great to be back in Pittsburgh, a place I was fortunate to spend a number of years learning from some of the best coaches around. I’ve had the pleasure of working with Coach Bittle previously and knowing the culture and pride the RMU family has built is extremely exciting to return to.”
Earning a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Acadia in 2017, with a focus in marketing and finance, Cavanagh then received a Master’s of Science degree with a focus in Data Analytics and Nonprofit Leadership at Robert Morris in 2019. Before his career on the business and coaching side of hockey, Cavanagh was a goaltender for Charles P. Allen High School and with junior programs in the MHL and NSJHL.
Cavanagh is the founder and CEO of several startup companies including a sports apparel company that focused on charitable efforts rather than profit-making. He also founded a non-profit organization that was built to help professional and collegiate athletes understand the importance of a balanced lifestyle, while maintaining and understanding the significance that mental health plays in everyday life.
His coaching career began in 2009 with Finngoalie, a group that provides training for professional/elite goaltenders, where he excelled his coaching skills, drill development, and evaluation which has enabled him to work with elite goaltenders and players around the world through the summer months.
Bowdoin’s Alex Kozic has helped the Polar Bears to a 4-0-0 start to the 2022-23 season with a big game at Colby on the horizon (Photo by Brian Beard/GoUBears Photo)
It has been a while since the Bowdoin program has seen success on the ice. The Polar Bears last won the NESCAC title in the 2013-14 season and have not seen a winning record in the past five seasons. This year Bowdoin brought in new head coach Ben Guite to guide the program and early results show this team may revive some of the luster to a long-time successful hockey institution in D-III.
“It has been a great experience coming to Bowdoin,” said Guite. “Despite all my time in Maine I had never been here in Brunswick, so it has been exciting to come here and everyone on campus has been very welcoming and supportive. I am excited to be here and the players have certainly embraced the change and have bought in to what we are trying to do here.”
So far this season, the Polar Bears are 4-0-0 overall and 2-0-0 in NESCAC play with opening weekend wins over Williams and Middlebury. Last weekend Bowdoin extended their winning ways with wins over Johnson & Wales, 5-2 and Massachusetts-Boston, 6-0 in the Bowdoin/Colby Face-Off tournament hosted by Colby. The fast start has energized the group and has their new coach appreciating the commitment from his team, top to bottom.
“The early wins help cultivate the buy-in,” noted Guite. “I am fortunate to come into a roster that has so many seniors. It is a very mature group and the seniors usually have a bigger sense of urgency knowing they don’t have many games left in their collegiate careers or competitive hockey careers in general. It’s not only our captains Chris [Brown], Cam [Berube], and Jimmy [Duffy], its all eleven of them providing leadership and excellence on and off the ice. Bobby [Pearl], Ethan [Kimball], Andy [Stoneman], Joe [Alexander], Patrick [Ault], Albert [Waschco], Ean [Small], and Bobby [Murray] have all been a big part of our getting off to a good start. This group has been outstanding with their leadership and that has gone through the roster with lots of different players leading us in different categories. Our team goals are more process oriented than just wins and losses and the whole roster has embraced the process and shown a lot of initiative in many areas.”
During the interviewing process, senior Cam Berube and others were able to take their future coach on his first tour of the campus so the connections began early for the coach and his players.
“The tour was like the players part of the selection process,” stated Guite. “I felt like that was part of their having a say in the selection of their new coach. I mentioned a book on leadership (Legacy) that I thought it would be good for the team to all read and was told they all had already done that as a group the previous spring after the season. Whether it has been the big push to the weight room or other team activities off and on the ice, this group has been engaged and shown initiative from the start.”
This weekend marks coach Guite’s first Bowdoin v. Colby games in Waterville on Saturday night. The rivalry is one of the oldest and most intense in college hockey. While Bowdoin’s new coach is excited to experience his first game in the rivalry, he isn’t going to give any bulletin board material to his coaching peer (Blaise MacDonald) with the Mules.
“I am really excited to get a taste of this rivalry this weekend,” said Guite. “I had the great experience while playing and coaching at Maine to play in the big rivalry games with New Hampshire. It is a special thing and I know how much it means to the alums, players, and the communities for both schools.”
Going into the game on Saturday, the Polar Bears have been getting contributions up and down the lineup and exceptional play from defenseman Bobby Pearl (2-5-7) who has shown up on the scoresheet in every game this season including a pair of power play goals for Bowdoin.
“Bobby has been great,” stated Guite. “He has great tools as a player and the most important thing is he isn’t forcing things from the back. He isn’t cheating the game from his defensive position and is using his skills and instincts to transition well with the offensive aspects of the game. Bobby has been a big factor but we are getting a lot of contributions from many different players which is exciting from a balance and depth perspective.”
After playing the Bowdoin/Colby Face-off last weekend in Waterville, Bowdoin returns to face their long-time rivals on Saturday night in what should be a great hockey game between two of NESCAC’s unbeatens.
