Men’s D-I in general
Last year, the Vermont Catamounts took a major step forward in reaching the goal of becoming a perennial powerhouse. A late-season charge saw Vermont catapult to third place in the Hockey East standings, win a hard-fought quarterfinal series over Northeastern and then upset Boston University at the TD Banknorth Garden to earn the school’s first … Read more
What a difference a year makes. Instead of emerging from an offseason that threatened the existence of the program and decimated the depth to the point where games with no healthy scratches became the norm, Massachusetts-Lowell opens this season healthy in all respects and with a legitimate shot at playoff home ice. Virtually the entire … Read more
No Hockey East team lost more across-the-board talent than the New Hampshire Wildcats. Last year’s senior-dominated team took the regular season title going away but graduated five All-Hockey East selections: top scorers Mike Radja and Matt Fornataro; top defensemen Brad Flaishans and Craig Switzer; and Player of the Year goaltender Kevin Regan. The Wildcats don’t … Read more
When the Hockey East preseason coaches’ poll was released, it looked similar to most years, with Boston College, Boston University and New Hampshire all sitting at the top. But missing from that group of usual suspects were the Maine Black Bears, whom the coaches picked ninth out of ten teams, most likely the lowest preseason … Read more
Massachusetts reached new heights midway through last year when, after toppling Notre Dame and Colorado College in a holiday tournament, pollsters ranked the Minutemen fifth in the country. Unfortunately, they could not sustain this lofty perch, dropping the next five games and going winless over seven. The euphoric and sadly premature talk among some supporters … Read more
If the college hockey regular season ended in the first week of February rather than March, last year’s campaign for the Providence Friars would likely have been considered a glowing success. It was those final 30 days, though, that took things from a banner year for the Friars to one of mediocrity. The turning point … Read more
If anyone told you on the final night of the regular season last year that the Boston College Eagles could win the national championship, you’d likely have had them committed to a mental institution. An inconsistent team all season, the Eagles stumbled into the playoffs, barely earning home ice, before unbelievably putting the pieces together … Read more
When Hockey East coaches picked Northeastern to finish fourth this year, it marked the Huskies’ highest preseason projection within the league. It’s easy to see the reasons for the optimism and why they are likely to continue the program’s progress under coach Greg Cronin. Northeastern returns all but two players from the squad that finished … Read more
In each of his first three seasons at Merrimack, head coach Mark Dennehy’s team took steps forward. After winning just six games in his first campaign in 2005-06 and three games the year following, last year’s club posted 12 wins total and surpassed the win total of a year prior by November 1. Seems like … Read more
Boston University rebounded from a potentially disastrous start to finish second in Hockey East last season but still failed to secure an NCAA berth for the first time since 2004. Don’t count on that happening again this year. The Terriers return a lot of talent and have supplemented that with a strong recruiting class. All … Read more
Three Favorites, Then Anything Goes On paper, Boston College, Boston University, and New Hampshire rank as the clear favorites in Hockey East this season. The three programs contend for the title almost every year — perennial powerhouse Maine usually joins them but has fallen on hard times — and while each has questions that remain … Read more
Defending national champion Boston College is the strong consensus for No. 1 in the 2008-09 preseason USCHO.com/CBS College Sports XXL Division I men’s poll, released Monday. The Eagles, who defeated Notre Dame last April for the NCAA title and were the preseason favorite in Hockey East after winning the league’s tournament championship last time around, … Read more
It was a trying 2007-2008 season in Huntsville as first-year head coach Danton Cole and the Chargers struggled to duplicate their prior season and wound up with just six total wins. That said, UAH returns virtually every player, including all three goaltenders, from last season and it’s with that fact alone that a few more … Read more
Simple math says each CHA team this season has a 25 percent chance to advance to the NCAA tournament in March. But then, each of the four coaches knows that’s the case, but each has chosen to take the philosophical approach when that subject comes up. “The tournament is a different ballgame,” Bemidji State head … Read more
Not one game has been played, yet Niagara has already been picked as the favorite to repeat as CHA champs in the annual league poll. This comes on the heels of the Purple Eagles graduating co-captain and 39-point producer Matt Caruana, seeing big forward Kyle Rogers give up his senior season to sign with the … Read more
With 21 freshmen and sophomores on the roster this season, Robert Morris is in for one of two scenarios this year, according to head coach Derek Schooley. “If we play well, we’ll be reloading,” Schooley said. “And if we don’t, then we’re rebuilding.” The Colonials graduated their first senior class last spring, a class that … Read more
According to Bemidji State head coach Tom Serratore, the Beavers have a lot to prove this season. “We’re young, we have depth and we play 19 games on the road,” said Serratore. “We’ll find out what we’re made of early on against Mankato and Air Force.” Goaltender Matt Climie graduated last spring and used his … Read more
Whereas 2006-07 was a season of unparalleled parity, last season was a year of surprises. Princeton finished six points better than it had since the spring of ’99, and finished a tight second to Clarkson in the regular season — the Tigers’ best-ever league finish. Clarkson may have lived up to its preseason poll position, … Read more
Offense Bruno finished second-to-last in the league in goals scored last year with 50, and saying goodbye to Prough (7-19-26), Hurley (3-16-19) and Poli (6-12-18) isn’t likely to help matters. In total, the Bears parted ways with 20 of their 67 overall goals, and all five seniors ranked among the team’s top 11 scorers. Coach … Read more
Offense The Crimson parted ways with eight seniors over the summer, six of whom were forwards taking frequent and regular shifts. Overall, the Cantab roster (short for Cantabridgian, a.k.a. Cambridge native, somehow) is 52 goals and 68 assists short of where it wrapped up last year. That’s more than half its goal production out the … Read more