{"id":35867,"date":"2011-03-17T05:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-03-17T10:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=35867"},"modified":"2020-08-24T21:30:15","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T02:30:15","slug":"assessing-the-field-as-ecac-hockey-heads-to-the-boardwalk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/2011\/03\/17\/assessing-the-field-as-ecac-hockey-heads-to-the-boardwalk\/","title":{"rendered":"Assessing the field as ECAC Hockey heads to the Boardwalk"},"content":{"rendered":"
Well, no one ever said it would be easy … or predictable.<\/p>\n Another ECAC Hockey end-game is upon us, as four teams converge on Atlantic City for its inaugural league championship weekend. Each of these teams is compelling for its own reasons, with a story worth telling of challenges met and feats yet to achieve. I like to think that each corner of our Garden State quartet has been documented fairly and thoughtfully this season, but should you disagree (or simply starve for more playoff coverage), here’s our final ECAC rundown of the 2010-11 season.<\/p>\n The Hamilton icers utterly failed to live up to even the most conservative expectations this year, but have certainly found a way to turn things around at the most critical point of the season. The Raiders became the first 12th seed to qualify for the championship weekend, “pulling a Brown” by stunning fifth seed Rensselaer and regular-season champ Union — both on the road, of course — in consecutive three-game sets, much the same way Bruno did at RPI and Yale last spring.<\/p>\n “We’re thrilled to be in this position, and somewhat fortunate as well,” said coach Don Vaughan. “You know the kind of year we’ve had up until this point; it was certainly a frustrating regular-season campaign for us, with a lot of close games which at the end of the day I think took a toll on the psyche of our team. We were frustrated, clearly, at times … but we stayed positive most of the time.”<\/p>\n The veteran team ultimately pulled together in the penultimate month of the season, ending the season on a 4-2-1 run that funneled momentum straight into the upcoming playoffs.<\/p>\n “The team battled through a lot of adversity and finally got a win against a Clarkson team in our own building in February which gave us a little bit of confidence,” Vaughan said. “From there, you could actually see the light go on with this team: They were playing a little different, they were coming to the rink with a different attitude, and we were able to string some wins together down the stretch.<\/p>\n “I think the wins late in the regular season really helped us as we rolled into the playoffs. We played two quality opponents in RPI and Union, and we knew going in that we were going to have our hands full. Let’s face it, either of those series could’ve gone either way — all the games were tight — and again, we were fortunate to get a couple bounces in both series that we weren’t getting early on. That said, I think a lot of that is the result of a team that continued to work, and got great leadership from our captains.”<\/p>\n Many underdogs, great or small, relish the idea of playing with house money: Nobody expected them to make it this far, so there’s no pressure to do anything other than play their game and have fun doing it.<\/p>\n Colgate is not that dog.<\/p>\n “We feel we play better when we’re focused,” the Raiders’ coach said. “I know that when you’re in our position, a lot of times there’s a ‘nothing-to-lose’ kind of attitude as the 12th seed, but my experience with this team especially has been — because we’ve tried everything this year — that we didn’t perform as well when we were too loose. So we’ve tried to keep the guys focused, and take a little more of a businesslike approach to the last part of the season and the playoffs.”<\/p>\n The ‘Gate has had few regular contributors this season, but the handful who made their presence felt through thick and thin are definitely on board for the postseason … with a few new band members, too.<\/p>\n “It’s been a combination of a few guys, really: Francois Brisebois (who leads the team with 16 goals) has continued to play well, he plays with a lot of energy, he’s got great acceleration, he’s hard to contain,” Vaughan said of one of his most reliable producers.<\/p>\n “I thought the last two weekends, the guy for me who has been the backbone of the team and who has really stepped up his play is the guy who scored the game-winning goal on Sunday — Wade Poplawski. It’s not because he scored the game-winning goal: He was my MVP last weekend at RPI. We tried to match him up as much as we possibly could against Chase Polacek. He’s a hard guy to contain, and Wade did a good job of that, especially on Sunday night. We were able to keep him off the score sheet, which in my opinion resulted in us winning that game. He’s played a lot of minutes for us, he’s been injured on and off throughout the season — he missed a large block of games in the middle of the year, which certainly had an impact on our team — but he’s played really, really well.<\/p>\n “I look at Brian Day as well. Brian hasn’t put up the big numbers that he normally does, but he’s a guy that gives you everything he has every time. Those guys have done a great job for us. And we have a freshman who, in my opinion, has been unbelievable the last two playoff series in Chris Wagner. He just took his game to a whole other level. He’s a heck of a hockey player, and he’s done a lot of work for us here in the last couple weeks, especially for a freshman.”<\/p>\n Factor rookie Eric Mihalik into the equation as well: The freshman goaltender has held opponents to two goals or fewer in seven of his (and his team’s) last 13 games since beating Clarkson. Combined with the offense’s seven three-plus-goal outings over that stretch, and you’ve got yourself a hot streak.<\/p>\n Yale is on notice: This may finally be the Raiders team that we were all expecting from Day 1.<\/p>\n If the Raiders are the phoenix of the league, emerging stronger than ever from the decimation of a regular-season lost, then the Big Red are a lesser — but perhaps more powerful — story of redemption in their own right.<\/p>\n Cornell just figured things out sooner.<\/p>\n “That championship last year feels like it was 15 years ago,” coach Mike Schafer sighed. “It was a long haul for our team this year, getting off to a bad start, climbing the standings throughout the year, and we were fortunate to get home ice in the playoffs. We’re excited to be back, and we know that it’s going to be very, very difficult to claim the championship.”<\/p>\n<\/a>
Colgate<\/h4>\n
Cornell<\/h4>\n