Coach Lou Izzi and the rest of the Nichols College team roared into 2009 much like they finished 2008: winning hockey games. The Bison kicked off the new year by winning the St. Michael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tournament last weekend to extend their winning streak to six, and now boast a conference best 8-0 record, and are 13-1 overall.<\/p>\n
Izzi feels the success he and his team are enjoying is the result of years\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 worth of hard work. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been building this for four years,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Izzi said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and we obviously had a lot of success last year with 20 wins and we gained valuable experience going to the playoffs and playing in the championship game. We arrived at this season with a much deeper team and veteran leadership, which is something we haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t had at all in the past.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
A deep team may be an understatement. Nichols regularly skates four lines, and all six defensemen get healthy amounts of ice time on a nightly basis. Senior goalie Keith Fink is unbeaten with a 10-0-0 record, and his freshman backup, Michael Davis, is 3-1. <\/p>\n
The veteran leadership comes from the seniors, all of whom have played since they were freshman. Besides Fink, there are defensemen Cole Ruwe (who leads the team in scoring with three goals, 16 assists, and 19 points in 14 games) and Jeff Beiber and Glen Carcaro. Up front, Anthony Monte and Ryan Gervais are back. Monte is second in team scoring with 6-11-17 in 14 games. Last year, his 51 points led the team and the conference. Monte currently has 70 career assists, and with 10 more can break the record of 79 set by Dave Delmonico, who graduated in 1978.<\/p>\n
The winningest coach in Nichols hockey history, Izzi is now in his fifth season behind the bench. In 2007-08, Izzi not only guided the Bison into the ECAC Northeast playoffs for the third straight season, but brought Nichols to the conference championship game, the first time in the program\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s history they had advanced that far. The Bison finished with a 20-7-1 overall record, the finest in the program\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long history. Izzi was named the New England Hockey Writers Association\/ECAC Northeast Coach of the Year.<\/p>\n
The Bison began this season by winning seven straight prior to carving their Thanksgiving turkeys, but dropped game number eight by a deflating 10-0 score to New England College. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so much the winning streak Izzi remembers from the first half of the year, but the lesson learned in the NEC rout.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you look at that game, it was 1-0 halfway through the game,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were on a 5-on-3 power play and we turned the puck over and they went down and scored. From that point, we just hung our heads and we stopped competing, and like a good team and well coached team will do to you, they [New England College] sensed an opportunity to drive a stake through our hearts, and they did that.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that may have been the turning point in our season,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Izzi continued, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153because it stung us, and it really made us understand that we have to compete every single shift. We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t compete in the last half of that game. It set us up for what we called a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfour game season\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 to finish the first half. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had two road games versus Fitchburg and Plymouth which are always difficult road games, and we had Becker and Southern New Hampshire, which is our nemesis. We condensed everything down to a four game season and we went back top the drawing board and were able to extract a lot of things from that New England College game. We were able to rededicate ourselves to our work ethic and competing every shift.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The drawing board lesson obviously was paid attention to as Nichols traveled to Plymouth State and won 5-3, and followed that up with a win at home over Becker, 3-0.
\nNext up was a win over Fitchburg, and then came their nemesis, SNHU. Izzi feels that he learned something about his squad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s character in that contest. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t beaten them in 20 years,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Izzi. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And for as long as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been here, every time we play them it always seems as though the weirdest things happen and they just have our number. We came out really fired up for that game, and we found ourselves down 3-1 eight minutes in. We could have said \u00e2\u20ac\u02dchere we go again\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 but we really came together and with the veteran leadership they wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let the guys come unraveled and we ended up beating them over the last 50 minutes, 7-2.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Izzi is very pleased with the group he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coaching right now. <\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a combination of a good mixture of upper class presence and very good players in our freshmen and sophomore classes. When our goaltending is at least consistent, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a tough team to beat. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a very, very challenging schedule the rest of the way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The Bison will encounter four more conference games this month, with road games against Franklin Pierce, Johnson & Wales, and Wentworth, followed by a home game against Curry on January 31. <\/p>\n
While Izzi is certainly not overlooking Franklin Pierce, he knows that the other three contests will be emotional games. Curry currently sits in second place in the conference, also with an unbeaten record at 8-0.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We know that every game is a dogfight and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to get the best from everyone that we see,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Izzi said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think this is by far the best team I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever had, up and down the line-up. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see if we can keep it going, but I keep telling the guys that every night wee play, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have a big bulls-eye on our back!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The Bison had a roster change over the break. Joining the team is goalie Jacob Rinn, who was a first-team All-State selection in Rhode Island last year for Tollgate High School. Departing is freshman forward Billy Sabia, who transferred to Salve Regina, where he hopes to get more ice time … Ruwe leads all defensemen in overall scoring in the conference, with 19 points and a 1.36 points per game average … Westfield State\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s duo of Dennis Zak and Pat Nelson lead the conference in overall scoring. Zak, a sophomore, has tallied 14-12-26 and the freshman Nelson isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t far behind with 8-16-24. Both have played in a dozen games … Jon Dryjowicz-Burek, from UMass-Dartmouth, leads the conference in overall goals against average with a stingy 1.76. He is the only goalie currently with a sub-2.00 average … Most potent power play right now belongs to Wentworth. They have scored an eye-catching 20 goals on 60 attempts (33%) … Games to watch include Manhattanville taking on Curry in a non-conference tilt on Saturday in Milton. On the same day, Westfield State travels to Fitchburg State and UMass- Dartmouth hosts Assumption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Coach Lou Izzi and the rest of the Nichols College team roared into 2009 much like they finished 2008: winning hockey games. The Bison kicked off the new year by winning the St. Michael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tournament last weekend to extend their winning streak to six, and now boast a conference best 8-0 record, and are 13-1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n