As we hype ourselves up for the World Junior Championship final, I can only think back to that great New Year’s Eve game and how it was determined by a shootout.

In the gold medal game, the teams will go to shootout after a 20-minute OT, if need be.

The amount of great International games that have been ruined by shootout are unfortunately numerous, none worse than the 1994 Olympic gold medal game between Canada and Sweden. Shootouts f@#$%%^ stink.

Of course, this is nothing new. I’ve hated on shootouts for 20 years. But this gives me an excuse to publish my favorite quote on shootouts ever, from St. Lawrence quipster/head coach Joe Marsh, at last year’s ECAC tournament. St. Lawrence and Princeton played a shootout in the consolation game. St. Lawrence needed to win the game to get in the NCAAs. Officially, it was a tie. SLU won the shootout, which some fans didn’t realize was meaningless. At least in that case, it was actually meaningless. But when asked about after, Marsh riffed:

It would’ve probably been just as meaningful for (Princeton coach) Guy (Gadowsky) and I to go out and have a quick round of canasta at center ice.

(But) it gives me an opportunity to comment — nothing against the (ECAC’s) decision to do it — but it isn’t hockey. The thing that will always stick out in my mind was the Olympics being decided on a shootout. Canada vs. Sweden (1994), who wouldn’t want that game to go to overtime? I think Lillehammer Industrial League was renting out the ice and they had to get off.

It’s not hockey. Imagine Tiger Woods and Chris DeMarco ended the Masters in a playoff with a putting contest in the miniature golf course down the street. It’s B.S. But that’s how strongly I feel about shootouts. I guess the fans like it, but let’s not forget, the fans also like the integrity of the game.

We had to win. And what’s confusing to our fans is I think some of them think we did. So now when we’re not travelling to go play somewhere next weekend, they’re going to be wondering what the heck happened. They’re going to think, “Did we forget to board passage or what?” I’m just not in favor of it. Maybe I’m an anachronism, but I’ll just never be a fan of it.

I don’t want to see it creep in. We talk about how it’s exciting to the fans, but — is this going to be about marketing all the time? No one’s going to be able to sell me on it. I’m not going to be around much longer anyone. I’m going down with the ship. I’m going to look like the guys in the orchestra when the Titanic went down, playing the same old tune.

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Former North Dakota forward Zach Parise is a legit scoring presence for Team USA in the Olympics.

Watching the announcement of the U.S. Olympic roster was somewhat depressing. Juxtaposed against the national holiday which was the Canadian roster announcement — not to mention the talented Swedish and Russian rosters — it was clear the U.S. has very little chance for Olympic gold.

It’s one reason why we’re all fired up around here for Tuesday’s World Junior gold medal game against Canada; it may be the U.S.’s one chance this year for gold.

The 1980 Olympics was, of course, a watershed moment for U.S. hockey. The success of that Olympic team led directly to the 1996 World Cup team, where the best Americans in the world defeated the best Canadians in the World on a big stage for the first time, in a best-of-three series no less, and on Canadian soil.

And most of that roster came directly from the college ranks — Guerin, Tkachuk, Weight, Rolston, Amonte, Richter, Chelios, Leetch, Hull — aided by the likes of Pat Lafontaine, Jeremy Roenick and Mike Modano. These are superstars — numerous Hall of Famers — direct descendents of the 1980 squad.

Where are those names now?

As an American hockey fan, and, in particular, a college hockey fan, there is great pride in the 2010 Olympic roster. The vast majority of names are straight out of the U.S. college ranks, including all seven defensemen and all three goaltenders. And I happen to think that the U.S. seven defensemen will develop into better players, top to bottom, than Canada’s seven. And an eighth, former Hobey winner Matt Carle, could make a case for being there as well.

The problem is, there are no stars up front. There is no Tkachuk, there is no Guerin. And there is certainly no Ovechkin, Malkin or Crosby. Or Alfredsson or Zetterberg.

The 1996 team was loaded, and it also rose to prominence at a time when Gretzky and Lemieux weren’t there.

In fairness, many of the 1996 players — like Amonte, etc… — did not develop into stars until years after they were in the NHL. So this roster has the potential to come up with guys who develop that way. And Zach Parise is there already.

But it’s clear there is a dearth of those players in the NHL right now.

It looks like Brian Burke was trying to create a roster to gain experience for 2014 rather than give Team USA the best chance to win in 2010. I would’ve put a Modano or Guerin on there, just for the experience and leadership factor. Chris Drury is not enough in that regard.

On the other hand, if he’s going to go the way he did, I think Burke needed to have some more power forward types on there. There aren’t enough of them. Guys like Kyle Okposo and James van Riemsdyk, who I’ve seen play a lot this year, and have been quality workhorses.

It’s interesting the U.S. finds itself in this position, because it comes at a time when there are more quality former NCAA players in the NHL right now than ever before. And it comes at a time when the Under-18 and Under-20 (World Junior) teams for the U.S. do very well in international tournaments every year.

They just lack the superstar skill forwards — the extra one player or so in every Under-20 crop that adds up to five or six of those players over a 15-year span. Eric Staal, Rick Nash, Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla and so on.

I couldn’t tell you how to close that gap, but we’ve got a ways to go.

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One of the many reasons why I say college hockey is the better route for most players – no matter what junior players think of the of “games played” and the “pro environment” …

http://www.boston.com/sports/hockey/bruins/articles/2009/11/24/bruins_bitz_is_up_for_a_promotion_joining_savard_on_top_line/

Bitz credited Cornell coach Mike Schafer for instilling a structured, defense-first system in Ithaca. It’s a style that Bitz has brought with him to the pro game.

“He really preached not turning the puck over and being good defensively,’’ Bitz said. “If you didn’t do that kind of stuff, you just wouldn’t play. It was important that you be good defensively and really take care of the puck. I think that was where my puck-possession game evolved. That stuff was ingrained in me for four years. You had to do that stuff. Thankfully, it’s kind of carried over and I’ve made that a strong point of my game.’’

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So Sam Lofquist, sophomore defenseman, decides he’s had enough of Minnesota and leaves for the Ontario Hockey League.

Sam Lofquist.

In a vacuum, this is just another misguided player, upset with his playing time or something else, deciding to jump ship. Almost inevitably, these moves don’t work for the player. I think back to Nigel Williams, a USNTDP player who left Wisconsin for the OHL, and is still working his way through the minors. He may make it yet, who knows. Most of these kids are never to be heard from again, and would’ve been better off staying in college and getting training. This, of course, is the biased comment of someone who prefers the college game, but the evidence is clear — the trail of those left in development wasteland is lengthy.

The bigger issue for now, however, is what is going on with the USNTDP. There are so many detractors and supporters, vehemently arguing their position on both sides, but the detractors seem to heavily outweigh the supporters these days.

Many age-old questions remain … largely, what is the USNTDP supposed to be doing? If it’s supposed to be winning international competitions, results are mixed — though World Junior results have not been good, save the one gold medal.

If it’s supposed to be a place for channeling players to college, that is failing at an alarming rate. Lofquist is the fifth player from his class to bolt to the OHL, including Kenny Ryan, who left BC just before the start of this season after having already enrolled.

If it’s supposed to be a place to aid the development of American-born hockey players — and this, presumably, is the main mission — how well is that being served? There are so many cries of “politics” that we hear on a regular basis. Is it good to channel the 40 “best” U.S. players to that program, putting all the money there, at the expense of others.

If you recall, people like Brown coach Roger Grillo and Bowling Green coach Scott Paluch decided to leave college and help the USA Hockey system with the development of regional organizations. This seems like a good step.

I don’t know what Lofquist’s decision means, if anything. But I am interested in asking the questions and hearing the opinions.

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Got myself into a little back and forth with my friends on the Cornell hockey fan message board, eLynah, recently, regarding the ECAC moving its tournament to Atlantic City beginning in 2011. I have mixed feelings, but believe the ECAC needed to do something, and I see the move’s merits, as noted in a recent column.

The discussion on eLynah centered more around the geography of it, and on that score, I defended AC for a variety of reasons — mainly that, despite being in a geographic center, Albany attendance has been lousy. The move may take the tournament farther from ECAC schools, but not necessarily farther from people who actually show up — i.e. alumni, and general fans. We’ll find out.

It was interesting to note, as well, the thoughts of Cornell alum Sam Paolini. He was a senior forward on the 2003 Cornell Frozen Four team, scoring the winning OT goal, ironically enough, in the first ECAC tournament held in Albany. He went on to play some minor league hockey, including for the Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies — who played in Boardwalk Hall, the same facility that the ECAC tournament will be held at. So his thoughts are illuminating.

“When I first read about the move, I knew Boardwalk Hall was going to be a great venue for the tournment,” Paolini said. “They will sell out the place and when it is full, it gets really really loud. The acoustics in there are phenomenal.”

There was some question about locker room facilities in AC.

“I’ve been in both the home and visitor dressing rooms for games and they are nice,” Paolini said. “Both are better than the visiting Albany rooms. Not sure what they will use for the other two though. Nice training room in the home room too.

“Ice was always good except for the few occasions when we had over 8k in the building which was rare. Interesting to see how it will hold up with games back-to-back two nights in a row. My thought is it will be pretty choppy with that much play and fans in the building.

“Glass was always loud when there were hits which excited fans. It is horseshoe shaped and not having stands behind one of the nets takes away something from the fans in my opinion. Benches are huge and have plenty of room.”

Bottom line:

“Having it in AC will be great for fans too as they will be able to visit the casinos, go to shows, and have more options than Albany,” Paolini said.

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The college hockey community has a history of rallying around people and programs that are in turmoil, especially turmoil not of their own doing. In this decade alone, we have seen the community rise up in support of programs at Clarkson, Colorado College, Rensselaer, and St. Lawrence when Division III’s Proposition 65 threatened to put those traditional powers at a competitive disadvantage by rescinding their ability to offer athletic scholarships. We saw friends and foes come together to support Merrimack goaltender Joe Exter and North Dakota defenseman Robbie Bina when each suffered tragic injuries that, in both cases, could have been life threatening.

Today, the community is starting to rally around a new cause – the Alabama-Huntsville Chargers.

Long considered a quirk of the college hockey world, hockey in Alabama hasn’t been some flash in the pan experiment – the Chargers celebrate 30 years as a program this year. That 30-year history includes two NCAA championships in Division II, an undefeated 1995-96 campaign (26-0-3), the development of one of college sports’ most geographically odd rivalries with Bemidji State, and a quite unexpected CHA championship in 2007 which led into a near-upset of Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament that, regardless of the result, drew comparisons with Niagara-New Hampshire and Holy Cross-Minnesota in the pantheon of tournament upsets before this season’s slew of shocking results.

The slow and agonizing death of the CHA, which began in 2005 with Air Force’s announced departure, ends nearly five years later in March when the league plays the final championship of its 11-year existence. Wayne State has already fallen victim to the CHA’s demise, as the Warriors shuttered their program in 2008. Bemidji State, Niagara, and Robert Morris have all found chairs after the music stopped.

That leaves the Chargers, alone – and their battle to find a place to call home has gained traction in the tight-knit college hockey community.

“I really do feel like folks all around the country want to see us carry on,” said Geof F. Morris, a 2002 graduate of The University of Alabama in Huntsville who is one of the leaders of the “Save UAH Hockey” movement.  “It’s been fun.  Honestly, it’s been some of the best publicity the program has ever seen.  People who haven’t taken a look at us as anything other than a curiosity are now really looking into why we’d want to stick it out.”

The effort to save Charger Hockey has taken on a nationwide feel. “Folks not affiliated with Huntsville at all have joined our Blue Line Club,” Morris said. “People have been buying ‘Save UAH Hockey’ merchandise from all over.  It’s been gratifying and humbling.”

Bloggers from across the college hockey spectrum have weighed in on the UAH situation, from Alaska to Massachusetts and back again, and the support has overwhelmingly been for the Chargers, most hoping for eventual admission to the CCHA.

Most supporters are quick to display their disgust with the CCHA for declining the Chargers’ application. Thus, a recent commentary by CHN managing editor Adam Wodon entitled “CCHA Not to Blame” ruffled a few feathers.

“We weren’t a perfect fit for the CCHA,” Morris said. “If we were, they would have taken us.  We knew that we weren’t, which is why we offered a high five-figure travel guarantee in perpetuity to the league to help offset the costs of travel to Huntsville. Do I hold the member schools blameless?  Not really.  I do hold [CCHA commissioner] Tom Anastos blameless, which puts me in the minority with a number of folks here in town, but Tom didn’t have a vote.  My biggest disappointment is that they took the vote via acclimation and really didn’t give us any feedback as to why we didn’t fit the league.  Did we need to offer more money?  Were they just interested at staying at 11?”

But piling on the CCHA, Morris insists, isn’t the right attitude to take either, considering the school’s continued goal of CCHA membership. “[The community’s reaction] turned into the usual dumping-on-the-CCHA stuff that I really find disdainful… I’m still hopeful that we can work something out with the CCHA, even if it’s just a scheduling alliance.”

Save UAH Hockey is officially a movement. It’s got its own Twitter feed. It’s got its own Facebook page, replete with 3,800 fans. And, of course, its own website and blog, complete with a true rallying cry: “Thirty years of hockey means we won’t go without a fight.”

It’s a true grassroots movement, with plenty of assistance from the powers that be in Huntsville. “I talk to coach [Danton] Cole on the phone more than I do my own mother these days,” Morris said. “We are forever sending emails, making phone calls, bouncing ideas off of each other.  Danton is a dynamic personality and an inspiring leader… we’ve got an administration, from President Dave Williams on down, that’s committed to keeping hockey as the flagship sport at UAH.  Unlike most public universities in the state, we don’t have a football team, so this really does lead around here – not just because it’s the only D-I sport at the school.”

The Chargers may be secure for the near future, if only because they’ve received similar support from around the NCAA in the form of agreements for games as an independent. “Last time I sat down and had lunch with Coach,” Morris said, “we had enough games to be NCAA eligible for each of the next three seasons.  Ideally, we want to get to at least 30 games a season, and we need at least 10-12 of those to be home games to hold interest.  Lots of schools are entertaining us with home-and-home arrangements right now, and that’s really helping us to fill out our schedule.”

Thus, there’s still time left on the clock to save the Chargers, who will host the 2012 Frozen Four in Tampa. There’s still time to welcome the oddity fully into the fold.

“I think it would help NCAA growth in all sports if schools off the beaten path wanted to start what are currently regional sports,” Morris said. “I’m not holding my breath though.”

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No one — that’s the answer to the headline.

This is a little addendum to my recent column about the CCHA turning down Alabama-Huntsville’s bid to join the conference.

Apparently, I didn’t make my point clear enough about the intent.

Personally, it would/will stink if UAH’s program is jeopardized as the result of having no conference. And I would’ve had no problem with the CCHA taking UAH on board. In fact, I would have loved for the CCHA to believe it could make that work. I don’t want UAH to go away, and neither do people in the CCHA.

The point of my article was to defend the CCHA’s decision — or, their right, if you will, to make that decision. Point being, I can’t decide for the members of the CCHA what is right and wrong in that scenario — and if they determined that it’s not a good idea, for any number of completely valid reasons, then it’s their prerogative.

The further point being that — every conference and every school always acts in their own best interests. Perhaps hockey tries to be more altruistic than other sports, historically — but only to a point. At the end of the day, no one is going to harm themselves — and the CCHA believed it would be harmful to the members that were already there.

I can assure you they didn’t come to that conclusion lightly.

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Parker (l.) and York celebrate the last two NCAA championships.

Anyone who has followed college hockey for years know how entwined Boston University coach Jack Parker is to Boston College coach Jerry York. It’s not just because they are the respective coaches now of two arch rivals. It goes way back and way deeper.

There was no better person to sum this up than our friend and Boston Herald writer John Connolly, in a recent piece for the Herald. It’s a must read. You should check it out.

The article was written because today, the pair are being enshrined, together, in the New England Sports Museum Hall of Fame. It’s only fitting, as the bond continues.

Both Boston-area natives, the same age, but from two different towns, went to two different rival colleges — yet here they, having been responsible for winning the last two NCAA championships. Each one of those was the third for each coach. They flip flop as to who has the most wins — they are 1-2 among active coaches, each with over 800 — and they show no signs of slowing down as they chase Ron Mason’s record of 924.

This chart shows the current leaders (it doesn’t yet include this past season).

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I seem to be in the minority among hockey “purists” about the Phoenix NHL situation, and about Sun Belt hockey in general. They seem to ally with the cause of Canadians who lament the NHL’s Southward drift, at the expense of old-school NHL places like Winnipeg and Quebec, and perhaps new ones like Hamilton.

But, perhaps because I have seen the boon to college hockey in recent years, I don’t look at it that way. All you have to do is take a quantitative look at college hockey rosters over the last 10 years to see the impact of the game being grown in non-traditional places. First it was places like Long Island and Pittsburgh that started getting more and more college players on the rosters. But then it becames places like Washington, then Texas just exploded, followed by the Carolinas and California, and yes, even Phoenix.

The Phoenix franchise itself might stink on the ice, but they could’ve stunk anywhere. (And let’s not forget — Winnipeg and Quebec were not NHL cities until 1980.)

The fact that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman gets so roundly booed everywhere he goes in a clueless reaction, I think, on the part of most fans. I don’t even think they know what they’re booing. It’s like the Canadians who boo the American anthem.

Recently Bettman met with the NHL Players’ Association, and I found it refreshing that player rep Michael Peca (a Canadian) chose a contrarian viewpoint to many of his fellow players.

“I actually share a lot of the feelings that the commissioner conveyed about the Phoenix situation,” Peca told ESPN.com. “When you’ve got a kid that plays hockey and you know hockey’s their life, you don’t want to ever see that taken away. You’ve got to build roots in communities.

“It’s easy to transplant a team into Toronto or Southern Ontario and it would succeed, but there’s a growing base of kids that are playing hockey and in minor hockey systems that are thriving now in these communities that you don’t want to rip away. It’s a touchy thing and hopefully those organizations work out.”

Here here to that.

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Brian Leetch accepts the Conn Smythe Trophy as Stanley Cup playoff MVP in 1994.

Their stays may have been brief, but college hockey has its mark all over this year’s NHL Hall of Fame class. Brett Hull and Brian Leetch each had short, yet remarkable, college hockey careers before heading to the make their impact elsewhere. And as members of the iconic 1996 U.S. World Cup team, they will forever be remembered fondly by those who follow the college game so closely.

Hull, playing for Minnesota-Duluth, was the last college player to score 50 goals — an incredible number, even given the higher-scoring era. The pros weren’t sure he could handle the NHL at first — him not being the most adept skater, and so on, but soon his sniping skills were unstoppable in the NHL as well, as well as his mouth.

Leetch was dominant at Boston College for one season, before heading off with the 1988 U.S. Olympic team. In short order, he was leading the Rangers, winning the Rookie of the Year honors then a couple of Norris Trophies as the NHL’s top defenseman. And in 1994, became the first American to win the Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, leading the Rangers to their first Stanley Cup in 54 years.

Also inducted was Lou Lamoriello, and his legacy in college hockey goes deeper than either of the two players. Lamoriello, the former coach and then-AD at Providence, led the charge in creating Hockey East, when five teams split off from the ECAC to form the new league in 1984. The team that wins the Hockey East championship is now awarded a cup in Lamoriello’s name. He continued that legacy by being one of the first GMs to sign a lot of ex-college hockey players. His willingness to do that, when most of his peers were not, was part of the reason for the Devils’ edge, which led them to three Stanley Cup championships. He paved the way for teams to not be afraid of guys like Brian Gionta, and it has worked out for everyone. Lamoriello has a reputation for surliness and penny-pinching behind the scenes, but any time I’ve been able to talk to him about college hockey — whether at a World Cup or the draft — he’s been cordial and forthcoming with information.

Add Steve Yzerman and Luc Robitaille into the mix — two class players, with outstanding skills — and this is a Hall of Fame induction class for the ages. Congratulations to all on a well-deserved honor.

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