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The Best Kept Secret

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They’re no secret in Hockey East circles any longer, but Providence College forwards Devin Rask and Peter Fregoe may still have a little catching up to do in terms of national recognition. That may happen soon with the duo leading the offense for the NCAA-bound Friars.

The two second-year players have teamed with either Jon DiSalvatore or, more recently, Cody Loughlean to form one of the most formidable trios in the East. With the stakes high on this evening — a loss and the season was over — the two 5-9 fireplugs both scored goals to lead Providence to its first NCAA tournament appearance since 1996.

“They work really, really hard,” says co-captain Matt Libby. “They’re definitely not the biggest line in the league, but they work hard, they’re really smart hockey players and they’ve been doing it all year for us. You’ve got to give them all the credit in the world.

Rask

Rask

“Rasko, especially, is one of the best forwards that we have in the league and in the nation.”

Jay Leach, PC’s other co-captain, goes even further with his praise of Rask.

“Rask is the type of player that every coach dreams of,” he says. “I’ve never seen a kid who has that much skill and can score 52 points and go down and dive for shots. He’s just got incredible hunger.

“They’re a great line that works real hard down low. They have a sense of where each other is. It’s real exciting to watch.”

When Fregoe joined the Friars last year, expectations were high. He came from the USHL’s Des Moines Buccaneers where he was league MVP after scoring 46 goals and assisting on 57 others for 103 points. He finished his inaugural season with a 14-15–29 scoring line and was selected to the Hockey East All-Rookie Team.

Rask came in with less fanfare. He’d been named a second-team all-star in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, but made only modest contributions for the Friars over the first half of last season.

“The big part was that I wasn’t playing a lot,” he says. “I was on the fourth line and the third line. The thing that helped me out is that we had a player quit in December. Coach gave me the opportunity right after that.

“His confidence in me showed in the last two months finishing off the season. I realized I could step up and play with everyone rather than just check.”

The line of Rask, Fregoe and DiSalvatore became a force.

“[Last] February, he, Fregoe and DiSalvatore were the best line in the bloody league,” says PC coach Paul Pooley. “They were unstoppable.

“That confidence gave Devin the desire this year to come in and get off to a great start because he knew what he could do.”

Rask got off to a great start and never looked back. He entered this weekend with a 22-28–50 scoring line, having scored on a remarkable 24.4 percent of his shots. A year after floundering on the lower lines well into December, he earned a berth on the All-Hockey East First Team.

Rask admits that even though he entered the season with a lot of confidence, the results and awards have caught him a bit off guard.

“As far as myself, I’ve surprised myself a little bit this year,” he says with a laugh. “But hopefully I’ll just keep going like this.

“You have to give credit to everyone on your team and your coaches around you. Without them, you’re not going to be there. I want to especially give credit to my linemates: Fregoe has been there all year and Cody Loughlean and Jon DiSalvatore.”

The chemistry has been particularly effective with Fregoe.

“We’ve been roommates the last year and pretty good buds off ice so I think that helps out,” says Rask. “We’ve played together for a long time, [including] the whole year this season. We know where each other is on the ice. We don’t get upset with each other when someone makes a mistake.”

Spotting his “good bud” standing nearby, Rask grins and says, “If Fregoe screws up, he knows it’s okay.”

They both laugh, but Fregoe declines to retaliate when asked what happens when Rask screws up.

“It doesn’t happen a lot with Devin,” says Fregoe. “He’s a great player. When he has the puck, I just try to get open and create some space for him, because it’s hard for any defender to guard him, he spins so quick. He’s just a great player who is great to play with. He makes me better just playing with him.”

Fregoe was named an All-Hockey East Honorable Mention for his 15 goals, 20 assists and 35 points. He got off to a slower start than Rask this season, but has been a force down the stretch, as has the entire unit.

“What I’ve noticed in Peter Fregoe the last couple weeks is that he gets that look in his eye and he’s not going to be denied,” says Pooley. “[Tonight] when we started coming, he wanted to be out there and he was ready to play if he had to play 40 minutes for the last two periods.”

Rask and Fregoe are highly skilled, but perhaps their greatest talent is their work ethic.

“We work hard,” says Fregoe. “That’s what we key on in this team. We just outwork every team and by the third period wear them down.

“We work it low. That’s our main thing, cycling the puck and getting shots and rebounds.”

The tenacity in their game on the ice is echoed by Rask’s words off the ice.

“I want to win,” he says. “I’ve played a lot of hockey in my career and I have yet to wear a ring on my finger for a championship. I’ve been to a few finals, [but I haven’t won there].

“That’s all I want. Now we have a chance for it [against BC]. I’ll do anything to get that ring.”

The Bums and the Barber

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After UMass-Lowell’s game against Northeastern on Mar. 3, the razors went away. Not because of frustration. This wasn’t a case of staying away from sharp objects in the wake of a disappointing loss. The River Hawks had won, 6-2.

The razors disappeared because the win signaled the end of the regular season and, more importantly, the start of the second season. Come playoff time, some teams opt for the unshaven look. It looks and feels like playoff hockey. Tough. Gritty. Desperate.

Desperate men in desperate times.

The River Hawks were in just such straits, opening their postseason at New Hampshire’s Whittemore Center where they had gone winless in the last eight games. As a team they opted to forgo shaving for as long as their second season lasted.

The result on the ice was great. The River Hawks upended New Hampshire in three games to advance to the Fleet Center.

The result in the mirror wasn’t so pretty.

“They look like a bunch of bums,” said Sports Information Director Chris O’Donnell with a laugh.

“We’ve got some guys with a patch here and patch there,” said one River Hawk at Thursday’s Hockey East banquet.

“My girlfriend hates it,” said another.

Although with some players, you could hardly tell the difference. Which perhaps was even worse.

“[Ron] Hainsey still looks like he just shaved,” said the first River Hawk. He laughed and added, “I think [Stephen] Slonina only has two or three whiskers.”

The bums — meant here as a term of endearment much like the old Brooklyn baseball team was affectionately known as the “Bums” without that team’s ineptitude — entered their semifinal contest against Boston College with scruffy faces, but well-earned respect.

“A team that can go to New Hampshire and win two games [is rare],” said BC coach Jerry York. “There aren’t many teams that can do that.”

Lowell even jumped out on top in the first period against second-ranked Boston College. Could the “bunch of bums” become the Hockey East championship game bums?

The Eagles responded less than two minutes later.

Kobasew

Kobasew

More specifically, Chuck Kobasew responded. Capitalizing on a turnover in the slot, he ripped a shot into the top of the net past goaltender Jimi St. John.

The Barber, Chuck Kobasew, had applied the shaving cream. The sniper’s goal had arrested Lowell’s momentum at just the right time.

One night earlier Kobasew had been honored as the Hockey East Rookie of the Year and a second-team all-star selection.

“He was honored for a reason,” said Brian Gionta. “He plays hard. He pays the price in front of the net. That’s what you need to do at this level to score goals.

“You’ve got to get in that red zone and win the battles. [His] goals tonight reflected that. Getting to the zone and getting quick shots off. He’s a real special player.”

In the second period, however, Lowell proved that they had some real special players, too, taking it to Boston College. BC goaltender Scott Clemmensen had to make a Hockey East championship round record of 23 saves. At one point, the River Hawks were outshooting the Eagles 23-4 for the period.

“Lowell played very, very well and dominated us,” said York. “That hasn’t happened very often over the last few years that a team could do that to us.”

Considering the opponent, it might have been UMass-Lowell’s best period of the year. And yet, thanks to Clemmensen and Kobasew, BC outscored the River Hawks, 1-0. The Barber scored on a four-on-three man advantage.

The Barber had sharpened the razor.

“That goal was very important for them obviously,” said UML coach Tim Whitehead. “When you’re getting a lot of opportunities and you don’t score, and then the other team gets one, mentally that gives them a boost.”

Nonetheless, Lowell still had all the territorial momentum.

“You get a ton of shots and you don’t score and all of a sudden the Zamboni comes out,” said Whitehead. “I wish the Zamboni had been busted or something and we had to keep going.”

Instead, the Zamboni came out and the opening of the third period was a much different game. Boston College scored 29 seconds into the third period. At 3:17, The Barber added another to complete his hat trick and all but seal the game. Gionta added an insurance goal at 5:01.

By the end of the period, Clemmensen, who had set a record for most saves in the second period, tied a record for least saves with two. The Eagles took 13 shots before Lowell mustered its first.

“In the third period, they struck immediately and then they struck again before our guys could get on their feet,” said Whitehead. “Our guys competed hard. We our opportunities, but we didn’t capitalize.”

And so UMass-Lowell’s season was over. The loveable bums had been given a figurative shave by The Barber. For the season, Kobasew had scored six goals and added four assists against the River Hawks.

“It’s been a rollercoaster ride, starting the season down 1-6 and then coming back and playing great through January and February and into March here,” said St. John.

Having been figuratively shaved, how long would it take the River Hawks to get out the literal razors?

“It’ll be about two hours and they’ll be off,” said St. John with a rueful laugh. “That’s when we get back to Lowell.”

Report: Jeff Jackson Turns Down Return to Lakers

USCHO Staff Report
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Former Lake Superior coach Jeff Jackson, a two-time national champion, recently turned down an offer to return to the Lakers, according to a report in the Kitchener-Waterloo (Ont.) Record.

Jackson, who left Lake Superior in 1996 to help start the U.S. National Developmental Program in Ann Arbor, Mich., before being fired from the program last year, has been coaching in the major junior Ontario League (OHL) for the Guelph Storm. He said he was enjoying his time in junior hockey, and didn’t think it was right to take the Lake State job back.

“I’ve made a commitment to be here, for how long I’m not sure,” Jackson said to the Record. “I feel we have some positive things going for the future, and I’ve learned to appreciate the OHL. I’m also not sure that looking for a new coach before firing the old one is the right thing to do.”

Lake Superior athletic director Bill Crawford denied having spoken to Jackson, but he did hint that a change was in the works, and acknowledged that others, knowing that, could’ve contacted the ex-coach.

“We’re not pursuing Jeff Jackson as a coach,” Crawford told the Record. “But I do think that if we’re going to make a change, some people here have maybe explored that a little bit. People here might ask him if he’s interested but I don’t think he is.”

The Lakers, ravaged by injuries all season, finished 13-23-0 under Borek in his fifth year as head coach, failing to make the CCHA playoffs. Last season, the Lakers finished a surprising third, but were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round by Bowling Green.

Reports have indicated a sometimes contentious relationship between Crawford and Borek. Borek pursued the Princeton coaching opening last summer, despite having just signed a contract extension.

If Lake Superior were to make a move, a possible replacement for Borek could be another former head coach, Frank Anzalone. Anzalone, who was in charge of the Lakers before Jackson, was fired earlier this season as head coach of the Pee Dee Pride of the ECHL after a near-two-year stint there. Anzalone has held a number of pro coaching jobs since leaving the Soo, where he also won a national championship in 1988.

Fun Before the Storm

USCHO Staff Report
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The games begin on Friday, as the teams battle for the right to call themselves NCAA Champions. But Thursday night was a chance for the NCAA to celebrate the accomplishments of the four teams that made it to the 2001 Division III Frozen Four with a banquet.

Troy Aurthur, NCAA Assistant Director of Championships said it best: “There are over 300,000 student-athletes that compete under the NCAA umbrella every season. Only around 30,000 get to participate in NCAA sanctioned tournaments. and we have over 120 of those here tonight. You should all feel proud.”

Wisconsin-Superior's Jeff Glowa livened up the room while speaking on behalf of his teammates at Thursday's Division III Championships banquet. (photo by Russell Jaslow)

Wisconsin-Superior’s Jeff Glowa livened up the room while speaking on behalf of his teammates at Thursday’s Division III Championships banquet. (photo by Russell Jaslow)

Each of the teams had a representative say a few words during the banquet ceremonies. Senior defenseman Bryan Murray spoke first for Plattsburgh. Murray graciously thanked all of the entities involved in hosting the tournament, and making things went so smoothly so far.

Jared Anderson, a senior forward from Wisconsin-River Falls, followed. “We’re very excited about being here, and know that we are going to face some great competition.”

Jeff Glowa livened up the room next. Glowa, a senior forward from Wisconsin-Superior, warmed to the occassion before he even got to the microphone and was just off the wall as he dropped several one-liners. “The fans are the winners this weekend, as they are treated to some great games.”

Wrapping up the comments from the teams was senior forward Jonathan Day from host RIT. “It’s just a great honor to host this event.”

With the team representatives completed, Plattsburgh coach Bob Emery officially announced the AHCA All-American team to conclude the banquet.

Mankato Lets Women’s Coach Go

USCHO Staff Report
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MSU-Mankato announced it will not be renewing the contract of women’s coach Todd Carroll.

Carroll was the first head coach of the women’s program and spearheaded the move for the Mavericks to join the Women’s WCHA.

“On behalf of the University and Department of Athletics, we wish to express our appreciation for what Coach Carroll has provided to Minnesota State Univeristy over the past four years,” said athletic director Don Amiot. “We wish him the best in future endeavors.”

This past season, the Mavericks finished 2-31-2 (0-23-1 WCHA). The Mavericks were 8-25-2 two seasons ago, their first at the Division I level.

A search for a new head coach will commence immediately.

Four Years, One Game

By Michael Kobylanski
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Like the rest of his teammates, Quinnipiac senior forward Chris Cerrella didn’t commit to play hockey for the Braves with the hope of achieving mediocrity. Despite the fact that QU barely finished above .500 the year prior to Cerrella’s arrival, the influx of a talented freshman class four years ago immediately raised the bar much higher.

Since those first few days on campus, the Braves’ alternate captain has experienced plenty of changes at the Hamden, Conn. school. As an institution, Quinnipiac’s status has been upgraded from a College to a University. On the ice, the Braves athletic program has also made the leap from the Division II to the Division I level.

However, there has been one constant over the course of that span of time — the explosive all-around play of the North Massapequa, N.Y. product. Cerrella has scored at least 39 points in each of his four seasons and will leave Quinnipiac as the school’s all-time leading scorer.

Yet every time Cerrella has laced up his skates since joining Quinnipiac, it has been done with one sole intention in mind — winning. And this year, with a berth in the NCAA tournament on the line to the MAAC tournament winner, that desire yearned even stronger inside No. 19.

“It makes it easier when you win, and we were fortunate enough not feel what it was like to lose a lot [the first few years],” Cerrella said. “But it was a good thing this year when we felt it a little bit. We had a four- or five-game losing streak and it made us hungry.”

And now, following a 4-1 win over Iona on Thursday night in the MAAC semifinals, Cerrella stands a mere one win away from accomplishing the goal of reaching the final field of 12. With that in mind, the Braves certainly need to thank Cerrella for playing a major role in the development of the Quinnipiac program. QU is now a power in the MAAC and ranks among the top 10 in wins among Division I programs since the start of the 1998-99 season.

“The thing about Chris is that, since the day he stepped onto the ice for us, he’s been a goal scorer and a point machine,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said. “He’s a great player with great skill. He protects the puck when it’s on his stick as well as anyone in the league. And slowly, but surely, he’s evolved into a more complete player.”

Said Mercyhurst hockey coach Rick Gotkin of Cerrella: “He’s a great player. Quinnipiac has a handful of good players, and he’s certainly one of them. He’s very dangerous because he can shoot, he handles the puck well and he competes.

“He’s the kind of player that you hate playing against, yet you would love to have him on your team. But I can tell you this, it’s no fun playing against him.”

Unfortunately for Gotkin, his team will have the task of shutting down Cerrella on Saturday afternoon with an NCAA tournament bid on the line. For the senior, the prize is now clearly in sight, and there is only one obstacle left standing in the way of the Braves. On paper, Quinnipiac may hold a bit of an edge, as it won two of three contests from the MAAC regular season champs this year.

“I think that he’s really matured as a player,” said UConn hockey coach Bruce Marshall about Cerrella. “Just watching him play this year, you can see that he’s really taking a sincere attitude. He wants to win the right way, and he wants to see how he can help the team.

“Just the way that he shakes your hand after the game or talks to you off of the ice, it seems likes he realizes that these are cherished moments.”

Cerrella arrived at Quinnipiac four years ago as an unknown in national college hockey circles. But he broke onto the scene as a freshman, scoring 66 points in his rookie campaign. For his efforts, he garnered Division II first team All-America honors.

Since then, the points have been plentiful for the Empire State product. His production dropped off to 39 points [18 goals, 21 assists] as a sophomore, but Cerrella has responded with totals of 52 and 48 [after Thursday’s game] respectively, in his last two campaigns. As a result, he was named to the MAAC First Team in each of the past two seasons.

Yet the 2000-01 season has been filled with many highlights for Cerrella. The senior scored a goal in a 3-2 win over Union on Dec. 3 to help the Braves to their first-ever win against a member of one of the “Big Four” conferences.

In addition, Cerrella passed Todd Johnson for first place on the school’s all-time scoring chart in last Saturday’s MAAC quarterfinal contest against Army. Although point No. 203 came via an assist on Ryan Olson’s second period goal, the senior scored arguably the biggest point of his career later in the game. With the game tied at 3-3 in overtime, Cerrella cashed in on a breakaway opportunity to extend not only his career — but also his team’s season for at least one more game.

That marker set the stage for Thursday night’s game against the Gaels, a contest in which Cerrella recorded an assist in a 4-1 victory. The Braves had lost in the MAAC semifinals in each of the past two seasons — after winning the regular season title — yet exorcised their demons against Iona.

“I never imagined this,” Cerrella said. “This is a dream come true, for me and the rest of the seniors. It’s a dream for even the freshmen, to make a run at the NCAAs. We’ve got 60 more minutes left, and hopefully we can take it to them.”

“It’s a good feeling right now. [Losing in the MAAC semis] the first year was pretty hard to deal with, and the second year was even harder. We’re were very confident going into tonight’s game.”

Following the win, Cerrella sported a grin from ear to ear. However, he realizes that the win over the Gaels was only one additional step towards the NCAA tournament.

Win or lose on Saturday, Cerrella has left his imprint on the Quinnipiac program. A victory over the Lakers, though, would serve as a major reward for four years of hard work — not only for Cerrella, but also for the entire senior class.

“When they scored the first goal, I turned around and said that we’re a great team and that we were going to come back,” said Cerrella, who was recently drafted by the Asheville Smoke of the United Hockey League. “And if we didn’t, then it was a great four years and I have no regrets about coming here.

“Our goal was to win this game, and now it’s to win the next one. Mercyhurst is a great team. It’s going to be an interesting game, a hard-working game. The two teams that are in the final are just as good as any of the other teams that are left, in Hockey East or those leagues.”

Added Pecknold: “Well, it [winning on Saturday] would make them happy and it would make me happy. It’s a tough game, a 50-50 game, but I think that it would mean a lot to them [to go to the NCAA’s].”

Miller Wins CCHA POTY; Spartans Lead Awards

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The 2001 CCHA Awards held few surprises as the Spartans captured the greater share of the glory in Detroit’s historic Fox Theatre March 15.

Ryan Miller was named Player of the Year, the fourth straight Michigan State player to be so honored and the sixth overall. The sophomore from East Lansing, Mich., led the NCAA in wins (28), goals-against average (1.36) and save percentage (.948), and broke a 70-year-old NCAA record for career shutouts, posting eight during the regular season and 17 in two years at Michigan State.

Miller

Miller

Miller also picked up the league’s Best Goaltender Award, and was honored as a member of the First All-Conference Team.

Fellow Spartans Andrew Hutchinson and John Nail were also singled out. Hutchinson becomes the fifth consecutive Spartan to receive the league’s award for Best Defensive Defenseman, and Nail is the third Spartan in a row to be named the CCHA’s Best Defensive Forward.

R.J. Umberger was named Rookie of the Year, the third Buckeye to receive the award. Umberger, a native of Pittsburgh, Pa., was second among rookies in league scoring both overall (14-23-37) and in conference (11-19-30) play, and tied for the team lead at Ohio State (20) and was second in goal production for the Buckeyes.

Enrico Blasi earned Coach the Year Honors in his second season at Miami University. The RedHawks, picked to finish ninth in the media preseason poll and sixth in the coaches’ poll, tied for second place in the CCHA with a 17-10-1 mark.

Nebraska-Omaha senior Greg Zanon was named the Best Offensive Defenseman. Zanon finished second among blueliners in scoring (20 points) and scored more goals (nine) than any other defender in the league.

Falcon defenseman Doug Schueller was given the Terry Flanagan Memorial Award in recognition of his perseverance in recovering from two major knee surgeries during his career. The award, given to a player who has overcome personal adversity to play the game, is named after former Bowling Green assistant coach Terry Flanagan, who died of cancer in 1991.

UNO’s Jason Cupp was the first-ever recipient of the Mike and Marian Ilitch Humanitarian Award, named the owners Olympia Entertainment, which owns the Detroit Red Wings.

The ceremony also celebrated the CCHA’s 30th anniversary. The brainchild in 1971 of three head coaches — Jack Vivian of Bowling Green, Ron Mason of Lake Superior State College, and Bill Selman of St. Louis University — the league initially included Bowling Green, St. Louis, Ohio State, and Ohio University.

Former league officials Matt Shegos and John Pearson, who both retired at the end of the 1999-2000 season, were also recognized during the ceremony. Shegos served as a referee for 18 years, while Pearson watched the lines for 17.

Conklin, Gionta Named Co-Winners of Walter Brown Award

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Boston College forward Brian Gionta and University of New Hampshire goaltender Ty Conklin have been named co-winners of the 49th Walter Brown Award, given annually by the Gridiron Club of Greater Boston to New England’s outstanding American-born college hockey player. The award will be presented to the two seniors at the New England Hockey Writers’ Dinner on April 11.

“This is only the third time in almost fifty years that the selection committee has seen fit to name co-winners,” said Thomas Burke, Gridiron Club third vice president and committee chairman. “Ty and Brian are both outstanding young men who have consistently demonstrated the key personal characteristics that the committee must consider. These include sportsmanship, character, leadership and consistent contribution to the team’s success over a period of years in addition to the obvious requirement of a high level of athletic ability and achievement.

“Both Ty and Brian served as captains of their respective teams this season. Their accomplishments during the year, both tangible and intangible, were the major reasons that both BC and UNH once again were ranked consistently among the nation’s leaders. Brian did it with offense, Ty with defense.”

Conklin, the third UNH player to win the award, backstopped the most effective team defense in Hockey East this past season. His 1.83 goals-against average, 548 saves, and .930 save percentage all led the conference. His 1.64 goals against average in the 1999 season still stands as the best single-year mark in league history. Conklin played three seasons for the Wildcats after transferring from the University of Alaska-Anchorage. He has set UNH career records for goals against average (2.18); games played (93); wins (57); and save percentage (.915).

“One outstanding thing about Ty is his humility,” said UNH coach Dick Umile. “He always deflects individual recognition away from himself and to the team defense. He has always put the team first.”

Gionta, the 19th BC player to win the award, led Hockey East in points and goals with 25 goals and ten assists in conference play. He also topped the league in game winning goals with five and shorthanded goals with four. He tallied five consecutive goals in the first period of BC’s 7-2 win over Maine on January 27, a modern-day Division I record. He is also the all-time leading goal scorer in Boston College history with 121 to date. Going into the Hockey East semifinal playoffs at the Fleet Center, he ranked second in BC history for total career points at 229, 10 behind 1991 Hobey Baker Award winner David Emma.

“Ever since he arrived here four years ago, Brian has been an inspiration to everyone,” said BC coach Jerry York, who won the Walter Brown Award in 1967. “He is always upbeat, positive and enthusiastic, both for the game of hockey and about life in general. Out on the ice, he’s very fast and tenacious, and he’s got tremendous peripheral vision. He sees people when they’re out in front of him, behind him, or off to the side. That’s why he distributes the puck so well.”

Yale senior Jeff Hamilton of Englewood, Ohio finished third among the ten finalists.

Gotkin: Fulfilling His Dreams

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His goal 13 years ago was to build a competitive hockey program on the NCAA Division III level. Now Mercyhurst coach Rick Gotkin is one win away from carrying his Lakers to the “Big Dance” — the NCAA Division I Ice Hockey tournament.

After surviving in a 4-3 victory over northern rival Canisius in the semifinals of the MAAC Hockey Championships on Thursday afternoon, Gotkin and his Lakers advance to the Championship game with a chance to grab the league’s first automatic qualifier.

The Lakers, a preseason favorite to finish around the top of the MAAC standings, captured the conference regular-season title and defeated Fairfield to advance to the MAAC final four for the second time in as many tries. Mercyhurst lost to eventual champion, UConn, in the semifinals last season.

But as exciting as the NCAA bid seems, a part of Gotkin doesn’t want to think about the automatic bid.

“I’m really not that focused on the automatic qualifier,” said Gotkin, smiling larger than is usual for this always-happy coach. “My focus right now is somehow to find a way to beat a very good team.”

Maybe this focus is truly because MCAA thoughts have always been so far beyond Gotkin’s wildest dreams.

“I remember when I first got to Mercyhurst [13 years ago], the thought of even being in the Division III NCAA tournament seemed light-years away.”

Building One Step at a Time

Under Gotkin’s guidance, Mercyhurst not only became competitive at the Division III level, as was his original goal, they became dominant. Gotkin arrived in the second season of the program and struggled a bit through a tough ECAC West schedule. But within four years of his arrival, in 1991, the Lakers qualified for the Division III NCAA tournament. Two years later, Gotkin’s program was escalated to the Division II level, enjoying success almost immediately.

That year, the Lakers played in the first of two NCAA Division II championship games (1993, 1995). Sandwiched in between was an ECAC West Championship in March of 1995.

“I remember after we had sort of graduated to Division II, I was thinking that they were only going to take two teams in the tournament,” said Gotkin. “It was going to be hard [to qualify] if we had teams like Mankato [State, now MSU-Mankato], Bemidji State, and Alabama-Huntsville.

“But we worked hard and we had the right kids and the right staffs to work with those kids. And we found ourselves playing for two NCAA championships.

Still, Gotkin knew that NCAA Division II hockey was in danger. What was once a strong, 15-team organization, was slowly diminishing.

In 1997, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, then known best for the sport of basketball, announced that it was going to establish a hockey conference, adding to the well-known Division I “big four” conferences — Hockey East, ECAC, CCHA and WCHA. It didn’t take long for Gotkin and Mercyhurst to show genuine interest in taking the step to Division I.

“A few years ago, we looked at our scenario in Division II and in the ECAC West, and we were afraid that this was about to dry up,” Gotkin said. “We saw Canisius head to the MAAC and we heard rumblings of schools like Elmira, RIT and Hobart returning to the SUNY (State University of New York) conference. We thought we had to do something or we might lose our entire program that we’d worked so hard to build.

“Then the MAAC came along and we thought it would be great to be in such a structured league with all of these great teams. So we made a conscious decision to take our Division II program and reclassify. And the structure that came with the league and the expanded schedule was great.”

Mercyhurst, though, would have to wait two years, a mandatory period established by the NCAA for all teams to transition from Division II to Division I. As the MAAC league began play in the fall of 1998, Mercyhurst, was forced to play one more season in the ECAC West, but was allowed to join the MAAC in 1999.

“Besides building a new rink on campus [in 1991], joining the MAAC is the biggest thing that we’ve ever done.”

Immediately, the Lakers were though of as the x-factor. The only team very familiar with Mercyhurst was Canisius, itself a member of the ECAC West before moving to the MAAC. The other eight members of the league knew one thing: in Erie, Penn., Mercyhurst was very close to the Canadian border.

“Our proximity to the Canadian border gives us a great advantage,” admitted Gotkin. “But there’s so many hockey players out there, we don’t look for a Canadian player. We try to look for the best student-athlete we can find that fits into our philosophies on and off the ice.”

MAAC Coaches Endorse Gotkin

After winning this season’s regular-season championship, guiding the Lakers to a 19-6-1 record, Gotkin received one of the top personal honors at the MAAC banquet Wednesday night, the MAAC Coach of the Year. The selection, made by the other ten MAAC coaches, came as a bit of a shock to the Laker coach.

“I was shocked — totally shocked,” said Gotkin, who is the first conference champion coach to win the award. “As the MAAC has grown as a conference, it’s had some great coaches. To be recognized by your peers is a great honor, and it’s something I didn’t expect.

“This, though, is a team award. It’s what our guys go out and do every day, and without that I wouldn’t have this honor.”

His coaching brethren, though, agree that Rick is something special.

“Rick’s put a great team together — they’re such a complete team,” said Sacred Heart coach Shaun Hannah. “His kids work so hard. He’s done a great job with that team.”

“I’m really impressed with the team,” said AIC coach Gary Wright, whose Yellow Jackets put one of the few blemishes on the Lakers’ schedule with a 1-1 tie in November. “I think [winning coach of the year] is always a special thing knowing that your peers were voting for it. Mercyhurst has done a real good job and they’ve obviously had good coaching.”

Not the Easiest Road

As a member of the MAAC, a league that has seven of its eleven members in Massachusetts and Connecticut, one of the biggest challenges Mercyhurst faces every week is simply getting to the game. Coming from Erie — besides Canisius in Buffalo, N.Y. — every other league opponent is a minimum eight-hour bus trip.

That fact prompted the Mercyhurst athletic department to change its mode of travel for most trips … to air.

“We decided it was best for the players to fly to most of the Connecticut and Massachusetts games,” said Gotkin. “We didn’t want to have them missing class every other Thursday so they could bus to games. This way, the kids can go to class, we can practice at home on Thursday and get on a plane Thursday night.”

Gotkin joked that, though flying makes things easier on the players, for the coach himself, it’s not all a piece of cake.

“I find myself watching the weather channel everyday,” Gotkin said. Twice this season the Lakers flights from Erie were canceled, forcing games to be rescheduled. “The bottom line, though, is that the kids don’t have to miss class on Thursday and for our student-athletes, that’s important.”

Flying obviously shows that the athletic program values academics, as well as fresh legs, but most importantly shows that the school is committed to putting financial resources into their program.

“We wouldn’t be anywhere for the support that we’ve been given [by the college],” said Gotkin. “From our athletic director Pete Russo to our president Bill Garvey down to our sports information director [and former athletic director] John Leisering.

“Those three people have been huge in the things that we’ve been able to do. We’ve made some mistakes, I’ve made some mistakes, but we’re learning and growing every day.”

Possibly an understatement — but the Lakers have now grown into what could be the MAAC’s first berth in the NCAA championships.

Anderson Named ECAC POTY as SLU Leads Annual Awards

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Defending ECAC champion St. Lawrence led the way in the 2000-2001 ECAC awards, announced Thursday morning. The Saints placed three members on the All-ECAC First Team and picked up two pieces of hardware, the Defensive Forward of the Year and the Player of the Year.

(l. to r.) Jonas, Gellard, Anderson, Desrosiers, Huskins, McFeeters

(l. to r.) Jonas, Gellard, Anderson, Desrosiers, Huskins, McFeeters

Erik Anderson (16-24–50), the captain of the Saints, earned the ECAC Player of the Year Award. The Hobey Baker finalist also is a member of the All-ECAC First Team.

Meanwhile, Saint leading scorer Mike Gellard (19-35–54) was honored as Best Defensive Forward and also was named to the All- ECAC First Team.

The other Saint named First Team All-ECAC was defenseman Matt Desrosiers. Yale’s Jeff Hamilton was the third forward named to the All- ECAC First Team.

The Dryden Award Winner, given to the league’s top goaltender, was Oliver Jonas of Harvard. Jonas, a senior, had a .915 save percentage and a 2.99 GAA this season. He was also named the goaltender for the All-ECAC First Team.

The Defensive Defenseman Award went to the other defenseman named to the All-ECAC First Team, Clarkson’s Kent Huskins.

Erik Anderson was named ECAC Player of the Year Thursday.

Erik Anderson was named ECAC Player of the Year Thursday.

The All-ECAC Second Team consisted of Harvard’s Dominic Moore, Colgate’s Sean Nolan and Clarkson’s Matt Poapst at forward; Colgate’s Cory Murphy and Dartmouth’s Trevor Byrne at defense; and at goaltender, Clarkson’s Mike Walsh.

The All-Rookie Team consisted of Rensselaer’s Nathan Marsters in goal, Yale’s Jeff Dwyer and Colgate’s Rob Brown on defense, Vermont’s Patrick Sharp, Harvard’s Tim Pettit and Clarkson’s Rob McFeeters at forward.

The Rookie of the Year went to McFeeters (15-15–30), who bested Marsters (.929, 2.35 GAA) for the award.

The Coach of the Year was Clarkson’s Mark Morris. The Golden Knights were picked to finish fourth by the league coaches, but Morris guided his Knights to their ninth ECAC regular-season title.

ECAC Player of the Year

Erik Anderson, Sr., F, St. Lawrence

ECAC Coach of the Year

Mark Morris, Clarkson

ECAC Rookie of the Year

Rob McFeeters, F, Clarkson

Defensive Forward of the Year

Mike Gellard, Sr., St. Lawrence

Defensive Defenseman of the Year

Kent Huskins, Sr., Clarkson

Oliver Jonas picked up the Ken Dryden Award

Oliver Jonas picked up the Ken Dryden Award

Dryden Award

Oliver Jonas, Sr., Harvard

All-ECAC First Team

F Erik Anderson, Sr., St. Lawrence
F Mike Gellard, Sr., St. Lawrence
F Jeff Hamilton, Sr., Yale
D Matt Desrosiers, Sr., St. Lawrence
D Kent Huskins, Sr., Clarkson
G Oliver Jonas, Sr., Harvard

All-ECAC Second Team

F Dominic Moore, So., Harvard
F Sean Nolan, Sr., Colgate
F Matt Poapst, Jr., Clarkson
D Trevor Byrne, So., Dartmouth
D Cory Murphy, Sr., Colgate
G Mike Walsh, So., Clarkson

All-Rookie Team

F Patrick Sharp, Vermont
F Rob McFeeters, Clarkson
F Tim Pettit, Harvard
D Jeff Dwyer, Yale
D Rob Brown, Colgate
G Nathan Marsters, Rensselaer

Aucoin Named D-III POTY; All-Americans Announced

USCHO Staff Report
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Senior forward Keith Aucoin of Norwich was announced today as the College Division Player of the Year by the American Hockey Coaches Association (AHCA).

Aucoin

Aucoin

Aucoin scored 114 goals and 122 assists in his four-year career at Norwich. During the 2000-2001 season, Aucoin notched 26 goals and 30 assists.

“Keith Aucoin has been one of the most dominant players in Division III for the past four years. What is most special about Keith is how his personality and work ethic has carried over to the other members of the team,” said Norwich head coach Mike McShane.

Among the Division III All-Americans, also announced today, Aucoin was the lone repeater on the East First Team. Senior goalie Bryan Howard of Concordia was the lone repeater on the West First Team.

NCAA Division III semifinalists accounted for more than half of this year’s JOFA Division III Hockey All-Americans.

RIT, which is hosting the NCAA Division III “Frozen Four” this weekend, led the way with four East First Team selections.

Wisconsin-Superior, another semifinalist, also had four honorees, two on the West First Team and two on the West Second Team.

The class of 2000-2001 Division III All-Americas

The class of 2000-2001 Division III All-Americas

All-Americans are chosen by members of the AHCA. Two six man teams are chosen in the East and two in the West. Of the 24 players earning Division III All-American status this year, 15 are seniors, five are juniors, and four are sophomores.

Six different schools are represented on the East squads and six schools provide the 12 West All-Americans.

2000-2001 JOFA COLLEGE DIVISION ALL-AMERICAN TEAMS

First Team — East
G, Tyler Euverman, RIT, SO
D, Jerry Galway, RIT, JR
D, Jim Smith, Amherst, SR
F, Keith Aucoin, Norwich, SR
F, Peter Bournazakis, RIT, SR
F, Derek Hahn, RIT, JR

First Team — West
G, Brian Howard, Concordia, SR
D, Eliot Komar, Wis.-River Falls, SR
D, Adam Kragthorpe, Wis.-River Falls, SO
F, Jeff Glowa, Wis.-Superior, SR
F, Ivan Prokic, Wis.-Superior, SR
F, Adam Sedgwick, St. Norbert, SR

Second Team — East
G, Niklas Sundberg, Plattsburgh, JR
D, Matt Skoglund, Middlebury, SR
D, Bryan Murray, Plattsburgh, SR
F, Ralph Aiello, N.E. College, SR
F, Scott Goldman, Middlebury, SR
F, Brendon Hodge, Plattsburgh, SO

Second Team — West
G, Nathan Ziemski, Wis.-Superior, SO
D, Mike McMahon, St. Thomas, SR
D, Milan Thomaska, Wis.-Superior, JR
F, Jeff Bernard, Wis.-River Fals, SR
F, Jared Gustafson, Bethel, SR
F, Tony Lawrence, St. Thomas, JR

UND Dominates WCHA Awards Banquet

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The WCHA’s best team in the regular season became the most decorated team in the postseason.

MacNaughton Cup champion North Dakota took home three individual awards and put three players on the All-WCHA first team at the league’s awards ceremony on Thursday.

Coach Dean Blais was named the league’s coach of the year, Hobey Baker finalist Jeff Panzer was tabbed the player of the year and goaltender Karl Goehring earned the student-athlete of the year award.

Sioux forwards Panzer and Bryan Lundbohm and defenseman Travis Roche made the league’s top team.

Blais earned the top honor for a league coach for the third time in the last five years. He received a standing ovation from the crowd when he approached the dais to accept the award.

It’s been a tough year for Blais, who has shuttled between Grand Forks, N.D., and Rochester, Minn., where his daughter Mary Beth was undergoing treatment for leukemia.

But the Blais family got an encouraging sign this week, when Mary Beth came home to Grand Forks.

“It was like a breath of fresh air,” Blais said.

Colorado College forward Mark Cullen, Minnesota defenseman Jordan Leopold and St. Cloud State goaltender Scott Meyer were also named to the first team.

Leopold also was named the league’s defensive player. Colorado College forward Peter Sejna was named the league’s rookie of the year.

But Panzer was the runaway favorite to be voted the WCHA’s top player, and the voters concurred.

Panzer, though, was more concerned with his team’s success in this weekend’s Final Five. The Sioux will play the winner of Thursday night’s Colorado College-Wisconsin game.

“[The award] is almost secondary,” said Panzer, who leads the nation with 74 points. “We want to play well this weekend and we want to advance and get seeded. Individual awards, you can’t put too much into them because that doesn’t really matter right now. The team matters.”

Goehring a senior marketing major, has a 3.8 grade point average and is a three-time member of the league’s all academic team.

“You don’t often hear about the academic side of college hockey,” Goehring said. “It’s something I take pride in and it’s nice to be rewarded for that.”

The WCHA second team included Minnesota forward Erik Westrum; Wisconsin forward Dany Heatley; North Dakota forward Ryan Bayda; St. Cloud State defenseman Duvie Westcott; Colorado College defenseman Paul Manning; and Denver goaltender Wade Dubielewicz.

The third team featured Colorado College’s Sejna; St. Cloud State forward Mark Hartigan; St. Cloud State forward Brandon Sampair; Minnesota State-Mankato defenseman Ben Christopherson; Colorado College defenseman Tom Preissing; and Minnesota goaltender Adam Hauser.

The rookie team included Sejna; Minnesota forward Grant Potulny; Minnesota forward Troy Riddle; Denver defenseman Ryan Caldwell; Minnesota defenseman Paul Martin; and Alaska-Anchorage goaltender Chris King.

Almost Perfect

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It has been done once before. In 1970, the Cornell Big Red, coming off the graduation of Ken Dryden, went undefeated (29-0) and claimed an NCAA title.

This weekend, RIT can repeat that achievement. The Tigers are 26-0-1 and hosting the NCAA D-III Final Four.

Only one team in Division III, the Fredonia State Blue Devils of 1994, has come this close. Fredonia was 28-0-4 heading into the semifinals, when it lost 4-3 to eventual champion Wisconsin-River Falls.

Home ice may not help RIT either. In the 15 prior Division III championships, excluding Plattsburgh’s 1987 vacated title and the 1993 neutral ice finals, the home team has won just five times: Bemidji in 1986, Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 1990, Plattsburgh in 1992, and Middlebury in 1995 and 1997.

In more than a few cases, coaches have been heard to reconcile a first loss late in the season by saying, “It’s good that we lost one now. There’s too much pressure going into the post-season undefeated.”

RIT coach Wayne Wilson doesn’t subscribe to that theory.

“I can’t think of a reason why any loss would be good,” he said. “We embraced the challenge of being undefeated, and are proud of what we have accomplished so far.”

However, even considering the potential place in history for his squad, Wilson downplayed the notion of a perfect or near-perfect season.

“I don’t think it matters at this point,” he said. “Once you get to the postseason, records don’t matter than much. It was a nice thing, but now we’re focused on winning a championship. It’s all about that now.

“If we accomplish all of our goals, I’m sure it will be something to remember later on. It gives us the opportunity to be a special RIT team among a lot of great RIT teams.”

The Tigers have twice won national titles, as a Division II program in 1983, and in Division III in 1985. RIT has made it to the final four on four other occasions, advancing to the title game two more times, but coming up empty. Where will this team rank when all is said and done?

“I’ve been coaching against RIT for 20 years,” said Lebanon Valley head coach Al MacCormack, who was also an assistant at Elmira and head coach at Cortland State. “And I’ve never seen an RIT team as good as this one.”

People are saying the same thing about Wisconsin-Superior, that this YellowJacket team may be the best among many for this powerhouse program. But Wilson is currently focusing on his next opponent, Wisconsin-River Falls.

“There are a lot of similarities between our teams,” said Wilson. “They move the puck well, their defense and goaltending are very strong, and they run an umbrella power play like we do.”

The RIT coach also had plenty of good things to say about his other two potential opponents.

“I haven’t seen Superior, but any team that has won that many games and beaten Elmira twice in their own building has to be very strong. That’s our single common opponent, and they handled Elmira in a tough building, while we got away with an overtime win.”

And Plattsburgh? RIT shocked the Cardinals 8-2 in Plattsburgh in early January.

“That won’t happen again,” he said. “We played the perfect game and Plattsburgh was not the same team that night that they usually are. I don’t think anybody will ever beat them like that again.”

At best, Wilson will be celebrating a national championship this weekend. At worst, he’ll be reflecting on a 26-2-1 season and a nomination for the Edward Jeremiah Award, given by the American Hockey Coaches Association to the Division III coach of the year. He was one of the finalists announced Thursday.

“It’s not about the coaching,” he said. “It’s about the players. I’ve got some very, very good players.”

Three-Time Finalist Gionta Leads Hobey Candidates

USCHO Staff Report
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Thursday’s announcement of the 10 Hobey Baker Memorial Award candidates was headlined by Boston College’s Brian Gionta, the sixth three-time finalist in award history, as well as repeat finalists Jeff Panzer of North Dakota, Ty Conklin of New Hampshire and Jeff Hamilton of Yale.

The finalists were determined by a ballot of all 60 Division I college hockey coaches and fan voting, and include three candidates from the WCHA, three from the ECAC, two from Hockey East and two from the CCHA. Six forwards, two goalies and two defensemen make up a list that includes eight Americans and two Canadians.

The winner, selected by a committee of 24 members and a fan vote at www.voteforhobey.com, will be announced in Albany, N.Y., on Friday, April 6 at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time on the off day at the NCAA Frozen Four.

The annual Hobey Baker banquet will then take place on Friday, April 20, at the Radisson Riverfront Hotel in St. Paul, Minn..

The list of finalists:

Erik Anderson – St. Lawrence – Senior forward – Plymouth, Michigan

Fresh off an outstanding season with 45 points in 27 games, Anderson is the ECAC Player of the Year and a First-Team All-Star. The second-year Saints captain was a key on the top-ranked power-play unit and averaged two points per game in league play.

Ty Conklin – New Hampshire – Senior goaltender – Anchorage, Alaska

For the second straight year, Conklin is a Hobey finalist, becoming only the third goalie in Hobey history to do so. Conklin rewrote the Hockey East record book setting career and single season marks for goals against average, saves percentage and was named defensive player of the week a record six times. He’s a First Team All Star in Hockey East.

Brian Gionta – Boston College – Senior forward – Rochester, New York

Gionta becomes only the sixth player in Hobey history to be a three-time finalist and was named Hockey East Player of the Year. The BC captain led Hockey East in scoring and became the Eagles all time leading goal scorer. The two-time All American led the nation in goal scoring.

Jeff Hamilton – Yale – Senior forward – Englewood, Ohio

Yale’s all-time leading scorer returns as a Hobey finalist for the second time after missing last season due to injury. A two-time All ECAC and Ivy League First Team star, set a Yale record for winning goals in a season and in a career and is Yale’s first two-time Hobey Baker finalist.

Dany Heatley – Wisconsin – Sophomore forward – Calgary, Alberta

Last year’s WCHA Rookie of the Year had a solid second season racking up 51 points becoming the league’s highest scoring second year player. The All American led the Badgers in goals, points, power-play goals and game-winning goals while becoming one of Wisconsin’s fastest to reach 100 points.

Andy Hilbert – Michigan – Sophomore forward – Howell, Michigan

One of three second-year players to be a Hobey candidate, Hilbert led Michigan in scoring and topped all sophomore players in the nation with 60 points. The slick centerman has been a three-time member of the U.S. World Junior Team.

Kent Huskins – Clarkson – Senior defenseman – Almonte, Ontario

The Clarkson co-captain excelled at both ends of the ice, being named the ECAC Best Defensive Defenseman while leading all defenseman in the league with 34 points in 35 games. A two-time ECAC First-Team All-Star, he led the team in assists and had nine multi-point games.

Jordan Leopold – Minnesota – Junior defenseman – Golden Valley, Minnesota

Leopold’s on-ice presence was a major factor in Minnesota having the top power play in the country and the WCHA’s second-best penalty-kill. Named the WCHA’s Defensive Player of the Year, he also topped all league defenders in points with 44 in 39 games.

Ryan Miller – Michigan State – Sophomore goaltender – East Lansing, Michigan

Miller led the nation in four categories with 28 wins, a 1.36 goals against average and nine shutouts while stopping almost 95 percent of shots he faced. In his second season, Miller has set an NCAA record with 17 career shutouts while helping the Spartans to the nation’s number-one ranking. The CCHA Player of the Year is also the cousin of 1990 Hobey winner Kip Miller.

Jeff Panzer – North Dakota – Senior forward – Grand Forks, North Dakota

A candidate for the second straight year, Panzer led the nation with 74 points and 50 assists while pacing the WCHA scoring charts for the second straight year. The WCHA’s Player of the Year has helped the Fighting Sioux to three league titles and last year’s NCAA championship.

Gionta, BC Dominate Hockey East Awards

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Hockey East honored nine Boston College players, led by Brian Gionta, at its annual banquet. Gionta earned four distinctions: Player of the Year, scoring champion, first-team all-star and winner of the ITECH “Three Stars” Award. Teammate Chuck Kobasew was named Rookie of the Year, a second-team all-star and a member of the all-rookie team.

Providence coach Paul Pooley earned the Bob Kullen Award as coach of the year. Five Friars also received honors.

Eight of the nine Hockey East teams claimed awards, with seven of the nine placing members on the first or second team all-stars.

All four semifinalist coaches spoke, leading to a poignant moment when Maine coach Shawn Walsh took his turn. Walsh has battled cancer since last summer and is slated to begin new treatments at the close of the season.

“For me personally, [Hockey East] has been a people’s league,” he said. His voice breaking, he continued, “It’s been a very special year for me. I want to thank all of you very much. I’ve got to thank everybody for their support.

“I’d like to leave you with this statement. Cancer is so limited. It cannot cripple love. It cannot shatter hope. It cannot corrode faith. It cannot eat away peace. It cannot destroy confidence. It can’t kill friendship. But maybe most importantly of all for all the players out there, it can’t shut out memories.”

The audience responded with a standing ovation.

Hockey East All-Star Team

First Team
Goalie Ty Conklin, New Hampshire, Sr.*+
Defense Bobby Allen, Boston College, Sr.+
Defense Ron Hainsey, UMass-Lowell, So.*
Forward Brian Gionta, Boston College, Sr.*+
Forward Carl Corazzini, Boston University, Sr.
Forward Devin Rask, Providence, So.

* – unanimous selection
+ – repeat selection

Second Team
Goalie Nolan Schaefer, Providence, So.
Defense Jim Fahey, Northeastern, Jr.
Defense Matt Libby, Providence, Sr.
Forward Anthony Aquino, Merrimack, So.
Forward Chuck Kobasew, Boston College, Fr.
Forward Krys Kolanos, Boston College, So.

Honorable Mention
Goalie: Scott Clemmensen (Boston College)
Defensemen: Peter Metcalf (Maine), Rob Scuderi (Boston College)
Forwards: Peter Fregoe (Providence), Darren Haydar (New Hampshire), Graig
Mischler (Northeastern), Brad Rooney (Umass Lowell)

All-Rookie Team
Goalie Joe Exter, Merrimack
Defense J.D. Forrest, Boston College
Defense Regan Kelly, Providence
Forward Ben Eaves, Boston College*
Forward Chuck Kobasew, Boston College*
Forward Laurent Meunier, UMass-Lowell*

* – unanimous selection

KOHO Player of the Year
Brian Gionta, Boston College
Runner-up: Ty Conklin, New Hampshire

Bob Kullen Award – Coach of the Year
Paul Pooley, Providence
Runner-up: Tim Whitehead, UMass Lowell

Rookie of the Year
Chuck Kobasew, Boston College*
Runner-up: Regan Kelly, Providence

ITECH “Three Stars” Award
Brian Gionta, Boston College
Runner-up: Ty Conklin, New Hampshire

Hockey East Scoring Champion
Brian Gionta, Boston College (35 pts)
Runner-up: Devin Rask, Providence (33 pts)

ITECH Goaltending Champion
Ty Conklin, New Hampshire (1.83 GAA)
Runner-up: Scott Clemmensen, Boston College (2.19 GAA)

Old Time Hockey Best Defensive Defenseman
Bobby Allen, Boston College
Runner-up: A.J. Begg, Maine

Best Defensive Forward
Mike Lephart, Boston College
Runners-up: Chris Lynch, Northeastern; Matthias Trattnig, Maine

Len Ceglarski Sportsmanship Award
Mike Jozefowicz, Northeastern
Runner-up: Scott Clemmensen, Boston College

Charlie Holt Team Sportsmanship Award
University of Maine

Gotkin, Aubry Among Laker Winners at MAAC Banquet

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Mercyhurst headlined the annual awards at this year’s MAAC tournament banquet, with junior goaltender Peter Aubry taking home Goaltender of the Year honors and head coach Rick Gotkin becoming the first coach of a regular-season championship team to claim the Coach of the Year award.

The Lakers, who clinched the title with one week remaining in the season, finished the regular year with a 19-6-1 record and advanced to the MAAC final four with a 10-5 win over 10th-seeded Fairfield.

“As the MAAC has grown as a conference, it’s had some great coaches,” said Gotkin, who is the first conference champion coach to win the award. “To be recognized by your peers is a great honor, and it’s something I didn’t expect.

“This, though, is a team award. It’s what our guys go out and do every day, and without that I wouldn’t have this honor.”

Aubry, the goaltender who led the Lakers to the championship, was equally humble.

“It’s nice to be recognized by the coaches in the league,” said Aubry, who finished the season with a 2.09 goals against average in conference play with a .925 save percentage. “There’s a number of great goalies in this league and that’s what makes this a little more special.”

Aubry was also honored on Wednesday night with three goaltender of the week awards, a MAAC player of the week award, a position on the ITECH All-MAAC first team and as a MAAC scholar-athlete.

The Chase Manhattan Bank Offensive Player of the Year award went to Iona’s Ryan Manitowich. A sophomore on Iona’s high-powered offensive squad, Manitowich scored 37 points (22 goals, 15 assists) on the season, leading the Gaels to a third-place finish in the MAAC and a 3-2 overtime playoff victory over the number-six seed, Sacred Heart.

Iona defenseman Nathan Lutz was named the Chase Manhattan Bank Defensive Player of the Year. A sophomore defenseman, Lutz totaled 35 points (six goals and 29 assists) and helped make Iona the top-scoring offense (4.69 goals per game) in the MAAC.

Rookie awards were won by Mercyhurst’s Adam Tackaberry (Offensive Rookie of the Year), and UConn’s Eric Nelson (Defensive Rookie of the Year).

The league also named first and second-team All-Stars, as well as the All-Rookie team, as follows:

ITECH All-MAAC First Team

Ryan Manitowich, Iona F
Chris Cerrella, Quinnipiac F
Eric Ellis, Mercyhurst F
Nathan Lutz, Iona D
Aaron Arnett, American Int’l D
Peter Aubry, Mercyhurst G

ITECH All-MAAC Second Team

Louis Goulet, Mercyhurst F
Michael Goldkind, UConn F
Tom McMonagle, Mercyhurst F
Jody Robinson, Mercyhurst D
Steve Tobio, Bentley D
Eddy Ferhi, Sacred Heart G

ITECH MAAC All-Rookie Team

Adam Tackaberry, Mercyhurst F
Guillaume Caron, American Int’l F
Trent Ulmer, American Int’l F
Greg Kealey, Holy Cross F
Eric Nelson, Connecticut D
R.J. Irving, Holy Cross D
Justin Eddy, Quinnipiac G

Preview: Division III Semifinals

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Four of the top five teams in the season-ending USCHO.com poll meet this weekend in the NCAA Division III Frozen Four at Rochester Institute of Technology.

The top Eastern seed, RIT, hosts second West seed Wisconsin-River Falls in one semifinal, while the top seed from the West, Wisconsin-Superior, takes on third Eastern seed Plattsburgh.

The ECAC West champion Tigers drubbed Lebanon Valley 8-1 and 10-2 in quarterfinal action at RIT last weekend to advance.

River Falls, the tournament’s Pool C at-large bid, trounced New England College 8-1 on home ice last Friday, and hung on to win 2-1 on Saturday to earn the semifinal bid.

Superior advanced to the early semifinal game with a quarterfinal series sweep over MIAC champion St. John’s.

Last Friday, the Yellowjackets held on to a 5-4 win after the Johnnies scored two power play goals during a third period major penalty. Saturday, Superior shut out St. John’s 4-0 to move on.

Plattsburgh accomplished something last weekend that no other team has done: defeat the Middlebury Panthers in the NCAA tournament on home ice. And the Cardinals did it not once, but twice.

The SUNYAC champs scored two third-period goals 43 seconds apart, and goalie Niklas Sundberg faced 43 shots, as the Cardinals downed Middlebury 3-1 in the first game of the series.

Saturday night, the Panthers scored two goals in the third to tie the contest at two apiece. Plattsburgh’s Paul Dowe got the game winner with a little over five minutes left, and his team added a couple of empty-netters to advance past Middlebury 5-2.

With four of the best teams in Division III, it promises to be a great weekend of hockey.

But which teams have the advantage in the semifinal round?

Let’s take a look.

Wisconsin-Superior (29-3-1) vs. Plattsburgh (27-5-0)

This is the second year in row that Wisconsin-Superior and Plattsburgh have met in the NCAA final four.

Last year, it was for third place.

This year, one of them will be compete for the national championship.

First-year Superior head coach Dan Stauber took over the program just over a month before the Yellowjackets started practice in the fall, when long-time coach Steve Nelson left the team.

After what Stauber called “some rocky roads” in which his squad dropped three of four league games, the Yellowjackets have been on a roll, unbeaten in 23 games. The only mark on that record is a tie with River Falls in the NCHA championship series.

This is the third consecutive final four and the ninth NCAA tournament for Superior. The Yellowjackets have never won a national championship.

Bob Emery is in his 12th season behind the Plattsburgh bench. During his tenure, the Cardinals have won one national championship, in 1992, and have now been in the tournament nine times.

In the last 17 games, starting with a win over Middlebury on home ice January 16, the Cardinals have only one loss, to Potsdam in the three-game SUNYAC championship.

Before the Middlebury win, Plattsburgh weathered a 3-3-0 slump bracketing the semester break.

Which of these teams, if either, has the edge in advancing to the championship?

Let’s compare:

Offense

Despite having the size necessary to play a physical game, Superior likes to play the skill game.

The Yellowjackets are averaging 4.76 goals a game, eighth best in the country.

Leading the team are NCHA All-Stars Ivan Prokic, with 22 goals and 16 assists, and Jeff Glowa, with 14 goals and 23 assists. Thirteen of Prokic’s goals have been on the power play, while Glowa has three tallies short-handed.

Three other forwards have 30 points or more: sophomores Colin Kendall and Ryan Kalbrenner, and freshman Rob Ziemmer. Still four more Yellowjackets have 20 or more points.

Plattsburgh’s strength comes from a balanced offensive attack. As Emery told USCHO, “We don’t have a number-one line. All our lines work hard.”

Atop the season scoring stats for the Cardinals, who are sixth in the nation with 5.06 goals per game, are two sophomore forwards, Jason Kilcan and Brendan Hodge. Kilcan is the top goal scorer with 20, while Hodge is the leader in assists with 26.

Junior forward Mark Colletta has 34 points, and senior defenseman Bryan Murray has 30. Five more Cardinals are over the 20-point mark on the season.

Defense

Superior is tied with RIT for third-fewest goals allowed, 2.13.

The stingy Yellowjackets defense has allowed fewer than 24 shots on goal per game, but did give up 65 shots on goal in two games against St. John’s in the quarterfinals. Superior has allowed four or more goals only five times all season.

Superior’s defensemen are not a big offensive threat. Only one has more than 10 points, All-NCHA pick Milan Tomaska with four goals and 15 assists.

Plattsburgh is led on the blue line by Murray, along with the veteran corps of Peter Ollari, Bobby Owen, Sean Chaytors, and Andre Carriere.

Cardinal opponents have averaged 2.31 goals per game, sixth best in the country.

Plattsburgh, like the Yellowjackets, has given up four or more goals only five times during this campaign.

The Cardinals have allowed opponents almost 29 shots on goal per game.

Goaltending

Both squads have benefited from terrific goaltending this season.

Superior’s Nate Ziemski, a transfer from Cortland, saw his first action in a year and a half this season. Despite his talent, that time off was a concern for Stauber, who said that Ziemski has “responded very well.”

In 31 starts for the Yellowjackets, the junior has a 27-3-1 record, with a .910 save percentage. Ziemski is sixth in the nation with a 2.12 save percentage.

Ziemski also leads the nation in minutes played, having been between the pipes for all but seven periods this season.

Plattsburgh’s junior goalie Sundberg has been outstanding in his first season not platooning in goal.

In his 30 starts, the native of Sweden is 25-5-0 with a .924 save percentage and a 2.25 GAA.

Sundberg’s biggest wins came in the Middlebury series, when he stopped all but 3 of 78 shots, for a 1.50 goals against average, and a save percentage of .962.

Special Teams

Superior’s power play and penalty kill have been fairly average, scoring on about 22 percent of power plays, and allowing goals 18 percent of the time when down a man. However, the Yellowjackets have not allowed a shorthanded goal, while scoring 11 themselves.

Plattsburgh’s power play has also been average, scoring on just over 23 percent of its power play chances, and giving up four shorthanded goals.

But the Cardinal penalty kill has been spectacular. Plattsburgh’s opponents have scored on less than ten percent of their chances, and the Cardinals, with 17 shorthanded goals, have only allowed one more than they’ve scored when killing off the man advantage.

Intangibles

There may not be any difference here.

Both teams have a similar number of players with playoff experience. Both teams play on a smaller ice sheet like the Ritter Arena.

Despite being another New York State team, Plattsburgh hasn’t been to RIT since the 1997 NCAA quarters, so no players on either team are familiar with the rink.

Plattsburgh may have a few more fans there, but it’s anybody’s guess who the large contingent of RIT fans will support.

One thing that could be considered to count against Plattsburgh in this category, but is probably meaningless: the Cardinals have had a history of laying an egg in the semifinals in recent visits.

Okay, so who has the upper hand in this one?

Superior has a slight advantage in defense, having allowed fewer shots on goal, and being used to getting physical in the tough NCHA.

Plattsburgh’s depth gives the Cardinals a bit of an edge on offense.

Goaltending is probably a toss up. Sundberg has been stellar down the stretch, but has had a couple of erratic games this season. Ziemski has a bit lower save percentage than his opponent, and if the Cardinals can muster 30 or more shots on goal, they may have the advantage.

Special teams lean toward Plattsburgh, with the Cardinals stopping more than 90 percent of their opponents chances, and Superior scoring on only 21 percent of their power plays.

Intangibles? Neither has an edge here, although an advantage in numbers from the Cardinal faithful may help a little.

This game may very well come down to a couple of big saves or a broken play.

Wisconsin-River Falls (23-8-2) at RIT (26-0-1)

RIT hosts River Falls in the late game in Friday’s NCAA Division III semifinal round.

Behind the bench for the Tigers is Wayne Wilson, in his second trip to the NCAAs in as many seasons as head coach.

River Falls coach Steve Freeman is in his fifth season at the helm. This is his second NCAA tournament as well.

The Falcons got off to a strong start, 8-0-1, but entered a 5-6 slump after that. “We have a young team, 18 freshmen and sophomores, and ran into some tough opponents,” Freeman told USCHO. “But we got through that.”

That young River Falls squad was indeed able to regain its early season momentum.

In its last 14 games, River Falls has but two losses, one of which came at the hands of Wisconsin-Superior in the NCHA finals, and the other to St. Norbert in the conference semifinals. The Falcons have one tie in that stretch, also with the Yellowjackets in the league championship.

RIT’s lone blemish, a 3-3 tie with Oswego, came on January 19, when starting goaltender Tyler Euverman was out with an injury.

This is the second final four in three years for RIT, while the visitors return to the semifinals for the first time since the Tigers upset the Falcons at River Falls in 1996.

RIT has won the Division III title once, in 1985, and won the Division II championship in 1983.

The Falcons have two national championships, the first coming in 1988.

River Falls last won the national title in 1994, after defeating a then-undefeated Fredonia on the Blue Devils’ home ice in the semifinals.

Could history repeat itself for the Falcons? Or is the Tigers’ juggernaut unstoppable?

Let’s break down the numbers:

Offense

RIT has had the nation’s most potent offense this season, averaging a whopping 7.5 goals per game. Eleven players have more than 20 points through 27 games, and the team has scored six or more goals in all but six games.

RIT’s Wilson told USCHO, “Everyone on this team is so unselfish, it is scary to a point.”

The Bournazakis brothers lead the Tigers in scoring. Sophomore right wing Mike has 19 goals and a team-leading 49 assists. Senior Pete, RIT’s second all-time scorer and also a right wing, leads the Tigers in goal scoring with 32 and has added 34 assists.

The two captains, both juniors, are also over 50 points on the season. Center Derek Hahn has 22 goals and 35 assists and defenseman Galway has scored 13 goals, and helped on 42. Hahn leads RIT with 2.71 points per game.

All four of RIT’s top scorers were selected ECAC West First Team All-Stars.

River Falls has the fourteenth highest scoring offense in Division III through last weekend, averaging 4.33 goals per game.

Leading the Falcons is senior forward Jeff Bernard with 22 goals and 24 assists in 31 games. Two underclassman forwards follow: freshman Jess Johnson has 14 goals and 23 assists and sophomore Evan Stensrund has scored 11 goals and assisted on 21.

The team’s fourth leading scorer is its top-scoring defenseman, Adam Kragthorpe, with 10 goals and 17 assists.

Bernard and Kragthorpe are All-NCHA Team selections.

Defense

The return of defenseman Galway after missing last season with a shoulder injury has shored up and added leadership to what was a battered RIT defense last post-season.

The Tigers have a young defensive corps, with three rookies seeing action most of the season. Freshman Ryan Fairbarn has 9 goals and 15 assists.

RIT is tied with Wisconsin-Superior for third in goals allowed per game at 2.13. Only once in NCAA play have the Tigers given up more than three goals, that in an early season contest in which Geneseo scored three third-period goals in garbage time.

However, RIT has allowed opponents a fair number of shots on goal, over 29 per game.

The young River Falls blueliners are led by sophomore Kragthorpe. Only one senior defenseman, Eliot Komar, has seen regular action.

River Falls has allowed 2.36 goals per game, eighth best in Division III. Falcons opponents have managed an average of 25 shots on goal per game.

Goaltending

RIT’s Euverman has been stellar in net for the Tigers this season. The sophomore has a perfect 24-0-0 record in his 24 starts, with a pair of shutouts.

Euverman is fourth in Division III in save percentage at .927, and fifth in goals against average at 2.03. In ten games since missing three with a shoulder injury, Euverman has given up only 15 goals.

River Falls has been backstopped for all but 12 periods of the season by sophomore Jacque Vezina, who trails only Superior’s Nate Ziemski in minutes played.

Vezina has a record of 19-8-2 in 29 starts for the Falcons. He has allowed an average of 2.41 goals per game, and has a .908 save percentage.

Both goalies were all-conference selections.

Special Teams

The Tiger power play has fired on all cylinders most of the season, clicking at nearly 44 percent. RIT’s first power play unit — the Bournazakis brothers, Hahn, Galway, and sophomore Sam Hill — has combined for 50 of 67 power play goals.

Almost 2.5 goals a game have come on the man advantage for RIT.

On the penalty kill, the Tigers have allowed only 18 goals, keeping their opponents to under 11 percent on the power play. RIT has scored eight goals shorthanded.

River Falls is tied for eighth in power-play efficiency in the nation at an even 25 percent. Falcon senior Bernard has 10 of the team’s 41 goals with the man advantage. River Falls has allowed five shorthanded goals.

The Falcons have allowed opponents to score 16 percent of the time on the power play and have scored five shorthanded goals.

Intangibles

RIT has home ice advantage, but that hasn’t been a good omen in the past few years. The last team to host the final four and win was Middlebury; Plattsburgh, Norwich, and Superior all dropped the semifinal in hosting the last three tournaments.

However, a noisy Frank Ritter Memorial Arena should work to the Tigers’ advantage, especially if the Tigers are able to get on the scoreboard first.

RIT has an edge in NCAA experience as well. River Falls was last in the tournament in 1998 and has only a handful of players left from that team, while this is the sixth consecutive NCAA tournament for RIT.

How Do They Stack Up?

RIT has the advantage in offense and goaltending.

But the biggest plus for RIT is on special teams. The underdog Falcons will need to avoid the penalty box to keep the overpowering RIT power play off the ice, and will need to capitalize against the Tigers’ stingy penalty kill.

Both teams have strong defenses, with RIT’s a bit more offensive-minded, but River Falls has allowed fewer shots in front of goalie Vezina.

The home crowd will also be a plus for the Tigers, with 1700 of the Frank Ritter Arena’s 2100 seats going to fans of the host team.

Thanks to Scott Biggar, Russell Jaslow, and Chris Lerch for their contributions.

Meet the Frauds

USCHO Staff Report
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Every week, we get mail about USCHO.com’s Division I conference columns. A lot of it has to do with our game predictions — who will beat whom, and by how much?

Suffice to say, the content of those emails makes two things clear: (1) our readers care deeply about these picks, and (2) a lot of college hockey fans aren’t real impressed with our prognosticating abilities.

Well, there’s nothing like a little rivalry to keep it interesting around the USCHO offices, so in the spirit of good competition, our crack D-I writing staff has agreed to settle the title of “Best Prognosticator,” or perhaps “Least Fradulent,” with a winner-take-all battle royale.

The rules are simple. The correspondent(s) from each of the six D-I conferences have picked the results of five games this weekend — one game from each of the five conference championships, selected for maximum degree of difficulty by USCHO’s editorial staff.

This week’s games are Quinnipiac-Iona (MAAC); St. Cloud-Minnesota (WCHA); Maine-Providence (Hockey East); Michigan-UNO (CCHA); and Harvard-Cornell (ECAC).

The top four finishers (most correct picks, with the tiebreaker being total goals in all games) advance to next week’s semifinals, in which they will attempt to pick the winners of each of the four first-round NCAA matchups.

Finally, the top two semifinal finishers move on to pick the three games at the Frozen Four for the big prize … continued employment with USCHO.

We’re kidding, of course.

Maybe.

And there’s an added bonus. Beginning next week with the semifinals, you, the readers, can join the fray and attempt to “Beat the Frauds.”

But for now, our contestants and their picks:

Dave Hendrickson (Hockey East)

Quinnipiac 4, Iona 2: Quinnipiac is on a roll with six straight wins. Iona has also shown a greater dependency on home ice, so a neutral site favors the Braves.

Minnesota 3, St. Cloud 2: Minnesota swept a home-and-home series with St. Cloud in November. The Huskies returned the favor in April. That means it’s Minnesota’s turn. Hey, that logic makes as much sense as the typical Jayson Moy pick.

Maine 3, Providence 2: Maine closed out its quarterfinal series sweep last Friday. Providence had to go to a double-overtime third game on Sunday. The Black Bears are just a little better, more playoff tested and a lot more rested.

Michigan 4, Nebraska-Omaha 2: Nebraska-Omaha stunned Michigan in this same game last year. The Wolverines won’t get surprised a second time, plus UNO must also combat the USCHO jinx. Paula C. Weston’s exceptional feature on Maverick Mania comes at a very bad time.

Harvard 2, Cornell 1: Both Harvard and Cornell endured late-season losing streaks, before recovering for the playoffs. With minimal confidence in both clubs, the pick goes to the second-best school in Cambridge.

Todd D. Milewski (WCHA)

Quinnipiac 6, Iona 3: With a second life after an OT win last weekend, the Braves prove they’re the better team.

St. Cloud 4, Minnesota 2: Last time against the Huskies, the Gophers choked on a chance to share the MacNaughton Cup. It’ll be an even tougher task here.

Maine 2, Providence 1: From the outside (I mean the way outside of the Midwest), these teams look evenly matched. A hunch tells me to pick the Black Bears.

Michigan 5, Nebraska-Omaha 4: UNO proved its mettle last weekend at home, but it’ll be tough to duplicate last year’s run.

Harvard 5, Cornell 3: I work in Green Bay, Wis., home of Crimson coach Mark Mazzoleni. Gotta go with the hometown guy.

Jim Connelly (MAAC)

Iona 4, Quinnipiac 3: The rematch from last year’s semis doesn’t change much.

St. Cloud 4, Minnesota 2: St. Cloud has had a season of destiny. The Huskies should handle the Gophers despite the crowd disadvantage.

Maine 5, Providence 3: Along with Lowell, Maine is the hottest team in this tournament.

Michigan 4, Nebraska-Omaha 1: It’s been a nice run for the Mavericks, but the Wolverines end it close to home.

Harvard 4, Cornell 3: A classic Ivy League matchup goes to a well-recovered Harvard club.

Paula C. Weston (CCHA)

Quinnipiac 4, Iona 2: With losses to Sacred Heart, Mercyhurst, and Canisius to end February, the Gaels hardly finished up strong.

St. Cloud 5, Minnesota 2: What are they feeding these guys in St. Cloud? The Huskies have scored 94 goals since the start of the year — that’s the calendar year, not the season. In a two-game series just two weeks ago, the Huskies outscored the Golden Gophers 11-3. Hard to argue with that.

Providence 4, Maine 3: In spite of the Friars’ two recent losses to Maine, I’m calling an upset in this one. Why? Pure homerism.

Michigan 4, Nebraska-Omaha 2: These teams split earlier in Omaha, and the Wolverines remember what happened last year in the CCHA Semifinals. This year, the Mavericks won’t be a surprise, and don’t think that three-game series against Ohio State didn’t burn up some fuel.

Cornell 2, Harvard 1: This is almost like calling a CCHA game, with Schafer at the helm of Cornell and Mazzoleni guiding Harvard. Low-scoring, defensive hockey.

Jayson Moy/Becky Blaeser (ECAC)

Quinnipiac 4, Iona 2: Quinnipiac has gone down in the semis for two years running. The third year is the charm.

Minnesota 4, St. Cloud 2: The revenge factor. ‘Nuff said.

Maine 3, Providence 2: Maine is on fire, PC just got by BU. On paper, it makes sense.

Michigan 5, Nebraska-Omaha 2: The Mavericks don’t repeat last year’s success at the Joe.

Harvard 3, Cornell 2: So long as the Crimson can stay out of the box, the big ice surface will play to their favor.

Natasha J. Parker (CHA)

Iona 3, Quinnipiac 1

St. Cloud 4, Minnesota 1

Maine 5, Providence 3

Michigan 3, Nebraska-Omaha 2

Harvard 2, Cornell 1

This Week In The WCHA: March 14, 2001

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High Expectations

The buzz around the WCHA this week is that the league could be preparing for the best Final Five ever, and by the looks of things, that might not be too far off base.

Consider: The top five teams in the WCHA made it to the league’s signature event.

Consider: Those teams are all in the top nine in the Pairwise Rankings.

Consider: They’ll play in what has been described as a gem of a hockey arena, the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn.

Consider: The event might have its largest combined attendance ever.

Consider: The WCHA might not lose a team from this weekend to next weekend’s regional play.

Put it all together, and you’ll probably hear what a lot of people around the league are hearing:

Cha-ching!

“It should be just great,” Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer said. “The teams that are going to be there, they’re all in the top 10 in the country. It’s great for the WCHA and it’s great for college hockey.”

And why think this weekend’s five games will be any different than anything we’ve seen all season long?

“Just looking at the national rankings, yeah, it’s going to be tough,” North Dakota coach Dean Blais said. “Even during the course of the year, there were no easy games. I was surprised that we were the only series playing on Sunday. I thought there would definitely be some upsets in there, especially with Denver in Wisconsin and Mankato [at] Colorado College.

“Anything can happen in the playoffs. A goaltender gets hot, and that’s the difference in the game.”

In other words, if you’re expecting some kind of radical jump in the quality of play this weekend, where have you been the whole year?

Trivia Question

The WCHA went to a Final Five format in the 1992-93 season. Who won the Thursday night play-in game that year? Answer later.

Finally Five

Many years, the WCHA would get three teams in the NCAA tournament and be happy with it. With only four guaranteed at-large bids, that’s the way things were.

But now, if the league doesn’t get five in the big dance this year, there might be some disappointment at the league office.

They’re not being greedy. North Dakota, St. Cloud State, Minnesota and Colorado College look to be locks for the NCAAs. Wisconsin needs a win or wins this weekend, or some help from favorites in other conference tournaments, to get in.

Five doesn’t seem so out of line now, does it?

“I think it’s justifiable,” St. Cloud coach Craig Dahl said. “You look at the Pairwise or you look at the rankings, certainly there’s a lot of reasons to point to the WCHA having five teams in.”

So let’s take a look at what’s left of the WCHA, and what might make up close to half of the NCAA tournament field next weekend.

One Loss for the Road

Now that North Dakota has dispensed with the yearly loss in the first round of the WCHA playoffs, we can get down to business. Well, in a minute.

First, let’s look back at that loss — the only one last weekend by a host team. Minnesota-Duluth stunned the Sioux with a late goal and a 3-2 victory last Friday.

It marked the third straight year the Sioux have lost a home game in the WCHA first round. Their saving grace is that they have come back to win Game 3 each time — twice by shutouts, including Sunday’s 4-0 final.

“We got a little luck, because we had none going into that,” Blais said. “No bounces, good goaltending from [Duluth’s Rob] Anderson. When they went up 2-0, that’s probably the worst thing that happened to them. Our guys just seemed to kick it into another gear.”

Blais said his team is playing at its best “when we get shocked.” Well, consider the Sioux shocked right now. That’s the kind of thing that, like last year, could cause a national title run. Or, like the year before, it could lead to trouble down the stretch.

A lot might depend on the Sioux’s goaltenders. Blais went back to Karl Goehring for Sunday’s deciding game after he took the loss Friday and Andy Kollar won Saturday’s game.

It was the plan all along that the goaltenders would rotate, as they have done all season. That’s the plan again this weekend, but Blais said he wouldn’t know who’ll play in Friday’s semifinal until the Sioux know whom they’re playing.

“Look at Andy, he’s lost one game this year,” Blais said. “He’s lost four games in three years. “Though when the game’s been on the line, Karl’s been the guy to be there for us.

“It’s happened three times this year where one of them will struggle [in a game], put the other one in and they won the game for us. That’s nice. No one else can do that.”

Model of Consistency

Dahl can throw these numbers at anyone who disputes St. Cloud State’s legitimacy as a member of the WCHA’s elite class:

Six straight Final Five appearances.

With one more win, a 30-win season.

Counting this year, a modest two-year streak in the NCAA tournament, with a shot at a first-round bye this year.

The six straight Final Five appearances, currently the longest in the league, is something to be proud of. Now the Huskies just have to win one.

“It’s obviously very consistent and I’m real happy about that. The only thing is we haven’t won it,” Dahl said. “We’ve had some teams that are pretty good, but we’re usually so darned banged up by the time we get there, it’s trouble. It’s been interesting and certainly enjoyable. It does speak about the consistency of our program, I think.”

Dahl’s team is a bit banged up going into the Friday night semifinal against Minnesota, though. Sophomore forward Jon Cullen, the team’s fourth leading scorer, could be out with a sprained knee. Dahl said he hasn’t practiced all week, and his loss could do enough to throw things off track for a team that has been going along at a pretty good pace.

“It makes you change two lines,” Dahl said. “Really, Cully’s the catalyst to our penalty kill and on our second power play and he really makes that line go. So it’s a big loss for us if he can’t play.

“You don’t want to do anything that can mess that up. But, what are you going to do? Injuries are part of the game, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

One Point Back

When we talk about being one point back, most of the time it’s in the league standings. But in the current situation, Pairwise points are the name of the game.

Minnesota is one Pairwise point behind No. 4 St. Cloud State, with the teams playing Friday night in the Final Five. In other words, the Gophers could make up that one point with a victory.

It might be a bit naive to call Friday’s game a battle for the last first-round bye since there are a bunch of other things that could happen this weekend, but that’s pretty much the situation.

“There’s no question that the only chance we have to get a bye is to win on Friday night,” Gophers coach Don Lucia said. “And probably the same thing with St. Cloud, the winner has a chance at the bye and the loser probably does not.”

To get by the Huskies, the Gophers are going to have to get by the memory of being blown out of the water in the last weekend of the regular season.

“We’ve watched video tape and it was a funny weekend,” Lucia said. “We just made some blunders that we haven’t made all year. [St. Cloud goaltender Scott] Meyer was very good. Everything that could go wrong kind of went wrong for us.”

One thing that has been going right for the Gophers is the play of their newly-formed third line. Matt Koalska, Stuart Senden and Nick Anthony were put together before last weekend’s series sweep of Michigan Tech, and combined for four goals and seven assists.

“This is a time of the year when you become more of a three-line hockey team,” Lucia said. “We made the decision we want to try to put our best nine forwards on our top three lines.”

Lucia is also concerned about getting a quick jump. When the Gophers swept the Huskies earlier this season, he said they started fast and got ahead in both games. The opposite happened in the Huskies’ sweep.

The first goal, apparently, is a big one.

For seconds

It’s easy to notice Colorado College’s first line. Peter Sejna, Mark Cullen and Justin Morrison have combined for 129 points this season.

But putting too much focus on that trio might be exactly what Trent Clark, Alex Kim and Noah Clarke want you to do.

Clark, Kim and Clarke, the Tigers’ second line, have made the most of their brief time together. Each has six points in the last four games. They were put together before the last weekend of the regular season and clicked immediately.

“From the start of each game, they’ve come out with terrific energy, jump and spark,” Colorado College coach Scott Owens told The Gazette of Colorado Springs. “They were our best line in the series [against Minnesota State-Mankato in the WCHA first round].”

The Tigers’ NCAA tournament bid looks solid. A victory over Wisconsin in the Final Five’s opening game on Thursday wouldn’t hurt things, though.

They’re playing for seeding in the NCAAs. A loss to Wisconsin could kick them down to a four or five in the regionals. A good run might help them be a third seed. A second seed is improbable because, even if they win the championship, Minnesota or St. Cloud would probably still be above them in the Pairwise.

Watching the Computer

Sauer’s been over the scenarios plenty of times. He knows what his Wisconsin team will need to get into the NCAA tournament.

“I’ve been watching the Pairwise and all that pretty close for the last couple weeks,” Sauer said. “We’ve just continued to win — we’ve won five in a row now — and it’s really helped us in terms of that Pairwise.

“There are some scenarios where we can go into St. Paul, fall on our face and still get in the tournament, but it has to do with other people not performing or no upsets.”

But there is one thing Sauer is sure of.

“I’m approaching it from the standpoint that we have to win Thursday night, and put ourselves in a position to go on from there,” he said.

If Dany Heatley has anything to say about it, the Badgers won’t need an at-large bid. The sophomore forward, probably in his last weeks as a collegiate hockey player, has been on a tear of late, which has helped the Badgers get to the Final Five.

He’s been paired with David Hukalo and freshman Rene Bourque. He and Bourque have seemed to get along well on the ice.

“Realistically it’s just one of those things,” Sauer said. “You try different combinations and you look for things to click. I can’t remember when we put it together, but the first time we did, it came through and scored a couple goals for us.”

Because of the success of the line as a whole, it’s meant more success for Heatley individually. Defenses aren’t able to just key on Heatley like they were earlier in the season.

Plus, Heatley took a while to get back to form after returning from the world junior championships in Russia.

“I think he’s healthy, he’s fresh and he’s certainly playing his best hockey right now, and that’s a plus for us,” Sauer said.

Trivia Answer

Northern Michigan beat Michigan Tech 4-3 in the WCHA’s first play-in game, at the St. Paul Civic Center.

Flipped Out

Michigan Tech coach Mike Sertich plans to apologize to his team and to the fan to whom he made an obscene gesture late in Saturday night’s game at Mariucci Arena in Minneapolis.

A source said Sertich was being harassed about his hair throughout the game. The source said Sertich was truly remorseful and intended to apologize.

He Said It

“If I sit here and tell you I’m tired, and that’s why we lost the game, then punch me in the face. Because that’s just not an option right now.”

— Wisconsin goaltender Graham Melanson on the Final Five, in which the Badgers need to win three games in three days for the title.

News and Views

  • If you’re a Wisconsin fan in Minnesota, good luck. Not in the hostile territory, but in finding Thursday night’s Badgers-Tigers game on TV. The Final Five will be televised on Fox Sports Net (MSC in the Midwest and Fox Sports Net Rocky Mountain out West), but Thursday’s game won’t be seen in Minnesota until the end of the Minnesota Timberwolves’ game. Wisconsin will get a tape delay on Saturday night’s championship game. There is no TV planned for Saturday afternoon’s consolation game.
  • Michigan Tech’s 2001-2002 schedule is tentatively set to begin on Oct. 12 and 13 with a home series against St. Lawrence. The traditional four-game series with Northern Michigan has been cut in half, with a game Dec. 14 in Houghton and Dec. 15 in Marquette. The word is, the teams were going to play a four-game series, but the Wildcats got an opportunity to play in the holiday tournament in Florida. That’s where it pays to have a coach like Sertich, with his numerous contacts to get a series on short notice.
  • One win this weekend will give St. Cloud State its first 30-win season on record. The previous high for wins in program history was 23, set last year and in 1996-97.
  • Sauer was working the phones to get his team some tickets to the Minnesota Wild-St. Louis Blues game on Wednesday night at the Xcel Energy Center. It helped that Jamie Spencer, a former Badgers captain, works for the Wild. Former Badgers Sean Hill and Scott Mellanby play for the Blues.
  • The Blues traded the rights to Minnesota sophomore center Jeff Taffe to the Phoenix Coyotes on Tuesday, the NHL’s trading deadline. The move was part of the trade that sent Keith Tkachuk to the Blues.

    • On the Docket

    The NCAA selection show airs on ESPN2 at 12:30 p.m. Central on Sunday. From there, we’ll know who’s going to play in the West Regional in Grand Rapids, Mich., and the East Regional in Worcester, Mass.

    The West Regional games are next Saturday and Sunday afternoon, while the East plays next Friday and Saturday night.

    Final Note

    This is the final WCHA column (in its present form) of the season, and I’d like to thank you, the readers, for making it worthwhile for me all year long.

    This Week In The MAAC: March 14, 2001

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    MAAC Conference Call

    Six months comes down to 60 minutes. Well, 120 if you’re lucky.

    Six months of lacing skates, putting on the gear, lifting weights and riding the bike will all culminate for four teams — Mercyhurst, Quinnipiac, Iona and Canisius — this Thursday afternoon when the MAAC tournament get underway. The goal simply will be survival, as both semifinal match-ups are true grudge matches.

    Longtime ECAC West rivals Canisius College and Mercyhurst will play the early game (Thursday, 4:00 PM ET, UConn Ice Arena, Storrs, Conn.), while Quinnipiac and Iona will play in the late game (Thursday, 7:00 ET) in a rematch of last year’s semifinals.

    The winners match up in the championship tilt on Saturday at noon ET (TV: Empire Sports MSG, live; NESN, 3:00 P.M. ET, tape delay).

    For three teams, the season ends here. But to the champion certainly go the spoils — a ticket to the NCAA championships, and most likely a trip to Grand Rapids, Mich, for the West Regional.

    NCAA Bid is Pot o’ Gold on St. Patty’s Day

    Maybe the Mercyhurst Lakers have the biggest advantage playing in their green and white sweaters over the St. Patrick’s Day weekend. They probably hope that they have a little leprechaun on their side, but most importantly, they hope to see the Pot o’ Gold at the end of the rainbow.

    Whereas Holy Cross and UConn were very happy to take their MAAC tournament trophies home (and seeing as both teams were hosts for the respective tournaments, they didn’t have to go far), for this year’s winner there’s a lot more at stake.

    The Pot o’ Gold, known better as an NCAA tournament berth, is the ultimate reward for the players, coaches, staff and fans. And even though the winner will be the biggest underdog in the history of the NCAA tournament, the chance to play is more than enough reward.

    “Coming into this year, once we got the news of the bid, there was a sense around the league of validation to our conference,” said Iona head coach Frank Bretti. “To think about how quickly our league has grown is great, and I just think this is going to be an unbelievable weekend.

    “For the four teams to be thinking of [making the NCAA tourney] right now is truly something that everyone should be really proud of. There isn’t an hour that goes by when you’re not thinking, ‘Holy smokes, we can do this.'”

    Canisius coach Brian Cavanaugh was a little more reminiscent of the past.

    “I can remember there were times [when Canisius was in the ECAC] when, at the coaches convention in Florida, we’d talk about that we could get into a league that we could play in the NCAA tournament,” said Cavanaugh. “We’d watch teams like Elmira and RIT go on.

    “I think back to all the players that wanted that situation and thanks to the MAAC and its members, I’m almost nostalgic about it. This is a great period of time for the MAAC league. It’s exciting and it will bring a lot of attention to our league.”

    So everyone wants to find the Pot o’ Gold. It seems almost fitting that the semifinals are played on March 15. So in the words of William Shakespeare, “Beware the Ides of March!”

    Semifinal No. 1
    No. 4 Canisius (17-11-4, 13-9-4 MAAC) vs. No. 1 Mercyhurst (20-11-2, 19-6-1 MAAC)
    Thursday, March 15, 2001 UConn Ice Arena, 4:00 P.M. ET

    Season Series: Mercyhurst leads, 2-1-0
    @ Mercyhurst 4, Canisius 0
    Mercyhurst 6, @ Canisius 2
    Canisius 3, @ Mercyhurst 1

    With the MAAC such a young league, with teams comprised from so many different Division II and III conferences, the word “rivalry” becomes a light term. Certainly Army and UConn, for example, have never battled for anything of substance, like a league championship. So beyond what has developed in the three years of the MAAC, rivalries are few and far between.

    Unless, that is, you go to the furthest points north and west in the conference — Buffalo, N.Y. and Erie, Penn — to find Canisius and Mercyhurst. Both longtime members of the ECAC West, each school enjoyed great success as Division II and III institutions. And with their geographic proximity (only about an hour apart), they have long been true rivals.

    The rivalry, though, is not the typical love-hate relationship you might find between Michigan and Michigan State or Boston College and Boston University.

    “Rick’s a real good friend of mine,” said Canisius head coach Brian Cavanaugh of Mercyhurst hockey dean Rick Gotkin. “I actually recruited him to go to Brockport when he was an undergrad and we’ve been coaching against each other for a while.”

    Said Gotkin: “We have a great deal of respect for not only Canisius’ hockey team but also for Brian’s coaching. We’ve played some great games against Canisius over the years and look forward to another one [on Thursday].”

    Since moving to the MAAC (Canisius in the 1998-99 season, Mercyhurst in 1999-00), each team has visited the final four once. Canisius surprised then-favorite Quinnipiac with a 5-2 win in the 1999 tournament before falling to host Holy Cross, 4-3, in the championship game. Mercyhurst’s fortunes weren’t as good last year, losing to host Connecticut in the semifinals. The Huskies went on to capture the title with a 6-1 win over Iona.

    Now, in relation to the second semifinal featuring Quinnipiac and Iona, both of which needed overtime to advance to the final four, the qualifying round for Canisius and Mercuhurst seems like a cakewalk. Don’t tell that to Cavanaugh.

    “We’re all tired and beat up and we’re hoping Coach Gotkin will take it easy on us,” Cavanaugh, whose Griffs knocked out defending champion UConn, 4-1, joked.

    Mercyhurst, though known for its defensive aptitude, didn’t impress many allowing five goals to eighth-seeded Fairfield in the quarterfinals. The Lakers, though, did prove why they are so dangerous, lighting the lamp 10 times, including seven goals in a 17-minute span of the second period.

    Gotkin admits that his club was a little bit nervous last weekend but thinks that has subsided heading into the semis.

    “I felt tons more pressure last weekend playing a very good Fairfield team,” said Gotkin. “We believe right now that the top four teams in the MAAC are in the final four. The only advantage we have is packing only one set of sweaters. If we win Thursday, we’ll get to wear the same white jerseys on Saturday.”

    As far as what Gotkin expects to face in the semifinals, he’s not so sure. Though he has had ample opportunity to scout Canisius, the Lakers coach believes the Griffs have a little something up their sleeve.

    “He (Cavanaugh) has a few things planned for us, I’m sure, and we’re just trying to figure out what they are,” said Gotkin. “[Canisius is a] very hard working team. They have very good depth and they’re solid in goal. They have a lot of guys that if you don’t keep track of them they’ll put the puck in the net.”

    Cavanaugh believes, maybe, that there will be less trickery from Gotkin. But the Mercyhurst team that he knows too well, is frightening.

    “I think the most interesting thing about Mercyhurst is how strong they’ve been defensively. In the past, they were always a team that was explosive offensively. They have that fire power and have added the element of a strong goaltender and a strong defense. That’s a real tough formula to compete against.”

    Pick: The number-one seed will finally make it to the championship game. Mercyhurst, 3-2.

    Semifinal No. 2
    No. 3 Iona (18-12-4, 16-6-4 MAAC) vs. No. 2 Quinnipiac (21-10-4, 17-7-2 MAAC)
    Thursday, March 15, 2001 UConn Ice Arena, 7:30 P.M. ET

    Season Series: Quinnipiac leads, 1-0-1
    @Iona 5, Quinnipiac 5 (OT)
    @Quinnipiac 3, Iona 1

    Both Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold and Iona coach Frank Bretti added something to their repertoire last weekend — gray hair.

    The number-two and -three seeds, respectively, Quinnipiac and Iona both needed overtime to dispose of their quarterfinal opponents. Quinnipiac was forced to hold on by a thread after letting a two-goal third period lead slip away against Army, while Iona needed a third-period rally to force overtime against Sacred Heart.

    “We all know it’s been a long season and with a one-game elimination it gets a little scary,” said Bretti, whose Gaels trailed 2-1 in the third to Sacred Heart before Nathan Lutz scored in the final four minutes to tie it. “We were on that edge on Saturday night and I’m proud of my guys for prevailing.

    “We came out and kind of felt the pressure in the building after what had happened last year (pulling off upsets in the first two rounds to advance to the finals). Anything but getting back to the final four would have been disappointing.”

    Even though Iona scored first and looked like they would take a 1-0 lead into the first, the Pioneers responded with a late goal to send the teams into the looker rooms tied.

    “When Sacred Heart scored late in the first, we got the feeling that we could let it slip away,” Bretti said.

    And when Sacred Heart scored midway through the second, the game had all but slipped away.

    “We wondered how our guys would respond with their backs against the wall,” said Bretti, “and we’re glad they responded well.”

    With one round out of the way, Bretti’s club now must face Quinnipiac, the preseason favorite, in a rematch of last year’s MAAC semifinals. Similar to what Canisius accomplished two years ago, Iona upset Quinnipiac last year, giving the top seed an early exit once again.

    That fact alone makes Bretti think that the beast he will face in the Braves might be a little hungrier.

    “Last year created a little bit of a rivalry,” Bretti said. “This game is going to be tremendous and the Quinnipiac guys will be real fired up for us.

    “The fact that we got over the hump in this game last year, I’m hoping that will relax our team a little.”

    Quinnipiac hopes differently. As a top seed that has been upset in the last two MAAC semifinals, a trip to the finals probably seems well overdue. But Pecknold’s team hasn’t had the consistency of the last few years, something the young coach isn’t afraid to admit.

    “Our year has been interesting. We’ve been through a lot of peaks and valleys,” Pecknold said. “The low point was in January was when we lost five out of six. But we’ve rebounded from that a little.

    “We’ve gone through a tremendous amount of ups and downs. We have a lot of seniors and I’m hoping that our seniors will be able to step up and give us some success in the finals.”

    Not exactly a vote of confidence. As Pecknold continues, you almost think he’s trying to make his team the underdog.

    “I think there’s just a lot of uncertainty for the whole team in general. We’ve had such an up-and-down year. Army gave us a huge scare, but it’s hard to predict what my kids are thinking. I think all four teams are capable of winning it, and I can’t tell you what our mindset is right now.”

    Is that the endorsement of the year, or what?

    So with Frank Bretti telling us that Quinnipiac will be hungry for revenge, and Rand Pecknold telling us he’s unsure if his team will bring its Tiger Woods A-game, what can we really expect?

    For one thing, just be glad this isn’t boxing, because there’s so little hype we wouldn’t get through the first round.

    Truly, I think this will be the better of the two semifinals. Both teams will be hungry, because, heck, if you can’t get up for this game, do you deserve to play for a shot at the NCAA championship?

    Pick: If both teams show up, this battle should go to Quinnipiac. But they’ve never gone as predicted in the past, so I can’t pick the Braves this year. Iona, 4-3 in overtime.

    MAAC Championship Game
    Saturday, March 17, 2001 UConn Ice Arena, Noon ET
    TV: Empire Sports Network, MSG — Live; NESN — Tape Delay (3:00 P.M. ET)

    Time for someone to take home the Pot o’ Gold — and see what lies ahead on Selection Sunday. Last year’s final was a blowout, something that, regardless of the two teams involved, we will not see again.

    Picks: So as to cover all the bases…

    If Mercyhurst faces Iona: Mercyhurst, 5-3.
    If Mercyhurst faces Quinnipiac: Mercyhurst, 3-2.
    If Canisius faces Iona: Iona, 5-4.
    If Canisius faces Quinnipiac: Quinnipiac, 3-2

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