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Exorcising Their Demons

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Perhaps it’s a good thing that no player on the Boston College roster describes himself as a history major in the team’s media guide.

In Saturday night’s Hockey East championship game, BC faced its third big overtime game at the FleetCenter in the last two years, and the Eagles had lost the previous two. In last year’s national championship game against Michigan, a crossbar was all that stood between them and an overtime victory, which would have been their first national title since 1949.

Heavily favored in this season’s Beanpot, the Eagles were stumped by Boston University goaltender Michel Larocque despite dominating the third period. Then Terrier forwards Russ Bartlett and Chris Heron teamed up for an improbable game-winner in overtime on a diving, flailing shot that took a bizarre bounce.

Saturday night, top-seeded University of New Hampshire seemed to be hatching a similar plot. Down 4-1 in the first period, the Wildcats clawed their way back into the game. They stunned BC with two second-period goals in just ten seconds. BC led in the game for 53 minutes and 20 seconds, only to have third-line left wing Johnny Rogers tie the game 4-4 by scoring just his third collegiate goal with under five minutes to play.

As the teams concluded regulation and headed into the locker room in anticipation of overtime, you can bet that the many Eagle fans in attendance had their heart rates beating at a time-and-a-half pace.

Despite that turn of events, nobody in the Eagle locker room was about to get a two-minute penalty for slashing his wrists.

“We wanted to be on our toes and go after it, not on our heels,” BC coach Jerry York said. “You have to stay right in the present. We weren’t thinking, ‘Hey, we lost the last time we were here.’ We wanted to go out and force the issue.

“Sometimes you don’t score the goal that way, but you give yourself a chance to win a hockey game.”

Ironically, perhaps the difference was that the Eagles’ tough overtime losses in the building gave them some experience that their opponents lacked. UNH has never won a Hockey East tournament and owns only a 1-3-0 record at the FleetCenter. This was the Wildcats’ first OT game at the facility.

BC captain Brendan Buckley explained how the team turned those painful losses into a positive.

“No one really tries to talk about it coming into the game,” Buckley said. “But then they tied it up, and we’re going into overtime.

“In the locker room we said this is our turn to win a big game in overtime. We’ve felt what it’s like to lose them, and maybe we’ve learned from those experiences.”

Easier said then done, as goalie Scott Clemmensen admitted that The Ghost of Crossbars Past has danced in his head since last April.

“Any time you lose a national championship game like that, without a doubt it adds fuel to the fire going into the season,” Clemmensen said. “I’ve never seen a replay of the game last year against Michigan, but it just leaves a sour taste in your mouth.”

Buckley agreed. “It’s a random thing you see on TV when they advertise hockey, and you see Michigan going nuts and all….I try not to think about it too much. It gives me a bad feeling whenever I see that on tape, or whenever anyone brings it up.”

But Clemmensen also pointed the flip side of that awful feeling. “That’s what you train hard for all summer; that’s why you can’t wait for the season to start.”

“I think it’s helped our team,” Buckley added, “knowing what it’s like to get there and knowing what it takes to win it.”

At 6:58, the Eagles did just that. Blake Bellefeuille — who played like a man possessed in both the semifinal and final, and who was a no-brainer for tourney MVP — peeled off the boards with the puck and fired a vicious wrister past goalie Ty Conklin high on the stick side.

“I was at the blue line and my partner Brooks Orpik stepped up, made a play, kept the puck in,” Buckley said. “Blake had pretty much a two-on-one with Andy [Powers], and he put it upstairs on the short side.

“[Bellefeuille] is a tremendous player — he’s played well all year,” the BC captain added. “He competes, he takes the body, he can play defense, and he can bury the puck. He’s one of our top guns going down the stretch.”

Perhaps the most telling statistic of the night was that BC outshot UNH 8-0 during the overtime period.

“Overtime in this building hasn’t been too good to us,” Clemmensen said, chuckling. “I think we were due this time. I just have to tip my hat to my teammates. I didn’t see any shots in overtime, and we really came out of the gate believing in ourselves.”

Having exorcised the evil spirits pervading the FleetCenter, the Eagles will try to settle a similar score if they get to fly west for another crack at a national championship game this April.

That would be the sort of history that the Eagles wouldn’t mind studying.

This Week in the ECAC: March 19, 1999

By Becky Blaeser & Jayson Moy
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Those five teams are left to battle it out for the Scotty Whitelaw Trophy on the Olympic ice sheet at the 1980 Arena this Thursday through Saturday.

Here’s to fun, and especially to the crowning of the 1999 ECAC champions!

ECAC Preliminary Game No. 6 Colgate Red Raiders (19-11-4) vs No. 4 Princeton Tigers (19-10- 2) Thursday, 7:30 pm, 1980 Arena, Lake Placid, NY Earlier This Season: Jan. 30 : @Princeton 2, Colgate 1; Feb. 5: @Colgate 3, Princeton 1 Last Playoff Meeting: 1992 ECAC Preliminary Round (@Colgate) – Princeton; 5-4 (2ot)

Lake Placid hopes for Princeton were looking dim midway through the second period last Saturday night against Cornell. The two teams had gutted out a tough 4-4 tie the night before to force what would likely be a deciding game-two confrontation at Hobey Baker Rink in the ECAC’s first-to-three-points format.

The Big Red appeared to have taken firm control over the game as they jumped out to a commanding 4-1 lead. As the seconds ticked off the clock in the second stanza, however, Princeton began its dramatic comeback. First it was a power-play tally by Jeff Halpern in the waning minutes of the period, and then consecutive goals by Benoit Morin and Syl Apps equalized the contest at four-all.

"The attitude was positive throughout the game. I think that was the biggest factor. I think this team has been through tough situations and tournament situations and they knew they had to stay that way," said Princeton head coach Don Cahoon. "They were positive from the start right through the end. When we were down 4-1, the talk was, ‘Last night we were ahead 4-1.’"

Cornell took a short-lived 5-4 lead, but then in a span of 30 seconds Princeton took over with goals by Brad Meredith and Michael Acosta to seal both the victory and a trip to Lake Placid.

"I was having flashbacks to the last time we played them at home," said Acosta. "Syl made an excellent play, as he has all year, winning the draw back to Jackson [Hegland]. Jackson saw me wide open and he just passed me the puck. I looked at the net and saw no one was in front, so I just took the shot. I knew it was in. I don’t score very much, but when I score I know it’s going in."

After a strong first half, the Tigers had cooled off in the latter stages of the season. The return of Steve Shirreffs to the lineup in the last two weeks has helped ignite the struggling offense, but the All-American defenseman is still not 100 percent, seeing most of his time on the power play.

Despite their struggles as of late, however, the overriding strength of the Tigers in the past few years — highlighted by last year’s dramatic championship run — has been their ability to rise to the occasion as the underdog. That is something they will have to do again this time around as they may face Colgate in the play-in game on Thursday night despite being a higher seed.

Colgate, too, threatened to fall apart once the second half of the season came around, but found a way to pull together crucial wins and claim sixth place in the final ECAC standings to earn a quarterfinal matchup with Yale in New Haven, Conn.

What should have been an epic battle between Colgate’s goaltending duo of Jason LeFevre and Shep Harder and Yale’s offensive gun, Jeff Hamilton, fell short of its billing. In the league’s most lopsided playoff series, the Red Raiders effectively shut down Hamilton and erupted for two definitive wins — a 5-1 win on Friday followed by a 7-2 shellacking the next night — to move into the next round.

"We put forth a great effort and we’re excited," Colgate head coach Don Vaughan said. "We’ve had problems here in the past, but our motto the last two weeks has been ‘No doubt, no fear.’ We believe in ourselves. We were confident coming in and the first goal did a lot to boost that. Our team feels really good about itself. We are getting great leadership from our seniors and really responding to every challenge."

Hamilton was invisible throughout both games, while Harder collected 42 saves on the weekend for the first two playoff wins of his career. Harder received unfailing support on the offensive end of the ice as Daryl Campbell, Etienne Morin (who has scored six goals in Colgate’s last eight games), Chad MacDonald, and Dan Wildfong all tallied two goals on the weekend.

Meanwhile Ryan Faubert and Cory Murphy each added a goal to add variety to the boxscore. Andy McDonald, who had four assists on the weekend, has been Colgate’s offensive catalyst this season — as McDonald goes, so go the Red Raiders. In the 15 games he has scored a goal, Colgate is 13-0-2. In addition, the team is 18-1-3 in games when he tallies a point.

"I’m just thrilled for this team," Vaughan said. "This is what you work for in the ECAC, and no member of our team has ever been to Lake Placid. I am especially proud of our seniors. With all the talk surrounding our program and the way things ended for us last season, this is unbelievable. Give our guys a lot of credit. They didn’t buy into the negativity — they turned things around. I’m just so proud."

Colgate and Princeton enter Thursday’s contest having split the season series. The first time these two teams met on Jan. 30, Princeton broke out to an early lead and pulled out a 2-1 win off of goals by Halpern and Scott Bertoli. Just five days later, the two teams confronted each other once again, this time with the Red Raiders coming out on top with a 3-1 victory in front of a home crowd.

The two teams offer similar styles, as both possess great speed straight through the roster. Princeton has perhaps the more lauded offensive weapons in Halpern and Apps, but the Red Raiders counter with the likes of Andy McDonald and Wildfong. The one weak spot for the Tigers has to be their shaky goaltending as of late; while Colgate will enter the game with a reputation for playing its best hockey during the regular season.

"Our focus is still on us. If we continue to play the way we’re playing, I like our chances a lot," Vaughan said. "The slate is clean now, all the records are can be tossed out the window. It’s winner-take-all every game, so you never know what might happen."

Pick — If Princeton proved anything this past weekend, it is that the players know how to pull out a win when their backs are against the wall. That quality will be a major factor this weekend as the Tigers will not get flustered by an early deficit. Colgate cruised through its two playoff games and may not respond as well to adversity. Princeton 5, Colgate 4

ECAC Semifinal Colgate or Princeton vs No. 1 Clarkson (23-10-1) Friday, 7:00 pm, 1980 Arena, Lake Placid, NY Earlier This Season: Nov. 12 : Princeton 4, @Clarkson 3; Jan. 3: Colgate 4, @Clarkson 3; Feb. 20: Clarkson 4, @Princeton 2; Mar. 5: @Colgate 4, Clarkson 3 Last Playoff Meetings: 1995 ECAC Consolation (@Lake Placid) – Colgate; 10-5 1998 ECAC Championship (@Lake Placid) – Princeton; 5-4, 2ot

The Golden Knights of Clarkson remained unbeaten at Cheel Arena in the ECAC playoffs with their weekend sweep of Brown, 3-2 in overtime and 3-1. It wasn’t pretty but the Knights are still the only team to move on to Lake Placid every single year the championships have been held there — seven times, to be exact.

In fact, the streak for the Golden Knights reaching the semifinal round of the ECAC tournament was started in 1990, the second year the Mark Morris was the head coach of the Knights.

Kent Huskins had both game-winning goals last weekend against the Bears. But of the six goals that the Knights scored, those two were by Huskins and the other four were by four different players.

"We have had a lot of different contributions from the goal on out," said head coach Mark Morris. "You will not see too many statistics individually that will knock you back, and say that this guy or that guy has been unbelievable. I think it has been a total effort by our team."

The Knights are on a roll with 15 wins in the last 16 games, but one can’t help but hear the whispers that come around at this time of the year, every year. How the Knights have only been able to win two ECAC championships in the 1990’s after making it to the semifinal round every year.

This year the Knights want to quiet those whispers.

Pick — Will the Knights get revenge on the Tigers for last year? Nope. Princeton 4, Clarkson 3, 2ot

ECAC Semifinal No. 2 Rensselaer Engineers (22-11-2) vs No. 2 St. Lawrence Saints (22- 11-3) Friday, 4:00 pm, 1980 Arena, Lake Placid, NY Earlier This Season: Jan. 29 : St. Lawrence 5, @ Rensselaer 4; Feb. 13: @St. Lawrence 4, Rensselaer 3 Last Playoff Meeting: 1992 ECAC Semifinal (@Boston) – St. Lawrence; 6-5, 2ot

The St. Lawrence Saints are making their first appearance in the ECAC championship Round since 1992. That year, they defeated Rensselaer en route to the title in the last tourney to be played at the Boston Garden.

This year the Saints go to Lake Placid for the first time and will meet up with the same team that they last faced in the semifinals — the Rensselaer Engineers.

The Saints swept by Vermont, 9-2 and 4-1, and are cruising going into the championship round.

"They got some bounces and created some chances on their own," said head coach Joe Marsh on the win. "It was a great night, but we couldn’t dwell on it, because we had to turn around and do it all over again on Saturday. You would think momentum would be on our side, but history shows that it doesn’t always work out that way. We beat Vermont 8-2 the first night in 1991, but they came back and won the second game and could well have taken the series."

But the Cats didn’t that year, and they didn’t in 1999 either.

"Saturday’s game was just the kind of game we expected," said Marsh. "A close-checking game more typical of playoff hockey. We got a big break on the winning goal, but I was particularly pleased with our defensive play, and then we were able to put it away late in the game. It was a great weekend for us and it should give us a momentum boost going into the semifinals."

While it may have seemed easy for the Saints, the Engineers had to battle back against Harvard. The Crimson took game one, 2-1, but the Engineers came back to win two straight, 4-0 and 4-2, to advance.

"The guys in that locker room realized how we let the first game slip away from us by not playing the first 40 minutes on Friday," said head coach Dan Fridgen. "We played seven solid periods of great hockey after that and the guys came up big. Our big players came up big for us.

"It was a real solid defensive effort, especially on the power play. [Harvard] didn’t score one power-play goal over the three games and that’s a credit to the PK unit. They sacrificed their bodies and they blocked shots."

The Engineers and the Saints battled closely in their two regular-season meetings, both won by the Saints by one goal. In the first meeting, the Saints scored with four seconds remaining to beat the Engineers. In the rematch two weeks later, the Saints never trailed, winning 4-3.

This time around the Engineers are looking to break through against the Saints; the Saints are looking to continue their dominance over the Engineers.

"We’re looking forward to another opportunity to play St. Lawrence," said Fridgen. "Both games were pretty close and it should be a heck of a game.

"We match up real well with them and we’re looking for a little bit of redemption."

Pick — Fridgen is right. These two teams match up against each other real well. Both teams have great forwards that can score, wheeling up and down the ice, and both have great freshmen in Matt Murley and Brandon Dietrich, and goaltending in Joel Laing and Eric Heffler. Someone has to win this one, so we’ll put our money on Heffler in the clutch. St. Lawrence 4, Rensselaer 3 in overtime

ECAC Consolation/Championship Saturday, 4:00 pm/7:00 pm, 1980 Arena, Lake Placid, NY Earlier This Season: Nov. 21: @St. Lawrence 3, Clarkson 1; Jan. 23: @Clarkson 5, St. Lawrence 4; Jan. 30 : Clarkson 5, @ Rensselaer 3; Feb. 12: @Clarkson 6, Rensselaer 4; Jan. 3: @Rensselaer 4, Princeton 1; Mar. 5: @Princeton 4, Rensselaer 3 ot; Dec. 4: Rensselaer 4, @Colgate 3 ot; Feb. 27: @Rensselaer 4, Colgate 0; Nov. 13: Princeton 2, @St. Lawrence 0; Jan. 2: @St. Lawrence 3, Colgate 2; Feb. 20: St. Lawrence 4, @Princeton 1; Mar. 6: @Colgate 2, St. Lawrence 1 Last Playoff Meetings: St. Lawrence vs Colgate; 1994 ECAC Preliminary Round (@Colgate) – Colgate; 4-3; St. Lawrence vs Princeton; 1992 ECAC Quarterfinal (@St. Lawrence) – St. Lawrence; 6-3; St. Lawrence vs Clarkson; 1993 ECAC Quarterfinals (@Clarkson) – Clarkson; 3-1, 5-3; Rensselaer vs Colgate; 1995 ECAC Semifinal (@Lake Placid) – Rensselaer; 2-1; Rensselaer vs Princeton; 1997 ECAC Consolation (@Lake Placid) – Rensselaer; 8-4; Rensselaer vs Clarkson; 1994 ECAC Semifinal (@Lake Placid) – Rensselaer; 6-2;

Picks: Consolation Game — Does anyone want to play in this game? Clarkson is getting ready for the NCAAs, while the Engineers finish out the season. Clarkson 5, Rensselaer 3

Championship Game — Ah, the Whitelaw Trophy on the line. The Saints are hungry, but the Tigers are looking to repeat. The Tigers earn their way to the NCAAs with their second straight crown. Princeton 4, St. Lawrence 3

We hope that everybody has had an enjoyable ECAC season — we know that we have. See you at Lake Placid and see you next year!

Becky Blaeser and Jayson Moy are ECAC Correspondents for U.S. College Hockey Online.

Copyright 1999 Becky Blaeser and Jayson Moy. All rights reserved.

This Week in the MAAC: March 19, 1999

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The top four seeds — Quinnipiac, Holy Cross, Connecticut and Canisius — have all advanced to the MAAC Final Four, to be played this weekend at the Hart Center on the campus of Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

Each of the four seeds advanced in their own unique ways. There were blowout and nail-biters, hard-fought games and breezes in the first round. But most importantly, there were no surprises. The playoff gods wrote the first chapter exactly as we would expect.

So now the preparation continues, and one team stands within two wins of making history as the first-ever MAAC tournament champion.

There were no weekly awards handed out for the first weekend of the playoffs, but the league will name an all-tournament team at the conclusion of the tournament.

Record in picks last week: 3-1 Season record in picks: 30-19 (.612)

Semifinal No. 1 No. 2 Holy Cross (20-9-4) vs. No. 3 Connecticut (20-9-4) Friday, 4:00 PM ET, Hart Recreation Center, Worcester, Mass.

Season Series: 11/20/98 Connecticut 2 at Holy Cross 1 11/21/98 Holy Cross 4 at Connecticut 2 2/12/99 Holy Cross 1 at Connecticut 0 2/13/99 at Holy Cross 3 Connecticut 2

Holy Cross advanced to the final four by virtue of a 3-1 victory over a very pesky Sacred Heart club last Saturday night. The Crusaders did what they do best — score power-play goals — to key the victory.

In this case, Holy Cross scored two power-play tallies one minute and 27 seconds apart to take a 2-0 lead that they never relinquished.

To add to their exceptional power play, the Crusaders’ penalty-killing unit fought off six Sacred Heart power plays, including one in the closing minutes of the game to help preserve the win.

Goaltender Scott Simpson continued to play magnificently between the pipes. He made 34 saves in the victory, lowered his goals-against average to 2.10, and raised his save percentage to .915. Both rank him third in the nation. His overall record improved to 14-5-2.

Looking back at the season to date, coach Paul Pearl displayed excitement, especially when referring to the last third of the season.

"We’re 9-1-1 in our last 11 games, which is a pretty good way to end the season," said Pearl.

His team will have the biggest advantage during this weekend’s Final Four — home ice. This year’s Final Four is hosted by Holy Cross and played at the Hart Center, right on campus.

"Home ice is a benefit," Pearl said. "It can be overdone a little bit when talking about the advantage. But having, say, 1,500 people in the building and 800 of them (Holy Cross) students, that’s something that’s an advantage."

Pearl feels his team matches up very well against UConn, its semifinal opponent. Holy Cross won the season series, 3-1, with all of the games decided by one goal, or two with an empty-netter.

"With UConn, we go back as far as forever," Pearl said after his victory on Saturday. "I used to work there, their assistant coach used to work here. We’re all buddies.

"The two teams have a general respect for each other, but I think there is a high amount of competitiveness also."

For the University of Connecticut, it was kind of like their life flashed in front of them, but they didn’t die.

After holding leads of 4-1 and 5-2 in their quarterfinal game against Iona, they allowed the Gaels to come back and tie the game before winning it in overtime.

With the game 5-2 and less than eight minutes to play, Holy Cross gave up two goals at the end of power plays, closing the gap to 5-4. Iona then pulled goaltender Dan Maguire and won the draw cleanly in the offensive zone. A shot from the point was deflected past UConn goalie Marc Senerchia to tie the game at five.

But on the third shift of the overtime session, Kevin Connell buried the game-winning goal in what UConn coach Bruce Marshall called a "character-building" win.

"It seems lately our team has realized they’ve gotta find a way to win," Marshall said. "Up in Buffalo (against Canisius) we found ways to hold the lead — a game against Holy Cross, we had to come back in the third period.

"And last Saturday we found a way to win in overtime. Because it was the playoffs, they had to cut a new sheet of ice, so we had the time to regain our composure. That was a big advantage."

Marshall downplayed the fact that his club has to play the semifinals in a hostile environment.

"It’s great to play at Holy Cross. We’ve played some great games there this year. We’re very excited to be there, especially because myself and two of our players are from the area."

Marshall grew up in West Boylston, Mass., defenseman Andy Huggins in Holden, Mass., and Mark Busenberg in Shrewsbury, Mass. All three are within about 20 minutes of Holy Cross.

The UConn Huskies, according to Marshall, have played well for what has been a long first season in the MAAC.

"There were a lot of highs and lows," Marshall noted. "But it’s taught our kids that they have to focus, and they’ve done that well at the end of the season here."

That’s the same focus his players will need as they face a tough opponent in Holy Cross the Friday night.

Picks: Holy Cross has played well against Connecticut all season, and on home ice will be too tough. Crusaders, 4-2.

Semifinal No. 2: No. 1 Quinnipiac (26-5-2) vs. No. 4 Canisius (15-14-5) Friday, 7:00 PM ET, Hart Recreation Center, Worcester, Mass.

Season Series: 10/30/98 at Quinnipiac 6 Canisius 3 10/31/98 at Quinnipiac 2 Canisius 1 (OT) 1/23/99 at Canisius 3 Quinnipiac 3 (OT) 1/24/99 at Canisius 3 Quinnipiac 3 (OT)

For the Quinnipiac Braves, their entire first season in the MAAC has been filled with overachievements.

Picked to finish fourth in the preseason coaches’ poll, Quinnipiac surprised the skeptics and won the league title by five points over preseason number one, Holy Cross.

Last weekend’s quarterfinal continued the team’s long list of accomplishments. With two of the Braves’ top players, Neil Breen and Mike Ruggiero, sidelined with injuries, you might expect Fairfield, regardless of its record, to possibly make a game of it.

But the most unlikely of lines, Quinnipiac’s fourth, stepped up and notched six goals en route to a 13-2 victory.

"We’ve overachieved for our age," Pecknold said. "The reason we’ve done so well is because we’ve got players who compete. My kids have shown up to play just about every game. Only a couple of times have we come out flat."

Much of that has come from the underclassmen. The top nine scores for the Braves are freshmen, and the starting and backup goaltenders, both of whom have played very well this year, are sophomores.

As far as the semifinal opponent, Canisius College, is concerned, Pecknold offers caution.

"The first two games we played against them this year were in the first weekend of the year," Pecknold noted, "so you can throw those out. We played them twice in January and those were 3-3 ties.

"Canisius is a very strong club. If you remember the preseason poll, Canisius was ranked second. So people knew that they were and are a good team. They are a physical team with good goaltending, and they have a couple of scorers."

Pecknold also noted that his team doesn’t really feel much pressure as the number-one seed.

"Again, no one expected much from us this year, so there hasn’t been much pressure. I think Holy Cross has a little more pressure playing in front of their home fans.

"I think any of the four teams left could win. It will come down to goaltending and special teams."

For Brian Cavanaugh and his Canisius College squad, a few months ago, his team wasn’t sure if they’d still be playing hockey this weekend.

"We got off to a slow start," Cavanaugh said. "At one point in the season we were winless in 10 games and we wondered if fate would even carry us to the final four.

"I give a lot of credit to the kids on the team. They understood what it took to be successful, and around Christmastime we were able to turn things around. We’re very excited to be a part of all this now."

When asked about what it will take to beat Quinnipiac, Cavanaugh had a tongue-and-cheek response.

"You’re asking the wrong coach," Cavanaugh joked. "We’re 0-2-2 against them this year. You should ask Bruce Marshall at UConn or Paul Pearl at Holy Cross; both of their teams have beaten (Quinnipiac).

"Quinnipiac has only lost eight games in their last two years, so we better be at the top of our game if we want to win."

Last weekend, Canisius hosted its first playoff game in the school’s hockey history. The opponent, AIC, entered the playoffs winless in eight games, but though the Yellow Jackets were coming off two losses to Quinnipiac, both were decided in overtime.

So Canisius knew that AIC had no intentions of rolling over and playing dead — especially after the six-hour bus ride to Buffalo.

Canisius had the quicker legs out of the gate, scoring twice to hold an early lead. With the lead at 3-1 in the second period, Canisius not only allowed AIC into the game but lost hold completely, and trailed 4-3 at one point.

But Canisius reeled off the last four goals of the game, two at the end of the second and two late in the third, to take the 7-4 victory.

Senior goaltender Bob Janosz took home the victory, proving that Cavanaugh’s decision to play him was a good one.

In the week leading up to the game, Cavanaugh joked that "they don’t pay him enough" to make such tough decisions. He was talking about which goaltender, Janosz or sophomore Stephen Fabiilli, would play in the quarterfinals.

When asked about the school’s first season in the MAAC, Cavanaugh said that it has helped his team immensely.

"(The move to the MAAC) has added more games to our schedule, each of which gives us a chance to gain visibility. It has gotten our name out there and helps the team with recruiting.

"The further we go in the tournament, the more visibility we will get."

But Cavanaugh and his club will have to climb a pretty big mountain to continue their postseason run.

Pick: Quinnipiac has a destiny, and Canisius is in the way right now. Canisius plays well, but just not well enough. Quinnipiac, 6-3.

Championship Game Winner of Semifinal No. 1 vs. Winner of Semifinal No. 2 Saturday, 7:00 PM ET, Hart Recreation Center, Worcester, Mass.

Pick: The best game of the tournament, based on my predictions. Holy Cross has home ice, but Quinnipiac has what it takes to be champions. The Braves win the MAAC’s inaugural tournament, 3-2 in overtime.

Tales From The Fleet

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No Case of Senioritis for UNH

Ah, mid-March. That time of year when seniors at most universities go on spring break and then begin to stagger toward the finish line of their collegiate careers. A point at which the work ethic of many top-performing upperclassmen becomes abysmal.

It’s called “senioritis.” But somehow the UNH hockey team is avoiding it. In fact, quite the opposite: in tonight’s 6-2 Hockey East semifinal victory over Providence College, three unlikely senior suspects paved the way on the Wildcat scoresheet.

Between the three of them, seniors Steve O’Brien, Christian Bragnalo, and Chad Onufrechuk came into tonight’s game combining for an underwhelming total of 18 goals in 354 collegiate games. But they can’t be judged by how many times they’ve lit the lamp.

“Those guys are the heart and soul of our team,” said sophomore goalie Ty Conklin of his three unheralded teammates. “Maybe those guys don’t score as much points or get the most news coverage, but they’re as important as anybody on the team.”

After a frankly grim first period in which the Wildcats were outshot by a startling total of 11-3, it was the seniors who spoke up in the locker room.

“They calmed us down,” Conklin said. “They’re not rah-rah-rah, rant and rave guys, but when they get up to speak, everybody listens.”

Off-the-ice leadership is expected from all the seniors. Yet the Wildcats might not have beaten the tenacious Friars Friday night without a little unexpected offensive help from this particular trio.

Playing four-on-four early in the second period, co-captain O’Brien notched the first goal in a scoreless game that the Wildcats basically had survived up until that point.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to be playing alongside the nation’s leading scorer and probable Hobey Baker Award winner, co-captain Jason Krog.

“When I come down like that and get into the play, [Krog] sees the ice so well,” O’Brien said. “A lot of times he’ll pull up and look for the trailing defenseman. So I tried to sneak in, and he put it on my tape.”

O’Brien’s slapshot went through Friar goalie Boyd Ballard’s glove for a 1-0 lead. It was just O’Brien’s eighth collegiate goal in 139 games. For that matter, it was only the Wildcats fifth shot of the game.

The next unlikely candidate to score found the net just two minutes, 12 seconds and one shot later, when Bragnalo notched a power-play goal to give UNH a 2-0 advantage.

Bragnalo and fellow defenseman Dan Enders relayed the puck from point to point with the man advantage until Bragnalo fired a slapshot through a screen. For the senior from Thunder Bay, Ont., it was just the fourth goal of a 130-game collegiate career.

“It’s nice to score goals, but my job is to play defense and move the puck,” Bragnalo said. “If I chip in one now and then, that’s great.”

After Mike Omicioli’s shorthanded goal drew Providence within striking distance once again, Onufrechuk stepped up as the next improbable senior to score a goal.

John Sadowski teed it up for Onufrechuk. The senior from Alberta wheeled awkwardly before backhanding the puck blindly at the net, slipping it under Ballard for what proved to be the game-winning goal in the last minute of the period. It was Onufrechuk’s ninth collegiate goal in 86 games played.

“It’s nice every once in a while to chip in and help out our first line,” said Onufrechuk, who previously played with Krog for two years on the Chilliwack Chiefs (BCJHL). “They usually carry the burden offensively.”

It was a pleasant turns of events for the right wing, who played only five games during his sophomore season.

“I was just in and out of the lineup, and I think we got on a big winning streak that year,” Onufrechuk said. “We won like 15 or 17 games in a row, and we kind of stayed with the same lineup the whole time, so that kind of translated to the rest of the season.

“It was disappointing, but I just stuck with it and things started to turn around after that.”

Just so those in attendance didn’t think that they were watching a playoff game in some alternate universe, UNH reverted to form in the third period with goals from Krog and high-scoring freshman Darren Haydar.

But the contributions of these three seniors were an encouraging sign for a team with a legitimate shot at a national championship. You can keep the spring break in Cancun and the lazy afternoons throwing a frisbee. No senioritis epidemic here.

“Not on this team,” O’Brien said. “We’ve got a kid like Jason Krog who’s probably going to go right to the pros next year, and he’s working his tail off every day. Everybody else follows suit.

“Nobody’s thinking about the future; they’re thinking about right now.”

Of course, there is still one warm-weather destination that the Wildcats hope to add to their spring itinerary — a trip to sunny Anaheim, Calif., for the Frozen Four. And maybe a national championship.

“We got so close last year that everybody’s really focused now,” Onufrechuk said. “We know it’s an attainable goal.”

Bellefeuille Gets Help From Above

Given that Boston College hockey fans have been known to chant “We’ve Got Jesus!” at their team’s games, the Golden Eagles were surprisingly overdue for a little help from above.

Not from the heavens — from the video replay booth.

After having a goal taken away after video review in last year’s national championship Game and in this year’s Beanpot tournament, BC was awarded goals on two occasions following review by official Jim Villandry, who was stationed at the stratospheric level of the FleetCenter for BC’s Hockey East semifinal game against Maine.

In particular, the video gods were smiling on Blake Bellefeuille, who was credited with a goal in both instances. A third-period Maine goal was reviewed from above and also ruled good, making the score 2-1 BC in the video game as well as 3-2 in the hockey game.

This was not the first bit of good fortune in Bellefeuille’s career. The junior from Framingham, Mass., ended his high school career as the top scorer in Massachusetts Division I history, with 120 goals and 182 assists for 302 points. Bellefeuille was a much-ballyhooed recruit for the Eagles and The Hockey News touted him as one of the Top 50 North American players in his draft year.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the draft podium. Despite averaging just over a point per game in his freshman season and scoring four shorthanded goals to boot, scouts apparently soured on the Eagle freshman. To the surprise of many, Bellefeuille was not drafted at all.

Rather than dwell on that disappointment, the 5-foot-10 centerman has tried to use it as motivation.

“Definitely every day I come to practice I just work my hardest,” Bellefeuille said. “When you practice with great players like Farkas, Gionta, Mottau, they just make you better players.

“In games, we play great teams; we have a great league. I just try to give it 100 percent, and it’s been pretty fortunate for me.”

Fortunate enough for Bellefeuille to now rank among the top power-play goal scorers in college hockey. His two power-play goals tonight give him 13 for the season, which should put him at least fourth nationwide pending the outcome of other playoff games.

His first one tonight wasn’t exactly pretty. After considerable review, the ruling from above was that a Black Bear had kicked the puck in his own net.

“I was kind of falling down and fortunately I think it hit off one of the Maine defender’s skates. We got a lucky bounce there.”

In contrast, Bellefeuille’s second goal was a nice bit of sharpshooting.

“We had some traffic out in front, and somebody wristed it to the net,” he said. “I just tried to beat my guy back to the front. There was a big pile-up in front and I went around the pile and had a lane.

“There was a loose puck there, and I backhanded it into the net.”

It was a frustrating play for Maine: Gionta was definitely in the crease, but he was ruled to be there legally because Black Bear goalie Alfie Michaud was out of the crease when Gionta entered it.

For good measure, Bellefeuille assisted on the other BC goal when he won a defensive-end faceoff, leading to a BC breakout and a goal for Andy Powers. Bellefeuille now has 22 goals and 21 assists for the season. Only Gionta and Farkas have scored more for BC in 1998-1999.

“I’m just glad we got the win,” Bellefeuille said.

Given the void left when Marty Reasoner chose to go pro with the St. Louis Blues after his junior season last year, the Eagles need someone like Bellefeuille to fill the role of scoring key goals in big games.

So far, so good.

This Week in the WCHA: March 19, 1999

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But then again, how many of you thought, "No way!" almost immediately thereafter? Somehow you knew North Dakota wasn’t going to go out like that.

Still, it was interesting to see the Fighting Sioux taken to the limit by Mankato, and proves the Mavericks should be more-than-ready to enter the Western Collegiate Hockey Association next fall.

But the first round is in the past. Now, it’s time to turn our attention to the WCHA’s grand finale — the Final Five, starting Thursday night in Minneapolis. Five teams all with the same goal: to skate the Broadmoor Trophy around the ice Saturday night. Only, some teams have a little more difficult road.

Take Minnesota and St. Cloud State. To win the title, they will have to win three consecutive games in a little more than 48 hours. Standing in the way, making it even more difficult, are North Dakota, Colorado College and Denver.

Those three teams all have legitimate shots at taking the trophy. The odds-on favorite, as it has been all season, is probably North Dakota. Their ride has been a little bumpy of late, but they’ve still had most everything their way this season.

All five games of the tournament will take place at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. Minnesota and St. Cloud State square off in the play-in game, Thursday at 7:05 CT. Denver plays Colorado College in a semifinal at 2:05 CT Friday, while North Dakota takes on the winner of Thursday’s game at 7:05 CT Friday. The semifinal losers play at 2:05 CT Saturday while the winners play for the trophy at 7:05 CT Saturday.

If this season’s tournament proves to be anything like last season’s, we should be in for quite a ride.

TEAM NOTEBOOKS

ON THE SIOUX: From the games North Dakota and Minnesota State-Mankato had played before last weekend, you couldn’t really consider it a tremendous surprise that the Mavericks forced the Sioux to the limit in their first-round series.

But the fact that UND was remotely close to being eliminated from the tournament — also trailing, 1-0, after the first period in Game 2 — may have been a little too much for Sioux fans to handle. So they came out on Sunday with a team-record 66 shots on goal in a 10-0 victory to clinch the series.

UND coach Dean Blais couldn’t help but give credit to the Mavericks.

"They did what they had to, playing two lines and got great goaltending," Blais said. "They played good defensively, didn’t let us get to the net, they hooked and held a little bit and played the way they had to."

The series was also a bit rough on the Sioux. Lee Goren got his leg cut and received 35 stitches to close it and Paul Murphy got checked into the boards and broke a couple of his lower back teeth. When UND gets injuries, they sure get some good ones.

Blais and the Sioux took off Monday before preparing for their game Friday against … well, that’s one of the questions. The Sioux won’t know until Thursday night whom they’ll be playing 24 hours later. It’ll either be Minnesota or St. Cloud State.

But if they can play at the same level they did Sunday, look out.

"Our guys know that when they play at a high intensity level, which we obviously had on Sunday, it’s going to be tough to beat us," Blais said. "So we have to play at that level. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to do all the time."

Something that should open the eyes of the rest of the Final Five competition is the attitude the Sioux are taking toward this tournament. They probably don’t need the title to enter the NCAAs as a No. 1 seed, but don’t try telling Blais that.

"We want to win this as bad as we wanted to win the WCHA," he said. "That’s the way we’re looking at it. We felt real hollow last year after we lost to Wisconsin in the finals, and that positioned us to play Michigan instead of maybe a weaker team in the first round of the NCAAs. We want to take care of ourselves, we want to play well and we want to win, obviously. Our attitude is to go down there and win that thing."

"We’ve had, hopefully, our last loss."

ON THE TIGERS: Just when it appeared things were looking up for Colorado College, they got smacked again. Not by an opponent, mind you. By themselves.

Losses haven’t been the problem for the Tigers recently — they’ve won six in a row and 12 of their last 14. No, the injury bug has popped up again, this time claiming Toby Petersen for the rest of the season. Petersen, who missed 17 games earlier in the season with a broken right ankle, broke his left leg in the second period last Saturday. He was such an integral part of the Tigers since his return, because he stepped into the spot vacated by Darren Clark after he suffered a broken arm.

Now, there’s another spot open in the top line.

"If we were in a boxing match this year, we’ve been beaten and bruised but we’re still standing," said coach Don Lucia, who also said the plan now is to move Justin Morrison up onto the top wing.

"I know Brian (Swanson) commented that (Mark) Cullen is mad at him because he keeps stealing his wingers. There’s not much you can do, we don’t have Darren, we don’t have Toby. Some other parts of it will have to come through and were going to have to play well defensively now because when you take two of the top three forwards out of your lineup, it certainly has an impact. Now the big question for us the rest of the year is going to be, ‘Are we good enough?’"

Another question regards the team’s depth. Now that Morrison — who scored the game-winning goal on Friday — is moving up, that leaves the second, third and fourth lines a little inexperienced.

"There’s no question, but what do you do?" Lucia said. "We’re not even sure if Jon Austin’s going to play this weekend either. The positive thing is we’ve had so many injuries this year — I think we’re up to 86 games we’ve missed to injuries right now — so we’re not throwing guys in who haven’t played a game. They’ve played some games and when they have played it’s not like they’re only playing a shift a period. Now they’re going to have to play a significant role."

Lucia said one of his assistants figured that to be bumped from a No. 3 seed in the NCAAs, the Tigers will have to lose both games while Denver wins the tournament.

"It’s an important weekend, but it’s not an end-all for us," Lucia said. "We’re trying to find out some things right now about our team, as we get ready for next week. I think it’s safe to say that Denver’s in the NCAA tournament, we’re in the NCAA tournament and North Dakota’s in the NCAA tournament. The whole point of the WCHA playoffs is to get in the NCAA tournament — that’s the way I’ve always viewed it.

"I know our guys are going to play hard. I think they’ve been real resilient all year long. This will give me an indication about what kind of shot we’re going to have the following weekend. I think our guys will come in and compete and play pretty well. The big question mark right now is, ‘Do we have enough?’ I guess we’ll find out some things this weekend."

ON THE PIONEERS: Can you use the term "bubble team" in NCAA hockey, or is that a basketball copyright? If you can, the Denver Pioneers may fit in that category.

As the No. 9 team in the nation, there’s a good shot that coach George Gwozdecky’s team will make it. They’re around that same rank in the pairwise rankings, so that would mean they should get in, also.

But Gwozdecky is very cautious about the possibility of a Cinderella team stealing his team’s spot. With only 12 teams in the tournament and a theoretical possibility of eight being taken by conference champions (if none of the four conference regular-season champions win their playoff championships), that may limit the openings. Still…

"I feel that if things were going to be decided at this point in time, we’d be sitting good," Gwozdecky said. "I think we’ve put ourselves in a good position right now. Our No. 1, obviously, is to win the league title. We really want to be able to win that for a number of reasons. We know that we have two challenges on our hands in order to do that.

"Secondly, we have a lot of teams that don’t have the automatic bids that have to be concerned about the Cinderella story. If the Cinderella story can be eliminated, then a lot of teams who are in position to get invited can breathe a little easier."

The Pioneers, however, have picked a bad time to start being hit by injuries. Mark Rycroft got hurt in the third period Saturday and is probably out for Friday’s game.

"The reason you carry 24, 25 is for situations like this," Gwozdecky said. "All good teams can somehow handle it. North Dakota has handled it with (David) Hoogsteen being out, CC has handled it with (Toby) Petersen being out earlier in the year. We’ve been fortunate that we haven’t had a lot of major injuries. We’ve had guys that have sit out on occasion, but nothing real major. I think this is our first significant injury to one of our key guys. We’re going to have to deal with it."

The Pioneers are riding a seven-game winning streak into the Final Five, and, since the Christmas break, are 17-5-2. One of the things that may work in their favor is that the Target Center is a 200 x 85 sheet. DU is one of two teams (North Dakota being the other) that has that size as its home rink.

ON THE GOPHERS: How often does it happen that a team shuts out an opponent in a two-game series? Not often. In fact, Minnesota’s 4-0 and 1-0 victories over Alaska-Anchorage last weekend marked the first time a WCHA team has executed that feat since the Gophers beat CC, 7-0 and 5-0, in 1988.

Adam Hauser was the reason for last weekend’s blankings, but you could also make the case that Anchorage didn’t do a lot to help its cause. After all, the Seawolves scored one goal in their last four games of the season.

Despite that, coach Doug Woog was still happy with his team’s performance.

"Adam Hauser was steady, stopped the pucks early on Friday and we played real solid hockey," Woog said. "We played well. We didn’t give them a whole lot of space and we completed passes and we played consistently for 120 minutes."

Still, Hauser is a big key to Minnesota’s success. In his 13 wins this season, he has had a 1.54 goals-against average and a .937 save percentage.

"It’s one game now, you don’t get a second chance," Woog said. "As Adam goes, we’ll go."

Friday’s 4-0 win was a good example of a total team effort. Every skater had at least one shot on goal and no one had more than four. Ten players scored at least one point and the four goals came from three different lines. That’s the kind of effort a team needs down the stretch.

"That’s real important," Woog said. "Our best chances and opportunities took place by our older guys — (Reggie) Berg and (Wyatt) Smith. On the other end of it, the younger guys, the defensemen scored and took the pressure off them."

The thing to watch this weekend is how Minnesota’s home-ice advantage plays out. It worked well for Wisconsin last year at the Bradley Center, and the Gophers have never lost in regular season games at the Target Center (5-0-1). Woog likes the idea of the smaller ice surface, as well.

"I like the idea of playing on a small rink, even though we haven’t played on one for a while," Woog said. "I think we will do better on a smaller rink. We don’t have blazing speed, but we’ve got some bigger guys who will be able to play in the small rink a little better. Wyatt Smith, in particular, he’s not real fast, but he’s strong."

ON THE HUSKIES: St. Cloud State may have been on Cloud Nine after their series sweep of Wisconsin on the road last weekend, but coach Craig Dahl was quick to bring them back to earth.

"I tried to bring them back down on Monday, say getting there is one thing but let’s do something," Dahl said. "After such a frustrating year, it was really a nice closing to the season, to be able to win on the road at Wisconsin. It was real satisfying."

The wins gave the Huskies their fourth consecutive Final Five appearance and their fifth in six years. Of course, they’re only 2-6 at the league championship and 1-1 in the play-in game in which they will compete Thursday night.

Just being there is great, "but it gets a little old being there and finishing fourth," Dahl said. "Let’s go try to win the thing, and if not win it, get third, make some steps here. We’ve been so darn close, losing in overtime three of the times. From that sense it’s frustrating, but you’ve got to figure the luck’s going to come our way here pretty soon."

Some would say, however, that the Huskies have all the odds stacked against them. In order to get to the NCAA tournament, they will have to defeat Minnesota, North Dakota and either Colorado College or Denver. All in just over 48 hours. OK.

Dahl said, however, that winning the first game may spark them on.

"First we have to win Thursday. And when you win, it always gives you a little boost," Dahl said. "Then we have to get out of the semis, not lose in overtime again. That gives you a little boost. Then you just see if you have enough gas in the tank at the end."

If SCSU’s top line of Jason Goulet, Matt Noga and George Awada can play anything like they did in Madison, they might be able to get to that end. They accounted for five goals and six assists. It was Goulet’s third weekend back from injury.

"He’s starting to get some of his timing back," Dahl said. "All coaches know that you can’t just have two out of three players playing well on a line and expect a line to play well. I think Jason feels like he’s starting to regain some of his touch and feel for the game. Plus, to win in the playoffs, your upperclassmen have to play well. If they don’t, you don’t win. It’s as simple as that, no matter what team it is."

THE MATCHUPS

ST. CLOUD STATE (16-17-5, 5th seed) vs. MINNESOTA (14-17-9, 4th seed) Play-in game, Thursday, 7:05 CT

You just get the feeling that this game is going to go to overtime. These teams split the season series — each getting a win and two ties. The only other time these teams met at the Target Center? A 2-2 tie on March 7, 1993. The teams have met twice in the Final Five — both games went to overtime.

There aren’t any surprises in this series. Don’t expect anything new here.

No. 9 DENVER (24-12-2, 3rd seed) vs. No. 5 COLORADO COLLEGE (27-10-1, 2nd seed) Semifinal No. 1, Friday, 2:05 CT

Hey, can we get the Gold Pan out of storage and put it up for grabs here? No one really won it this season — a 2-2 split of four games meant Denver retained possession.

"I’m still figuring out why they get to keep it," CC coach Don Lucia said.

ST. CLOUD STATE/MINNESOTA vs. No. 1 NORTH DAKOTA (31-4-2, 1st seed) Semifinal No. 2, Friday, 7:05 CT

SCSU vs. UND: Four games, four UND victories, a lot of SCSU disappointment.

UofM vs. UND: Four games, three UND victories and a tie.

PICKS If you’re looking for someone to trust on these, you’re looking at the wrong guy. I haven’t picked squat right this season. But here’s my opportunity to make up for all of it. If I had to pick the outcomes, I’d pick…

Minnesota over St. Cloud State in the play-in game, 4-3 (ot). Wouldn’t it be fitting for this game to go to overtime, considering the series between these teams this season? The Target Center has been good to the Gophers, but the Huskies are suddenly on a roll after downing Wisconsin on the road. This one should be a dandy.

Denver over Colorado College, 3-2, in the first semifinal. Let’s settle this Gold Pan thing once and for all. The loss of Toby Petersen may be too much for the Tigers to overcome this weekend, but they should learn some valuable things going into the NCAAs. Denver exploits CC’s depth problems, playing even with the top lines but the lower-line grinders getting the job done. Plus, the Target Center favors the Pioneers with a 200×85 ice sheet.

North Dakota over Minnesota, 5-1, in the second semifinal. I still firmly believe that UND is the best team in the nation, and that they will show it this weekend. Home ice won’t help Minnesota that much.

Colorado College over Minnesota in the consolation game, 4-2. CC could sure use at least one win this weekend to solidify a third seed in the NCAAs, and they’ll fight hard to get it in the consolation game if that’s what it takes. Minnesota, playing its third game in less than 48 hours, is dead tired.

North Dakota defeats Denver, 5-3, to claim the Broadmoor Trophy. The Sioux want to make sure everyone knows they’re the top team in the nation. Taking the trophy for a spin will be nice, but that’s not really the one they’re looking for.

UPCOMING SCHEDULE The NCAA Tournament Selection Show will be aired on ESPN2 and ESPNEWS at 11:30 CT Sunday morning. If North Dakota wins the playoff championship as well, Denver would almost certainly be assured of a spot. If it’s CC, St. Cloud or the Gophers, however, it’ll be nail-biting time. Here’s the schedule for the NCAA Regionals next weekend:

East Regional: Centrum Centre, Worcester, Mass. Friday, March 26: First-round games, 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ET. Saturday, March 27: Quarterfinal games, 5 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ET.

West Regional: Dane County Coliseum, Madison, Wis. Saturday, March 27: First-round games, 2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. ET. Sunday, March 28: Quarterfinal games, 3 p.m. at 6:30 p.m. ET.

This Week in the CCHA: March 19, 1999

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At The Joe this weekend, Michigan State is the number-one seed, Michigan is second, Ohio State is third, and Northern Michigan is fourth.

A year ago, Michigan State was first, Michigan was second, Ohio State was third, and Northern Michigan was fourth.

This is the first time the same four teams have appeared in back-to-back CCHA conference championship tournaments since the tourney was moved to Joe Louis Arena in 1982.

The same four teams did appear in back-to-back tourneys once before, in 1980 and 1981. Those teams were Northern Michigan, Bowling Green, Ferris State, and Ohio State.

What’s different about this year, compared with last year?

Well, two goaltenders and some big guns are gone. But the rosters look remarkably similar to last season’s teams.

Michigan head coach Red Berenson says that this season, the Wolverines had a tougher time getting to The Joe. And he adds, "Ohio State was less than a proven team last season. If they caught anyone by surprise last year, they won’t again."

John Markell says of his Buckeyes, "This year we’ve been severely tested day in and day out. We’re more conditioned to tournament hockey. Having had to defend a whole season puts us in a better position."

Ron Mason says, "It’s ironic that the same matchups are occurring this year as last year. It goes to show you how solid these programs are."

Northern Michigan head coach Rick Comley says, "Funny, I never remember much about the past."

The Boys on the Bubble

There’s more at stake in each game than the CCHA tournament. While Michigan State has sewn up an invitation by winning the regular-season championship, each of the other three participating CCHA teams are "bubble" teams that may or may not be invited.

In the PairWise Rankings, Ohio State is 11th, Michigan 12th, and Northern Michigan 13th. Take No. 10 Quinnipiac out of the mix, and you have the last three teams to make the tourney.

Maybe.

According to Joe Marsh, head of the NCAA tournament selection committee and coach of the St. Lawrence Saints, you can’t take Quinnipiac or any other MAAC team out of the mix, regardless of who they have or have not played.

In fact, say Marsh and the NCAA, every team at or over .500 is considered for an NCAA berth. There are 22 teams under consideration.

The five selection criteria for the selection to the NCAA tournament are:

1. The ratings percentage index (RPI). 2. Head-to-head competition. 3. Record against common opponents. 4. Record against teams under consideration. 5. Results in last 16 games.

In a telephone press conference on March 15, Marsh steadfastly refused to disallow MAAC teams–and realistically, the team in question here is Quinnipiac–saying that they should have equal consideration, since they finished above .500.

How many criteria can Quinnipiac actually meet? Certainly, they have an RPI, and you can look at some head-to-head competition. Record against common opponents? Record against teams under consideration?

OK, you can look at their last 16 games.

When pressed, Marsh said that it wasn’t fair to judge Quinnipiac by the teams they haven’t played, since no teams from the other four conferences (including his own Saints, by the way) did play them.

While it may be true that none of the big boys scheduled Quinnipiac and other MAAC teams, that doesn’t negate the simple truth that the MAAC teams under consideration can not be compared in any way with the teams from the four conferences.

If punishing MAAC teams for not playing teams from other conferences seems unfair, punishing any team from one of the four established conferences because its schedule was inherently more difficult than that of Quinnipiac is beyond the realm of reason.

If you’re Ron Mason, you take this one step further. Mason is outraged that teams from the CCHA are punished in the RPI because they are, well, CCHA teams.

"Our third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-place teams in the league–their RPIs are never very good, because we’re beating up on each other," says Mason.

While the cynical person can say, "Isn’t that true of other leagues?" keep in mind that the top six teams in the CCHA spent time not only in the USCHO poll for at least part(s) of the season, but each also ranked among the top ten in the PairWise at some point or another. You can’t say that about any other Division I men’s league.

Mason thinks that Michigan, Ohio State, and Northern Michigan should all be invited to the NCAA tournament. "It would be just a travesty if they didn’t [get invitations]. If one team doesn’t get in, I think we have to reevaluate the system because all four of these teams deserve to get in.

"There has to be some sort of designation within the league, because maybe there is a stronger league, and if they are they shouldn’t be punished for being stronger."

Mason used his soapbox to make a different, but related plea. "Of course, if we win the tournament the three other teams get in," he joked. "I hope the other coaches hear that."

The Joe

The teams are numbered according to tournament seed. The pairings are exactly as they were last year.

All player statistics are conference stats through the end of the regular season.

All games are played in Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, MI.

No. 4 Northern Michigan (21-13-5, 14-11-5 CCHA) vs. No. 1 Michigan State(28-4-7, 20-3-7 CCHA) Semifinal Game 1, Friday, 5:00 p.m.

Rematch No. 1: Why Does Michigan State Have Our Number?

The Northern Michigan Wildcats reached the CCHA semifinals by beating Notre Dame two of three games in South Bend, losing 3-2 Friday, but winning 7-1 Saturday and 3-2 Sunday. Sophomore goaltender Dan Ragusett (2.44 GAA, .910 SV%), this week’s CCHA Defensive Player of the Week, carried the Wildcats with a .935 GAA in the series.

"It was as big a win for our program in the last few years," says Northern head coach Rick Comley. "All of our guys gave a gutty effort and battled hard the entire series. Dan Ragusett was great in goal for us, especially in our victory Sunday night."

The wins earned the ‘Cats the right to face Michigan State–a team that has beaten them three times this season and tied them once. One Spartan win was a first-round Great Lakes Invitational Tournament win at Joe Louis in December.

"We’ve identified who Mike York is," quips Comley, "but we haven’t identified how to deal with him."

York has tallied four goals against the Wildcats this season, including a hat trick at the GLI.

The ‘Cats themselves are led by a great line. Senior captain Buddy Smith (5-27–32)–who was criminally overlooked in this year’s CCHA all-conference voting–J.P. Vigier (17-15–32), and Roger Trudeau (14-9–23) combined for over one-third of Northern’s conference scoring.

The question mark for Northern is its defense, as it has been all season. While Northern has scored 94 goals this season, its given up 83.

The Spartans beat a "feisty" Lake Superior State team, according to Ron Mason, 3-2 and 4-0 to advance to the semifinals. "Saturday night we played one of our best games of the year," says Mason. "It was a good win for us."

The Spartans took the regular-season title on February 20th, and are making their eighth consecutive trip to The Joe.

Everyone knows that Michigan State is led by Mike "get-the-sensation" York. And you should know by now that York (13-24–37) led the CCHA in plus-minus (+25 conference, +35 overall), having been on the ice only twice for five-on-five opponent goals this season in well over 800 shifts.

Other things to know about the guy Comley’s identified, but has yet to figure out:

He’s had more than one point in four of his last five games and carries a seven-game point streak into this weekend.

He’s had a hand in 41.5% of the Spartans’ goals this year, 52% in the last 10 games.

He has 20 points in 14 career CCHA tourney games.

York and linemates Adam Hall (10-4–14)–this week’s CCHA Rookie of the Week–and Bryan Adams (17-10–27) have combined for 40 of Michigan State’s 91 conference goals.

Beyond York, the Spartans simply have an excellent team that allows few goals. This isn’t news.

Paced by Joe Blackburn (1.34 GAA, .935 SV%) between the pipes, the stingy Spartan defense has give up just 40 conference goals this season.

Mason says of the Wildcats, "We know we’re going to have to contain the big line they have, and we can’t give up anything."

Comley says of the Spartans, "We’ve played well against Michigan State this year, and it should be a great battle between the two of us. Mike York has made the difference for them in their victories, and we’ll have to try our best to contain him and his line the best we can."

Hmmm. Containment seems to be the issue of the moment. May we suggest something with a lid you can burp?

Pick

The Wildcats are 4-11-0 at Joe Louis Arena, and are 1-3-0 all-time at The Joe against the Spartans, 1-4-0 against the Wolverines, and 0-1-0 against the Buckeyes.

Michigan State is 9-0 at The Joe in its last two seasons alone, and the Spartans are looking to recapture their second consecutive CCHA tournament title. Doing so would give the Spartans their ninth overall, a stat equal to half the number of times Michigan State has made it to the CCHA tourney.

The Wildcats are really banged up. As Comley says, "We’re down to 20 healthy players, but that’s all you dress anyway."

Comley feels good about the Wildcats’ chances this weekend. "We’re excited about coming. We’re coming off a great weekend of hockey, maybe one of the series I’ve been in in a while.

"We’re playing pretty well right now. I think we’re a better team than we were at the end of the season last year. We still have a dominant line. We have better goaltending this year on a steadier basis than we did last year."

Mason says, "Our team’s been consistent, probably because we got goaltending in some games.

"I don’t think we played our best hockey in our last four regular-season games, but we did play well Saturday night." Mason thinks that winning the regular-season title as early as the Spartans did contributed to a mini-lull for Michigan State at the end of the season.

It’s important to note that the mini-lull included exactly one loss.

It’s also interesting to note that Ron Mason played college hockey against Red Berenson, and coached both Comley and John Markell. Has no bearing on the games, but it is kind of interesting.

Mike York and the Michigan State defense, 3-1, over Northern’s first line and Dan Ragusett.

No. 3 Ohio State (21-14-4, 17-10-3 CCHA) vs. No. 2 Michigan (22-10-6, 17-8-5 CCHA) Semifinal Game 2, Friday, 8:30 p.m.

Rematch No. 2: To Find Columbus, Drive South and Follow the Smell! Or, We Don’t Give a Damn About the Whole State of Michigan! Or, Our Stadium Is Better Than Your Stadium. Is Not! Is So! Is Not! Is So!

"Coming into the playoffs we were a little bit concerned because we’d lost four out of our last five," says OSU head coach John Markell. "Ferris came in and played very, very hard, and I think that set us up to compete very well at Joe Louis."

The Buckeyes advanced to The Joe after beating Ferris State 4-2 and 3-1. Neither win was easy for Ohio State, and Markell’s right; Ferris State played extremely well in the losses.

An interesting note: Ohio State took a penalty within the last two minutes of each game, which resulted in a 4-on-6 OSU goal each night. Ryan Jestadt (8-3–11) and Hugo Boisvert (15-23–38) scored the goals on Friday and Saturday, respectively.

Boisvert’s goal was most welcome by OSU, as the junior forward had been scoreless–no points at all–in four of the previous five games leading up to the victory Saturday. Boisvert scored the goal that tied the game for the Buckeyes earlier in the third period to break that negative streak.

Other than Boisvert’s lack of scoring, why were the Buckeyes slumping? "I just think we were trying to get some easy wins. Obviously we weren’t playing very well. We lost our concentration and our persistence a little bit. We were playing teams that we thought that we could just skate out on and beat without even trying."

The slump included home losses to Alaska-Fairbanks and Bowling Green.

But Markell’s sure the Buckeyes have turned it around. "I think we have to bring internal motivation. We’re looking forward to playing Michigan, and we think it’s going to be a hard-fought battle."

The Wolverines, making their 10th consecutive appearance at the CCHA championship tournament, were less than stellar themselves going into the final stretch of the regular season.

"We had a season at Michigan where we didn’t live up to the expectations of the preseason poll," says Wolverine head coach Red Berenson. "We went through of more of a rebuilding year than I think than last year, and ran into the biggest slump we’ve had in 10 years going into the last two weeks of the season."

During that slump, Michigan was 0-4-4. "But in the last two weeks of the season," says Berenson, "I thought we recovered and played well."

The Wolverines beat Bowling Green 3-2 and 9-3. The second game became a bit, um, emotional, and resulted in Bob Gassoff’s game disqualification when he went at it with Falcon Craig Desjarlais, who was also DQed.

"BG was a formidable opponent with a great power play," says Berenson. "The first game was a close game and the second game could’ve been a lot closer."

The Wolverines were led in scoring this season by Rookie-of-the-Year shoo-in Mike Comrie (13-20–33), and helped considerably by Josh Langfeld (17-10–27), Bubba Berenzweig (5-18–23), Dale Rominski (12-6–18), and Scott Matzka (6-9–15)–whom Jeff Maund probably still sees breaking in during his worst Wolverine nightmares.

Josh Blackburn (2.29 GAA, .904 SV%) had an impressive rookie season for the Wolverines.

Pick

What to fear if you’re a Wolverine fan: The Buckeyes owned Michigan this season, beating them twice and tying them once, and Ohio State eliminated Michigan in the semifinals at The Joe last season.

What to fear if you’re a Buckeye fan: The same.

These two teams match up pretty well, but Ohio State may have Michigan’s number since beating the Wolverines for the first time in a gazillion years at Joe Louis last year.

Ohio State, however, is famous this season for overlooking some opponents. Not the Wolverines, mind you. Not yet, anyway.

"Our team respects Michigan so much because of the great tradition there," says Markell. In this case, "respect" may be euphemistic for "hating their guts." While the two coaches are indeed very respectful of each other, the players on these teams hate each other.

Don’t let what anyone says about respect fool you, and don’t think there’s no rivalry here because the Wolverines owned the Buckeyes for years and years. The players on these teams are Wolverines and Buckeyes, after all, and the insanity that accompanies that association spills over into hockey.

It may translate into penalties, too, as these are the two most penalized teams in the league. Michigan’s power play is third in the league (18.1%), while Ohio State’s is eighth (14.4%). The Wolverine penalty kill is sixth (.848), while Ohio State’s is second (.880).

The Buckeyes are led by Boisvert and his fellow Quebecois J.F. Dufour (8-10–18) and Eric Meloche (6-11–17). Meloche has played injured all season.

The second line of Chris Richards (8-17–25), Neal Rech (5-2–7), and Dan Cousineau (3-1– 4) is primarily defensive; its role is to shut down opponents’ first lines.

Keep in mind that Chris Richards and Neal Rech have great, streaking breakaways that rarely result in points. Nice to watch, though.

Jeff Maund (2.07 GAA, .927 SV%), who calls playoff hockey "better than Christmas," made 59 saves against the Bulldogs last weekend and had a .952 save percentage for the series.

Jeff Maund over Josh Blackburn, 3-2.

Ohio State (21-14-4, 17-10-3 CCHA) vs. Michigan State(28-4-7, 20-3-7 CCHA) Championship Game, Saturday, 7:30 p.m.

Rematch No. 3: The Grudge Match. Or, How Many Overtimes Does It Take To Win This Thing? Or, Don’t Even Think Of Telling Ron Mason That OSU And MSU Are Evenly Matched!

This matchup is pure speculation, of course. But after last year’s thrilling double-overtime Spartan win–where the game-winner was kicked in by an OSU defenseman–and the thrilling Buckeye overtime win in NCAA regional action, why not speculate?

While the Spartans are fond of allowing very few goals in any given game–one or fewer in 27 this season–the Buckeyes have proven they can score on the Michigan State defense.

The teams are 1-1-1 this season–as they were during last year’s regular season–and are 3-3-2 in their last eight meetings, including last year’s post-season play. This season, Ohio State scored four goals in Munn to come back and tie the Spartans, and beat Michigan State 3-2 in the little rink in Columbus. Michigan State beat the Buckeyes 3-1 in Munn.

That’s Michigan State 9, Ohio State 8 for the season.

Who knows why these two teams match so well? Ohio State’s underrated defense is probably one reason, and the fact that John Markell played for Ron Mason at Bowling Green is certainly another.

Jeff Maund’s another reason. In fact, if Jeff Maund’s faith in himself during playoff hockey is enough of a reason to give the Buckeyes the nod in this one.

And after just one game last season, Jeff Maund learned how to keep York from scoring from behind the goal line.

Maund over York 3-2 in just one overtime this year.

This Week in Hockey East: March 19, 1999

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Fans at the FleetCenter should get their money’s worth this weekend. Maine vs. Boston College looks like a photo finish, and anyone who watched Providence’s domination of BU on Sunday had to conclude that the Friars have a shot against New Hampshire.

I may have gone 9-0 in my picks last week — no applause, just money — but the choices are really tough this weekend. Don’t be surprised if I follow up my shutout with an oh-fer.

KOHO Player of the Week: Brian Gionta (F, Boston College) scored three goals and assisted on four others in Boston College’s playoff sweep of UMass-Lowell.

Heaton Defensive Player of the Week: Alfie Michaud (G, Maine) now leads all Hockey East goaltenders with postseason marks of a 1.50 GAA and a .933 save percentage.

Hockey East Standings

Record in picks last week: 9-0 (!) Season’s record in picks: 135-67, .668

No. 1 Seed vs. No. 4 Seed No. 2 New Hampshire (28-5-3, 18-3-3 HEA) vs.

Providence College (20-16-1, 12-11-1 HEA)

Friday, 5 p.m., FleetCenter, Boston, MA FSNE

Season series: The home team won all three games — Providence 6-1 (11/6), New Hampshire 3-1 (11/7), New Hampshire 4-2 (1/30)

New Hampshire had an unexpectedly tough time in its sweep of Merrimack, 3-2 and 5-4. Prior to the weekend, the Wildcats had not only held a 16-0-1 record at the Whittemore Center, they had taken all 16 wins by at least a two-goal margin.

"I’m not surprised at all," says coach Dick Umile. "Going into the last weekend of the season, Merrimack could have finished in fifth place. They’re a good team. That’s Hockey East. Every opponent is tough."

Jason Krog, who will be UNH’s single biggest factor this weekend, scored four goals on Saturday to close out the Warriors in his final home game.

"We’re real pleased for Jason," says Umile. "He put on a great finish here at the Whittemore Center. He’s done an awful lot for the program and I thought it was great to see him score four goals here. Hopefully, his leadership will help us in the upcoming weekend."

The flip side to the Wildcats’ 18-0-1 dominance on their home ice is that they were 10-5-2 on the road and at neutral sites. While that seems like a major difference, however, it’s worth noting that Maine and Boston College, the other two nationally ranked Hockey East teams, posted 10-4-2 and 8-7-1 away records, respectively.

So the big question, then, is does that home-away disparity indicate that UNH doesn’t play as well on non-Olympic ice sheets? Or is it merely a reflection of the reality that every team plays better at home and obsessing over it is somewhat akin to focusing on Cindy Crawford’s birthmark?

Umile makes it quite clear what side of that fence he’s on.

"That’s just a story, to be quite honest," he says. "We’ve played well in small rinks. Obviously, we played a lot more [away] games in small rinks so that’s why the record is what it is. We’ve played some of our best games in small rinks so that’s not a concern for us. It may be a concern for some other people, but it isn’t for us."

UNH will be taking on the tournament’s dark horse in Providence. The Friars are the only team remaining that isn’t nationally ranked, but dominated Boston University on Sunday to get to the FleetCenter. Based on that performance, there aren’t three strong contenders and one pretender for the Hockey East title, but four legitimate candidates.

"Providence obviously played a tremendous game," says Umile. "They played extremely well, but I’m not surprised. They’ve been a good team all year. Getting home ice in Hockey East, you have to be a pretty good team. They had a couple games here [at the Whittemore Center] where things didn’t go well, but that’s happened to almost everybody.

"They’re a solid team. They’ve got goaltending, they’ve got defense and some great forwards. They play hard and they’re well-coached, so obviously it’s going to be a great matchup. The four teams that are at the FleetCenter should give the fans some really interesting games."

Providence emerged victorious from one of the most bizarre series in recent memory. The Friars defeated Boston University on Friday, 8-2, by scoring on seven of eight third-period shots. They then lost 8-2 on Saturday, only to rebound with an utterly dominating 5-1 win to advance to the FleetCenter.

"I thought the first two games were very similar in the way that they played out," says coach Paul Pooley. "The first game, the first two periods were obviously a great game. Then we just got to [BU goaltender Michel] Larocque, drove the puck to the net and scored in bunches. They couldn’t stop us.

"Saturday night, the first period was a good period. We had three penalties in the first 10 minutes and killed them and took over the last 10. But we came out in the second and they scored right away and had three goals in a minute and a half and we couldn’t stop them.

"It was just a mirror image of what happened the night before. They deserved the game on Saturday night. They just came in and beat us physically, mentally, emotionally and system-wise.

"We had to play on Sunday the way they did on Saturday. And we did. We played with desperation and wanted the game as much as we ever wanted anything and that showed in our play. We were so ready for that game. Physically, that was probably the best game we played all year."

The Friars will almost certainly need to duplicate that performance to knock off UNH, a team that doesn’t seem to have any real weaknesses.

"They’re tremendous," says Pooley. "They’ll be very tough to beat. It’s going to come down to goaltending, specialty teams and who executes better. We have our work cut out for us.

"They probably have the best line in the country with Krog, [Mike] Souza and [Darren] Haydar and the way they work together. Their specialty teams are excellent. It’s going to be a major challenge for us, no question, a major challenge."

Typically, major challenges must first be conquered mentally. If a team doesn’t believe it can knock off a team as impressive as UNH, it won’t. In that regard, the Friars may have gained immeasurable confidence in their play on Sunday night.

"It helps, but it can be a double-edged sword," cautions Pooley. "After Friday night, we felt invincible and we weren’t ready to play Saturday because we thought, ‘Hey, we’re going to win.’ So after [Sunday’s] game we’re sky high so it’s a matter of getting refocused and realizing that we have a new challenge ahead of us.

"That’s the major challenge for the coaching staff, to make sure that these guys are prepared and ready to play. But I don’t think that’s going to be a problem because of the motivation involved, playing such a good hockey club in a great venue."

One of the biggest factors going for the Friars is their league-leading power play (25.52 percent overall, 26.02 in Hockey East). According to Pooley, there’s one clear-cut reason for its man-advantage success.

"We’ve got two units," he says. "There’s one unit with our skill guys on it and another unit that just gets the puck to the net. That’s a nice mix and I think the competition that they have between each other is very healthy.

"I know that they’re both ready to go out on the ice on the power play and whoever gets the first call, the second guys are ready to go out and prove that they can do it as well.

"The competition has really helped, because they’re both scoring. I’d bet they both have the same number of goals. One game our so-called second unit had three goals. So we don’t really have a one-two, we have two units that can go out there and execute and get it done." PICK: Giddy with my 9-0 record in picks last week, I was thinking that it was time to live a little dangerously and consider the dark horse Friars. They were just so impressive on Sunday.

But as I considered going out on a limb — far out on a limb — I spotted Jason Krog with a chain saw and Jayme Filipowicz with an axe.

UNH, 4-3 in overtime.

No. 2 Seed vs. No. 3 Seed No. 4 Maine (27-5-4, 17-5-2 HEA) vs. No. 7 Boston College (23-11-4, 15-7-2 HEA)

Friday, 8 p.m., FleetCenter, Boston, MA FSNE

Season series: The teams split two games at BC on Jan. 8-9, Maine winning 2-1 followed by BC, 7-4. Maine took the lone game in Orono, 6-4 (2/13).

Maine swept UMass-Amherst, 3-1 and 5-2, to advance to the FleetCenter and what should be an exceptional clash with Boston College.

"I’d have to be nitpicky to find too many things that we did wrong," says coach Shawn Walsh. "We really played exceptionally well and [UMass goaltender] Markus Helanen kept the series close. We generated 48 shots the second night, as an example, without many power plays."

The Black Bears enter their contest with Boston College as the favorite, considering their neck-and-neck battle with UNH for the top spot in Hockey East while BC fought a season-long battle with inconsistency. But the feeling remains that the Eagles have been a slumbering giant that has woken up just in time.

"They’re a terrific opponent," says Walsh. "They’re a terrifically talented team and they’ve got great playoff experience, as we do, so it should be a marquee matchup.

"Goaltending will be key. The difference in our series has been goaltending. Alfie [Michaud] played particularly well in the 2-1 game. They outplayed us, but he stole the game in their rink. He was the real difference in the series.

"Special teams again will be very important. We’re very similar teams."

Of those special teams, the Maine power play could be the biggest concern for Black Bear fans. After finishing first or second in the nation on the man advantage the last two years, the Black Bears started the year looking strong again with an over 30 percent efficiency rate. That success, however, faltered as the season progressed and a four-game drought prior to the 5-2 win over UMass-Amherst dropped them to 18.97, sixth in Hockey East.

"I was pleased with the chances we generated over the weekend," says Walsh. "I think that if we can continue to generate those chances, [we’ll capitalize]. Helanen kept us from scoring three or four power-play goals, but then we got the big power-play goal when we needed it. It was 2-2 and [Cory] Larose got a great goal.

"We’ve made some changes since the New Hampshire weekend. We made some tactical changes that weekend because of the big ice surface that I probably wouldn’t change again."

And as for the championship game, it isn’t even worth talking about until Maine gets past the Eagles.

"At this point, we just want to get to that game," says Walsh. "We’ve been in it nine times in the last 12 years — [all but 1994, 1995 and 1997] — and that’s our goal, to get there and not worry about who we’re playing."

Boston College swept UMass-Lowell, 5-0 and 5-4, to start what Eagle fans hope to be another playoff run to the national championship game.

"We’re on a pretty good roll," says coach Jerry York. "We’ve won four straight and I feel pretty good about 23 wins. Not many teams have 23 wins, so I’m pretty proud of some of our accomplishments.

"I think we’re playing some of our best hockey of the campaign right now, starting with the win at BU [on Mar. 5]….

"[Our quarterfinal series with Lowell] was a physical, hard series. They play a good brand of hard-nosed hockey and I think we matched them in that respect."

York will be looking to four of his game-breakers to duplicate their performances against UMass-Lowell.

Jeff Farkas has scored goals in the last three games and, in particular, his performance in the Lowell close-out game prompted York to say, "I thought Jeff Farkas had his best game of the year."

Brian Gionta earned Player of the Week honors with three goals and four assists, shaking off a cheap shot from The Boston Globe that tabbed him as the Sneakiest/Dirtiest player in the league.

"He’s terrific," says York. "He’s the heart and soul of our club. It’s great to have player like that, not only for BC but for the league and college hockey. He’s a phenomenal player.

"He represents a lot of what we stand for. He’s combative, he’s got great skills and he’s got a tremendous amount of heart."

Mike Mottau and Bobby Allen represent BC’s game-breaking blueliners, potent forces on the power play and even strength.

"They certainly are the prototype power-play defensemen," says York. "They’re mobile. They read the ice very well and they both have big shots. A lot of teams have to put forwards back there to get a person that reads [the ice], but they possess a forward’s skills. They’re really the quarterbacks of our power play."

A lot could be riding on this weekend for the Eagles in addition to the opportunity to repeat as Hockey East tournament champions. (As if anything more was really necessary.) The NCAA tournament selection committee will likely be faced with a choice between sending BC to Madison, Wisconsin to avoid a second-round same-conference matchup at Worcester, where UNH and Maine appear to be mortal locks, and keeping three Hockey East teams in the East to maximize the draw. An impressive performance for the Eagles this weekend, combined with St. Lawrence faltering in the ECAC playoffs, could make that decision a lot easier.

It won’t be easy, though, for BC against Maine in the semifinals, a repeat of last year’s championship game matchup.

"We had a good battle [at the FleetCenter] last year with them," says York. "We have a pretty good rivalry with Maine so that will have the focus of our attention all week."

PICK: This is like a calorie-starved dieter choosing between a Milky Way and a Baby Ruth. How can you go wrong with either choice?

While you can be an all-of-the-above eater, however, you can’t pick both of these teams. Only one can be playing on Saturday night.

The keys will be goaltending, where Maine holds a clear advantage, and the Black Bear power play, where the picture is murky, indeed. If the latter struggles, then BC will return to the championship game.

The pick here, though, is for the specialty teams to be a wash and Alfie Michaud the difference. Maine wins, 3-2.

Championship Game

Saturday, 7 p.m., FleetCenter, Boston, MA FSNE

PICK: In a weekend of tough choices — where is a gimme like North Dakota vs. Mankato when you need one? — this is yet another brutal one.

Eeeny, meanie, miney, moe…

Offensive depth proves decisive. The winner of the Maine-Boston College contest prevails, 3-2 in overtime against the Wildcats or 4-2 against the Friars.

Tragedy And Triumph

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On Mar. 6, Bowling Green led Ohio State 2-0 late in the third period of each team’s last regular-season game. When the Buckeyes pulled Jeff Maund in favor of the extra skater, they left more than an empty net; they left the puck close to the boards, near the OSU blue line, and near the stick of Falcon senior Dan Price.

Without thinking, Price turned and shot at the net. Then he looked at his linemate, junior Adam Edinger, and rolled his eyes. Both young men laughed.

When Price shot, he did so without realizing that his 14th conference goal of the season would give him the CCHA scoring title, a title he would have shared with Edinger if the final score of the game had remained 2-0. Until that empty-net goal, Price and Edinger were tied in conference points.

“If Dan Price sees an empty net, he’s going to shoot,” said Buddy Powers after the game. The Bowling Green head coach was laughing. “We kind of looked at each other on the bench and said, ‘Doesn’t this figure?’ Price has had a lot of tough ones that have missed the net at different times.”

To say that Dan Price has had a lot of tough ones is an understatement.

Dan Price and Adam Edinger finished first and second in league scoring, and were named second- and first-team all-CCHA, respectively. Together, they were the best one-two punch in the CCHA for the 1998-99 season, ahead of players like Hugo Boisvert, Mike York and Brian Urick.

And miles ahead of where each was just one year ago.

As Price finishes his last year of collegiate hockey, he reflects on the things he remembers from four years with Bowling Green.

“There’s a number of good memories. Scoring your first collegiate goal. Our freshman year we beat Michigan, and that’s the last time we’ve done it. And you remember not only the good things, but the bad things.”

On Sept. 13, 1997, Price was involved in an automobile accident that cost one man his life. Price, the driver of the car, survived the crash in spite of being thrown fifty feet from the car, head-first. The Sarnia, Ont., native escaped with a badly bruised knee.

On Feb. 17, 1998, he was convicted of aggravated vehicular homicide. He’s currently serving a five-year probation that includes complete abstinence from alcohol, even though the accident was not alcohol-related.

Meanwhile, eight games before the 1997-98 regular season ended, Edinger tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, an injury that required surgery and extensive rehabilitation.

“When I came back to school,” says Edinger, a native of nearby Toledo, Oh., “I wasn’t really one hundred percent. It was more of a rehab situation. Other guys were working out and getting into shape, and I was just trying to get strong enough to play.”

“What Price went through, you wouldn’t want anyone to go through,” says Powers. “It was just tragedy.

“And for Eddy, having to be the top center as a sophomore last season was is a tough task. Then the injury. I don’t think even if he tested today his knee would be one hundred percent. He’s been with our strength coach a couple times a week all season.

“I don’t think anyone wants to go through what we went through last year as a team or as individuals.”

What both Price and Edinger went through, says Powers, makes the success of this season all that much sweeter. “They’re two guys that love to play. I feel really good for both for them. Right from the day Price walked on campus you could tell he’s a guy who likes to play. He was always full of confidence is that he could get the job done. Eddy’s a big, tough guy. For him to turn around and have the kind of season he’s had on top of everything says a lot.”

Both players hesitate when asked about last season, as though talking about it conjures as much mood as memory. Understandably, the 24-year-old Price says his experience has changed him.

“It kind of sneaks up on you and hits you like a ton of bricks,” says Price. “Obviously with the probation, I can’t do some of the things other college kids do. I can’t go out with my teammates. I do think it’s mellowed me a little.

“I mean, I’m still just as laid-back as always. I’ve just come to realize that hockey isn’t everything in life any more.”

Edinger says that watching such a good friend go through what Price endured was difficult for the whole team. “He’s definitely like a brother to us, and we didn’t want to see anyone go through that. We don’t really talk about it too much. We don’t really want to bring up bad memories.”

It was teammates like Edinger — and lots of support from the people who loved him — that helped Price cope with the aftermath of the accident as well as with the high-profile suspension that resulted while the court case was pending.

“I don’t know how I did it,” says Price. “I have a lot of great friends and family, and that just helps you all the time. I don’t want to say you forget about it, but they help you move on. Everyone on our team is like a family, everyone is very good friends. They were all behind me.”

Especially helpful, says Price, was the support of Powers and assistant coaches Wayne Wilson and Brian Hills.

“[Powers] talked to me just like I was normal person, like there was nothing over my head. That really helped. All three have been there one hundred percent — no, one hundred and ten percent.”

Both young men say that even though the Falcons weathered a rough season last year, there was a feeling of optimism about what would happen when it was all over.

“We put some good wins together last year, and we thought that if everybody could stay healthy, we knew we could be competitive this season,” says Edinger.

Price adds, “Basically, everything was behind me this season. Clean slate.”

Given where each player was twelve months ago, what these two Falcons accomplished this season is nothing short of extraordinary.

Price finished the season with 14 goals and 28 assists in conference play; Edinger had 19 goals and 22 assists. As a junior, Price had 14 goals and 13 assists in 22 games, while Edinger had six goals and 12 assists in 20.

The Falcons missed the playoffs last season, finishing 8-27-3. This year, Bowling Green skated into the first round of the CCHA playoffs on a high note, winning five of their six last regular-season games, and posting a 17-16-3 overall record.

Seventeen wins and a trip to the CCHA quarterfinals wouldn’t have been possible without the Price-Edinger combination, both on the BG first line and on the awesome Bowling Green power play. Between them, Price and Edinger combined for 33 of Bowling Green’s conference goals, including 18 of BG’s 37 power-play goals. Edinger alone tallied 13 of those, although “alone” is hardly the term. In nearly every instance, Price assisted.

There’s no magic formula to the Price-Edinger combo, at least not when it comes to the Falcon power play.

“I like passing the puck,” Price says matter-of-factly. “I think a big thing of it is that Eddy likes putting the puck in the net. That’s a big key, especially on the power play. If it comes to me, it’s almost automatic that I’ll pass to him.”

“Price and I have been on the power play together for almost three years now,” says Edinger. “We’ve been together all year. We practice the power play twice a week in practice, all season, every week.”

If practice doesn’t make perfect, it does make for a power play that is machine-like in its precision, especially with the addition of Chris Bonvie, who has tallied five goals with the man-advantage this season. The Falcons convert 21.1 percent of the time.

In spite of the numbers and the stories of personal recovery, neither Price nor Edinger seems particularly comfortable talking about his own accomplishments. Powers explains, “It’s easier for guys to talk about things when you’ve produced. And we haven’t really produced.”

Having the top two scorers in the league and ten wins more than last season equals some kind of production. But perhaps the best product Bowling Green put on the ice this season are college kids who have dealt with a myriad of real-life problems, players who manage to sound just like college kids, in spite of it all.

“I thought for sure on Saturday night [Mar. 6] that I was going to cry,” says Dan Price. It’s hard to imagine the 6-2, 205-pound forward overcome with emotion before his last game in the BGSU Ice Arena, and in the end, he was smiling. “In a way it’s kind of frustrating, but hey, a lot of teams go through problems, you know?”

And how did Adam Edinger feel when Price took the scoring title on an empty-netter? “I was happy for him. There’s not another person in the league who I’d like to see do that.”

Buddy Powers is openly and unabashedly proud of Price and Edinger, as he is of all of his players after the Falcons bounced back from a season that, in retrospect, presented 26 young men with experiences few of them thought they’d ever have to face, let alone while playing college hockey in northwest Ohio.

“I’ve been scrapping along in this business for a long time, and you learn more about yourself when things are bad. That we got through what we went through as a team, and have come back and done some big things says a lot about the character of this team.”

Top-Ranked Sioux Claim Honors, Load Up WCHA All-Star Squads

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Members of the North Dakota Fighting Sioux, the WCHA regular-season champions and the nation’s No. 1 team, took home three major individual awards, and the Sioux placed six players on the first two all-WCHA teams in awards announced Thursday.

UND senior Jason Blake, who led the conference in scoring with 20 goals and 49 points, was named Player of the Year, and head coach Dean Blais was recognized as Coach of the Year. Senior blueliner Brad Williamson was also honored, as the league’s Defensive Player of the Year.

Rookie of the Year went to Alaska-Anchorage netminder Gregg Naumenko, who became the first Seawolf ever to lead a major WCHA statistical category, topping the conference in goals-against average (2.23) and save percentage (.924).

St. Cloud captain Kyle McLaughlin and Colorado College blueliner Scott Swanson were named co-Student Athlete of the Year.

In all-star balloting, CC’s Brian Swanson led all forwards with 301 points. He was joined by Blake, appearing on his third all-WCHA first team, Paul Comrie of Denver, Scott Swanson, Williamson, and Naumenko on the first team.

The second team consisted entirely of Sioux and Tiger players: forwards Jay Panzer and Jeff Panzer, defenseman Trevor Hammer and goaltender Karl Goehring of North Dakota, and forward Darren Clark and defenseman Dan Peters of Colorado College. The third team featured Wyatt Smith of Minnesota, James Patterson of Denver and Lee Goren of North Dakota at the forward spots; Jordan Leopold of Minnesota and Jeff Dessner of Wisconsin on defense; and Graham Melanson of Wisconsin in goal.

Naumenko led the league’s all-rookie team, along with forwards Tyler Arnason of St. Cloud, Jesse Heerema of Colorado College and Steve Cygan of Alaska-Anchorage, and defenders Leopold and Dave Tanabe of Wisconsin.

UNH Grabs Top Hockey East Awards

USCHO Staff Report
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Hockey East regular-season champion New Hampshire took the league’s top three 1998-99 individual awards, announced on Thursday at the Hockey East Awards Banquet at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, Mass.

Jason Krog, Darren Haydar and Richard Umile were all unanimous choices as the league’s Player, Rookie and Coach of the Year, respectively.

The Hockey East All-Star first team included forwards Krog, Steve Kariya (Maine) and Brian Gionta (Boston College); defensemen Jayme Filipowicz (New Hampshire) and David Cullen (Maine); and goaltender Michel Larocque (Boston University).

Named to the second team were forwards Haydar, Rejean Stringer (Merrimack) and Mike Omicioli (Providence); defensemen Mike Mottau (Boston College) and Anthony Cappelletti (UMass-Lowell); and goaltender Ty Conklin (New Hampshire).

Haydar led the All-Rookie Team, along with Conklin, Willie Levesque (F, Northeastern), Barrett Heisten (F, Maine), Greg Classen (F, Merrimack), Jim Fahey (D, Northeastern) and Peter Metcalf (D, Maine).

Kariya also earned the Len Ceglarski Sportsmanship Award for an unprecedented third time.

UNH shared with Merrimack the Charlie Holt Team Sportsmanship Award, given to the squad with the fewest penalty minutes.

Wildcat defenseman Steve O’Brien also took the league’s newest award as the Old Time Hockey Best Defensive Defenseman. UMass-Lowell’s Doug Nolan was named the league’s Best Defensive Forward.

Saints Dominate ECAC Year-End Hardware

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St. Lawrence, a surprise second-place finisher in the ECAC regular season, led the way at the annual ECAC awards banquet by dominating the major awards — winning four, including Eric Heffler’s double as Player of the Year and as the Dryden Award winner, for Goaltender of the Year.

Saints forward Brandon Dietrich was named ECAC Rookie of the Year, while SLU head man Joe Marsh was Coach of the Year.

In the other awards handed out, Syl Apps of Princeton was awarded Defensive Forward of the Year, and Jeff Burgoyne of Cornell took home Defensive Defenseman of the Year.

The ECAC all-league and all-rookie teams were also announced. Heffler was placed on the first team all-ECAC, joined by last year’s ECAC co-Rookies of the Year, Willie Mitchell on defense and Erik Cole up front. Alongside those three was a repeat first-teamer in Jeff Hamilton of Yale, then Burgoyne and Danny Riva of Rensselaer.

The second team consisted of Alex Westlund of Yale; Bob Prier of St Lawrence; Jeff Halpern of Princeton; Andy McDonald of Colgate; Steve Shirreffs of Princeton; and Jason Reid of Vermont.

ECAC All-Stars

First Team
F  Jeff Hamilton   Jr   Yale
F  Erik Cole       So   Clarkson
F  Danny Riva      Sr   Rensselaer
D  Willie Mitchell So   Clarkson
D  Jeff Burgoyne   Sr   Cornell
G  Eric Heffler    Sr   St. Lawrence
 
Second Team
F  Bob Prier       Sr   St. Lawrence
F  Jeff Halpern    Sr   Princeton
F  Andy McDonald   Jr   Colgate
D  Jason Reid      Sr   Vermont
D  Steve Shirreffs Sr   Princeton
G  Alex Westlund   Sr   Yale

Honorable Mentions: Syl Apps, Princeton; Kyle Knopp, Cornell; Alain
St. Hilaire, Rensselaer; Dale Clarke, St. Lawrence; Andreas Moborg,
Vermont; Scott Peach, Dartmouth; Joel Laing, Rensselaer.

ECAC All-Rookie Team

F  Brandon Dietrich        St Lawrence
F  Matt Murley             Rensselaer
F  Jamie Herrington        Dartmouth
F  Denis Ladouceur         Cornell
D  Kerry Ellis-Toddington  Clarkson
D  Ray DiLauro             St. Lawrence
G  Shawn Grant             Clarkson

Honorable Mentions: Mike Maturo, Dartmouth; Josh Barker, Brown.

MAAC Honors Inaugural Class With End-Of-Year Awards

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The MAAC announced its end-of-year awards at its banquet Thursday night here.

Iona freshman forward Ryan Carter was named Offensive Player of the Year, as well as Offensive Rookie of the Year. Carter finished the season with 62 points (32 goals, 30 assists) and leads all Division I players in goals per game (1.0).

Quinnipiac freshman defenseman Dan Ennis pulled off a similar combination win, selected as both Defensive Player of the Year and Defensive Rookie of the Year. Ennis appeared in all 32 games for the Braves this season, recording 24 points (8g, 24a) and accumulating a plus/minus rating of +35.

Holy Cross goaltender Scott Simpson was selected as MAAC Goaltender of the Year. Simpson was thrown to the fire midway through the season when the Crusaders’ number-one goalie, Tom Ormondroyd, suffered a concussion that ended his career. In 20 regular season games, Simpson compiled a 13-5-2 record with a 2.20 goals-against average (No. 3 in the nation) and a .911 save percentage.

American International coach Gary Wright was named the conference’s Coach of the Year. Wright, who is in his 15th season as head coach at AIC, led the team to a 12-15-4 record as a Division II team competing among six other Division I clubs.

In addition to Carter, Ennis and Simpson, the first-team All-MAAC squad included forwards Geoff Angell (UConn), Chris Fattey (HC) and Chad Poliquin (QC); defensemen Derek Gilhan (Canisius) and Kris Cumming (QC); and goaltender J.C. Wells (QC).

The second team included forwards Mike Sowa (AIC), Neil Breen (QC) and David Deeves (Canisius); defensemen Rob Martin (UConn) and Mike Maguire (HC); and goaltender Chance Thede (AIC).

The All-Rookie team, in addition to Carter and Ennis, included forwards Neil Breen (QC), Pat Rismiller (HC) and David Deeves (Canisius); defensemen Mike Boylan (UConn) and Joel Tarvudd (Canisius); and goaltender Jon Chain (UConn).

Spartans Win Battle For CCHA Postseason Hardware

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Michigan State, the top team in the CCHA, claimed four of the six honors announced at the annual CCHA awards banquet Thursday.

Mike York was named Player of the Year and Best Defensive Forward, while Ron Mason was named Coach of the Year, and Mike Weaver was the league’s Best Defensive Defenseman.

Bowling Green’s Mike Jones was named the CCHA’s Best Offensive Defenseman, while Michigan’s Mike Comrie took home the Rookie of the Year award.

Miami’s Ernie Hartlieb is this year’s recipient of the Terry Flanagan award, named for the former Bowling Green coach and given to a player who has overcome personal difficulty to continue in school and with hockey. Hartlieb suffered a severe head injury and was comatose for 11 days in June of 1997, just months before the start of his freshman year.

The CCHA also presented awards to the All-Conference, All-Rookie, and All-Academic teams, named last week.

The All-Conference first team includes forwards Mike York (MSU), Hugo Boisvert (OSU), and Adam Edinger (BGDU); defensemen Mike Weaver (MSU) and Benoit Cotnoir (Notre Dame); and goaltender Jeff Maund (OSU). Cotnoir is the first player from Notre Dame to be named to the first team.

The All-Conference second team includes Ben Simon (Notre Dame), Dan Price (BGSU), and J.P. Vigier (NMU); defensemen Mike Jones (BGSU) and Andre Signoretti (OSU); and goaltender Joe Blackburn (MSU). Price also won the league’s scoring title.

Honorable Mention players include forwards Jason Deskins (Miami), Bryan Adams (MSU), and Brian Urick (Notre Dame); defensemen Mike Van Ryn (UM) and Jim Dube (FSU); and goaltender Vince Owen (FSU).

Named to the All-Rookie team were forwards Mike Comrie (UM), David Inman (Notre Dame), Adam Hall (MSU), and Chad Theuer (NMU); defensemen Jeff Jillson (UM) and Jason Crain (OSU); and goaltender Josh Blackburn (UM).

Given Honorable Mention were forward Greg Day (BGSU); defensemen Sean Connolly (NMU), Ryan Crane (WMU), Andrew Hutchinson (MSU), Grady Moore (BGSU), and Scott Titus (OSU); and goaltender Jeff Reynaert (WMU).

The CCHA All-Academic Team includes forwards Zach Ham (BGSU), Aniket Dhadphale (Notre Dame), Shawn Horcorrs (MSU), and Joel Irwin (FSU), and goaltenders Forrest Karr (Notre Dame) and Mike Savard (BGSU).

Those given Honorable Mention were goaltenders Matt Barnes (WMU), Greg Daddario (UM), and Joe Blackburn (MSU); forwards Andrew Bogle (MSU), Jim Lawrence (UAF), Jason Redenius (WMU), and J.P. Vigier (NMU); and defensemen Benoit Cotnoir (Notre Dame), Jim Dube (FSU), Jaisen Freeman (OSU), Andy Jurkowski (Notre Dame), Mike Jones (BGSU), Gary Ricciardi (FSU), and Darren Tiemstra (UAF).

Dancing In Southern Connecticut

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Their schedule has been called “insular.” They get about as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield, if that much. And in the general college hockey community, they’re given as much of a chance as the tortoise was against the hare.

But the Quinnipiac Braves are currently in a position to cause not only some rumblings in the college hockey world, but perhaps to a major earthquake.

The Braves, in their first full season at the NCAA Division I level, have posted a 26-5-2 record and wrapped up the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s (MAAC) inaugural regular-season championship. They are also currently in the top 12 in the Rating Percentage Index (RPI), one of the major criteria for selection to the NCAA championship tournament.

They have been informed by the NCAA that they are under consideration for the tourney. To many, this comes as quite a surprise.

At the beginning of the season, Quinnipiac and all of the other MAAC teams were informed by the NCAA that their “insular” schedule, as it was called, would be taken into consideration during tournament selection.

This was not a good thing for the MAAC.

The reason for the NCAA’s concern was that the MAAC schedule did not contain any games against teams in the other four national conferences: Hockey East, ECAC, WCHA, and CCHA. The only non-conference Division I opponents faced by the MAAC were Army, Air Force, Minnesota State-Mankato, Nebraska-Omaha and Niagara, all D-I independents this year. (Mankato will join the WCHA next season.)

But Quinnipiac’s head coach, Rand Pecknold, feels his team is pretty strong, though he’s not necessarily willing to argue whether Quinnipiac belongs in the nation’s top 12 teams. Rather, he points out that the way the tournament selection process is set up may benefit the Braves, come tourney time.

“The selection process is pretty clear. It is not made to take the top 12 teams, necessarily, just like the NCAA hoops tournament doesn’t take the top 64 teams. They are made to take a cross-section of teams.”

Pecknold is referring to the fact that the NCAA basketball tournament gives an automatic bid to just about every D-I conference in the country, and thus, some teams that don’t make the tournament are better than teams that do.

Pecknold also noted that the hockey tournament gives automatic bids to the playoff champions in Hockey East, the ECAC, WCHA and CCHA. Thus, if a number-eight seed in Hockey East were to pull off three upsets and win the title, you would have an entrant that isn’t nearly among the top 12 teams.

A perfect example of this was Providence College’s NCAA appearance in 1996. The Friars knocked off Boston College in the quarterfinals, then went on to beat Boston University and Maine, respectively, in the final four. The automatic bid was the only way that Providence could have made the tournament.

“Teams (like Providence) make the tournament because that’s the way the selection criteria are set up,” said Pecknold. “The criteria also says that at-large bids are filled by comparing the RPI and PWR (Pairwise Ranking) ratings and filling the slots with the top remaining teams.

“So if (the NCAA) wants to continue with precedent, they’d have to select us if we fit the criteria.”

A Hand in the Mix

One step up that Quinnipiac may have over the rest of the MAAC is that athletic director and key MAAC supporter Jack McDonald is part of the four-member NCAA selection committee.

McDonald notes that it can be tough to represent the interests of both the school and the conference while at the same time selecting the best teams to fill the tournament’s at-large bids.

“Whether it’s our job to put the best 12 or the best eight at-large teams or four at-large teams, it is our job to pick the best we can from the number available,” McDonald said.

The way the NCAA selection process works is simple — or maybe complex, depending upon your perspective.

There are five evaluation criteria for which each .500-or-better team is compared against every other such team: RPI, head-to-head record, record versus common opponents, record over the last 16 games, and record against teams under consideration (the .500-plus teams).

According to McDonald, there is one caveat.

One criterion says the following: “The committee reserves the right to evaluate each team based on the relative strength of their respective conference using the overall conference ratings percentage index (RPI) in determining competitive equity.”

What does that mean exactly? Well it basically says that if the conference’s RPI isn’t that strong as a whole — and teams like Fairfield and Canisius don’t have a strong RPI — then the selection committee can veto Quinnipiac’s participation. Also taken into account is the fact that two of the teams in the MAAC, Sacred Heart and AIC, have not been granted Division I status and are not eligible for the RPI ratings or the NCAA tournament.

Currently, and not to anyone’s surprise, the MAAC’s RPI is the lowest of the five conferences. Hockey East leads the way with rating of .525, followed by the WCHA at .5040. The CCHA ranks third at .5036, then the ECAC at .496, and the MAAC is last with .453. The independent schools collectively rank below the MAAC, at .442.

Another factor that the tournament committee may look at is the MAAC’s record outside of conference. The MAAC is 3-10-2 against Division I independents.

Selection Process Isn’t Quite Cut and Dried

It the past couple of years, selecting the 12 teams for the NCAA tournament has been pretty simple for the committee. The teams that won their conference tournaments were, for the most part, qualified for the tournament anyway. And the teams that were “on the bubble” clearly ended up either in or out based on the selection criteria.

But this year, according to McDonald, will be different.

“The committee’s going to have a role this year,” he said. “If a team like Quinnipiac is eligible to be thrown into the pool, and they remain eight, nine or ten in the ratings, it’s an automatic.

“So the decision is whether or not to consider Quinnipiac.”

It is important to point out that even though McDonald serves on the committee, he will not be allowed to vote on Quinnipiac and the MAAC’s consideration because the decision directly effects the institution he is affiliated with.

The director of the NCAA Ice Hockey Selection Committee, St. Lawrence head coach Joe Marsh, said that regardless of what conference Quinnipiac plays in, they do meet the criteria to at least a team under consideration, which, as mentioned above, is defined by the NCAA as any team with a .500 or better winning percentage against eligible Division I opponents.

“There are currently 22 teams under consideration,” Marsh said in Tuesday’s telephone press conference regarding the selection of the field. “We have to consider [Quinnipiac] — they are part of the mix.

“We are going to use all the information we have and not try to predetermine anything about the team.”

The decision on whether to consider Quinnipiac is unprecedented. The last time there was a new conference added was 15 years ago, when Hockey East was formed. And unlike the MAAC, where all member schools have made recent conversions from Division III to Division I, Hockey East only had one team, then the University of Lowell, that had made a recent move.

The remaining teams were basically a splinter group from the ECAC, so the NCAA granted an automatic bid to the tournament champion, Providence, in the league’s inaugural season. The strength of the league also allowed Boston College to enter the tournament as an at-large seed.

Braves May Burst Some Bubbles

Who besides Quinnipiac is affected by this whole situation? Basically, any team on the bubble.

Currently, four teams have clinched spots in the NCAA tournament: New Hampshire, Clarkson, North Dakota, and Michigan State. You can add to that group teams like Maine, Colorado College, Denver, Boston College, and St. Lawrence — five teams that should qualify based on their current positions in the RPI and PWR.

So that leaves a few bubble teams like Ohio State, Rensselaer and Northern Michigan wondering if their ticket to this year’s dance will be given to Quinnipiac. Moreover, each of these teams realizes that upsets are possible in conference tournaments, with every upset champion bumping them down — and possibly out of the tournament.

With so many teams vying for those lower seeds, Quinnipiac may become more of a headache than anything.

So, though the Braves are now in the hands of the jury, they realize that they have other business at hand, namely the rest of the MAAC conference tournament.

“We’re trying not to look ahead,” said Pecknold. “We just want to win the MAAC tournament right now. Then we can worry about what the NCAA thinks of us.”

But MacDonald understands, whether his team wins or not, that this season has helped his program tremendously.

“It’s a real thrill,” MacDonald said, “and I think the MAAC has gone light-years beyond anyone’s expectations.

“People know how to spell Quinnipiac, and they know where we are now. For us, that’s a dream come true.”

A dream much like the one MacDonald, Pecknold and Quinnipiac hope comes true next Sunday afternoon when the NCAA selection committee announces its pairings.

The Odd Couple

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One skates with extraordinary grace and agility; the other came into the league looking like a powerskating dropout.

One had already left his hometown by grade 10 in the search for stronger competition; the other played for his small-town Midget team throughout high school, his game not yet ready for the big time.

One led the nation last year in assists; the other ranked second in goals.

Stringer

Stringer

Rejean Stringer and Kris Porter, Merrimack’s version of Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, have formed one of the nation’s top pairings since being united as sophomores. This season, Stringer ranks fifth in the nation with a 16-37–53 scoring line. Porter hasn’t duplicated last year’s 33 goals, but he still has 22 along with 20 assists.

“I guess opposites attract,” says Stringer. “I think that because we are so opposite, it brings so much more to the pairing as a whole. We don’t have anything that [both of us] can do. He does all these things that I’m not that strong on and I do the complete opposite.

Porter

Porter

“I haven’t been surprised at all by the success that we’ve had, just because of the way I feel when I’m with him on the ice. I’m so confident in him when I have the puck. If I have no options, I just know that he’s going to be somewhere and he can have two guys on him and I feel confident that I can still pass him the puck and he’s going to get the shot off.”

It’s a pairing that began to form, in a humorous way, back when both were in junior hockey, Stringer with the Nipawin Hawks and Porter with the Weyburn Red Wings.

“I always said that if there was a brawl, he was the first guy I was going after,” says Stringer. “Neither of us was known for our toughness.”

When both were being recruited, the potential pairing played a part in Stringer choosing Merrimack.

“I knew that the school was small so the chance of more playing time would be better,” he says. “But another reason was that Ports scored 55 goals in junior and he was a right winger and I was a playmaker. I figured I’d come here and get to play with him and we could have a pretty good line together. That was probably the thing that brought me here the most.”

Kris Porter: Development of a Sniper

Porter hails from Wynyard, Sask., a town of less than 1,000 people — which is where he still was at a time when most hockey players with aspirations have already moved on to tougher challenges.

“At the age of 16 or 17, I don’t think I was ready to play at a higher level,” he says. “I wasn’t a real good player. I hadn’t developed.”

He may not have been a real good player, but he could already fill the net, albeit against modest competition.

“Skating was obviously one of my weaker points, but I scored a lot of goals and got a lot of points when I was younger,” says Porter. “I had played defense until I was 15. On a small team like that, you only have two or three defensemen, so you get a lot more ice time.

“I got moved up to forward when I got moved up to an older age group to play against older kids. I just wasn’t physically ready to play defense when I was playing up an age group and I had always been able to score goals at young age. I scored a 100 goals in maybe 30 or 35 games.”

Averaging a hat trick a game didn’t come overnight. It had taken years of dues-paying to hone whatever natural shooting talent he’d been blessed with.

“I spent a lot of nights at the rink,” he says. “The kid who lived across the street from me, his dad was the caretaker of the rink. From when I was 15 to when I was 19, we used to go in there for four hours a night, firing pucks and fooling around on the ice for hours on end, just the two of us and maybe the goalie off our team. Spending that much time on it really developed my shot.”

When Porter finally did move on to junior hockey with Weyburn, it initially proved to be a very difficult adjustment. His skating wasn’t good enough to keep up with the higher talent levels, he wasn’t getting much ice time and the new situation also was tough socially.

He worked through it, however, and contributed off a checking line his first year. The following season, he blossomed into a 40-goal, 90-point scorer. Building on that, he finished his junior career with a league-leading 55 goals and over 100 points.

“[My skating] was a big issue for all the schools, but the thing that convinced them that I could play was that I put up big numbers,” he says. “I became a guy that teams were willing to take a chance on.

“I got offers from pretty much all the Ivy League schools because I had fairly good grades in high school. I visited Lake Superior, Merrimack and a few other schools and I really liked Merrimack. I really liked the atmosphere, not being in Boston and just being outside. It’s a real small school and that’s the way I grew up.

“And the guy who coached my junior team, his son [Wayde McMillan] had played at Merrimack and he had a lot of good things to say about it. I knew him from juniors and whenever he came home, he had lots of good things to say.”

Rejean Stringer: Development of a Playmaker

Stringer also grew up in a small town in Saskatchewan, in his case Gravelbourg.

“In those small towns, hockey is everything,” he says. “My dad had me on skates when I was two. It started with the old rink in the back yard. Every winter my dad would make me a rink out there and I’d be ripping right out there with my little brother. It just developed from there. I just loved the game so much, I skated every day, all day and all night. My mom would have to call me in.”

From even the earliest days, he particularly enjoyed setting up a teammate with a clever pass.

“Through my whole life it’s always been my stickhandling and my playmaking ability [that has been his strong suit],” he says. “I always liked to handle the puck and, for some reason, even at a young age I liked to pass.

“I enjoy goal-scoring, but I’ve always played with great goal scorers. I’ve just had more fun designing some plays where I could get them the puck. I’ve always been a passer.”

When he reached grade 10, Stringer left for Swift Current, just over an hour away, to play against better competition. Two years later, he left for Nipawin, six hours from home, to play junior A, where collegiate recruiters would eventually find him.

Stringer and Porter: Together at Merrimack

Their first year in North Andover, Mass., required some significant adjustments, both on and off the ice.

“It was a little bit weird because I spent three years playing junior, just playing hockey and not going to school,” recalls Stringer. “I think my brain was a little bit frozen by the time I got here. It took me a little while to adjust.”

For Porter, the biggest on-ice concern was convincing then-head coach Ron Anderson that he was good enough.

“Quite honestly, Merrimack was probably one of the more negative schools [regarding] my skating,” says Porter. “Coach Anderson had been real cautious taking me and once I got here he didn’t really give me a lot of playing time. He didn’t know if I could compete at this level.”

Even for as stylish and skilled a player as Stringer, the dictum was a familiar one for freshmen. Don’t be cute and make a mistake. Dump it in.

“We just had to grit it out and keep it simple,” he says. “Don’t take chances making a pass or trying to beat somebody. It was mostly get the puck in deep and keep it simple. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t find yourself in the lineup the next game. So it was a little bit frustrating, but that’s how it goes.”

Paired together as sophomores, however, their contributions multiplied. Both jumped to the 30-point range and shared the team’s Most Improved Player Award.

“Our styles just feed off each other, so I think one of the biggest reasons for our improvement was that we were just playing together,” says Stringer. “We jelled right away and knew where each other was on the ice and things started going well for us.

“We got a lot more confidence when we started scoring. You start having more confidence when you feel that you have more ability to do stuff. We just started going to the net more, got some more chances and it started working out for us.”

As sophomores they both posted balanced goal and assist totals (18-18–39 for Stringer and 16-17–33 for Porter). As juniors, however, they emphasized their natural styles and, as a result, recorded major breakout years. Stringer scored 11 goals and assisted on a nation-leading 46 others for 57 points. Porter, on the other hand, scored 33 goals (second-best in the country) with 21 assists.

“As sophomores we played our styles at times and at other times we didn’t,” says Stringer. “At times, we just played really hard and just put the puck in the net.

“But last year when we came in, we played together right from the start so we were both really confident, and I guess we just relaxed and just started doing what we do naturally. Once he started scoring and I was passing, we just stayed like that.

“He was scoring so I didn’t really have to chip in that much. My primary objective was to set him up. Once he started doing that, we just didn’t change anything because it was working out for us.”

Of course, a lot more than simply playing together has gone into the pair’s success. Both have improved dramatically over their four years.

For Porter, the fruits of that labor have been more evident. When he first entered the league, his skating looked far below Division I caliber. Since then, however, he has worked tirelessly to improve.

“My skating has always been something that I’ve been criticized about, so I’ve really focused on it,” he says. “Last summer, I skated with Mr. Paul Vincent for the whole summer for a couple times a week with some other kids from Hockey East. He just did a great job working on my technique.

“And I worked out at Mike Boyle’s gym here in Boston, working on a lot of leg strength. That’s got to be a focus for me. Just combining that with improving my technique with Mr. Vincent has helped me a lot. Now I can not only keep up with most of the guys, I think I’m pretty average out there.”

Porter has also continued to work on a strength, his ability to protect the puck in ways that allow him to get off his shots despite defensive pressure.

“It’s just something I’ve had to do all my life,” he says. “Always being the slower kid, you learn to protect the puck a little more. I’m not really as tricky with the puck as a guy like Reg, so I really work on it in practice, fighting guys off and still getting shots off when guys are all over me. If I wasn’t doing things like that, I wouldn’t be at this level.”

This year, Porter’s goal-scoring is off, in part because of the increased defensive attention following last season’s breakout performance, but Stringer has picked up some of that load.

“I’ve tried to score a little more,” says Stringer. “I’ve found it a lot harder this year to find Kris because guys are keying on him quite a bit. It’s unbelievable how little time I have this year. Guys are on us right away the minute we get the puck.”

Having just completed their final collegiate regular season, Stringer and Porter will now be hoping to duplicate last year’s playoff stunner when the eighth-seeded Warriors toppled top-seeded Boston University. While it’ll be New Hampshire that they face this year, the relative seedings will be the same.

“It was really, really huge for us last year just because of the way things went for us after Christmas,” says Stringer. “Things were terrible. We had lost 12 in a row going into that series.

“It was such a positive thing for us and the program, to get to the FleetCenter. It was just amazing. Once we got there, it kind of erased some of the things that happened through the year.

“It lifted the level of our expectations for this year. Guys still remember how good it felt being at the FleetCenter, so that’s what we’re working to get back to.”

Not Enough

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Ironically, North Dakota probably has Michigan to thank for it all.

Yes, the No. 1 Fighting Sioux have been tearing up the Western Collegiate Hockey Association in 1998-99, taking a 27-3-2 overall record into the last weekend of the regular season. But the team’s motivation may actually stem back to last year.

The Sioux had a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, but got an unfortunate placement in the West Regional, where they would have to go through the host Wolverines at Yost Ice Arena.

UND led after two periods but slipped up in the third, and a pair of Michigan goals sent the Wolverines on to the Final Four and eventually the national championship.

To this day, Sioux coach Dean Blais can’t help but think things would have been a lot different if the game hadn’t been in Ann Arbor.

“I didn’t make any big deal about it when we went in there and played, but that was a huge advantage,” said Blais, in his fifth year at the helm of the Sioux. “If Michigan would have come here, we win — I’m not going to say by two or three goals — but I believe we would have won that game. Because that’s what home ice does for you.”

But the negative effects one loss can have can mean more than life the next year. North Dakota became only the second WCHA team to win three straight regular-season championships this season, taking the title handily.

And Blais thinks this year’s team is better than either of the last two — better even than the 1996-97 team which defeated Boston University in Milwaukee for the national championship.

“But we haven’t won it,” Blais said. “Michigan had the super team (that year) and Boston beat them (in the national semifinals). We still haven’t made it to Anaheim yet.

“Once we get there, don’t bet against us.”

It’s tough to question Blais on his word, considering the record the Sioux have amassed this season. A major component of their success, however, may be a little out of the ordinary.

“I get a different feeling about this year’s team versus last year’s team,” Blais said. “I think it has something to do with the schedule. We took a week off right away in the beginning of the year and went straight through. Then, two weeks off at Christmas and went straight through again. We had a week before we played Jan. 2 and 3 for the guys to get back in the groove. I think weeks off during the year sometimes hurt you. There’s more harm than good.”

If there has been a knock on UND this season, it has been that they have had to scrap down the stretch to get the wins. After a rally to victory over Alaska-Anchorage on Feb. 20, the Sioux had been forced to come back to win in six of their last 11 games.

Sure, they won those games, but what happens if they fall behind in the NCAA tournament?

Maybe the reason is Blais’ young defensemen. That was his primary concern early in the season, but the coach said they have adjusted well.

“We’ve won games sometimes 6-5, 5-4,” Blais said. “That’s my philosophy — let’s just outgun the other team. Defense is a lot of hard work and discipline. We feel that we have that. We don’t work on it to the point that we’re sacrificing other parts of the game.

“Certainly you’ve got to have good power-play and penalty-killing units, and you’ve got to be able to execute and score offensively. But we don’t do a lot of defensive coverage-type grinding drills, where guys lose interest in playing the game. That can drive you nuts as a coach.”

When you have to outgun opponents, you have to have guns. Bang.

The Fighting Sioux roster features four players with 39 points or more this season, led by Hobey Baker candidate Jason Blake (22 goals and 36 assists for 58 points through 30 games). But the clincher is that Blake is barely scratching the surface of UND’s depth.

Names like Jay Panzer, Jeff Panzer, Lee Goren, Brad Williamson and David Hoogsteen, not to mention quite a few others, always seem to pop up in the scoring sheets.

“That’s the name of the game, the depth that we have. It’s why we’ve been successful,” Blais said. “We’re leading the nation in scoring, so there’s plenty of firepower.”

The Sioux’ scoring prowess may be best exemplified by a stretch in early February when they scored 17 consecutive goals — the last nine against Denver and the first eight against Anchorage.

Understatement alert: “When we’re moving the puck and intense, we’re a pretty good hockey team,” Blais said.

“There’s real good balance up front and the real key is for our defensemen to play sound defensively. They join the offense but their big thing is to make an outlet pass, get the puck to the forwards. You can sit and have fun watching the forwards go down the ice, but get them the puck.”

Heck, the Sioux even have a kind of goaltending controversy going. While Blais has said that Karl Goehring (17-2-2, 2.53 goals-against average, .909 save percentage) will be his man come playoff time, it’s hard to overlook the job Andy Kollar (10-1-0, 2.87 goals-against average, .884 save percentage) has done.

“This is the first time I’ve seen it where both goaltenders have been about even,” Blais said. “Karl is our No. 1 goaltender, he’s fresh, but Andy’s only lost one game this year. That’s helped Karl because the way we run practice, you need three goalies because we do so many shooting drills that if you don’t have three, it’s just too tough.”

Despite everything Blais has going for him at North Dakota, talk of a dynasty is quickly muted.

“I’d say we’re going to get knocked off our pedestal here pretty soon,” Blais said. “We’ve pretty much had everything our way. Our seniors won (the NCAA title) when they were sophomores and there’s eight of them. That’s your core group and they’ve been real good from the time they got here.

“That’s what’s carrying this right now. The younger guys are just filling in, except for our goaltenders. We play freshman and sophomore goaltenders and three freshman defensemen. I guess there’s some reason to be optimistic in the future, but Jason Blake is leading the league, he’s a senior; Jay Panzer’s third in the league, he’s a senior; Williamson’s sixth in the league and he’s a senior. All of our seniors are in the top 20 in scoring in the league. That says a lot about how talented they are.”

Maybe that means the Sioux will have to win it all this year. Do they really need any more motivation?

Hockey Photography 101

USCHO Staff Report
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Reprinted with permission from the New York Institute of Photography website.

Most photographs taken at a hockey game show the entire rink and tiny figures in action — if you can see them at all. Other than proving you were at the game, this type of picture really has little to say.

And this is the problem if you try to take a picture from your seat “way up there” using your SLR’s normal lens or with a point-and-shoot. Our opinion: don’t waste your time.

What type of picture are you looking for? A strong, closeup action shot is much better.

How do you get such a picture? Here are some pointers from Chuck DeLaney, Dean of the New York Institute of Photography (NYI), the world’s largest photography school.

1. You have a better chance to get close to the action in a peewee, high school or college game. Chances are you won’t get on the sidelines at a professional game.

2. Generally, don’t position yourself behind the goal because most of your pictures will show the goalie’s back rather than the action.

3. Since hockey action occurs all over the rink, position yourself on the side, but toward one of the goals.

4. Watch out for reflections in the glass panel separating you from the action. If you use an autofocus camera, make sure it’s focusing on the action, not on the glass.

5. Don’t forget to look for reaction shots, too. Yes, the action on the field during the battle may be intense. But many a great picture of tragedy and triumph occurs after play is over — or even in the stands.

From Back Room To Top Dog

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What do you call a team that, in the midst of a good year, learns it has lost its number-one goalie for the rest of the season? A team whose senior backup can count his career games played on one hand?

If that team is Holy Cross, you’d call it a contender.

That’s the exact situation that faced the Crusaders halfway through their first season in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference; now they stand in second place late in the season, with a shot at the first-ever MAAC regular-season championship, not to mention the league’s inaugural playoff title.

And you can credit a fair share of that success to netminder Scott Simpson. A senior from Rochester, N.Y., Simpson spent his first three seasons as a backup goalie for the Crusaders.

But when the team’s top goaltender, Tom Ormondroyd, was tragically forced to end his career due to post-concussion syndrome, Simpson was called to duty.

“I honestly didn’t believe it when I found out I was getting the start,” said Simpson. “I figured that this may be my last career game, because I really thought that Tommy would be back.”

Simpson went so far to call his parents on the morning of the game and have them drive from Rochester to East Haven, Conn., to see that night’s game against Quinnipiac.

15 games later, Simpson is in the top three goaltenders in the country in goals-against average. He has posted two shutouts, against two of the league’s top teams: Quinnipiac and Connecticut.

But Simpson is still the first person to admit that it has not been an easy career.

A bumpy ride, but still hope

When Scott Simpson arrived at Holy Cross four years ago, he wanted the same thing that any other freshman player wants — the chance to play college hockey and get a good education while doing it.

The education part has come natural for Simpson, a political science major who aspires to law school.

But from his first day at Holy Cross, hockey did not come as easy to Simpson as in past years. His first season he stood as the backup to a solid senior netminder. He played a couple of games here and there, but he’ll tell you he didn’t turn many heads.

“I was allowed to compete for the starting job,” said Simpson, “but I didn’t play well and the decision was easy for them.”

The next season, the Crusaders recruited Ormondroyd, a highly-touted goaltender for the then-Division III program. And from early on, Simpson knew that he wasn’t going to get the call.

“I practiced hard and stayed ready,” Simpson added, “but I knew that I wasn’t going to play. That killed me. I was always used to playing, being the number-one guy, and I just couldn’t see myself not playing.”

But Simpson tried his best to keep a good attitude about him, while at the same time, his lack of playing time was eating everything inside of him. He says he’s thankful that his friends and family were so supportive, putting up with what he calls his “whining.”

But as time wore on, the stress started to get at him on the outside, too.

“It was difficult to approach practice in a positive manner. For me, I couldn’t really see life without hockey, so I just practiced hard and believed I would get a chance to play.

“But in the back of my mind, I really thought I might never play again.”

Comically, Simpson called himself the “fastest doorman in the East” — referring to his ability to open the door on the bench for changing players. That’s where he spent all of his games, and his most serious injury to that point was getting hit in the face by the assistant coach’s clipboard.

But, joking aside, Simpson felt he had to make a serious life decision.

Leaving the family

Halfway through his junior season, Scott Simpson decided that his life was passing by, and he didn’t have time to watch it. Hockey, even though he was not playing in games, was occupying a lot of his time. The time that most college students have to enjoy college, to party, to make friends, to spend time on life — those things just weren’t part of his.

“I always felt like the hockey team was a family,” Simpson said, “but after my junior year, I just didn’t feel like I could take the situation dealt to me.”

And that was when Simpson told head coach Paul Pearl of his decision to leave the team at the end of the season.

“Scotty came to me and told me that he wanted to concentrate on other things,” Pearl mused. “He came in the middle of the season so I could try to recruit another guy to take his place. I really thought that was a mature decision.”

“It was a hard decision to make for me,” said Simpson, “and at the time it seemed like the right one.

“After leaving the team, something continued to eat at me, like I realized that I hadn’t accomplished anything. I was afraid I’d never play hockey again and that this was how I’d remember something that is such an important part of my life.”

Simpson wanted to return to the team, but he figured that he had made a decision, and he would have to live with it.

That was when senior captain Mike Ortwein stepped in.

In November, Ortwein asked Simpson to return, saying it would give him something to do; he’d have fun with the team his senior year.

It didn’t take long for Simpson to decide what he wanted: to return and prove that he could work hard and help his team. And Pearl agreed that Simpson could bring something positive back, regardless of the situation.

“I never considered that Scott had quit, because he made what he thought was the best decision,” said Pearl. “I never thought he had done anything selfish. I was delighted to have him back.”

Back in familiar territory

When Simpson returned to the Crusader locker room, he had one objective: to prove to his teammates and his coaches that he would play hard and compete, no matter what the circumstances.

“I wanted to put forth 100 percent of my effort,” Simpson said. “So I practiced hard every day like I was preparing to play.

“Coach Pearl had always told us that any one of us could have to play. To that point I only half believed him, but that didn’t matter. I wanted to be prepared.”

Simpson also used the inspiration of his father, Richard, to give him the desire to compete.

“My father always told me, ‘Nothing worth having ever comes easy,’ and I understand that now.”

Those are words that lead him out on the ice every night.

Misfortune — and a chance

On Friday evening, Dec. 4, 1998, Holy Cross goalie Tom Ormondroyd, already suffering from post-concussion syndrome, sustained another head injury that he knew would have serious effects.

Simpson and many of his teammates realized Ormondroyd’s problem, but perhaps not the severity.

“Coach had told me to stay ready, that I might have to play Saturday night against Quinnipiac,” Simpson said. “And then when I got my chance, I figured it would be for just that game, and Tommy would be back the next weekend.

“But as the days passed, we all began to realize that Tommy wasn’t going to be okay, and I’d have to step into his shoes.”

It was the chance Simpson had waited for, an opportunity to prove himself, not only to his coaches, but to himself. It was also an opportunity to put closure to what he by then called a bad decision — his decision to leave the team.

Simpson played well in the game against Quinnipiac, losing on a late goal. After the exam break ended, he returned a month later and lost his next contest to Niagara. After four games as Ormondroyd’s replacement, Simpson’s record was an unimpressive 1-2-1.

The turning point

Simpson and the Crusaders headed to New Rochelle, N.Y. for a weekend series with Iona. The Gaels entered the series sporting the top scorer in Division I hockey, rookie sensation Ryan Carter.

“We went in there and just played the worst game ever. We didn’t play well as a team and I let in a couple of soft goals that could have been the difference in the game,” Simpson said. “[At the hotel] I was rooming with one of our backup goaltenders. He looked at me and knew I was upset and started laughing.

“He said to me, ‘Heck, you could be worse off. How do you think I feel having had to sit there and watch that game?’

“He totally made me remember how I used to feel when I was in his shoes, and it made me realize that it wasn’t so bad after all.”

Simpson used that laughter to build his confidence as if a house, brick by brick. He realized that there was not going to be anything better than what he had now. He was in a position to control his team’s destiny.

That turned him around.

The next night he made 28 saves, 23 in the final two periods of the game, and the Crusaders went on to a 7-3 win.

“The win at Iona put things in perspective and gave me a lot of focus. I’m thankful to that weekend for saving me.”

Success and the road ahead

On Feb. 12, Simpson posted his first career shutout, a 1-0 win over UConn. The next night, he played a game that he feels could define his college career.

“Saturday night was the best game I’ve played,” said Simpson. “I had everyone behind me — my coaches, my teammates and especially the fans.

“By the middle of the game, the crowd was chanting my name. I was getting chills thinking about everything.”

Simpson went on to win the game, 3-2, and finished with 32 saves. He says that game was a chance to give back to his team all they had given him.

“I believed in these guys and knew they could do it. And this game I wanted to prove to them that they could believe in me.”

Simpson’s success has continued. The next weekend, after losing a close 4-2 decision to league-leading Quinnipiac, Simpson pitched another shutout, his second in as many weeks.

His success is not going unnoticed. The league voted Simpson the MAAC Goalie of the Week for the weeks of February 5-6 and February 12-13, making the former backup the first player in the league’s short history to win the award on consecutive weeks.

Simpson also noted that he has learned a lot in his time between the pipes.

“I’ve gained a lot more confidence, in my play and in myself. I also have learned a new respect for how hard the position is to [play], night in and night out.”

Scott Simpson realizes his mistakes, and is happy to have been given the opportunity to correct them. He also knows that his story can give other players hope.

“The locker rooms here at Holy Cross are separated, and in the back room they put all of the guys who don’t get a chance to play a lot, as well as the goaltenders.

“I know that I’m always going to be a back-room guy. So I’m playing this season for all of the back-room guys out there, hoping that they will some day get the chance that I’m lucky enough to have.”

That’s a chance that Simpson will never forget.

This Week in the ECAC: February 26, 1999

By Becky Blaeser & Jayson Moy
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With only two weeks left in the regular season, the ECAC is, as usual, a jumbled mess. Or is it?

Hopefully we can try to clear things up for you.

With that in mind, we will dispense with the regular "style" of the preview and bring you something that might put things in a little better perspective.

But before we begin, please take a look at the ECAC Standings.

What stands out when one looks at the standings is that the ECAC has separated itself into four distinct groups of teams. So what we will do is examine each of these four groups and give everyone a nice rundown for the coming weekend.

Now you may ask, what exactly are the four groups? We will now define them.

Group I — The "I Want That Automatic Bid To The NCAA Tournament" Group

Group II — The "I Want To Get Home Ice In The Playoffs and Perhaps A Bid To The Dance" Group

Group III — The "Just Get Us In and I Know We Can Do Damage" Group

Group IV — The "October Is Too Far Away" Group

Let’s take it away…

Group I — The "I Want That Automatic Bid To The NCAA Tournament" Group

Group I consists of two teams — Clarkson and St. Lawrence. These two have pulled away from the pack and have a comfortable margin over the other 10 teams in the league. Both have clinched home ice in the quarterfinal series and both are ranked in the USCHO Poll.

What remains to be decided here is who finishes up top, getting the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament and the number-one seed — which is important if that team makes it to Lake Placid because that team would play the winner of the 4 vs. 5 game.

Clarkson Golden Knights Record — 18-9-1, 15-3-0 ECAC, 1st Best Possible Finish — 1st Worst Possible Finish — 3rd

What can you say about the Golden Knights? A lot of people were predicting doom for this team when the Knights had not reached the .500 mark at the beginning of December. But right now, those people are long gone and the Knights are in the familiar role that people seem to know — first place in the ECAC late in the season.

"We lost so much at the start of the year that we knew we couldn’t afford to stumble," said head coach Mark Morris. "We gave away a lot of wins so we definitely can’t coast now.

"When you lose, you get the attention of your players. It was definitely a humbling experience for our players, our coaches and all of us to endure that slow start. It was a real eye-opener for us."

Victories over Yale and Princeton last weekend extended the Knights’ winning streak to 11 games. With two games remaining, the Knights are firing on all cylinders looking for that automatic bid.

"If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it," said Morris.

St. Lawrence Saints Record — 18-9-3, 13-2-3 ECAC, 2nd Best Possible Finish — 1st Worst Possible Finish — 4th

Going into last weekend, the Saints were tied with the Knights, but after a 4-1 win over Princeton and a 3-3 tie against Yale, the Saints find themselves one point behind for first place and the autobid.

It was a great weekend for Bob Prier, the senior captain of the Saints. He was named ECAC Player of the Week for his four-goal, one-assist weekend.

"We had some outstanding efforts by our seniors this past weekend," said head coach Joe Marsh. "Our whole defensive group stepped things up under some adverse circumstances. Both games were physical games and they took their toll, but I was pleased with the way the guys responded. We got another big weekend from Eric Heffler, and Bobby Prier, John Poapst, Erik Anderson and Dale Clarke had great efforts as well. It was pretty consistent right down the line, which is what we are going to need in the stretch run."

Home ice is clinched and advancement to Lake Placid for the first time may loom for the Saints. Marsh likes the way things look for his team right now.

"We’re in good position heading into the final four games, but it is going to be a dogfight," said Marsh. "The two games this past weekend were both high-intensity, playoff-like games and that is what we are going to see in the last four. Everyone has something at stake, and we are going to play them as they come and try to stay on top of our game."

Games This Week For Group I Brown and Harvard at Clarkson Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 4:00 pm, Cheel Arena, Potsdam, NY Harvard and Brown at St. Lawrence Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Appleton Arena, Canton, NY

All four games are key matchups. St. Lawrence clinches at least second place with a win, as does Clarkson. Clarkson can clinch the regular-season title with two victories and two St. Lawrence losses; otherwise we go to next weekend to decide it.

Group II — The "I Want To Get Home Ice In The Playoffs and Perhaps A Bid To The Dance" Group

This grouping is playing for three home-ice spots in the quarterfinals, and that has been a real battle. Moreover, as this grouping is separated by only four points in the standings, so after this weekend, the positioning may change dramatically.

Of the five spots that these teams occupy and the three home-ice spots that are being fought for, one spot in particular is very important — third place.

There are a few big reasons for this:

Home ice. Making the playoffs is one thing, but playing in front of your own crowd is another.

Avoiding the play-in Game in Lake Placid. It may be premature to talk about this, but if you finish third in the league and you do get to Lake Placid, you will not be playing in the play-in game on Thursday evening. You move straight to Friday’s semifinal round.

Avoiding Group II. What does that mean? Well, if you finish third in the league, you will avoid playing the other four teams of this grouping in the quarterfinals. If you finish third in the league, your quarterfinal matchup is against a team from Group III. Despite what everyone says about the league being so even and how any team can beat another on any given night, you would rather take your chances against a team from Group III than one from Group II.

So for all those reasons, you really, really want to win this grouping Is there a downside to finishing third in the league?

Only one that we can think of. No team that has finished third in the league has moved on to Lake Placid since 1994, when Rensselaer defeated Union in the quarterfinals. Observe…

1995 — Rensselaer defeated Harvard, 3-1 (points) 1996 — Harvard defeated St. Lawrence, 4-2 1997 — Princeton defeated Vermont, 4-2 1998 — Cornell defeated Rensselaer, 4-2

Rensselaer Engineers Record — 18-9-1, 11-6-1 ECAC, 3rd Best Possible Finish — 1st Worst Possible Finish — 7th

To use the age-old cliché; the Engineers control their own destiny in Group II. They lead the grouping by two points, but have arguably the toughest schedule left of the five teams because they face the other four teams in the grouping.

The Engineers went from fourth to third last weekend, thanks to victories over Vermont, 5-2, and Dartmouth, 8-3, and two losses by Princeton.

"Things went real well," said head coach Dan Fridgen. "I thought that everybody contributed on all of the lines this weekend. We played strong from lines one to four and all six defensemen played well too."

While the Engineers do control their own destiny, Fridgen says that it doesn’t really matter.

"We just have one game at a time in mind, and we’re not looking too much at the big picture," he said. "People may write about it and I’m sure the guys see it, but we just to maintain the fact that we are playing well. We don’t want to look too far ahead — our [next] game is what’s important, and playing that game well."

Princeton Tigers Record — 15-9-1, 10-7-1 ECAC, 4th Best Possible Finish — 2nd Worst Possible Finish — 10th

Princeton started the season as the hottest team in the league, but has since turned into one of the biggest disappointments of the second half. The reason for the downward spiral has almost everything to do with Steve Shirreffs.

With the All-American defenseman in the lineup, the Tigers have one of the most capable blueline attacks in the country, but without him the team has been left in disarray. The defense lacks organization and cohesive movement, while the offense is struggling to produce goal-scoring opportunities, no doubt because their backs are constantly facing the opponents’ net.

As a result, the Tigers have gone from a favorite to capture the regular-season crown to one which will be lucky to maintain home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs. The team’s zero-point weekend against St. Lawrence and Clarkson represented Princeton’s lowest ebb, as it was the first time this season that the Tigers suffered a weekend sweep.

"We’re at the point now where the team that makes the fewest mistakes wins games. It’s playoff-like hockey," said Princeton coach Don Cahoon, whose team has won only one of its past six. "The two teams we played (Clarkson and St. Lawrence) made fewer mistakes than we did. Our team in general played well, but not well enough. We have a few things to shore up."

With two weekends remaining, the Tigers will get a bit of a boost from a favorable schedule, as the toughest team Princeton faces is RPI — at home in Hobey Baker Rink in the regular-season weekend finale.

Colgate Red Raiders Record — 14-10-4, 9-7-2 ECAC, 5th Best Possible Finish — 3rd Worst Possible Finish — 10th

In what has been a frustrating time as of late, the Red Raiders went into last weekend hoping for some kind of consistency — the consistency that brought them three points during the first weekend of February, not the consistency that earned them goose eggs the two weeks encircling that one.

And the Raiders seemed to find it with wins over Harvard, 6-2, and Brown, 3-0.

"Our guys deserve a lot of credit; they worked very hard to prepare this week,” head coach Don Vaughan said. “The tendency is to become a little complacent this time of year, but we feel we have responded very well.”

But can that consistency show up for a second weekend in a row?

“We have certainly addressed these things quite often,” Vaughan said. “We’ve tried to improve our focus and our attitudes, as well change up some of our rotations."

Cornell Big Red Record — 11-11-3, 8-7-3 ECAC, T-6th Best Possible Finish — 3rd Worst Possible Finish — 10th

It started out as a good weekend for the Big Red. A 4-1 victory over Brown propelled Cornell into the fifth position in the standings — temporarily, because the next evening the Red were downed by bitter rival Harvard, 5-3, and were pushed to a tie for sixth with Yale.

"We didn’t play a real good defensive game," head coach Mike Schafer said. "People want to see us scoring four goals and five goals, but without the defensive effort and execution, you’re not going to win, and we proved that tonight."

The Big Red will take to the road this weekend and face one of their challengers for home ice in the quarterfinals: Rensselaer. The Big Red were successful in their last endeavors at the Fieldhouse, downing the Engineers four points to two in last season’s quarterfinals. But that was last year, as Schafer points out.

"We’ve got to find some answers here, quickly," he said. "We blew another chance (against Harvard) to be up there in fourth place, and now we slip into sixth. Obviously, it’s going to be a battle from here on in."

Yale Bulldogs Record — 10-12-3, 8-7-3 ECAC, T-6th Best Possible Finish — 3rd Worst Possible Finish — 10th

Yale salvaged last weekend’s homestand against Clarkson and St. Lawrence by virtue of a 3-3 tie against the Saints on Saturday night. A Keith McCullough goal at the 3:47 mark of the third period equalized the contest and helped the Bulldogs survive a 33-save performance by Eric Heffler.

"[Saturday night] was a more workmanlike effort, more practical," said Yale head coach Tim Taylor in the Yale Daily News. "We did a lot of little things that make a difference. Hopefully the two teams we played this weekend won’t give up too many points the rest of the season."

The crucial point enabled Taylor’s team to stay even with Cornell in sixth place in the standings, and perhaps more importantly, it increased the gap between Harvard and Vermont, which are currently five points below in a tie for eighth.

The game also helped ease the discomfort caused by the Bulldogs’ disastrous 8-2 defeat to Clarkson the night before in which the Golden Knights tallied eight unanswered goals through the first 50 minutes of play. Two goals by Marc Turco in the final stretch of play buffered the loss…at least a bit.

"After looking at the tape, I realized that it wasn’t an 8-2 game," Taylor said. "I was probably more upset than I should have been, but what I was concerned with was the lack of attention to detail."

Yale has a chance to further break away from the bottom pack as it faces Dartmouth and Vermont this weekend. And if the Bulldogs are able to put some distance between themselves and the teams struggling for playoff life, they can begin to look upwards at home-ice advantage, which is a definite possibility considering their schedule in the next two weeks.

Games This Week For Group II Cornell and Colgate at Rensselaer Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Houston Fieldhouse, Troy, NY Colgate and Cornell at Union Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Achilles Rink, Schenectady, NY Yale and Princeton at Dartmouth Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 5:00 pm, Thompson Arena, Hanover, NH Princeton and Yale at Vermont Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Gutterson Fieldhouse, Burlington, VT

The big matchups are in Troy, where Cornell and Colgate take on Rensselaer. Those two games should shuffle some things out in the standings. Rensselaer clinches home ice with two victories or one win and two losses by Yale, Colgate or Cornell. Princeton can clinch home ice with two victories, a loss by Yale and two losses by either Cornell or Colgate. Everyone else must wait until at least next week to clinch a home-ice playoff spot.

Group III — The "Just Get Us In and I Know We Can Do Damage" Group

This grouping is fighting for a playoff spot. While three of these teams can get home ice in the playoffs, it is more than likely that they will be going on the road during the second weekend of March.

It is here where the cliché, "Any team can beat any team on a given night," can best be used. St. Lawrence gave Yale a run last year from the tenth position and last year the eighth-seeded Cornell Big Red defeated the third-seeded Rensselaer Engineers.

Obviously the place one wants to finish in this grouping is eighth, meaning that that team gets to avoid going to the North Country.

Harvard Crimson Record — 11-12-2, 6-10-2 ECAC, T-8th Best Possible Finish — 4th Worst Possible Finish — 11th

It has become customary that Harvard is faced with a do-or-die situation come the final weeks of the season. Unlike last season, however, the Crimson has little chance of gaining home-ice advantage this year and must now concentrate on avoiding a second trip to the North Country, or at the very least make sure to reach the playoffs.

With a daunting trip to St. Lawrence and Clarkson staring them in the face this weekend, the Crimson will have to find a way to avoid a late-surge by Dartmouth, Vermont and even Brown.

"It doesn’t get any easier, but that’s OK," said Harvard head coach Ronn Tomassoni. "If we come committed and focused and willing to pay that price I think we can win. It’s not going to be an easy weekend by any means, but we’re not going to run away and hide."

In many ways, Harvard — like RPI — will control its own destiny in the final weekend of play as it will face off against Dartmouth and Vermont at Bright Hockey Center.

Vermont Catamounts Record — 12-13-2, 6-10-2 ECAC, T-8th Best Possible Finish — 4th Worst Possible Finish — 11th

The Catamounts kept themselves in the heart of the ECAC playoff race with a convincing 5-0 victory over Union on Saturday night. The win over the hapless Skating Dutchmen put Vermont in a tie with Harvard in eighth place heading into the final two weekends of play.

Five different Vermont players lit the lamp that night, giving the team a much-needed two points for the weekend. The night before, the Catamounts played the role of fodder for an RPI team after a playoff spot. The Engineers ripped off three unanswered goals in the first period. Although Vermont closed the gap, RPI would cruise to a relatively easy 5-2 victory.

The Catamounts will now look to inch their way up the ECAC standings as they host Princeton and Yale in their final homestand at Gutterson Fieldhouse.

Dartmouth Big Green Record — 10-14-1, 6-11-1 ECAC, 10th Best Possible Finish — 4th Worst Possible Finish — 11th

The Big Green had played very well for the last two weekends but only had four points to show for it. Nevertheless, those points put the Big Green in a position to move higher into the standings and solidify their playoff positioning. After Friday’s 5-2 win over Union, the Green found themselves in eighth place. But after Saturday’s 8-3 loss to Rensselaer, they were pushed back down to tenth.

"It’s disappointing because we’re much better than this," head coach Bob Gaudet said following the loss. "I don’t want to take anything away from [the Engineers], because they overpowered us; but we didn’t play the game we wanted to. It was disappointing."

Despite the loss, the Big Green are playing good hockey, and a trip to the playoffs for only the third time in 19 years may be forthcoming.

"The positive side is that we got two points out of a road weekend, which is tough in this league," Gaudet said. "We’ve been playing good hockey and the kids will work hard. We’ll find a way to regroup from this."

Brown Bears Record — 7-13-5, 3-11-4 ECAC, 11th Best Possible Finish — 8th Worst Possible Finish — 11th

As the weeks pass by, hope of a playoff berth for Brown is looking dimmer and dimmer. The Bears were struck down twice last weekend at Cornell and Colgate, and find themselves in 11th place, three points behind Dartmouth. To make matters increasingly worse, at a time when the Bears need a pair of victories stay in the chase, Roger Grillo’s team is about to embark on the toughest road trip of the year, visiting the league’s hottest teams in Clarkson and St. Lawrence.

"They’re all big weekends," Grillo said. "But, then, they’re all big weekends to start with. We’ve dug ourselves a hole and now we’ve got to come out fighting. And we have to do it on the road, which is not an overall negative given the way we’ve played at home."

After a loss against Cornell on Friday night in which the teams were whistled for a combined three penalties, Brown rebounded the following night against Colgate by creating a number of quality scoring opportunities in the early going.

But then a blast off the stick of Matt Kohansky clanked off the crossbar and fell astray, almost as if it was signaling the end of Brown’s offensive attack. The Red Raiders’ fickle defense helped Jason LeFevre collect his first career shutout.

"We really have to skate well this weekend," said Grillo. "That’s the most important facet of the game. We need to play disciplined and smart and hard, and give a solid effort. We need to work as hard as we know possible, and the results will come."

Games This Week For Group III Brown and Harvard at Clarkson Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 4:00 pm, Cheel Arena, Potsdam, NY Harvard and Brown at St. Lawrence Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Appleton Arena, Canton, NY Yale and Princeton at Dartmouth Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 5:00 pm, Thompson Arena, Hanover, NH Princeton and Yale at Vermont Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Gutterson Fieldhouse, Burlington, VT

There are key games here, but not one of the teams in this group play each other. So wait until next weekend when all four play each other. Things should heat up then, but for now Harvard, Vermont and Dartmouth can clinch playoff spots with two victories and one loss by Brown or one victory and two losses by Brown. Otherwise, we go to next weekend.

Group IV — The "October Is Too Far Away" Group

It has been a long season for the teams in Group IV, which every team is trying to avoid, but one is already there.

Union Skating Dutchmen Record — 3-22-3, 1-15-2 ECAC, 12th Best Possible Finish — 11th Worst Possible Finish — 12th

What can you say when you are out of the playoffs with two weeks left in the regular season? Not much, but that’s exactly the scenario for the Union Skating Dutchmen.

Last weekend the Dutchmen lost a pair of games, 5-2 to Dartmouth, and 5-0 to Vermont.

"It’s the same old story," said head coach Kevin Sneddon after Friday’s game. "It’s the biggest game of the year and our guys didn’t show up."

The Dutchmen will show up for the last four games hoping to play the role of spoiler as they take on four teams in the hunt for home ice in the ECAC playoffs. A Dutchman upset would certainly throw a kink into any of Colgate, Cornell, Yale or Princeton’s hopes.

Games This Week For Group IV Colgate and Cornell at Union Friday – Saturday, 7:30 pm – 7:00 pm, Achilles Rink, Schenectady, NY

Pride. Sending out seniors on a high note. Gaining experience for younger players. These are what the next two weekends are about for the Dutchmen.

Prediction Time Last Week: 7-5 Season To Date: 107-76

Brown at Clarkson — The Golden Knights are eyeing the automatic NCAA bid with a one-point advantage. For this night, the Knights will dominate the Bears. Clarkson 7, Brown 2 Harvard at Clarkson — Clarkson hasn’t been a friendly foe to Harvard in recent years. At this point of the season, Harvard is batting .000, considering that the Golden Knights are playing their best hockey of the season and the Crimson players will no doubt be fatigued following a tough battle the night before against the Saints. Clarkson 5, Harvard 2 Harvard at St. Lawrence — With a blizzard set to hit the New England area, Harvard embarks on its longest journey of the season. Although they will face off against the top two teams in the league this weekend, the Crimson — and especially senior captain Craig Adams — seem quite comfortable at Appleton Arena. Look for the upset of the weekend to happen there as Harvard begins its end-of-the-season run. Harvard 3, St. Lawrence 2 Brown at St. Lawrence — After the trip up to the North Country, the Bears will be hoping that home cooking sends them into the ECAC playoffs, because they won’t get a point out of Appleton Arena. St. Lawrence 5, Brown 1 Cornell at Rensselaer — There certainly has been a lot of recent history surrounding these two teams. From the meeting in the ECAC semifinals two years ago in Lake Placid to the Big Red’s upset of the Engineers in last year’s quarterfinal series, there is no love lost. Nothing has been settled this year, as the teams battled to a 3-3 tie at Lynah Rink in December. Right now, you have to take the offense of the Engineers over the offense of the Big Red. Rensselaer 5, Cornell 3 Colgate at Rensselaer — Have the Red Raiders found the consistency that has been lacking in 1999? Can the Engineers hold off the four teams that want the third seed in the playoffs? The Red Raiders owe the Engineers for a Rensselaer overtime victory back in December. Colgate 5, Rensselaer 4 Princeton at Vermont — The Tigers just aren’t playing well enough for a two-game sweep; at the worst they will lose out on home-ice advantage with a dismal showing this weekend. Meanwhile, the Catamounts have their backs against the wall at the moment and desperately need a win to keep them in the race. Vermont 6, Princeton 3 Princeton at Dartmouth — It’s sink or swim for Princeton. Still MIA is the team that captured the Mariucci Classic in resounding fashion. Thankfully for the Tigers, they don’t have to deal with the likes of Minnesota or even Boston University this weekend…only Dartmouth. Princeton 3, Dartmouth 2 Cornell at Union — The Dutchmen have been a thorn in the Big Red’s side over the last few years. The Big Red solved that hex earlier on in the season and should do so again this weekend. Cornell 3, Union 1 Colgate at Union — Red Raider assistant coach Stan Moore will not be returning to Achilles Rink this weekend, as he is on a recruiting trip. But whether Moore was going to be there or not, the Dutchmen still can’t match up with the Red Raiders. Colgate 6, Union 1 Yale at Dartmouth — The Bulldogs are starting to see the light at the top of the ECAC standings. With four very winnable games left on its regular-season schedule, Yale is in a perfect position to move up firmly into home-ice territory. Yale 4, Dartmouth 2 Yale at Vermont — When Yale and Vermont match up on Saturday night, the tale of the tape will be the Catamount defense. If they can contain the Bulldogs’ first line, then that gives the offense a chance to ice a crucial game in the 1998-99 Gutterson Fieldhouse finale. Unfortunately, there is very little chance that Hamilton & Co. will be contained two nights in a row. Yale 4, Vermont 1

The final weekend is now upon us. Who lives to play another week, and who goes home? It’s time to get ready for Lake Placid and the battle for the Whitelaw Trophy.

Friday, March 5 Clarkson at Colgate St. Lawrence at Cornell Rensselaer at Princeton Union at Yale Vermont at Harvard Dartmouth at Brown

Saturday, March 6 Clarkson at Cornell St. Lawrence at Colgate Rensselaer at Yale Union at Princeton Vermont at Brown Dartmouth at Harvard

Thanks to Michael Sharp, Steve Marsi, David Sherzer and Scott Esposito for their contributions to this preview.

All photographs used by permission of the appropriate Sports Information Departments. Any reproduction without authorization is prohibited.

Becky Blaeser and Jayson Moy are ECAC Correspondents for U.S. College Hockey Online.

Copyright 1999 Becky Blaeser and Jayson Moy. All rights reserved.

Holding Their Heads High

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If points were awarded for locker-room speeches, Alaska-Anchorage coach Dean Talafous would be near the top of the country.

And it’s not because of screaming or throwing things. It’s due to his message.

Recently, Talafous revealed a bit of what he would say to his Seawolves as they prepared to face Colorado College in their last regular-season series. Keep in mind that going into the weekend, his team had a shaky hold on third place in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, and probably needed at least a couple of points in the series to earn home ice in the playoffs.

Imagine you’re in the Seawolves’ locker room, and read on:

“I think the media and the fans, the standings are very important to them, and maybe even to some coaches,” Talafous said. “I’ve had teams that have won championships and I’ve had teams that have come in last. Wherever you are, I think you’re best just concentrating on the next game and getting better.

“We need to get better. We not only want to win this weekend, and we not only want to get home ice, and we not only want to get to the Final Five and everything else, but on top of all that, we’re a young program that’s trying to earn some respect and trying to move up in the college ranks.

“We don’t ever want to lose sight of that. We don’t ever want to play conservative, we don’t want to play scared, we don’t want to play unsure of ourselves or hoping to win. We want to play a fearless, aggressive, attacking, confident game. If we can’t win with it this year because we don’t have the talent, it will carry into next year with more experience and more talent. Attitude is what wins championships, and that’s why North Dakota’s doing so well. Sure, they have the talent now, but it’s the way they play the game, along with their talent, that makes them a champion.

“If I told our guys, ‘We’ve got to win, we’ve got to win,’ they’re going to play differently. It’s more important that we go out and play the same way we did Saturday against North Dakota, the same way we did against Minnesota (last) Sunday. We need to go after people and play as hard as we can and not worry, not want to win so bad that we play not to lose. We need to play with confidence and without fear.”

If you’re a 21-year old college student, words like these mean something to you. Cliches like “we need a win” are fine, but what if you don’t get the win? Is it the end of the world?

This is where Talafous knows his role. Alaska-Anchorage hockey is probably not going to consume the remainder of his players’ lives. But if he can instill a good attitude into them, he has succeeded in his job.

Sure, it doesn’t hurt that Anchorage is the feel-good story of the WCHA this season after finishing 1997-98 in the depths of last place.

But UAA is a different kind of team. The Seawolves are not going to win many shootouts. They’re not going to fare well when they take a lot of penalties.

But attitude has carried them this season.

And maybe it will carry them into the future. The Seawolves have a highly successful freshman class now, and Talafous said he is very happy with the five youngsters he has coming in next season.

“We think there’s no question that the kids that are here are going back and telling their buddies,” Talafous said. “They’re saying ‘You should come up and join us.’ We have some fun and we work hard. We get along and we play the game with class — people respect the way we play.

“It’s very unusual to see a team play with so much sportsmanship. I think it’s been lost for so long that some of us coaches have to take a stand and bring it back into the game.”

Would you expect anything less from Dean Talafous?

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