![\"Katie](\"https:\/\/wp-admin.uscho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Brock-ths.jpg\" "\\"Katie")
<\/a>In spite of their current roster deficiencies, the Wildcats dug a little deeper in the second game of the Minnesota series, still winding up on the short end of a 6-1 score, but as their coach said, competing harder throughout.<\/p>\n
“You have to challenge your kids,” he said. “That was embarrassing for our program; it was embarrassing for our league. I felt like we didn’t uphold our end. We knew that we were better than we showed last night.”<\/p>\n
After seeing how the Wildcats responded on Saturday, I’m convinced that Friday’s loss will serve as the low point in their season, and they will improve upon their current 0-4-1 standing in Hockey East. Their offense is not high octane, but once their defense and goaltending stabilize, they’ll prove not to be the league’s worst team.<\/p>\n
“Going forward, UNH is a school that really values the sport, is really passionate in their fan base, and it’s a unique place,” McCloskey says. “As much as I love Wisconsin and Minnesota, there’s compelling reasons for kids from some communities to prefer to be in [Durham] than [Minneapolis]. That doesn’t mean we’re going to get all of the kids. But we should win, and we had up until 2008 when we went head-to-head with those schools. We didn’t win them all, but we won a couple, and we won enough that we were comparable in talent.”<\/p>\n
McCloskey is encouraged by the growth of Hockey East as a whole, as the league shows signs of mirroring the competitive WCHA model, rather than having a single dominant team, as in some past HEA seasons.<\/p>\n
“If we do our part and get back into that say top 10 pool nationally, we’re obviously going to be surrounded by some Boston schools and some others, Northeastern, Boston U, BC, Maine — I see other schools making big strides,” he said.<\/p>\n
Dark as things may appear after getting outscored 17-1 on a road trip, one has the sense that those first rays of light are starting to shine on the eastern horizon.<\/p>\n
“Down the middle, between the goalie, ‘D,’ and the centers, eight of the 10 are freshmen or sophomores,” McCloskey said. “But what I like is the kids that are in there are really developing and growing. When they’re juniors and seniors, if we do the job and layer some nice players underneath them, some impact, which we have coming next year, and I’m sure we’ll have it coming in 2013, I feel very confident we’ll be back in the national hunt. I don’t know where we will fall, there are too many variables, but we’ll be back in the hunt.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Traditionally one of the powers in women’s hockey, New Hampshire is trying to rebuild during a tough season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":122305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n