Harvard’s Jimmy Vesey won the 2016 Hobey Baker Award (photo: Shelley M. Szwast).
TAMPA, Fla. — Jimmy Vesey made his return for his senior season pay off with the Hobey Baker Award.
Vesey, a Harvard senior who scored 24 goals and 46 points this season, was named the 2016 Hobey recipient Friday night at a ceremony at the Tampa Theatre.
Vesey got the most votes from a 27-person selection committee, beating out fellow Hobey Hat Trick finalists Kyle Connor of Michigan and Thatcher Demko of Boston College.
He was a Hobey Hat Trick finalist in 2015, losing out to Boston University’s Jack Eichel after a 32-goal, 58-point season.
This season, he had five multiple-goal games, including a hat trick against St. Lawrence on Jan. 15.
Here’s the official release:
The Hobey Baker Memorial Award announced today the 2016 recipient of college hockey’s top individual prize is Jimmy Vesey from Harvard University. The announcement came during the NCAA Frozen Four championship in a live ceremony held at historic Tampa Theatre in Tampa, Florida and aired nationally on NHL Network.
For Vesey (pronounced VEE-zee), the second time is a charm as he was a Hobey Hat Trick finalist a year ago when he led the nation in goal scoring. Two is a prominent number for the senior captain of the Crimson. For two straight years Vesey has been named ECAC Player of the Year, Ivy League Player of the Year, ECAC First Team all-conference and winner of the Walter Brown Award as the best American-born player in New England.
Jimmy Vesey finished the season recording 24 goals and 22 assists for 46 points in 33 games. Over the past two years, he has scored more goals than any other player in college hockey — 56, after bagging a nation’s best 32 last season. It was a happy day on campus a year ago when Vesey spurned offers to turn professional in order to return for his senior year as a student-athlete. However, he did play alongside many pro players when he represented the U.S. in the World Championships last May. He was a third round draft pick of Nashville of the NHL
Hobey Baker was the legendary Princeton (1914) hockey player known as America’s greatest amateur athlete one hundred years ago. He redefined how the game was played with his coast-to-coast dashes in an era when hockey was contested with seven players and no forward passes. Baker, a member of the U.S. Army’s Air Corp, died testing a repaired aircraft at the end of World War I after he had completed his military service. The Hobey Baker Award criteria includes: displaying outstanding skills in all phases of the game, strength of character on and off the ice, sportsmanship and scholastic achievements. Vesey was selected from a group of ten finalists by a 27-member selection committee and online fan balloting.
A dynamic offensive talent as his stats verify, Vesey was an impact player in all phases of the game. Regular shifts and power play duties were the norm, but he was often underestimated in his defensive responsibilities. Vesey was a fixture on the penalty kill and was widely recognized as the hardest worker on the team. His compete-level made Vesey a difference maker.
A native of North Reading, Massachusetts, Jimmy is a Government major and has been ECAC All Academic every year. Off the ice, Vesey helped raise money for the Travis Roy Foundation and the Franciscan Hospital for Children. He provided manual labor at Cristo Rey High School in Boston to prepare it for the school year and volunteered time with local youth teaching them to skate.
Chris Dylewski, left, accepts the Hockey Humanitarian Award, presented by BNY Mellon Wealth Management (photo: Jim Rosvold).
TAMPA, Fla. — The demands on any student-athlete’s time are daunting. Some struggle with the balancing act between the classroom and energy-draining practices, weight room sessions, games and road trips. Student-athletes at service academies face the additional layer of their military demands.
Then you have an individual like Air Force goaltender Chris Dylewski, who adds an almost encyclopedic list of community service and leadership accomplishments. It’s no wonder he’s this year’s recipient of the Hockey Humanitarian Award, presented by BNY Mellon Wealth Management.
[scg_html_ff2016]”All the kids that go to the Air Force are extraordinary; this guy is extra-extraordinary,” Air Force hockey coach Frank Serratore says. “We never nominated a guy for the Humanitarian Award before because we didn’t think we had one who was qualified.
“These kids just don’t have a lot of time. Their responsibilities academically, militarily and athletically … there aren’t enough hours in the day to do what’s required by the Academy, let alone do things outside of the Academy.
“That’s what makes this kid extra-extraordinary. I don’t know how he does it.”
A double major in international history and political science, Dylewski held the highest possible military rank and position in each of his first three cadet years, including a stint as Cadet Wing Command Chief, where he was directly responsible for 3,000 of his fellow officer candidates.
This year, he took on the role of Squadron Character Officer, where he oversees all of the community service and character development activities of a 100-person cadet squadron.
Then there’s a list of humanitarian achievements that boggles the mind. Dylewski formed RISE, a nonprofit organization designed to develop leadership skills in young people seeking to serve their communities. He created Operation Safe, an umbrella organization focused on genocide and mass atrocities awareness along with a fellow cadet’s Unchained program to combat sex trafficking and provide basic necessities to its victims.
He’s assisted the Wounded Warrior sled hockey team. When a freshman cadet committed suicide, Dylewski founded a program that produces an annual Guide to Cadet Life for freshmen to help them adjust to
Academy life.
And that’s just the start. Dylewski has led or volunteered for more community outreach programs than can be reasonably listed, not to mention serving as chief editor of the school’s literary journal.
How does he do it?
“The things I get to do are almost universally things I love to do,” he says. “So it’s not I’m like grinding through a day from one thing I hate to another and being miserable. It’s about being excited about every step.
“I’m always tired, but I’m excited enough about what I do to get through that.”
A glimpse into a typical cadet’s day illustrates the challenges, which as a senior also includes a half-hour commute from off-base housing.
“I wake up at 5, stumble out of bed and maybe eat something,” Dylewski says. “I get over to base and am in uniform and ready for duty at 6:45, which is our morning Accountability Formation. The first class is at 7:30 and I’m in class until 11:30. We march in formation after class before our mandatory lunch.
“Then it’s back to class for another hour. After that, if I’m lucky I might have 15-20 minutes to meet with a teacher.
“Then I’ll go down to the rink and probably use the Human Performance Lab for hand-to-eye coordination work, go to the locker room for a team meeting and be on the ice and skate for an hour or an hour and a half. Then we run down to the gym until it closes. We’re the last ones in there; we leave when they close the doors.
“At that point it’s probably 7, so we run back to the locker room, shower and change. Then it’s dinner and homework.
“When I have a tough course load, such as when I switched majors and had to take 27 credit hours, I could have four or five hours a night of homework, so the math of getting sleep gets kind of hairy.”
All of that doesn’t add up to having time for any humanitarian efforts, much less all of the ones Dylewski has pursued.
“There’s the offseason and we have off days,” he explains matter-of-factly. “And there’s time on the weekend.”
The drive to do more than just hang out has been there for as long as he remembers.
“I’ve always been stir crazy and looked for other things to do,” Dylewski says. “When I was a young kid, I never wanted to sleep. It drove me nuts. It was such a waste of time when I could do other things.
“Now I love to sleep and wish I had a lot more of it, but I always had that need to be doing things.”
That urge directed itself to serving others in part because of his first glimpse of abject poverty at the age of 14 on a mission to build a house in Juarez, Mexico. It left a lasting impression.
“It was a revelation to me because I’d always been brought up on Air Force bases,” he says. “This was real poverty. Dirt, tin sheds and mangy dogs.”
Some of that drive to serve others also came from his father, a two-star general, and even more so from his mother.
“She understands what it means to commit yourself to people,” Dylewski says. “She’s devoted at a level that’s hard to capture.”
It’s all added up to an extraordinary individual. Arguably, the only area where Dylewski has fallen at all short is in a game-day role for the Falcons hockey team, but although he’s only managed a few minutes between the Air Force pipes, he’s still had a significant impact.
“He is Mr. Selfless,” Serratore says. “His role on the team is all about others. He made us better Monday through Thursday.
“When one goalie transferred and we had to bring in two freshmen, I told Chris that I needed him to mentor them. He said, ‘I’m all in.'”
That mentoring proved to be a wild success as one of those two freshmen, Shane Starrett, earned first-team All-Atlantic Hockey honors in his rookie year.
Of course, Dylewski would have loved to be a collegiate star athlete. But if he’d been required to give up his humanitarian work to achieve athletic stardom — be a Hobey Baker Award candidate as opposed to a Humanitarian Award candidate, if you will — he’d have respectfully declined.
“That wouldn’t be fulfilling for me,” he says. “That wouldn’t be a good trade in my book.”
A bright future awaits Dylewski. He’s deferring his Air Force service for two years to pursue a master’s degree in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
“I’ll be taking classes that focus on what the character of great American leadership looks like and what not-so-great American leadership looks like,” he says. “I’m going to focus on how I can be the former and avoid the latter and really drive change in my service to the nation and the communities that I’ll be part of.
“It’ll be a force multiplier, to use a military term.”
And to those who choose to focus only on their own careers and do none of the humanitarian work that makes up such a core part of Dylewski’s life, he makes no pronouncement of superiority.
“I wouldn’t judge that approach,” he says. “There are lots of people who focus on their careers and then later in life have awesome resources to then make differences in peoples’ lives.
“I can think of a ton of examples of people who became really successful and then used that success to benefit others. That’s great.
“I would say to folks who are looking exclusively at success that it is really gratifying, I’m sure, until you try service to others. There’s a special something that you get out of service that you don’t get out of other pursuits.
“Once you put something into it, even in a little way, you’re going to want more.”
Quinnipiac finishes up practice on Friday (photo: Melissa Wade).
TAMPA, Fla. — Quinnipiac’s defensive scheme has given teams fits all season, contesting neutral ice and forcing teams outside of their comfort zone.
This week, Bobcats coach Rand Pecknold and his players have talked about the importance of focusing on the style of play that’s resulted in a 32-3-7 record and a place in the national title game.
Pecknold refers to the style of play as his team’s “identity”: Battle hard on the forecheck without overcommitting and frustrate opponents in the neutral zone.
When asked about his 1-3-1 forecheck, Pecknold corrected the questioner.
“First off, we refer to it as a 1-1-3,” he said. “You can call it whatever you will. Some people call it a left-wing lock, which is not the right term.
“It’s something that allows us to kind of clog up the neutral zone a little bit. Our guys buy into it. It’s not a passive 1-1-3, it’s aggressive and we want to close gaps and create turnovers and deny time and space. I don’t want to get into all the intricacies of running a good 1-1-3 but it definitely caused problems for BC.”
Quinnipiac knows it needs to execute to perfection if it wants to shut down North Dakota’s top line of Nick Schmaltz, Drake Caggiula and Brock Boeser.
“I think they present challenges like Harvard’s top line and Boston College’s top line,” said Quinnipiac defenseman Devon Toews. “They have speed, size, skill. We’ve got to play our game and get in their face and take away their time and space, and we’ll be fine.”
“And it’s a good equalizer when you go up against teams [like Boston College and North Dakota],” said Pecknold. “It slows people down a little bit. But in the end it’s not just about the 1-1-3. We want to play offense off our forecheck. We got some good goals off forechecks [against Boston College].”
To be successful against the Fighting Hawks, the Bobcats know that they need every player to continue to focus on the type of play that’s gotten them this far.
“It really starts off the ice and guys being one big unit,” said Jonzzon. “I think that’s really translated for us. And I think that guys have bought in because they know the guy next to them is buying in.”
Bo Pieper and Quinnipiac went through their final practice Friday (photo: Melissa Wade).
TAMPA, Fla. — The goals of both Quinnipiac and North Dakota are the same heading into Saturday’s national championship: win a title, which would be the first since 2000 for the Fighting Hawks or the first ever for Quinnipiac.
But there are plenty of other similarities when looking at these two clubs. So much so that North Dakota coach Brad Berry said he feels like he’s looking into the mirror when preparing his club to face Quinnipiac.
[scg_html_ff2016]”I’d like to think that they mirror a lot of us, what we do,” said Berry, who is looking to become the first to ever win a national title in his first season as a Division I men’s head hockey coach. “They play with a lot of tenacity. They play with a lot of compete. They play with a lot of fire. They have structure.”
Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold, who in 22 years has brought his team from the bottom of Division II to within a game of a national title, agreed.
“I love the way North Dakota plays,” said Pecknold. “They just go. They pressure. I was really impressed with a few of the backchecks they had. Kids were out of the play and they came back hard, which is something we do. There are similarities.”
If there is a significant difference, it has been the storyline of the Frozen Four — and the season — for North Dakota, the line most now call the CBS Line.
Drake Caggiula, Brock Boeser and Nick Schmaltz, the trio which combined for the first three goals on Thursday against Denver in the national semifinal, account for 60 of North Dakota’s 157 goals this season and, even when facing an opponent’s shutdown defensive units, still seem to find success.
For Pecknold and the Bobcats, the fact that the club surged down the stretch to overtake North Dakota in the PairWise Rankings and take the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, being the home team on Saturday and having the last change might be the biggest dividend in hopes of shutting down the CBS Line.
“I don’t remember which week it was, but us and North Dakota kind of went back and forth in the PairWise, and I felt it was really important for us to be the No. 1 overall seed so we could have last change,” said Pecknold. “There are times we use it to our advantage, and there are times we don’t.
“I think with North Dakota, with that big first line, we do have to be conscious of that. And we will adapt and adjust, and we’ll probably use two lines to match up against them because we also want to stay in our flow. I’m really big on that. We want to keep our flow and our tempo.
Championship game: Quinnipiac vs. North Dakota, 8 p.m. EDT Saturday, ESPN2
“So we respect that line, and we’ll have to defend it well. And we’ll certainly have our No. 1 matchup when we get against it, but we won’t do it all the time. We’ll have a second line that will be able to go against it, too.”
Quinnipiac, itself, has power. It may not come in the form of an individual line but, as it proved on Thursday, the forecheck that pressures relentlessly causes confusion for defensemen and, as was the case against Boston College, creates goals. That could be the formula to counter North Dakota’s attack.
North Dakota players called it a 1-3-1 attack, referring to the first forechecker supported by his linemates and a defenseman jumping into the play. Pecknold called it a 1-1-3, suggesting a more defensive posture. Title it however you want; three games into this NCAA tournament, Quinnipiac has proved that it works.
North Dakota practices at Amalie Arena on Friday (photo: Melissa Wade).
“You can call it whatever you want, I think for us it’s something that we’re good at,” Pecknold said of his forecheck. “It’s something that allows us to kind of clog up the neutral zone a little bit. Our guys buy into it. We put players in the right positions to be successful.”
“Within our league, in the NCHC, we see [high-pressure forechecks] all the time,” Berry said. “There’s eight teams in our league, we see seven different opponents that bring that nightly.
“We’re well versed and we’re used to playing teams like Quinnipiac.”
The story behind the story on Saturday might be what a national title would mean to the respective schools.
For North Dakota, it may feel like a salvation story for easily the most passionate fan base in college hockey. The Fighting Hawks have won seven national titles but none since 2000. Over the 15-year stretch in between, the team has qualified for all but one NCAA tournament and reached the Frozen Four eight times. But only twice have the Fighting Hawks advanced past the semifinal, losing to Boston College in overtime in 2001 and Denver in 2005.
“I think there’s no more proof than the last two years in Philadelphia and Boston and coming so close and not closing the deal,” said Berry. “We’re very close and we communicate it daily, to the point where we bring things up that might be uncomfortable to talk about. That doesn’t matter.
“We’re a tight group. We talk about the heartache and the pain that we got to.”
For Quinnipiac, a national title is something that was mostly unimaginable when Pecknold took over a program that won six games in Division II his first season in 1994-95. Now it feels like it could be a reality.
“[A national title] wasn’t even close to my thought process in year one,” Pecknold said. “It was survival.
“I think where you start looking down the road and maybe we have a chance at [a championship] is when we went in the ECAC. And then we built our rink. That’s when all of a sudden things changed for us.”
Quinnipiac senior Alex Miner-Barron takes a few extra moments on the ice after the final practice of his collegiate career (photo: Melissa Wade).
TAMPA, Fla. — Six Quinnipiac seniors will play their final college hockey game on Saturday, ending their careers with a chance to be national champions.
Most had that opportunity three seasons ago when, as freshmen, they saw their team come up just short in a 4-0 loss to Yale in the title game in Pittsburgh.
Only Travis St. Denis participated in that game, but fellow seniors Alex Miner-Barron, Soren Jonzzon, Tom Hilbrich, Michael Garteig and Jacob Meyers took away the same lesson: Don’t take it for granted.
“Freshman year was an unbelievable step,” said Jonzzon. “We were happy to be there.”
But after the loss, the Bobcats realized two things: It takes more than a “happy to be here” mindset to win, and even as the No. 1 seed, you can’t take anything for granted.
“In the national championship, anything can happen,” said Garteig. “We learned that in our game against Yale. We learned from our mistakes and the seniors that were there are hungry to get back at it this year.”
“I think the program has now gotten to the point where we don’t think getting here is [enough],” said Jonzzon. “It’s great that we got here, but we’re here to win the national championship. So I think winning tomorrow would be kind of the next step in the progression of the program itself.”
It’s taken Quinnipiac three years to get back to this point: one more shot for the seniors that have led the Bobcats to four straight NCAA tournament appearances.
Just one goal remains, and expect this senior class to keep the Bobcats focused on the prize.
“You can’t take anything for granted,” said Garteig. “We’re not. We have to seize the opportunity.”
Brad Berry took over as North Dakota’s head coach this season (photo: Melissa Wade).
TAMPA, Fla. — Brad Berry is a good husband. This is a fact indisputable, given what he said in Friday’s news conference.
“Everything,” he said, “goes through your wife as far as [the] decision-making process.”
Clearly, this is a man that knows a little about life.
There was this one time, however, that Berry didn’t consult his wife, Suzanne, about a significant decision that changed his life — when he got a call from Dean Blais asking him to serve as an assistant coach at North Dakota, back in 2000.
“I was just coming off of pro hockey,” said Berry. “The crossroads of life, what do you do after you play, and the phone call came in the late summer. I was just married, had two young children at the time, and everything goes through your wife as far as [the] decision-making process.
“This one didn’t go through my wife. It took me about point-five seconds and I said, ‘Honey, we’re going back to Grand Forks.'”
The calculated risk seems to have turned out all right.
Berry spent a total of nine seasons as an assistant at North Dakota, first under Blais from 2000 to 2006, and then again under Dave Hakstol from 2012 to 2014. In between, Berry served as an assistant coach for the AHL’s Manitoba Moose (2006-08) and the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets (2010-12).
Prior to coaching, Berry had a long professional hockey career. After playing three seasons for North Dakota (1983-86) the defenseman played in the pros from 1985 to 1999, starting in the NHL with the Winnipeg Jets and ending with six straight seasons with Kalamazoo of the IHL.
He said that he’s still very grateful for the initial opportunity to coach alongside Blais.
“He recruited me as a player back in 1983 at UND,” Berry said. “He asked me to be a part of the North Dakota family as a player a long time ago, then he asked me to be a part of the North Dakota family as a coach. It’s a great honor.”
Berry has a chance to become the only first-year head coach to win the Division I national championship. Jeff Sauer won in his first year as head coach of Wisconsin in 1983, but Sauer had already been a head coach with Colorado College. Tim Whitehead played for a national championship in his first year as head coach with Maine in 2002, but Whitehead had also been a head coach at UMass-Lowell.
Two other NCAA coaches reached the national championship in their first year as head coaches, Minnesota’s John Mariucci (1953) and North Dakota’s Gino Gasparini (1979).
North Dakota’s Drake Caggiula practices Friday (photo: Melissa Wade).
TAMPA, Fla. — “It’s nice to break down that semifinal wall.” That’s how sophomore goaltender Cam Johnson put North Dakota’s 4-2 win over Denver on Thursday into perspective.
The Fighting Hawks are making their third consecutive appearance in the Frozen Four, but this time they survived their first game and will play for the national championship. In 2014, North Dakota lost 2-1 to Minnesota in Philadelphia. Last year, the Fighting Hawks lost 5-3 to Boston University in Boston.
Thursday night, even when North Dakota saw a two-goal lead evaporate in the third period, the team knew it wasn’t going down without fighting hard for what had been so close in two previous seasons.
Said coach Brad Berry: “When it was 2-0 and they made it 2-2, at the 10-minute mark [in the third period], it was not only the coaches but it was the players on the bench that all reiterated the same thing out of their mouths: ‘We’ve come too far. We’ve come too far. We’ve put too much into this thing. We don’t want this to happen like it did the past two years.’
“So guys know. And they believe. I think it’s a tribute to the relationship and the resiliency in our locker room, and that comes from the players.”
Junior defenseman Troy Stecher said that the way the past two seasons ended for North Dakota has been a motivating factor for the whole team.
“Yeah, it creates a little fire within yourself,” said Stecher. “You work so hard. You set a goal within the summer, not just the beginning of the year.
“We weren’t shy about talking about it. And some people may not like that, but that’s just the confidence within our hockey group, that we support each other and we have each other’s backs. For the sophomore class, junior class, senior class, we kind of understand that feeling of disappointment. But at the same time, we played really well in Cincinnati in the regional and we remember how good we felt there and we have an opportunity to feel that way again.”
“We’re very close and we communicate daily,” said Berry, “and to the point where we bring things up that might be uncomfortable to talk about, but it doesn’t matter. We’re a tight group. We talk about the heartache and the pain that we’ve got to.”
North Dakota last played for a national championship in 2005 in Columbus, Ohio, a 4-1 loss to Denver. The Fighting Hawks won their last national title in 2000, a 4-2 win over Boston College in Providence, R.I. Stecher said that he and his teammates are eager to contribute to the program’s tradition.
“This program prides itself on our success and the history, and tomorrow’s another opportunity to do something this university hasn’t done in 16 years,” said Stecher. “So a lot of colleges would be proud just to get to the Frozen Four, and we’ve done that in the past years and fell short and were disappointed.
“We’re really excited for tomorrow. We understand it’s going to be extremely difficult.”
Fans enter Amalie Arena about 10 minutes before the second semifinal game Thursday (photo: Ed Trefzger).
TAMPA, Fla. — When the final horn sounded after Thursday’s Quinnipiac-Boston College national semifinal, a message on the enormous center-ice scoreboard urged fans to leave Amalie Arena.
This season, rather than being issued a single ticket, fans had a separate one for each semifinal game and were required to leave after the early game and reenter.
While the tight turnaround caused some logistical problems, having two separate tickets was a response by the NCAA to feedback from priority ticket holders, many of whom have been attending the Frozen Four for 20 years or more.
“We get feedback from this group of fans quite a bit,” said Kristin Fasbender, associate director of championships for the NCAA. “That’s part of the reason we did what we did last night by emptying the building. We’ve heard from our fans over the years a lot that they don’t like being stuck in the building in essence for six hours.”
The challenge for fans and security alike: getting everyone out of and back into the building in one hour.
Even 10 minutes before game time, people were jammed at the gates as they poured back into the facility.
“It was tight,” Fasbender said. “We’ve been talking with [Amalie Arena security] since last fall that an hour turnaround was all we had, and they all thought we were nuts, but they’ve been nothing but wonderful to work with.”
The NCAA also delayed the one-hour countdown between games for as long as possible, waiting for everyone to leave the ice before starting the clock.
Fan response wasn’t the only reason that the NCAA used separate tickets for each semifinal — it also allowed fans to have different seats for each game so that they could sit behind their favorite team’s bench.
It also provided an opportunity for seats that might otherwise be empty to be filled. “By adding that third ticket, if you can’t get to the 5 o’clock game but you want to give that ticket to someone else, and still go to the late game, you can do that,” Fasbender said.
ESPN’s television broadcasts are another consideration in determining times for the games.
Also a concern is attendance at a semifinal scheduled early in the afternoon.
As late as 2007, the semifinals had been at 2 and 7 p.m. Fasbender acknowledged that the early start time wasn’t considered an issue when every Frozen Four was sold out. Despite two crowds of about 18,000 on Thursday, that left more than 1,000 seats unfilled for each game.
The NCAA men’s ice hockey committee will consider each future host city’s location, weather and surrounding neighborhoods in deciding whether to have separate semifinal tickets in future years and how much time to leave between games.
“We will have some conversation about what went well and what we would potentially do differently if we would do it again,” said Fasbender. “These things are up for debate and I don’t think we are locked into anything.”
Reid Cashman is in his fourth season on Quinnipiac’s staff (photo: Melissa Wade).
TAMPA, Fla. — Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold has talked several times this week about the history of his program — its humble beginnings and rapid rise to one of the top programs in the country.
A big part of that legacy is associate head coach Reid Cashman, who has made his mark as both a player and a coach.
Cashman, who played for Quinnipiac from 2003 to 2007, was the first Bobcats player to earn national recognition as a player as an All-American his final three seasons, including as a sophomore during Quinnipiac’s last year in Atlantic Hockey, and then his final two seasons in ECAC Hockey.
A two-time Hobey Baker Award finalist, Cashman holds school records for career assists (125) and points (148) by a defenseman.
“Reid was our first All-American,” said Pecknold. “I believe he was a three-time All-American. He was a big-time player for us in Atlantic Hockey. I remember Reid’s sophomore year he led our team in scoring, the first time for a defenseman.”
When the Bobcats moved to ECAC Hockey in 2005, the conventional wisdom was that Cashman wouldn’t be able to replicate his success. But he dominated that league as well, averaging more than a point per game and being named to the ECAC Hockey all-decade team.
“When we went to the ECAC, people said he couldn’t do that again,” said Pecknold. “Boom. He was just a great player.”
Cashman said he chose to play at Quinnipiac for two reasons.
“The campus and the chance to play,” he said. “It was a beautiful campus and I remember sitting in the office with Rand, who told me we were losing three senior defensemen and that I was going to be on the power play from day one. And true to his word, the first practice, I was.”
After several years of professional hockey in North America and Europe, Cashman got the opportunity to come home to Quinnipiac as a coach in 2012.
“I was playing professionally and started thinking what I wanted to do when I was done with that,” he said. “I was all ready to go back to Germany and the day I got the contract, Rand offered me the job here.
“It was an easy choice. I had just gotten engaged. My wife’s a Quinnipiac alum. We were both excited to come back.”
“We’re really fortunate to have Reid on our staff,” said Pecknold. “He’s one of the best assistants in the game and Billy [Riga], one of my other guys, is also one of the best in the league. They’re the reason we’re up here. I know I’m the one up here getting the accolades and stuff but my staff is awesome. We’ve got a great system going and those guys are phenomenal for me.”
TAMPA, Fla. — Forward Luke Johnson did not practice with the North Dakota team Friday. Instead, the junior watched his teammates from the stands, with his left leg braced and crutches nearby.
North Dakota’s Luke Johnson watches Quinnipiac’s practice on Friday (photo: Melissa Wade).
There’s no official word on Johnson’s injury or status, but he left Thursday’s 4-2 win over Denver in the second period after a mid-ice collision.
Johnson (11-10–21) played every game for the Fighting Hawks this season, centering a trio that coach Brad Berry calls “The Heavy Line,” flanked by freshman Rhett Gardner on his left and sophomore Austin Poganski to his right. It’s a combo that Berry likes to match against opponents’ top-scoring lines.
“Well, he’s meant a lot,” Berry said after Thursday’s game. “And again he plays consistent every single game that he plays, but it seems like this time of year he really plays well. He’s a gamer.”
Johnson’s departure “threw a wrench” into the lineup, according to Berry. Johnson had the game-winning goal against Northeastern in the Midwest Regional and another goal against Michigan in Cincinnati.
North Dakota goalie Cam Johnson’s 1.68 GAA is second in the nation (photo: Jim Rosvold).
TAMPA, Fla. — In the days leading up to the Frozen Four, most of the buzz surrounding this year’s goaltenders centered on Boston College’s Thatcher Demko and Quinnipiac’s Michael Garteig.
Demko, after all, is a Hobey Baker Award finalist, and Garteig had a stunning first half with nine posted shutouts between the start of the season and Jan. 7. Both Demko and Garteig have been among the nation’s top five goaltenders all season.
North Dakota sophomore goaltender Cam Johnson has also been among the nation’s top netminders but hasn’t received the same recognition. That may be in part because he spent the first half of the season battling an injury.
When he returned as the starter in December, however, Johnson made quite an entrance, shutting out opponents in four straight appearances (Dec. 5-Jan. 1). His GAA (1.68) is second in the nation, and his save percentage (.933) is seventh.
That no one seems to be talking about him isn’t an issue. Johnson is a steady, unassuming guy — an asset for someone in his position.
“He’s a goalie,” said coach Brad Berry. “I think that helps him as far as his focus. When we watched him in the USHL, he would let a goal in early in the game or partway through the game, and we always watched to see what’s a goaltender’s body language or how does he react after a goal. We watched him a lot. He was grounded. He was focused. He was dialed in.”
“Dialed in” is a phrase that Berry and his players use frequently, and it seems to be an apt one — especially for a goalie that backstops a penalty kill that sees success 86.7 percent of the time. In Thursday’s semifinal game, the Fighting Hawks stopped all four Denver power plays and went a perfect 23-for-23 against the Pioneers on the PK in six meetings in 2015-16.
In seven postseason games dating to the start of the NCHC tournament, Johnson and North Dakota have allowed three power-play goals on 22 opponent attempts.
Berry credits the entire North Dakota penalty kill for the team’s success but points to Johnson’s ability to remain cool under pressure — and that is something he credits to two additional men.
“A guy by the name of Zane McIntyre that he got to play behind,” said Berry. In his three years with North Dakota (2012-15), McIntyre’s cumulative GAA was 2.15 with a .924 save percentage.
“Zane ran the table playing the majority of the games,” said Berry. “He [Johnson] got to learn how to prepare and be a professional and adapt to the role he’s in.”
Then there’s UND alum Karl Goehring (1997-2001), who volunteers to work with the Fighting Hawks’ goalies. “He’s done an unbelievable job with Cam as far as mental preparation,” said Berry, “how to prepare for games.”
Johnson was prepared for Denver on Thursday, even after the Pioneers tied things up late in the game.
“I think we all had a common goal in mind that we wanted to win that game,” said Johnson. “Denver is a team we’ve played five times. We knew what was coming at us and obviously that stuck in our mind.”
TAMPA, Fla. — Quinnipiac coach Rand Pecknold and players Devon Toews and Soren Johnzzon answered questions from the media after their Friday practice in preparation for Saturday’s national championship game against North Dakota.
TAMPA, Fla. — North Dakota coach Brad Berry and players Austin Poganski and Troy Stecher answered questions from the media after their Friday practice in preparation for Saturday’s national championship game against Quinnipiac.
Join us on Friday, April 8, from 6-8:30 p.m. EDT at Champions Sports Bar inside the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina, 700 S. Florida Ave., a short walk from Amalie Arena, for USCHO Live!
We’ll have a special broadcast featuring John Buccigross and Barry Melrose as they interact with fans and announce the winner of the 2016 Mike Richter Award for college hockey’s best goalie of 2015-16.
Be part of the conversation! Send your tweets to @USCHO or your emails to [email protected]. Each episode of USCHO Live! features a look at news around NCAA hockey, a look ahead at upcoming games and events, and conversation with people who coach, administer and play college hockey, and journalists who cover the sport.
About the hosts
Jim Connelly is a senior writer at USCHO.com and has been with the site since 1999. He is based in Boston and regularly covers Hockey East. He began with USCHO.com as the correspondent covering the MAAC, which nowadays is known as Atlantic Hockey. Each week during the season, he co-writes “Tuesday Morning Quarterback.” Jim is the winner of the 2012 Joe Concannon award. He is the color analyst for UMass-Lowell hockey’s radio network, and is a studio analyst for NESN.
Ed Trefzger has been part of USCHO since 1999 and now serves as a senior writer and director of technology. He has been a part of the radio broadcasts of Rochester Institute of Technology hockey since their inception — serving as a producer, studio host, color commentator and as RIT’s play-by-play voice for nine seasons. Ed is general manager of CBS Sports Radio affiliate 105.5 The Team in Rochester, N.Y., and COO of its parent company, Genesee Media Corporation.
TAMPA, Fla. — Quinnipiac practiced at Amalie Arena on Friday, the day after beating Boston College and the day before playing North Dakota for the national championship. Here’s a quick look:
As a host institution, Wisconsin gets branding on ice and boards during the Frozen Four at Amalie Arena (photo: Jim Rosvold).
TAMPA, Fla. — Judging from our Twitter mentions, many of you were confused to see Wisconsin’s logo on the ice and the boards during Thursday night’s Frozen Four semifinals.
So here’s the explanation:
NCAA rules require that a member institution or conference serve as the host institution for its championship events. In Boston last year, that was Hockey East. When the event was last in Tampa, it was Alabama-Huntsville.
This year, it’s Wisconsin, which gets to have its branding around the event and has to help with athletic training and sports information duties.
The Tampa Bay Sports Commission is also a host for the Frozen Four, but it needed to have an NCAA member as a partner. It has close ties with current and former members of Wisconsin’s athletics administration, and the Badgers have been fairly frequent visitors to Tampa for football bowl games.
David Glen had 69 points in 121 career games at Penn State (photo: Jim Rosvold).
Penn State captain David Glen was named the 2016 winner of the Senior CLASS Award as the most outstanding student-athlete in Division I men’s hockey.
A three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree, Glen is a double-major in economics and political science. In 2013, he missed games to donate bone marrow to an unknown recipient.
“My career as a Penn State student-athlete has prepared me for life after college by teaching me what it means to be a professional both on and off the ice,” Glen said in a news release. “My time here has also opened my eyes to the multitude of opportunities that are available for you to serve your community, and the difference your time and effort can make in the lives of others.”
The Senior CLASS Award is an acronym for “Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School.” Voters consider a list of finalists who have notable achievements in the classroom, community, competition and character.
Here’s the full list of players honored:
2016 Senior CLASS Award First-Team All-Americans
David Glen, Penn State
Jake Hildebrand, Michigan State
Alexander Kuqali, RIT
Ethan Prow, St. Cloud State
Jimmy Vesey, Harvard
2016 Senior CLASS Award Second-Team All-Americans
Raplh Cuddemi, Canisius
Theo Di Pauli von Treuheim, Union
Christian Hilbrich, Cornell
Zac Lynch, Robert Morris
Tyson Wilson, Robert Morris
Providence’s Nick Ellis was an honorable mention Hockey East all start (photo: Melissa Wade).
Providence goalie Nick Ellis signed a two-year contract with the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday, giving up his final season of collegiate eligibility.
Ellis, a free agent, took over as the Friars’ No. 1 goaltender this season and went 25-7-4 with a 1.80 GAA and .936 save percentage, the best season statistically for a Providence goalie.
He was an honorable mention Hockey East all-star and twice was named the league’s goaltender of the month.
Denver got five shots on goal over four power plays on Thursday (photo: Melissa Wade).
TAMPA, Fla. — Throughout the year, the Denver Pioneers had proven to be resilient, bouncing back from almost every setback to get better results.
In the Frozen Four semifinal against NCHC rival North Dakota on Thursday, that theme repeated again: The Pioneers battled back from a 2-0 deficit in the third period to tie it, only to give up a goal in the last minute and then an empty-netter to lose 4-2.
[scg_html_ff2016]”I said two days ago that the team that’s going to win is the team that makes the last play, and North Dakota made the last play; they’re a great team,” said Denver coach Jim Montgomery.
However, Denver ultimately won’t be looking at the faceoff it lost that led to that winning goal, but the missed opportunities on the power play as what proved most costly in the loss. Denver went 0-for-4 on the power play on the night, and in six games against North Dakota this year went 0-for-23.
“I think the big thing is they won faceoffs,” said Montgomery. “And then the second thing, anytime there’s a scrum, they came up with it. They’re a really good penalty kill team. We had opportunities. The one thing we didn’t do, we wanted to try to go to the goal line, and we never did that. And we shot in the shin pads a little too much.
“We need to show a little more poise in those situations. But I give full credit to the North Dakota’s penalty kill. It’s not easy to penetrate their blue line. It’s not easy to get open sticks at the net. They’re really good. And I wish we would have made a couple more plays. But we didn’t. Gotta give credit to them.”
Denver had the first two power plays of the game in the first period and couldn’t generate any solid chances. In fact, in the entire first period, both teams had only four shots, tying the mark for the lowest total number of shots in a period in the Frozen Four.
Despite going 0-for-2 on the power play in the scoreless first period, and then 0-for-1 in the second period when trailing the Fighting Hawks 2-0, Denver found itself in a position to get some redemption for its power play in the third.
Having battled back and tied the game 2-2, with the tying goal coming just as the Pioneers killed their own crucial penalty to Danton Heinen, Denver had a power-play chance with 6:25 left in the game, a chance in poetic terms that could have given Denver a win if the power play got its first goal. Instead, North Dakota shut Denver down on that chance.
“Obviously, special teams are huge this time of year, and we gave them four opportunities tonight and had our guys battled up when we went a man down,” said North Dakota forward Nick Schmaltz. “You have to do that this time of year. We had guys blocking shots all over the place. We’re just a team-first team that does whatever it takes to kill those penalties off and then get back to work right after.”
Denver defenseman Will Butcher, who had Denver’s first goal and is a key cog in Denver’s power play, said the last power play was a crucial missed chance.
“I think that was our worst power play of the night, to be honest with you,” said Butcher. “I made a crappy pass over to Trevor and it just seemed like it wasn’t clicking too much. They did a pretty good job of clogging the middle and it’s hard to get shots in on them. They know what we want to do is drag and flank and it’s hard sometimes for our flankers to make open reads or open shots. I thought our power play did a great job at the beginning of the game to build some momentum for us and create some opportunities. We just weren’t getting the bounces.”
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