Men’s D-I in general
The old cliché reads that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so Holy Cross coach Paul Pearl should take it as a compliment that Sacred Heart coach Shaun Hannah wants to imitate last year’s Holy Cross hockey season. “We learned a lot from the Holy Cross team last year,” said Hannah, whose upstarts shocked … Read more
Uno mas. One more. That should be the war cry of Quinnipiac as it embarks on its final season in Atlantic Hockey before moving on to the seemingly greener pastures of the ECAC Hockey League. This is the last chance for the Bobcats to show their value in a league in which, at least for … Read more
There are those who believe that the best way to learn to swim is to be thrown into a lake. By the same token, two top-five teams will take the plunge on Friday night, as No. 5 North Dakota visits No. 2 Maine. There is truly no better way to kick off CSTV’s Friday Night … Read more
Rarely does a team a mere 30 seconds away from entering this season as three-time defending tournament champion have a change in leadership, but that’s exactly the kind of adjustment before the Harvard Crimson. Mark Mazzoleni’s return to Green Bay opened the door for the Crimson to bring former player Ted Donato back into the … Read more
The good news about the 2003-04 Princeton Tigers is that the club improved upon its win total over the previous campaign. The bad news is the Tigers won just five games. Recent history has not been kind to the sextet from New Jersey. They have not had a winning season since 1998-99 and are coming … Read more
The Brown Bears began last season on a torrid pace, only to flame out in the ECAC quarterfinals, falling to travel partner and eventual tournament winner Harvard. After rising quickly to the top of the league with a 6-1-1 start, head coach Roger Grillo’s club managed only one victory in its final eight contests. “Last … Read more
For the fourth straight season the Dartmouth Big Green came up short late in the ECAC tournament. Since the 2001-02 season, Dartmouth has finished fourth, fifth, third and fourth in the final stages of the league tournament despite having some squads that were capable of winning it all. And while there’s something to be said … Read more
With a strangling defense and an offense with the potential to put up big numbers, the 2003-04 Cornell Big Red looked to be one of the teams to beat in the ECAC. Decimated by injuries throughout the season, most notably to offensive threat Ryan Vesce, the team found itself clawing its way back from the … Read more
It isn’t often that one game defines a team’s season. It is even more unusual when that game is the season opener. When the Yale Bulldogs lost 8-4 to North Dakota last October, and repeated it with a 10-0 defeat the next night, it signaled the start of a season of defensive woes for a … Read more
One of the worst feelings a WCHA coach can have has to be knowing that a season goes bad because of things out of his control. That’s a feeling Scott Owens probably knows well by now. More often than not, when his Colorado College Tigers have fallen short in his first five years in Colorado … Read more
It’s not hard to see why so many people are picking Minnesota-Duluth to win the WCHA this season, even after losing a Hobey Baker Award winner. Junior Lessard fits into the equation because he and three other players are the only ones from the lineup at the end of last season not returning to the … Read more
Where did things go wrong last season for Minnesota State? You could trace it back to before the season even started, before the Mavericks opened 1-4-1 or played the first half at 4-11-3. Before the games even started, the Mavericks lost defensemen Matt Paluczak and Jon Dubel for the season because of shoulder injuries. That … Read more
Craig Dahl addressed his team in preseason meetings with this question: If you’re in a race from St. Cloud, Minn., to somewhere in South Carolina, what’s the first thing you’re going to do? The St. Cloud State coach got a variety of answers, including get a map, make a plan, get gas, find someone to … Read more
Don Lucia and the Minnesota coaching staff knew this season was going to be different from an offensive standpoint. You don’t lose Thomas Vanek, Troy Riddle, Matt Koalska and Grant Potulny and just pick up where you left off. Still, the Golden Gophers coaches got together for a preseason meeting to discuss personnel and how … Read more
Hockey East favorite Boston College had three players named to the preseason All-USCHO teams, while CCHA contender Michigan State placed two players on the first team as announced Sunday by USCHO.com. Spartan forward Jim Slater and his teammate, defenseman A.J. Thelen, were joined on the first team by Boston College’s Patrick Eaves and Michigan Tech’s … Read more
The Bemidji State Beavers have been made the preseason favorites to capture the College Hockey America crown. A vote of CHA coaches earlier this week gave the 2003-04 champs 24 of 25 points in the poll, including four of a possible five first-place votes (coaches cannot vote for their own team). Niagara, which defeated Bemidji … Read more
Head coach Bill Wilkinson and the Wayne State Warriors saw more than their fair share of success during the team’s first four seasons in the CHA, capturing three consecutive conference championships and earning a trip to the NCAA tournament in 2003. But the loss of a dozen seniors following the most successful season in the … Read more
Head coach Frank Serratore didn’t expect his Air Force Falcons to set any records for victories last year. After all, his 2003-04 squad saw the turnover of nearly half of its roster from the previous season, and that club recorded just 10 wins. “Last year we came back and we were kind of dreading the … Read more
Derek Schooley knows exactly what Tom Petty meant when he sang “the waiting is the hardest part.” The Robert Morris head coach has been counting the days until the first-year Division I program finally takes to the rink. “Our players are excited about being here. The community’s excited, the campus is excited about us being … Read more
These are trying times for College Hockey America. In the past 10 months, one club has folded, three others have explored leaving the conference, and one of the league’s top offensive threats has been suspended indefinitely. Gone from the CHA ranks this season are the Findlay Oilers, a program which fell victim to budgetary constraints … Read more