Jody Hodgson currently serves as the general manager for Ralph Engelstad Arena.
For Ralph Engelstad Arena general manager Jody Hodgson, looking back three years to North Dakota’s last destination game sometimes feels like it happened a decade ago.
The world has changed immensely since the COVID-19 pandemic started, let alone since UND beat Minnesota 3-1 in the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Game three years ago this Wednesday in Las Vegas.
UND was set to play in another high-profile neutral-site game last Oct. 17 against Penn State at Bridgestone Arena, home of the NHL’s Nashville Predators. That game was completely sold out before being postponed, and a lot of work went into having the game rescheduled to this Saturday back at Bridgestone.
Contracts with 32 hotels had to be redone, and in many cases, fans had to make new reservations and handle reworked travel arrangements. As for on-site event logistics, Hodgson said that Bridgestone Arena and Penn State staff were very accommodating.
There were, however, drawbacks to not being able to play the game as originally scheduled.
“Certainly there were some costs of the 2020 event that we won’t be able to recuperate or get back,” said Hodgson, who oversees operations of UND’s arena in Grand Forks and will be traveling to Nashville on Wednesday.
“Even now, there’s a certain number of people who won’t travel to the event that had previously purchased tickets and were going to go to the event. I think, like everything else in the world today, the pandemic has had some impact on our event.”
A big point of discussion for fans has been the event organizers’ decision to require that fans who attend the game will either have to show proof of either a negative COVID-19 test or vaccination against the virus.
Testing is available this Wednesday and Thursday at Ralph Engelstad Arena, and additional testing will also be available Friday and Saturday at the Cambria Downtown Nashville hotel. Saturday’s testing event runs from 8:30 a.m. until 2 p.m., with the game starting at 7:07 p.m.
“We’ve certainly gotten lots of different feedback on that,” Hodgson said of the COVID check regulations for attending the game. “I think one thing that was rather interesting was when we sent a survey out to our ticket purchasers for Nashville, approximately 80 percent responded back to us that they were fully vaccinated. That’s a high number, and a number that I think certainly was a good number when you talk about either the need for a vaccination or a negative test to get in.
“We didn’t have to set up (for testing in Nashville), but we thought there was a pretty significant number of our fans that were going to need to test in Nashville, based on the timeframe in which a negative test must be pulled. There are people traveling to Nashville before the testing window here in Grand Forks, and there were people who were going to be in Nashville who would need to test there. Some of our survey results showed us that there was a pretty strong demand for testing in Nashville on Friday and Saturday.”
It won’t be long before all the hard work of making the rescheduled Hall of Fame Game a reality, and Hodgson is excited to see the show that UND and Penn State will put on.
“We’ve been planning this ever since the Las Vegas game, and at times it felt like it was a long way away, and now it’s upon us,” Hodgson said. “It’s been a rough stretch for everybody, and we’re certainly happy that we’re coming out of it, and we’re happy to be heading to Nashville.”
ECAC Hockey announced today it is extending its rights agreement with ESPN+ to stream more than 350 games each season through 2028-29.
Every regular-season and post-season game (conference and nonconference) hosted at an ECAC Hockey venue will be streamed on ESPN+ with no blackout restrictions. That includes the annual women’s championship, and men’s championship in Lake Placid, N.Y.
“We’re truly excited to announce the extension of our deal with ESPN through the rest of this decade” said ECAC Hockey commissioner Steve Hagwell in a statement. “ESPN has been a great partner for ECAC Hockey, and we look forward to growing and enhancing our relationship for the benefit of our programs and fans.”
In addition to the 350-plus ECAC Hockey games on ESPN+ each year, the leading sports streaming service continues to establish itself as the new “home of hockey,” covering more than 1,000 NHL games this season, along with every game from the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF).
According to an ECAC Hockey news release, the renewed agreement “puts ECAC Hockey at the cutting edge of collegiate hockey streaming, which mirrors ESPN’s commitment to provide fans with the best streaming experience through an ESPN app that is intuitive and easy to use.”
Streaming for ECAC Hockey fans outside of the U.S. will continue to be available through Stretch Internet.
Keith Aucoin and Bill Torrey are two of the newest members of the AHL Hall of Fame.
The AHL announced Tuesday that Keith Aucoin (Norwich) and Bill Torrey (St. Lawrence) are two of the four individuals selected for induction into the league’s hall of fame as the class of 2022.
“For more than eight decades, the American Hockey League has been built on principles of excellence both on and off the ice,” said AHL president-CEO Scott Howson in a statement. “Each of these four distinguished individuals exemplified those principles at the highest levels throughout their careers, and the AHL Board of Governors unanimously endorses the selection committee’s recommendation for their induction into the American Hockey League Hall of Fame as the class of 2022.”
Aucoin skated at Norwich from 1997 to 2001, recording 238 points on 114 goals and 124 assists.
Undrafted, Aucoin broke into the AHL with his hometown Lowell Lock Monsters in 2001-02. He went on to record 857 points in 769 games over parts of 13 AHL seasons with Lowell, the Providence Bruins, Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, Albany River Rats, Hershey Bears, Toronto Marlies and Chicago Wolves, retiring as the seventh-leading scorer in league history.
Aucoin won the Calder Cup with Hershey in 2009 and 2010 and was the AHL’s MVP and scoring champion for the 2009-10 season after tallying 106 points in 70 games. He played in a record-tying six AHL All-Star Classics, and was voted a First Team (2009, 2010, 2012) and Second Team (2006, 2007, 2011) AHL All-Star three times each.
Torrey played on St. Lawrence hockey teams in 1954-55 and 1955-56 – years in which the “Larries,” as they were called, were among the dominant squads in Eastern U.S. college hockey.
He began his front-office hockey career as the publicity director for the AHL’s Pittsburgh Hornets in 1961. He remained active with the AHL throughout his illustrious career as an NHL executive, which included four straight Stanley Cup championships as general manager of the New York Islanders and 25 years of service with the Florida Panthers.
A trusted advisor and mentor, Torrey served on the executive committee of the AHL Board of Governors for two decades, and was a member of the AHL Hall of Fame selection committee from its inception in 2006.
Torrey passed away in 2018 at the age of 83.
In addition to the class of 2022, this season’s induction ceremony will include longtime AHL president-CEO David Andrews, who was previously selected as the lone member of the class of 2021. The induction and awards ceremony is scheduled for February 7, 2022 in Laval, Que., as part of the festivities at the 2022 AHL All-Star Classic.
The other two inductees are Nolan Baumgartner and Dave Creighton.
Bill Riga (center) picked up his first head coaching win as Holy Cross topped Bentley 3-2 last Saturday night (photo: Mark Seliger Photography):
Each week during the season, we look at the big events and big games around Division I men’s college hockey in Tuesday Morning Quarterback.
Ed: Another week, another new No. 1 in the USCHO.com men’s ice hockey poll, with St. Cloud State gaining the top spot after Michigan split with Western Michigan. The Wolverines are the third straight team to lose a game in the weekend following the poll voters declaring them the top team in the country.
Let’s start with that intrastate non-conference series. Friday’s win on the road at Yost by Western Michigan was a big one for first-year head coach Pat Ferschweiler’s team. They bounded out to a 3-0 lead by the middle of the game and had five different players score in a 5-2 win.
On Saturday, with the other half of the home-and-home series played at WMU’s Lawson Ice Arena, it took overtime for the Wolverines to avenge the previous night’s loss, 3-2.
While teams like North Dakota, St. Cloud, Minnesota Duluth, and Denver all seem to get the notice and get the hype in their conference, are the Broncos (pun absolutely intended) the dark horse in the NCHC?
Paula: I’m not sure you can call the Broncos a dark horse, given the strides they made in two seasons (2018-19, 2019-20) before the dive they took in the first part of last season. In their last 10 regular-season games in 2020-21, the Broncos were 7-3-0, with three wins over St. Cloud State and a two-game sweep of Minnesota Duluth.
There are 15 sophomores on the Western roster. Last year was a rebuilding year, for sure, and rebuilding during truly unusual circumstances. I think the Broncos should be considered part of the always excellent NCHC mix. That they were picked sixth in the NCHC preseason media poll this year after finishing last in 2020-21 says less about Western Michigan, I think, than it does about the strength of the five teams picked ahead of them: St. Cloud, Minnesota Duluth, North Dakota, Denver and Omaha.
I put the Broncos ninth in my poll this week, and I think that’s a fair representation of where they are. For what it’s worth, I dropped the Wolverines to fourth. Western climbed to No. 13 this week and Michigan fell to No. 4. These are snapshots, as we know.
And, yes, this was a big weekend for the Broncos and Ferschweiler.
Speaking of the poll, I do find it interesting that St. Cloud is the new No. 1 and that the votes were so split. Last week, Michigan received 45 votes for the top spot. This week, St. Cloud swept Wisconsin and earned 22 first-place votes and Michigan still 17 votes for first place. Meanwhile, Minnesota Duluth swept a really tough Minnesota team – demonstrably tougher than Wisconsin – and improved to 5-1-0 yet earned only three votes for first place. Also, last week’s second-place team, Minnesota State, didn’t play but slid to third with eight votes for the top spot.
Ed, what do you make of the movement among the top teams in the poll? It’s hard for me to fall back on the old strength-of-schedule argument, given Minnesota’s and Wisconsin’s relative differences. Is it too soon to make anything of this, or are voters just trying get a grip on things in the early going?
Ed: Well, Paula, I think there are a few things going on. And some of this will reveal my thinking when I’m assembling my ballot.
First, Michigan’s continued strength in the poll after a loss is a recognition that Western Michigan is very good and that no team is going to be unbeaten this season. Even the best teams will have a bump in the road. Meanwhile, the first-place votes for St. Cloud reflect their record thus far as well as the trouncing the Huskies gave Wisconsin over the weekend.
Voters also look at what the teams in the previous week’s poll have done. When six of the top 10 teams have losses on the weekend, the next step in ranking them is to see whether there are teams to move up, or whether you vote the status quo. When I see a loss by a ranked team to an unranked or much lower-ranked team, I try to dig into the details of the loss. Did the losing team dominate in shots? Were power plays lopsided? Did a goalie stand on his head? These are all factors that go into subjectively evaluating teams. (I’ll use this opportunity to note that the Pairwise Rankings are essentially meaningless this early in the season and have more validity as we reach January.)
And yes, there is a sense of getting a grip.
While we’re talking poll movement, Quinnipiac climbed two spots in the poll to No. 5 while North Dakota stood pat in sixth after the two teams split a series in Connecticut. The Bobcats are the first team from an eastern conference to crack the top five since UMass got bounced from the preseason No. 1 after its season-opening sweep at the hands of Minnesota State.
Speaking of numbers behind the numbers, it was impressive to me that Quinnipiac limited North Dakota to 16 shots on Friday and 19 on Saturday, while racking up 28 and 35 respectively. That combination of a solid offensive attack and a throttling defense can take you a long way.
Even though it’s still early, what can we take away from this series? Are the Bobcats shaping up to be the best in the east this season?
Paula: It’s funny that you ask about the Bobcats, because they’re a team I always have a difficult time warming up to. I had them 16th in my poll last week and eighth this week – not an unusual jump for me at the start of a season, when I’m figuring out who may have the goods while also trying to provide a reflection of what’s going on in the here and now.
Quinnipiac, though, is a puzzle for me. The Bobcats had an outstanding season last year in a conference where the four league teams had to scramble to create full schedules for competition. They welcome five transfers – including goaltender Dylan St. Cyr from Notre Dame and forward Oliver Chau, both solid players additions – who provide even more depth and maturity to a team that has a lot of experience.
Since 2018, the Bobcats have been steady and competitive but seem to have lacked that thing, that whatever-it-is, to convince me that they’re an upper-echelon team, but this year’s squad looks as though it has the ingredients to challenge for a national title.
One thing that Quinnipiac has that only three other teams in the ECAC also possess is the experience of last year. I think that year away from hockey for everyone other than the Quinnipiac, Clarkson, Colgate and St. Lawrence is going to impact the ECAC in ways that we haven’t yet seen. Those four teams that played have worked out most – and worked with – most issues that arise from life in COVID times, and even though the other coaches will benefit from the advice of those who have lived it, there’s nothing like experience.
It will take a while for things to come together overall in that league, I think.
Add the talent and maturity of the Bobcats to that experience, and I definitely see that they have an advantage this season. It’s early, but the ECAC may be theirs to lose.
As it is early and we are extrapolating on very little data, what do you make of RIT’s split with Notre Dame? An OT win for the Tigers followed by a decisive thumping by the Fighting Irish – and you were there. Can you shed any light on either team?
Full confession: Notre Dame, like Quinnipiac, is another team from whom I need proof before I buy in.
Ed: Both teams will contend for their league championship and Notre Dame for sure on the national scene.
On Thursday, RIT probably had the best forward line and got superb goaltending from junior Kolby Matthews, who is 3-0-1 with a 1.96 GAA and .942 save percentage. Matthews made a huge save 17 seconds into overtime which led to the game-winner 13 seconds later.
On Friday, Notre Dame jumped to an early lead against a freshman goalie in his first game and didn’t look back, while the Irish got spotless goaltending from former Cornell standout Matthew Galajda. Performances like Matthews’ and Galajda’s will take each team a long way.
Let’s wrap with a trio of firsts.
Holy Cross coach Bill Riga and Colorado College’s Kris Mayotte are both longtime former assistants with successful programs and each got their first win last weekend, while at St. Thomas, Rico Blasi saw his Tommies notch their first D-I victory.
Both Riga and Mayotte are bound to move their programs forward, and after a couple of years away from coaching, Blasi gets to build a new one.
You covered Blasi at Miami in his journey from a 27-year-old rookie to a veteran with a team that contended every season. What does Rico at 49 bring to this new program with the experience of those great years at his alma mater under his belt and maybe some adversity at the end?
Paula: Well, Blasi brings a lot to St. Thomas. His Miami team won the CCHA tournament title in 2011 and the NCHC title in 2015. Under Blasi, Miami made 10 NCAA tournament appearances and back-to-back Frozen Four appearances in 2009 – when the RedHawks lost to Boston University in the title game – and 2010.
All of that is an asset, but the Frozen Four appearances are especially valuable for a coach who’s building a new program. Blasi knows exactly how hard it is to get a team to that point.
He’s also brought in two assistants with complementary skillsets in Northeastern alum Leon Hayward and Minnesota alum, Cory Laylin. Hayward coached most recently with Colorado College and his pro career spanned six years in the ECHL and AHL. From 1992 through 2008, Laylin played for a variety of teams in North American and Europe, and he most recently coached the D-II Hamline University team in St. Paul, Minn. Hayward and Laylin have overlapping hockey communities from which to recruit, and Laylin’s Minnesota ties are helpful.
And something that shouldn’t be overlooked is that Blasi returns to coaching in a conference that feels familiar. Four of the teams in the new CCHA played Miami in the old CCHA, and everyone in that conference is someone that Blasi had at least a good acquaintance with prior to taking the job at St. Thomas. It’s a league that should feel familiar to Blasi, and he has a lot of support from the coaches in the CCHA who want to see the new program at St. Thomas succeed.
St. Cloud State players celebrate a goal during their weekend sweep over Wisconsin (photo: St. Cloud State Athletics).
St. Cloud State is the new No. 1-ranked team in the USCHO.com Division I Men’s Poll, garnering 22 first-place votes in this week’s rankings and jumping two spots from last week’s poll.
Michigan falls one to No. 2 and earned 17 first-place votes.
Minnesota State drops one spot to No. 3, picking up eight first-place votes, while Minnesota Duluth rises one to No. 4 with three first-place nods from the voters this week.
Quinnipiac rounds out the top five, jumping two spots in this week’s rankings.
North Dakota remains No. 6, Minnesota tumbled three spots to No. 7, Providence jumps four to No. 8, Boston College is up one to sit ninth and idle Omaha is up one to No. 10 this week.
No new teams enter the top 20 this week and 15 other teams received votes in this week’s poll.
The USCHO.com Poll consists of 50 voters, including coaches and beat writers and sports professionals from across the country.
As part of a 4-0 win Saturday, UMass Lowell players celebrate after a goal at home against Michigan State (photo: UMass Lowell Athletics).
Each week, USCHO.com will pick the top 10 moments from the past weekend in our Monday 10 feature.
1) Another new No. 1?
Friday night marked a seismic event for the national radar when No. 1 Michigan lost 5-2 to a 17th-ranked Western Michigan squad at home at Yost Ice Arena. Five different players scored for the Broncos, who struck first behind Aidan Fulp’s goal with less than a minute remaining in the first period. They added two more in the second period before Michigan finally scored close to the halfway point, but Dylan Wendt’s goal slammed the Wolverines’ rally.
Michigan rallied the next night for a 3-2 win, but being pushed to overtime in Kalamazoo on Saturday opened the door for potentially the fourth different No. 1 team in the nation in as many weeks after St. Cloud beat Wisconsin.
2) St. Cloud badgers Wisconsin
Speaking of those Huskies, they staked their claim to the No. 1 overall ranking by outscoring Wisconsin 9-2 in two games at home in the State of Hockey. Both Spencer Meier and Kevin Fitzgerald scored twice on the weekend for St. Cloud, which split its last two weekends against Minnesota and Minnesota State.
The wins marked the first games for St. Cloud against an opponent from outside its state borders, but the Badgers, who swept Army West Point at home last weekend, have now lost four of six games to start the season. With the weekend against Michigan Tech, Wisconsin has now been outscored 19-5 in games lost to those two opponents.
3) Duluth plants flag in state of hockey’s ship
A Lee Corso-esque “not so fast, my friend” to St. Cloud’s possible No. 1 ranking came from less than three hours away, though, after Minnesota Duluth completed its sweep over Minnesota for an in-state battle.
In a game fit for an instant classic, Tanner Laderoute and Blake Biondi scored in the first period on Saturday to build on a 5-3 win from Friday night. Biondi’s goal lifted him to two goals on the weekend after five different goal scorers tallied red lamps for UMD on Friday night.
Minnesota-Duluth is now 5-1 with its only loss coming against Michigan in the IceBreaker Tournament held last weekend, while the Gophers fell to .500 after starting the year with the No. 4 overall ranking. Following the split against St. Cloud, Minnesota has now lost three of its last four games with only an overtime 4-3 win over the Saints coming after the season-opening sweep over Mercyhurst.
4) Splitsville in Hamden
The western teams took center stage this weekend, but New England’s college hockey programs created a massive thunder clap when No. 7 Quinnipiac earned a split over No. 6 North Dakota in a two-game series in Connecticut.
The Bobcat win, which was the first-ever victory for the program over North Dakota, occurred on Friday night with four unanswered goals pacing a sweeping, overpowering performance between the midway point of the first through the midway point of the third. Quinnipiac scored two power play goals as part of that run, which overtook a 1-0 UND lead, before Jake Sanderson brought the Fighting Hawks within two goals.
The next night, Wyatt Bongiovanni scored to give Quinnipiac a 1-0 lead just over six minutes into the game, but three consecutive goals by North Dakota evened the weekend series with a 3-1 win for the visitors.
5) So long, Sparty
UMass Lowell’s bid for similar eastern dominance didn’t receive the fanfare of the North Dakota-Quinnipiac series, but the River Hawks’ hosting of Michigan State went similarly as good compared to the Bobcats’ role as New England enforcers.
UML rallied twice in the first game against Sparty to tie a 2-2 result, scoring goals from Andre Lee and Brehdan Engum to pull back from one-goal deficits each time. But after tying the game with 90 seconds left in the first contest, the team exploded for four goals in the second game with two coming in the second. The River Hawks scored twice via special teams, punctuating the weekend with a shorthanded bid from Andranik Armstrong-Kingkade, the first of his two goals down the stretch of that game.
6) RIT takes one, SHU takes one, Canisius … almost takes one
Atlantic Hockey has long been recognized for its need to fight for better results in the non-conference schedule, and while the league likely hasn’t done enough to earn a second bid to the NCAA Tournament this year, its week’s performance is impossible to discount against some stingy, tough competition.
It started with a Tuesday night tilt for Canisius at Clarkson where the Golden Griffins erased a 3-1 first period lead for the Golden Knights with four unanswered goals. The four different goal scorers involved six different players on assist and overtook Clarkson for a 4-3 lead before Zach Tsekos, who scored his team’s first goal, tied the game on the power play with less than a minute remaining.
The tie was still a positive for the conference, which summarily watched both RIT and Sacred Heart tally big wins over both Notre Dame and Maine. The Pioneers were particularly effective in beating the Black Bears 1-0 on Friday before tying them in a second game on Saturday, but the drama of the Tigers’ 3-2 overtime win over the No. 13 Fighting Irish sent AHA supporters into a frenzy when Carter Wilkie scored 30 seconds into the extra frame.
Notre Dame rallied for a shutout win after the Friday victory, but outside of Penn State’s sweep over Niagara, it was a very good weekend for the peskiest league in the nation.
7) Purple firsts
Not to be outdone, Holy Cross coach Bill Riga celebrated his first-ever win as a head coach on Saturday when his Crusaders knocked off a Bentley team bidding for a weekend sweep in the 20-year rivalry between the teams.
The Crusaders had previously cost themselves a chance at the win when they watched the Falcons rally from a 2-0 deficit two nights earlier, but their 3-0, first period lead earned the coach and freshman goalie Thomas Gale their respective first victories.
A bigger first occurred further west for a different team clad in purple when St. Thomas earned its first Division I hockey win by beating Ferris State, 5-2. Luke Manning scored twice and Christiano Versich potted three assists for the Tommies, who had a 5-0 lead before the Bulldogs staged a late game rally with two goals over a three-minute span in the third.
8) Bemidji, baby
Nobody could fault Bemidji State for losing its first four games of the season, but the Beavers won a badly needed overtime game to earn a split last weekend against No. 6 North Dakota.
It was the third game against the Fighting Hawks as part of a season start that included two games at Minnesota Duluth, which is why this weekend’s series against Northern Michigan, albeit on the road, represented a significant step forward for the team’s early prospects.
It was of crucial importance, then, that Bemidji won both games with one-goal margins to open its CCHA portion of the schedule. After trading five goals with the Wildcats in the first period, NMU scored twice in the second to take a 4-3 lead into the third, but Lukas Sillinger and Jakub Lewandowski scored, the latter on the power play, to push the Beavers to a 5-4 win in Marquette.
The next night, the Wildcats led by two after scoring seven minutes apart, but Alex Ierullo and Tyler Kirkup notched goals within a minute to tie the game before Ierullo scored a second goal late in the second period. NMU’s AJ Vanderbeck scored his second goal of the weekend to even the score at 3-3 before Austin Jouppi’s goal with 11 minutes remaining in the game gave Bemidji the weekend sweep.
9) Ivies nearing first weekend
It’s impossible to overlook the importance of the exhibition games for the ECAC’s Ivy League contingent this weekend after the teams sat out the 2020-21 season during COVID-19. The Ivy League was memorably the first league to cancel its spring season during the pandemic’s initial outbreak, and the withdrawal of the schools helped touch off the cancellation of the 2020 hockey postseason. All six schools sat out last year – along with Union and RPI – as part of the larger ECAC conference, which shrank temporarily to four teams.
The non-Ivies returned to the ice earlier this year, but the return of the six Ivies included a 3-2 win for Dartmouth over UMass and a 4-2 win by Cornell over the United States Under-18 national team.
The Ivy portion of the ECAC schedule formally kicks off on Friday when No. 14 Harvard visits Dartmouth and No. 15 Cornell hosts Alaska, but the full contingent all play on Saturday when Brown hosts Yale and Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth and Harvard all compete in non-conference action. With their return, it will mark the first time every available Division I team is in action in 609 days.
10) Welcome home, LIU
Long Island University debuted very softly as members of the college hockey university last year after COVID-19 laid waste to the souffle of scheduling the Sharks attempted to compile.
After nonconference scheduling removed the independent from every team on its initial season, the Sharks joined Atlantic Hockey as the only nonconference opponent for the 11-member league. The affiliation was promptly scuttled over the course of the season after teams summarily paused with pandemic outbreaks. The Sharks eventually played 13 games and went 3-10 with an additional split at the ACHA club program at Liberty University, but they never hosted games at their home facility in East Meadow, N.Y.
That all changed this weekend when LIU hosted its first-ever hockey games at the Northwell Health Ice Center. The games were against two teams from the Division II Northeast-10 Conference, but the 7-0 win over Assumption on Friday preceded a 6-1 win over Post University on Saturday. Jordan Timmons, a transfer from Robert Morris University, scored four goals for the Sharks while Bowling Green transfer Carson Musser added two goals against Post. Spencer Cox, a freshman recruited to the LIU program, scored a goal in each game.
LIU returns to the road next weekend for two games at Omaha before a midweek game at UMass Lowell, but two games against Saint Michael’s College, another D-II team from the NE-10, precede the first-ever home game against a Division I opponent when the Sharks host Princeton on November 12.
The UCHC will expand its men’s membership by an additional team to 11 with Alvernia joining the league in 2022-23.
“It is exciting to see the great game of hockey grow and we’re honored to add Alvernia’s men’s program to the UCHC,” said UCHC commissioner Chuck Mitrano in a statement. “Alvernia’s leadership at all levels is top-notch and they will add quality experiences for our student-athletes and further enhance the high quality of the UCHC.”
Alvernia, located in Reading, Pa., is set to begin NCAA men’s hockey play in the fall of 2022 following a successful run at the AHCA level.
Former Bryn Athyn College head coach Andrew Burke will head up the efforts of assembling the inaugural Division III squad, and his staff also features assistant coaches Anthony Astorino, Eric Higgins and Mitch Harris. All three assistant coaches played for or coached with Burke at Bryn Athyn.
“Aside from hiring an excellent head coach, conference affiliation was most critical for building a successful foundation for the success of our men’s ice hockey program,” said Alvernia director of athletics Bill Stiles. “We’ve enjoyed our affiliation with the UCHC through our women’s team and have found it to be the perfect fit for spirited and fair competition among peer institutions with similar missions and values.”
According to a UCHC press release, “Alvernia is a strong fit for the current UCHC footprint.”
“The Golden Wolves are set to join many of their peers from their primary conference, the Middle Atlantic Conference, in the UCHC membership as well,” reads the announcement. “Alvernia’s membership allows them to strengthen their existing relationships with those peer institutions, while also allowing them to round out a highly competitive schedule. It also allows them to compete for the regular season MAC championship in conjunction with their UCHC schedule.”
Alvernia’s women’s ice hockey team joined the UCHC in 2019-20 and advanced to the postseason tournament in just its second season as a conference member in 2021.
The Golden Wolves will use the Body Zone as its home rink with plans in the works to build an additional locker room dedicated to the team. Alvernia will continue to enhance its relationship with The Reading Royals and the 7,083 seat Santander Arena, which could be a potential host for selected home games as well. The accommodations join several other arenas in the conference that have been in utilized for practice or games by an NHL or affiliated minor league team.
The first series between these teams as the top two ranked squads in the country did not disappoint. On Saturday, the Buckeyes came out strong in the first and headed into the break with a 1-0 lead thanks to a snipe from Gabby Rosenthal. The Badgers picked it up in the second, as Grace Bowlby scored from distance to even it up at one less than two minutes into the second. The Buckeyes did a great job of not giving Wisconsin space in front of the net, but the Badgers scored on a second goal from the blue line, this time with Casey O’Brien redirecting a deflected shot from Kendra Nealey. In the third, UW killed a penalty, but then could not get the puck out of the zone, setting OSU up for a long possession that created plenty of opportunities, but they could not capitalize. Daryl Watts scored an empty-netter, the 115 goal of her career, to secure the Badgers a 3-1 win. In game two, Wisconsin struck first as Nicole LaMantia picked out the top corner to beat Andrea Braendli in the first. Rosenthal tied the game up just a few minutes later by skating right by the UW defense and sniping a shot past Kennedy Blair. The game would stay tied until overtime when LaMantia once again picked out the top right corner and won the game for Wisconsin, 2-1.
(5) Minnesota at (3) Colgate
The Gopher senior class led the way for Minnesota on Friday as they scored all five goals in the teams win over Colgate. The first period of this game was a ride. Catie Skaja was called for hooking :11 into the game and Taylor Heise joined her in the box 26 seconds later on a tripping penalty. The Raiders took advantage, with Kalty Kaltounkova giving Colgate the 1-0 lead :66 into the game. In all, their were seven penalties called in the opening frame – four on the Gophers and three on the Raiders, but that first goal was the only special teams lamp lighter in the first. Amy Potomak and Abigail Boreen scored within 26 seconds of each other midway through the first to give Minnesota the 2-1 lead. Neena Brick’s goal toward the end of the first sent the teams to the locker room tied at 2. In the second, it was Potomak and Heise that put Minnesota ahead 4-2. Noemi Neubauerova scored on the PP late in the period to cut the lead to 4-3 heading into the final frame. Emily Oden’s goal late in the game secured the 5-3 win for the Gophers. On Saturday, goals from Emily Brown and Heise had Minnesota up 2-0. Early in the third, Colgate made it a new game with two quick goals from Delani McKay and Sydney Bard. But Skaja’s goal at the midpoint of the final frame would prove to be the game-winner as the Gophers earned the sweep.
Maine at (4) Boston College
The Eagles scored four goals in the first and cruised to a 5-2 win on Saturday. Goalie Abigail Levy had her third career assists (first at BC) on Abby Newhook’s one-timer to give BC the 1-0 lead. Hannah Bilka, Gaby Roy and Caroline Goffredo also scored in the first. Maine worked to comeback with goals from Morgan Trimper in the second and Ally Johnson in the third, but Bilka’s goal in the third stopped any momentum the Black Bears may have had and gave the Eagles the win.
Holy Cross at (6) Northeastern
The Huskies outshot the Crusaders 44-19 in this game, but Holy Cross carried a 1-0 lead into the second period and held the tie until midway through the third. Millie Sirum had the Crusaders goal, which was their first against the Huskies in the last nine meetings. Maureen Murphy’s power play goal a minute into the second tied the game for Northeastern. Katie Knoll scored the game-winner with about eight minutes to go in the contest and Murphy added an empty-netter to give the Huskies the 3-1 win.
(8) Minnesota Duluth at St. Thomas
On Saturday, Gabbie Hughes, Elizabeth Giguere and Clara Van Wieren each scored for the Bulldogs to lead UMD to a 3-0 win. On Sunday, Minnesota Duluth’s offense exploded, leading to a 7-0 win. Van Wieren scored first on the power play and then at even strength to put the Bulldogs up 2-0 midway through the first. Kylie Hanley and Naomi Rogge also lit the lamp in the first to make it 4-0 at the first intermission. Hanley and Gabby Krause made it 6-0 in the second and Hughes added her second of the day in the third.
(9) Providence at Union
Maren Friday’s power play goal in the first that gave Union a 1-0 lead held into the third period. But Providence netted an extra attacker goal of their own from Claire Tyo to tie the game at one. Lily Hendrickson’s goal with three minutes to go in the game proved to be the game-winner for the Friars as they took the 2-1 victory.
(9) Providence at RPI
The Friars attempted 76 shots on Saturday, but RPI goalie Amanda Rampando made 42 saves and the skaters added 20 blocks to keep Providence off the board as the Engineers picked up their fourth straight win. Per their game story, the victory was Rensselaer’s first ever at home over the Friars and their four-game winning streak is the program’s first since the 2012-13 season. RPI hasn’t won five or more consecutive games since the 2008-09 campaign. Ellie Kaiser scored on the power play midway through the first and Marah Wagner doubled the lead in the waning minutes of the match to secure the 2-0 win.
Mercyhurst at (10) Cornell
On Friday, Ena Nystrom made a season-high 31 saves to lead the Lakers to a 3-2 win. The teams traded goals in the first, with Grace Nelles scoring for Mercyhurst before Claudia Yu responded for Cornell. Liliane Perreault gave the Lakers the lead once again just 29 seconds into the third period. Gills Frechette’s goal midway through the final frame tied it at two. But Sara Boucher’s power play goal 90 seconds later proved to be the game-winner for Mercyhurst. On Saturday, it was all Big Red as four different skaters scored to earn Cornell a 4-0 win and weekend sweep. Rory Guilday opened the scoring in the first. Gabbie Rud’s power play goal in the second doubled the lead. In the third, Lily Delianedis and Bella Kang each lit the lamp to secure the win for Cornell.
MADISON — The battle of the top two teams in the country went to Wisconsin as they defeated Ohio State 2-1 in overtime on Saturday for their second win of the weekend. The Buckeyes do get an extra point in conference standings for taking the game to OT.
In a game with a number of impressive forwards on both sides of the ice, it was senior defender Nicole LaMantia who took control for the Badgers, tallying her first career multi-goal game and netting her first-ever overtime goal to get Wisconsin the win.
“I don’t think in my career I’ve ever scored an overtime goal, so it’s pretty surreal,” said LaMantia.
With all the extra open ice in 3-on-3, the Badgers had the time and space to move the puck that the Buckeyes had effectively taken away during regulation play. LaMantia got the puck from Shirley outside the faceoff dot, but started to move to the top of the zone as defender Riley Brengman backed off a bit.
“I saw it wide open there. I was actually going to fake and go to Sophie (Shirley) and then I saw the corner open and I just tried to put it there again,” LaMantia said.
It was almost the exact same placement as the goal LaMantia scored late in the first to tie the game and put Wisconsin on the board. She had noticed that spot was often open with Andrea Braendli in net when she watched video this week and was able to pick it out twice.
Badger goalie Kennedy Blair said she has seen LaMantia work on her shooting during extra ice sessions during the week, noting that LaMantia has one of the hardest shots on the squad.
Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson likened 3-on-3 to pond hockey and talked about the strategy of putting a mix of forwards and defenders on the ice together. Though she has only scored eight goals with the Badgers, she now has three in the past three games.
“Offense is the biggest strength I have, so I just try to use it and use my vision,” she said.
It was a tough weekend for the Buckeyes, but despite the losses, coach Nadine Muzerall said it was an important weekend for her players to really learn they really do belong in the conversation for the top team in the country.
“Today really proved who the #1 and #2 in the country is and I think there’s a gap after that,” she said. “I think we learned that we can be #1 and that we should have that desire and that swag to be number one. It’s going to require work, of course. With so many new players on this team and a lot not playing in this league maybe had some doubt or just didn’t know.”
Beyond the results, both coaches expressed how much learning and confidence comes from games like this at this point in the season.
“I was hard on them after yesterday’s game. They responded. As a coach, that demonstrates their character and their will to punch back. I really appreciate what they did today and they did it together,” said Muzerall.
The game was a tough defensive matchup, with both goalies providing stellar play in net to help keep their team in the game. The squads traded odd-player rushes and both Braendli and Blair made a number of point-blank saves.
Muzerall thinks Braendli showed why she should be a front-runner for the Patty Kazmaier award and also noted that Blair played one of the best games Muzerall had ever seen from her. Johnson agreed.
“Kennedy really gave us a chance to do what we did today,” said Johnson. “She challenged them in those breakdowns that we had. She was why we got to the end 1-1. They had some grade-A chances.”
The weekend wins cap off a tough ten days for the Badgers where they played two top-ten teams and came out with wins. After a relatively easier start to the year, things ramped up quickly for the team. But Blair said the team was able to succeed because of the preparation they’ve done.
“I think it comes down to the conditioning. I think last weekend pushed us to get better this past week. Last weekend really helped us succeed this weekend,” she said.
Wisconsin got on the board first in this one on a long-distance shot from LaMantia that made its way through traffic and into the back of the net
Ohio State responded less than two minutes later as Gabby Rosenthal carried the puck through the neutral zone and on net, skating past Badger defender Chayla Edwards and cutting in on Wisconsin goalie Kennedy Blair’s right side before sniping her shot in the far top corner
The rest of the game showcased the puck control, forecheck, passing, defense and skills of these two teams. Both squads had multiple chances to put their team ahead, but the goalies stood strong and the Badgers came out victorious in this first battle of the season.
But Muzerall knows that this is just a beginning.
“(Wisconsin) found a way to win, but we will find a way to punch back next time, at home.”
Luke Manning (l.) scored twice as St. Thomas earned its first-ever Division I win with a 5-2 victory over Ferris State on Saturday (photo: Greg Smith/St. Thomas Athletics)
First-year program St. Thomas earned its first win in Division I history scoring the game’s first five goals in a 5-2 victory over Ferris State.
Luke Manning scored twice and Christiano Versich added three assists as the Tommies jumped to a 2-0 lead through one and never looked back.
Former North Dakota goaltender Peter Thome stopped 27 shots to earn his first win in the purple and white uniform.
No. 10 Boston College 5, No. 8 Denver 1
Both Boston College and Denver woke on Saturday hoping to avenge losses on Friday. Both teams held leads a night ago – BC 3-2 over Colorado College, losing 5-3; Denver 4-1 and 5-4 over Providence before falling 6-5.
Only one team could accomplish their road back to victory. Boston College scored the game’s final three goals after Denver cut the lead to one as the Eagles skated to a 5-1 win.
Defenseman Drew Helleson registered a goal and an assist to pace the Boston College offense. Eric Dop made 26 saves to earn the victory.
The Eagles improve to 3-2-1 on the season, though are now 2-0-1 against nationally-ranked teams.
No. 5 Minnesota Duluth 2, No. 4 Minnesota 1
Tanner Laderoute and Blake Biondi scored in the first period for Minnesota Duluth and then held off the Minnesota offense until Mason Nevers third period tally scored to bring the Gophers as close as they would get, as the Bulldogs earned a two-game series sweep with a 2-1 victory on Saturday.
The victory continues a wild streak for Minnesota Duluth. The Bulldogs are now 12-1-1 in their last 14 against Minnesota and 13-3-2 against the Gophers since the league re-alignment that separated these two teams from the WCHA in 2013.
Five different players scored goals as No. 17 Western Michigan upset top-ranked Michigan, 5-2, in Ann Arbor on Friday (Photo: Ashley Huss/Western Michigan Athletics
Visiting Western Michgan took a 3-0 lead before the midway point of Friday’s game against No. 1 Michigan as the 17th-ranked Broncos skated to a 5-2 victory.
Five different players scored goals for Western Michigan, which improves to 3-0-0 while Michigan suffers its first loss to drop to 4-1-0.
Aidan Fulp gave the Broncos the early lead scoring with 53 second remaining in the first. That was followed by second period goals by Rhett Kingston and Ethen Frank.
Once Michigan’s offense solved netminder Brandon Bussi at 10:28 of the second, Western immediately responded with a back breaking Dylan Wendt goal 2:05 later.
Bussi finished the game with 23 saves.
Michigan becomes the third team to drop a game in its first weekend holding the number one ranking. Massachusetts was swept by Minnesota State in the opening week of the season. The Mavericks ascended to number one the following Monday but dropped a game to St. Cloud State the following weekend.
Now Michigan, after knocking off Minnesota Duluth and Minnesota State to win the IceBreaker last weekend, has fallen in the first of two with the Broncos this weekend.
The pair will square off at Western Michigan’s Lawson Arena on Saturday.
In one of the most anticipated games in the short history Quinnipiac’s Frank Perrotti Arena, the host Bobcats sent home the capacity crowd happy.
Graduate transfer Oliver Chau scored twice and the Quinnipiac defense held a potent North Dakota offense to just 16 shots on goal as the Bobcats defeated the Fighting Hawks, 5-2, in the first game of a two-game series.
That's right, a POWERPLAY goal for the Bobcats! Lee from Lombardi and Leyh doubles our lead.
While North Dakota took an early lead on Matteo Costantini, Quinnipiac had an answer and more. After Chau scored at 13:51 of the first to tie the game, the Bobcats piled on with three more goals by the midway point of the third for a 4-1 lead.
Though North Dakota tried to battle back on a Jack Sanderson goal with 3:43 left, Chau capped off the scoring with an empty-net tally in the closing minute.
No. 12 Providence 6, No. 8 Denver 5
In the craziest game of Friday, Providence rallied from third period deficits of 4-1 and 5-4 and Brett Berard scored with 1:01 left in regulation as the Friars knocked of Denver at Schneider Arena.
Four Denver goals in the second period surrounded by a Max Crozier tally for the Friars spotted the Pioneers a 4-1 advantage headed to the third.
But Providence’s offense came out motivated in the final frame. By the 4:14 mark, the game was tied on two goals by Nick Poisson at :33 and 3:41 and a Jamie Engelbert tally at 4:14.
Denver had an answer, though, on the power play. Carter Savoie scored with the man advantage with 9:40 left, a seemingly crushing blow.
Not for Poisson, though, who completed the hat trick just 91 seconds later before setting up Berard’s last minute goal to complete the dramatic comeback.
Despite allowing five goals, Jaxson Stauber earned the win with 39 saves on the night.
Western Michigan senior Ethen Frank is back for a fifth season with the Broncos, who face top-ranked Michigan this weekend (photo: Ashley Huss).
Notre Dame (+190) became the first significant underdog from this column to earn a victory last Friday, knocking off Michigan Tech on the road, 2-1 in overtime. Michigan (+120), which was a slight underdog on Friday against host Minnesota Duluth last Friday in the IceBreaker semifinal, handling the Bulldogs with ease, 5-1, before taking home the trophy with a 3-2 victory over then No. 1 Minnesota State.
If you picked all five correct on a parlay last week, a $100 bet would have yielded $1580.90, thanks mostly to that Notre Dame victory on the ticket. Unlike Week 1, when two columnists went 5-0, no one on the USCHO staff was perfect (three at 4-1).
As the season moves on, typically odds should become easier to predict. But for college hockey, that’s not the case. In fact, with the Ivies beginning play over the coming two weekends, that proves more unknowns for bookmakers to have to consider. It also is difficult to predict from building to building how much home ice should play into the advantage.
Take for instance this weekend’s games between North Dakota and Quinnipiac in Hamden, Conn. North Dakota is a fan base that travels extremely well and can often account for more than half the capacity in a building. But with Quinnipiac a smaller venue (3,386 capacity for hockey) and a loyal Quinnipiac fan base, tickets for Fighting Hawks fans will be difficult to find (StubHub lists only 10 for Friday’s series opener). So while you typically wouldn’t tip the odds to most teams when they host North Dakota, Quinnipiac is one school whose rabid fan base plays a role – ever so slightly – on the money line.
You will also note that, unlike weeks past, there are few matchups listed that heavily favor one team. While Michigan is a unanimous pick over Western Michigan on Friday, most others are split almost down the middle.
As usual, a disclaimer:
Understand, this is for entertainment purposes only. USCHO.com is not a licensed gambling platform and no money may be wagered through this site or any subsidiary of USCHO.
Enjoy and, if you bet, may you be successful.
No. 8 Denver (+105) at No. 12 Providence (-110)
Providence went through a gauntlet last weekend at the IceBreaker and came up empty on wins, falling to both Minnesota State and Minnesota Duluth. A tough outcome, certainly, but a weekend on which the Friars hope to build.
The Friars will have to find a way to shut down a potent Denver offense that scored eight goals against both Arizona State on Oct. 8 and Air Force last Saturday night. Six goals per game leads the nation for the Pioneers, but Providence isn’t far behind have scored 21 goals in five games, 4.20 goals per game.
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No. 17 Western Michigan (+400) at No. 1 Michigan (-600)
Western Michigan will bring its 2-0-0 record into Ann Arbor for what will easily be its biggest test of the season. The the Broncos have a win over another Big Ten school, Ohio State, in an exhibition game, this game should feel a lot different taking on a Michigan team that knocked off 2021 Frozen Four participants Minnesota Duluth and Minnesota State en route to the IceBreaker title last weekend.
Though Western Michigan hasn’t allowed a power play goal, it hasn’t really faced the PP unit with the potency of Michigan. The Wolverines are an outlandish 50% with the man advantage, the best of any team nationally.
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No. 6 North Dakota (+110) at No. 7 Quinnipiac (-105)
This is probably the heavyweight battle of the weekend as North Dakota makes a rare trip east to battle Quinnipiac. It will be the fifth time these teams play with North Dakota having won the previous four. The most notable of those games came in the 2016 national title game in Tampa.
Quinnipiac has played just three times, all low scoring games (2-2, 3-0, 2-0). Their power play has yet to score but their penalty kill has yet to allow a goal. That as opposed to North Dakota, which is 21.4% on the power play and 93.3% on the PK, one of the top combined special teams percentages in the nation.
The difference maker in this one could be the crowd. Quinnipiac expects a sellout for both night in a People’s United Center that, because of its small size and the proximity of the fans to the ice, could almost match Ralph Engelstad Arena for decibel levels.
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No. 5 Minnesota Duluth (+110) at No. 4 Minnesota (-125)
Minnesota Duluth will take to the road coming off a split against national contenders a weekend ago. For Minnesota, they are coming off an OT victory at St. Cloud State that will be remembered most for a non-call at the end of overtime that led to the winning goal.
The Minnesota offense could be the difference maker here if it can solve the Bulldogs defense. Minnesota is averaging 4.25 goals per game over their first contests, a full two goals better than Minnesota Duluth.
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No. 8 Denver (+115) at No. 10 Boston College (-120) – Saturday
If Denver were Boston College’s opponent on Friday night (as opposed to Colorado College) you might see the Eagles a heavier favorite. Most have to believe that BC will come out flying on Friday after a disappointing 6-2 loss last Saturday at Bentley. But the reality is, both of these teams are playing on the second night (this is the first time we’ve featured a Saturday game). And if this column we being written on Saturday morning as opposed to Friday, the line might be quite different based on Friday’s results.
Special teams may be interesting here as Denver strong power play will meet BC’s strong penalty kill. On the other side, though, BC’s power play (15.4%) might break out against a Denver kill that has been successful just 63.2% of the time to date.
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Last week’s records (season):
Jim Connelly (national columnist): 3-2 (7-3)
Dan Rubin (national columnist): 4-1 (7-3)
Ed Trefzger (national columnist): 3-2 (8-2)
Paula Weston (national columnist):3-2 (6-4)
John Doyle (HE columnist): 3-2 (7-3)
Nate Owen (ECAC columnist): 3-2 (6-4)
Chris Lerch (AHA columnist): 4-1 (9-1)
Jack Hittinger (CCHA columnist): 3-2 (6-4)
Matthew Semisch (NCHC columnist): 2-3 (5-5)
Drew Claussen (B1G columnist): 4-1 (8-2)
Rico Blasi coached 20 years at Miami and is now leading St. Thomas in its inaugural Division I season in 2021-22 (photo: Brad Olson).
After some time away, there’s one thing Rico Blasi noticed about the familiar rinks of the CCHA.
“The smell is still the same,” the first-year St. Thomas coach joked in a phone interview Tuesday, reflecting on his team’s recent road trips to Northern Michigan and Lake Superior State.
Blasi, who played at Miami in the old CCHA from 1990 to 1994 and then coached at his alma mater from 1999 to 2019, has a lot of familiarity with the teams from the old incarnation of the CCHA. And as the league has returned in 2021 with many of the same teams from those old days, Blasi is excited his new team can be a part of it.
“The arenas that we’ve been to, Northern and Lake State, having been in the league and played in the league, I have some fond memories of those buildings,” he said. “I’m just excited to be back in the CCHA, and see the logo. It’s a little bit surreal, to be honest with you, but there’s some comfort to it as well. I’m grateful to be here.”
Not only are the Tommies brand-new to the CCHA but they are, as everyone knows, brand-new to Division I. And this weekend, they will host their first-ever true home game as a Division I program with a series against Ferris State at the 1,000-seat St. Thomas Ice Arena.
It will be just a little bit different to their other “home” game, which was Oct. 3 St. Cloud State at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. The Tommies were the hosts and the designated home team on the scoreboard, but the energy levels in a high school arena in the St. Paul suburb of Mendota Heights are going to be slightly different to the NHL rink.
“Playing at the X was great, and we had 4,000-plus fans and a great student section but we still had to pack our bags and get on the bus for a game,” Blasi said. “This will be a different environment, no doubt about it, but our guys are excited about it. It will be tight in terms of space but it will be a lot of fun.”
It’s just one of many firsts that Blasi and the Tommies are checking off the list as they transition from Division 3 to Division 1. The ultimate goal is to have St. Thomas competing at a high level in Division 1, but this is going to take some time.
“Teaching and getting better every day is the most important thing in our process,” Blasi said. “We’re getting there. Maybe not as quick as everybody wants to, but that’s part of making sure that you have a good understanding of where we want to be in the future.
For now, Blasi is focusing on creating a specific St. Thomas culture, which means getting players up to speed with how Division 1 hockey is supposed to be played.
“We want to be a relationship-based program that is process-oriented and takes a holistic approach to the development of the student athlete on and off the ice,” he said when asked about his ideal culture. “We’re going to focus on those areas and continue to hold our guys accountable to that standard. We’re not going to miss on opportunities to teach and develop our student athletes as individuals and our program as a team.”
Currently the Tommies are 0-6 overall but have, aside from a 12-2 loss in their season opener at St. Cloud State, been competitive in every other game. Last weekend against Laker Superior State, for example, the Tommies outshot the Lakers in both games but lost 3-1 and 6-3. And their power play has been quite good — they’re currently 8-for-33 (24.2 percent).
“We still have a lot of work to do in a lot of areas, but we’re throwing a lot of new things at our guys,” he said. “The team has been put together from 12 or 13 different teams, with different languages, different ways of playing. Most of our guys have not played a lot of division 1 games — I’d say 98 percent of our guys. It’s been one that continues to grow, continues to get better, so we haven’t put it all together yet. But we have gotten better in certain areas week to week.
“Certain guys maybe are not used to the cadence of what we do and how we do things. That takes some time. We started school Sept. 8, we had our first game three weeks later. It’s not like we’ve had months of time to get into a routine. But from where we started Sept. 8 to where we are today, I’m extremely happy with the progress we’ve made.”
Senior Keeley Rose will serve as a captain this season for the Nazareth women’s hockey team (photo: Nazareth Athletics).
The UCHC announced Thursday the results of its 2021-22 women’s preseason coaches poll.
The poll is voted on by all 11 league coaches with Nazareth selected as the top team in the conference at the start of the 2021-22 season.
Nazareth was a near-unanimous selection, as the Golden Flyers are attempting to win their first UCHC title. Nazareth finished 8-2-0 overall and 4-1-0 in UCHC play during the 2020-21 season, which was shortened due to COVID-19. The Golden Flyers advanced to the UCHC championship game for the first time in 2021.
Quinnipiac and North Dakota do battle in the 2016 national championship game at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla. (photo: Jim Rosvold).
A matchup between two top-10 teams is noteworthy enough on its own, but there’s a little extra buzz in this weekend’s matchup between No. 6 North Dakota and No. 7 Quinnipiac.
For the first time in nearly 20 months, there will be fans at Frank Perrotti Jr. Arena when the Bobcats host the Fighting Hawks on Friday and Saturday.
“I think it’s good in general for everybody, just to have that and as much as we can get back to a return to normalcy, (but) we’re certainly not there fully,” Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold said of having fans bank in the building. “It’s going to be nice. The place is going to be rocking both nights this weekend.”
Quinnipiac and North Dakota have met four times in the all-time series between the two programs. The Fighting Hawks have won all four games, including a 5-1 win in the 2016 national championship game. That was the last time these teams faced each other.
The only Bobcats player who has played against North Dakota is graduate transfer Griffin Mendel, who played for conference opponent Denver for four seasons before coming to Quinnipiac.
“You might think they’re a skilled team and want to play soft, but they’re not,” Mendel said. “They’re going to grind and dump in pucks and beat you on the forecheck. I think our key is going to have to be clean breakouts to beat them.”
North Dakota is one of the rare western teams making the trip east to face Quinnipiac. Since 2010, the Bobcats have only hosted four western teams: Arizona State, St. Cloud, Ohio State, and Omaha. This weekend will be the first time the Fighting Hawks have played at an ECAC rink since traveling to face Union in 2016.
It’s been a good start to the season for both North Dakota and Quinnipiac. The Fighting Hawks are 3-1 following an overtime loss to Bemidji State last Saturday, while Quinnipiac is 2-0-1 and has shut out Northeastern and Vermont over its last two games. The Bobcats held the Catamounts without a shot in the first period on Saturday and finished the game only allowing 14 shots on goal.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the maturity of our group,” QU senior forward and leading scorer Michael Lombardi said. ‘You look up and down our lineup and everybody has got a bunch of games and a lot of experience. Even our young guys have come along really well. I think maturity is a big party of why we’ve had a good start.”
After several seasons of riding the ups and down in play that come with a younger team, that maturity should help Quinnipiac this weekend against arguably its toughest opponent it will face this season.
But regardless of the outcome, getting to play in front of their fans is already a win for the Bobcats.
“We were up at Vermont last weekend and they had a great crowd,” Lombardi said. “It was just fun to play with people in the building. We hadn’t done it in a long time and it we’re just really excited.”
Hosts Jim Connelly and Ed Trefzger are joined by Grand Forks Herald college hockey writer Brad Elliot Schlossman to preview a great east-west series as No. 6 North Dakota visits No. 7 Quinnipiac.
We also preview No. 8 Denver at No. 12 Providence and No. 10 Boston College, No. 17 Western Michigan at No. 1 Michigan, and No. 5 Minnesota Duluth at No. 4 Minnesota.
Zachary Borgiel and Hugo Ollas form a 1-2 punch in goal for Merrimack this season.
Don’t call it a goalie controversy.
Because Merrimack coach Scott Borek doesn’t see it that way.
With sophomore Zachary Borgiel and freshman Hugo Ollas sharing time between the pipes so far this season for the Warriors (2-2-0, 0-1-0 Hockey East), Borek said competition at the position can only be a positive for his club.
“I feel the best I’ve felt about our goaltending situation in a long time,” Borek said. “I think we do have some guys who are going to compete with each other and continue to push each other, and that’s going to make us a better team overall.”
Borgiel started three of Merrimack’s first four games, recording 76 saves and a 3.02 GAA. On Saturday at Colgate (ECAC), Ollas notched 30 saves in a 2-1 overtime loss.
Despite the result, Borek liked what he saw in the 6-foot-8 freshman from Linköping, Sweden, calling Ollas “an economy of movements.”
“He’s a really big body,” Borek said. “Very few pucks seemed like they were being saved, they really seemed like they were just hitting him. That means he was in the right spots and that means I think he’s playing the game the right way.”
As of Tuesday, Borek hadn’t announced who will start at home Friday against No. 16 Boston University (2-2, 1-1), the first of a two-game weekend set.
“I’m very comfortable whoever we play on Friday will give us a chance to win that game,” Borek said. He also added that junior Troy Kobryn will also see ice time this season.
The two teams meet again Saturday at 7 p.m. at Agganis Arena.
BU coach Albie O’Connell said whoever the Terriers face in goal, the key will be to create as much traffic around him as possible.
“It sounds like he’ll be able to see over everyone,” O’Connell said, with a chuckle, about Ollas. “Screening him would probably be a little more of a challenge. (A) lot of it is getting to the scoring area, the blue paint. There’s a lot of really good goalies in college hockey — if they see the puck, they’re going to stop it. If they don’t have traffic or pressure toward the net, normally they can stop it. It’s going to be the same approach to every goalie that we face.”
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A scheduling quirk created what New Hampshire coach Mike Souza compared to a “baseball series” starting this weekend, when UNH (2-2, 0-0) and No. 12 Providence (3-2, 1-0) play the first of three straight games against each other. The teams face off Sunday (5 p.m.) at UNH, then Oct. 29 (7 p.m.) at Providence and Oct. 30 (7 p.m.) back at UNH.
“There’s nothing we can really do about the schedule,” Souza said. “You have to take them as they’re scheduled. We’ll certainly do that. The big thing for us is, we’re only focused on the first one.”
Providence coach Nate Leaman acknowledged pros and cons of playing the same time thrice consecutively.
“Our guys are going to be familiar with (UNH),” Leaman said. “They’ll know what to expect in the games. Two of the games are at their place. The cons are, it’s hard to beat the same opponent three times in a row. (It’s) an interesting challenge, that’s for sure.”
Leaman said his team is eager to get back on the winning track after the then-10th ranked Friars dropped a pair of games against then-No. 1 Minnesota State (CCHA) and No. 5 Minnesota Duluth (3-1) at the Icebreaker tournament at Duluth last weekend.
“You have to get pushed to see where you are a little bit,” he said. “I thought we lost our poise a couple times, and it really cost us. Offensively, we need to be a lot more dynamic.”
Before traveling to UNH, Providence hosts No. 8 Denver on Friday at 7 p.m..
“They like to get up and down a little bit,” Leaman said about the Pioneers. “There’s probably going to be a lot more space in the game than there was last weekend. Denver’s dangerous in transition, that’s for sure.”
Utica is again the favorite in the UCHC having won all the conference’s regular-season titles since 2018 (photo: Jeff Pexton/Perfect Game Imaging).
The UCHC announced Wednesday the results of its 2021-22 men’s preseason coaches poll.
The poll is voted on by all 10 league coaches with Utica selected as the top team in the conference at the outset of the year for the fourth consecutive season.
Utica garnered six of the ten first place votes and 78 total points.
Utica has won all four regular-season championships since the conference began play in 2017-18. The Pioneers are attempting to win their third UCHC title, having also won in 2017-18 and 2019-20. The Pioneers finished 8-2-0 overall and 7-1-0 during the 2020-21 season, which was shortened due to COVID-19.
