In southeastern Massachusetts, coach John Rolli of UMass Dartmouth is getting ready to do something he’s done for the past 22 years — coach his hockey team. Rolli has a career record of 441-116-19, making him one of the nation’s most successful coaches, but he would rather discuss his team. “I think our strength will be the continuation of our program from the last two years. We only gave up 39 goals, and we had a penalty killing percentage of .916, and we hope to carry that over into this year.”
Despite losing seven players from last year, Rolli will be counting on his leader scorer, Kyle McCullough, to not only score a lot of goals, but a lot of important goals. He’ll be joined on the first line by Jeff grant, and the year’s captain, Jim Foley. Up front, the Corsairs will be relying on Pete Lender, Ray Kirby, and Kailo Vairig, who missed last year because of medical issues.
On defense, the lone senior coming back is Paul Carr, and he’ll be counted on the provide leadership in his own zone. Jeff Green is expected to be the main man in the net, especially with Jon Dryjowicz-Burek’s transfer to UMass Lowell. Green gained valuable experience last year when during a stretch of six games he played in, he won all six, wityh a .995 save percentage and three shut-outs.
