Season previews for teams
So close and yet so far. Northeastern finished four points out of third place in Hockey East last season but also a point out of the playoffs, a single point behind a Vermont team that went on to the NCAA tournament. Just brutal. With a healthy percentage of that so-close group coming back, however, the … Read more
Massachusetts finished only two points out of third place in Hockey East last year, but as the seventh-place team it drew eventual national champion Boston College in the quarterfinals. It was two-and-out for the Minutemen and their season was over. The offseason was worse as their biggest guns — James Marcou, Casey Wellman and Matt … Read more
Last year, Vermont had the prototypical half-empty, half-full season. The Catamounts finished in eighth place, but then upset New Hampshire to advance to the Garden and, thanks to strong non-conference performances, returned to the NCAA tournament. This year, strong defense and goaltending will be counted on to carry the team. Goaltender Rob Madore went through … Read more
Providence enters the 2010-11 season as the perceived doormat. The once-powerhouse program that twice has won Hockey East tournament titles (though none since 1996) has inconceivably missed the playoffs for two straight seasons. This year, the Friars were picked for 10th in the preseason coaches’ poll. Though this might seem like a tailspin to the … Read more
Rarely has a team won a national championship in recent years only to return the next season nearly entirely intact. In the case of Boston College, that is the ultimate luxury heading into the 2010-11 campaign. After BC’s dominant postseason run culminated with the national title last April in Detroit, many wondered if the Eagles … Read more
Walt Kyle once joked that he had taken Northern Michigan to the CCHA third-place game so many times that the contest would probably be named for him. In late March, however, Kyle and the Wildcats were proverbial bridesmaids no more. NMU finally got the chance to play for the CCHA championship. It was just the … Read more
Alaska capped its 2009-10 season with the program’s first trip to the NCAA tournament, so it’s only fitting that UAF is picked third this season, the highest preseason prognostication in Nanooks history. How does Dallas Ferguson, the third-year coach responsible for turning around the UAF program, follow all of this up? With what got him … Read more
Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson is a fierce competitor, to be sure, but it’s probably a good thing that his experience has taught him a little perspective. The Fighting Irish finished the 2010-11 season in ninth place, far below expectations. Notre Dame just couldn’t seem to catch a break where injuries were concerned — no … Read more
If you wanted to apply a tagline to Alabama-Huntsville’s 2010-11 season before the games even started, three words would seem to apply best: New all over. Not just in coaching. Chris Luongo has taken over for Danton Cole, who left after three seasons in charge to head the USA Hockey National Team Development Program. Also … Read more
If there’s one team in the CCHA that can be described as a typical, workaday, no-frills team, that would be Lake Superior State. There’s no shame in that. The team’s blue-collar ethic comes straight from coach Jim Roque, who gets every bit out of every player that he can — and the team gives, willingly. … Read more
By this point, most college hockey fans know what the 2009-10 Miami RedHawks endured, but it bears repeating, in brief. • Lost the 2009 NCAA championship game in overtime, after leading by two goals going into the last minute. • Lost a dear friend, 21-year-old team manager Brendan Burke, to a car crash in February. … Read more
Last year, the Michigan Wolverines found themselves someplace unfamiliar for the second round of the CCHA playoffs: on the road. After finishing in seventh place, Michigan swept Lake Superior State at home in the first round of CCHA playoff hockey before having to play through East Lansing to advance to the league’s championship tournament in … Read more
Western Michigan’s Jeff Blashill is one of three new head coaches in the CCHA, but he’s familiar to everyone in the league. He may have spent the last two seasons coaching the USHL’s Indiana Ice — where he won the Clark Cup as a rookie head coach in 2009 — but he was an assistant … Read more
Bob Daniels is beginning the 2010-11 season with the same question he had a year ago: Who’s going to score for Ferris State? He and the Bulldogs hope that the answer this year is as satisfying as it was last season. When 2009-10 began for the Bulldogs, they had just completed a year in which … Read more
In this millennium, Bowling Green has finished above ninth place twice — a fifth-place finish in 2004-05 and seventh in 2007-08. Given that four of the last five seasons have seen the Falcons at or next to the bottom of the CCHA standings, new coach Chris Bergeron understands the need to change things, wholesale, at … Read more
Of the three CCHA teams led by new coaches this season, Ohio State has arguably been the biggest disappointment for far too long a time. After all, this is a school with huge resources, a high profile and matching expectations. New coach Mark Osiecki, an assistant at Wisconsin for six seasons — and therefore wise … Read more
“We’re coming off a second-place finish and a team that obviously did not perform well in the playoffs,” Michigan State coach Rick Comley said. “That was a disappointment.” That was an understatement. After a hugely disappointing, next-to-last-place finish in 2008-09, Michigan State rebounded last year, earning a bye for the first round of the CCHA … Read more
Injuries and spotty goaltending led to a disappointing 2009-10 season for the Bentley Falcons, who finished in eighth place and were defeated by Connecticut in the first round of the Atlantic Hockey playoffs. But a new season brings a fresh start for Ryan Soderquist’s team. “We’re pretty optimistic heading into the fall,” he said. “I … Read more
Needless to say, it’s going to be tough for Rochester Institute of Technology to top last year. The Tigers won their first Atlantic Hockey playoff title and became the first AHA team to reach the Frozen Four by virtue of winning the NCAA East Regional with upset victories over Denver and New Hampshire. But this … Read more
In 2009-10, Canisius enjoyed its best season under sixth-year coach Dave Smith, finishing fourth in Atlantic Hockey and advancing to the playoff semifinals for the first time since 2004. Several Golden Griffins also won individual accolades, including senior Cory Conacher, the reigning player of the year in the AHA. Conacher put up 53 points last … Read more