Season previews for teams
When you’re at the top of the heap, everyone comes gunning for you. And after a 21-win campaign, a post-season conference championship and a trip to the NCAA tournament, Niagara University figures to have a big, purple target painted on its back. The Purple Eagles finished with the second-best record in the team’s nine-year history … Read more
The 2003-04 season was everything coach Tom Serratore and the Bemidji State Beavers asked for – almost. Bemidji posted 20 wins last year, the most for the school since it joined the Division I ranks. The Beavers also captured 16 wins in CHA play, establishing a new conference record for victories in season. And the … Read more
What more does Jared Ross have to do to get noticed? Last season the Alabama-Huntsville center was one of just seven players in Division I to record at least 50 points, paced the CHA with 35 points (15-20) in 20 conference contests, was named co-CHA player of the year and led the nation with a … Read more
The days of UMass being one of the perennial favorites to finish in the Hockey East cellar are now a tiny speck in the rear view mirror. The program, resurrected in 1993 after a 14 year absence, has progressed well past its infancy. It now approaches its teenage years a long way from maturity but … Read more
A prediction by this writer of fifth place and an even loftier prediction of third place by the league’s coaches? Didn’t Boston University almost miss last year’s playoffs entirely, spared the ignominy only by an overtime goal at the Whittemore Center in the regular season’s final game? Didn’t the Terriers then lose goaltender Sean Fields, … Read more
Stop the presses! Boston College is picked to finish first! Then again, don’t bother stopping the presses. BC being predicted to finished first is so … yesterday. After all, this is now the fifth time in the past seven years that the Eagles have been so honored. Last season and in the national championship year … Read more
For Merrimack coach Chris Serino there are three certainties: death, taxes and a ninth-place position in the coaches’ preseason poll. For the last three years, and for five of the last six, the Warriors have had that dubious distinction. (In 2001-2002, the Warriors were picked to finish eighth.) “Am I disappointed at being picked ninth?” … Read more
It’s been quite a while since Maine last won a Hockey East regular season title — 1994-95 to be exact — but the Black Bears have done some serious knocking on the championship door nonetheless. In two of the last three years, they’ve advance to the title game only to fall agonizingly short. The reason … Read more
It seems hard to believe that a coach in Atlantic Hockey whose team went 20-14-2, upset Ohio State and Western Michigan and tied Cornell on the road, could call that season anything but a success. But for Mercyhurst coach Rick Gotkin, that’s exactly what happened last year. “We had some good success last year, but … Read more
College Hockey America’s revolving door might be a little worn from overuse. In the past year, no conference has had more comings and goings relative to its size than the CHA, as the number of teams announcing their departure from the conference this past year has nearly matched the number of current members. To recap, … Read more
It was a storied trip for Holy Cross last season, one that few associated with the program, coaches, players and fans alike, will ever forget. A wire-to-wire regular-season championship was followed by a dominant walk through the Atlantic Hockey tournament and the school’s first visit to the NCAAs. Now, for the Crusaders the question is … Read more
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
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