The CHN Staff has been plenty busy putting together season previews for each conference. Checking out the CHA Preview this evening, I’m reminded that not only does the CHA have by far the coolest logo since the old-school “ECAC Olympic Torch,” but also that even though the conference only has five teams, they’re all not pushovers. In particular Niagara, Bemidji State and Alabama-Huntsville all just feel established enough to be dangerous. Wayne State has been around for awhile and has an tournament berth to its credit, and Robert Morris is just the new kid on the block.

The Hockey East preview doesn’t surprise me much. Over the past few years it’s become choosing between New Hampshire, Maine, BC, and BU. Once in awhile a team looks like it’s going to break into the establishment. Last year Vermont and Providence. In previous years UMass-Amherst and UMass-Lowell. Is this the year it happens?

In the WCHA Preview, I was surprised that Minnesota was picked first despite essentially creating an AHL team this summer. I would’ve swapped them with the Badgers but I’m an east coast guy, so what do I know!

Taking a quick swing around the blogsphere:
Western College Hockey picked Michigan State to win the CCHA and Minnesota to win the WCHA. The man is so far ahead on his previews, you’ll have to check his archives.

Clarkson Hockey Fans picked Clarkson to take the ECAC. It felt like a homer pick.. but it’s legit. Really.

Hockey East Blog has Boston College pegged at #1. Surprise! After this evening’s 5-2 victory over Northeastern to open conference play.. they’re in first place!

The RIT Corner Crew tabbed Mercyhurst to take the Atlantic.

Also, it’s good to see dgoddard’s “All Bad-Boyz Team” is back this season, with the induction of three Yale players to the team. His summary is here. (By the way, they picked DU to go all the way this year in the WCHA using the ultra-scientific “Super Poll.”)

Comment on this Post ...

I just returned from Potsdam and Clarkson’s 2000th game which was a 4-2 victory over RIT of Atlantic Hockey. It was great to see some live hockey again.

Some thoughts on the weekend:

RIT had a very competitive weekend against the North Country, and although they didn’t come away with a victory this weekend I was impressed with the way the team made the most of their opportunities. RIT wasn’t ranked very high in the pre-season polls in Atlantic Hockey, but based on what I saw, they should be a tough team to draw in that conference.

What happened to Colgate this weekend? They came into this weekend’s Icebreaker as the top pick in the ECAC, and were fairly well ranked nationally. Then they got flattened by Vermont, and loss the consolation to Denver 3-2 to cap a tough weekend.

And speaking of Vermont they are off to the same start as last season, taking down top opponents and winning a tournament. Is Joe Fallon for real, and if he keeps this up will we see him his Senior year?

Maine scored a big upset in the Hall of Fame game to open up the season… or was it with the number of players Minnesota lost over the off-season?

In Denver, neither goalie was spectacular, but Glenn Fisher played well enough to get the win in the Icebreaker consolation.

A couple of upsets in exhibition play this weekend, the biggest was St. Francis Xavier taking down a nationally ranked New Hampshire squad.

And so much for North Dakota and Quinnipiac being as interesting as I thought it would be.. North Dakota handily defeated the Q on Friday, then swept the series 4-2 in the second game with the Towes-Oshie connection. Regardless, having the opportunity to play a top-tier team like NoDak should be an experience that will benefit the Bobcats throughout the remainder of the season.

Comment on this Post ...

Big news! This year’s Commissioner’s Cup schedule is out, and there’s huge implications in this weekend’s action to open up the season. For those who aren’t familiar, the Commissioner’s Cup is a friendly competition between the six conferences to see which is the most dominate in the land. 33 games this season have been designated as part of the series, and the conference with the most points get to put the cup in their swimming pool for the year. Entering its third year, the ECAC has won the previous two series.

On the docket for this weekend, Denver will face Miami, Robert Morris gets Canisus, and Alabama-Huntsville takes on Air Force. Will the Colonials and the Golden Griffins be able handle the additional pressure?

Full Commissioner’s Cup Schedule

Comment on this Post ...

Tomorrow marks the official opening of the 2006-2007 NCAA hockey season. I’ll be heading up to my alma mater, Clarkson University, this weekend. I’ll get a chance to watch the Golden Knights take on Niagara on Friday, and then face RIT in Clarkson’s 2000th game all-time, so I’m extremely fortunate to be able to immediately immerse myself in some sweet, sweet college hockey. Plus it’ll be very cool to be the audience for a unique milestone that few programs have reached.

There’s some great hockey going on around the country on opening weekend. The IceBreaker Invitational looks like it it will have it all with Miami, Vermont, Colgate and Denver going at it. In addition Miami will dedicate Steve Cady Arena, which has been receiving great reviews.

In addition, the Hockey Hall of Fame game which will pit Minnesota and Maine against each other. For some reason the Quinnipiac v. North Dakota series is coming across to me as pretty intriguing. Plus we’ll see if RIT can lift a game from St. Lawrence again.

The staff has been busy making sure the television schedule is updated, with five games, including the IceBreaker and Hockey Hall of Fame game, all showing up on nationally available outlets. If you can’t get out to the arena, get comfortable, take over the television or set the Tivo.

Comment on this Post ...

For those that watched their teams hit the ice for the first time last weekend, some of you might have forgotten that while it’s an exhibition for our college squads, it’s the big game for other teams.

In the opening game of the season, the U-18 team pounced all over Alaska in the first period, building a 5-0 lead and holding on for a 5-3 victory, probably to the delight of most in Anchorage with the exception of those who traveled down the Richardson.

In Denver’s opening game, the Calgary Dinos held a 2-0 lead through the first half of the game until the Pioneers stormed back and scored six consecutive goals in a 6-3 win. The following night, Calgary took it to Colorado College and skated away with a 4-2 win. Ferris State needed overtime to escape Western Ontario 6-5.

Bottom line, these teams will come in hungry and play hard. Essentially many of these teams are playing at the same level as many teams in Atlantic Hockey and the CHA. Sure it’s exhibition season, and some of these teams have been playing together for much longer than our squads, but over the years it’s obvious that Canadian and developmental teams are only becoming tougher challenges.

On the Women’s side, the signs of parity continue to show as teams like RPI, Robert Morris and Niagara put together spirited games against traditionally tougher competition. The big shocker was Minnesota losing an exhibition to the Minnesota Whitecaps 4-2, but again it was an exhibition. The fans can save the worrying for the regular season.

Comment on this Post ...

The puck drops on the 2006-2007 hockey season, albeit unofficially, this evening as the Alaska-We Were Here First Nanooks will face the U-18 Development Team in Anchorage, as eight teams will face exhibition opponents this weekend. In addition, a solid array of Women’s Hockey takes place tonight, if you’re in the area of any of these games, this is a great weekend to check out the sport and whet your appetite for the rest of hockey season.

CHN released their All-American team this year, with commentary from Dave Starman. I have no beef with the selections in general, but I’m hoping Brett will be able to spice it up soon with his All-Cliche team which will hopefully be inspired by about six consecutive viewings of Slap Shot.

The staff also got the New Season Primer up which highlights what has happened over the summer, and what we can expect for the upcoming season both on the ice and on CHN.

It looks like North Dakota might go off and sue the NCAA over the Fighting Sioux name and imagery. Despite that fact that several other college teams have been granted waivers to retain the use of their team names, UND has not received the same waiver. A letter shot off in June to the NCAA appeared to have beat down the NCAA’s argument rom every possible angle, but still no love for UND. I tried really hard not to use any puns this paragraph.

Enjoy the hockey!

Comment on this Post ...

Right on the heels of my previous blog posting, the CCHA announced today that they’ll be experimenting with a few of the rule changes that the rules committee has encouraged conferences to try out, plus implementing instant replay in all arenas in the league.

The experimental rules will be used in exhibition games to open the season and include changes that mirror the changes recently made in the NHL, most notably regarding icing. In these exhibitions, icing will prevent the team that iced the puck from changing lines. In addition, icing will be called on the penalty kill on the short-handed team. We should definitely see a bump in scoring and a change in style during these games.

More exciting to me is the two official, two linesman set-up that they will use in these exhibitions. If executed properly we’ll hopefully see games called in a more consistent and accurate fashion.

A big thumbs up to the CCHA for stepping up and giving everyone else in college hockey an opportunity to take a look at the impact of these new changes.

Comment on this Post ...

With hockey season just a few days away, it’s apparent that officiating is not just on the minds of bitter fans who felt they were robbed last season, but also on the minds of coaches who must constantly adjust to not only the new rule changes, but also the way that the referees will interpret them.

I spoke with St. Lawrence head coach Joe Marsh last week who is entering his 21st season being the Saints bench about the upcoming season. One of the factors he named regarding how well his team will do this year is how well the coaching staff and his players can adjust to the way the game is called. Anyone that is familiar enough with college hockey, knows if it’s on someone like Coach Marsh’s mind, it’s probably on every coach’s mind.

While the only major rule change this year involves the nullification of icing on a playable pass, Coaches and players are still struggling with the referee’s interpretations of hitting from behind and obstruction-interference rules added over the past season. One game’s obstruction interference is the next game’s great defensive play.

This year, the hitting from behind penalty has been clarified, only allowing a minor to be given if the infraction is in “open ice.” It remains a major penalty along with a DQ or misconduct otherwise. The rules involving obstruction remain the same, meant to get rid of the “clutch and grab” of old, while moving hockey towards a fast and flowing style of game, reminscent of the “New NHL.”

We’ll likely be shaking our heads when our favorite player is sent off when a player turns his back at the last second, or a slight push on the back is embellished, but hopefully this will be less so if the officials call these penalties on a consistent basis.

In many cases last year a prat-fall near the boards or a forward raising his hand around a defenseman with one hand on his stick meant a trip to the box. Calling these penalties has effectively discouraged dangerous actions such as boarding, but has also increased the level of dramatic performances on the ice to an extent that De Niro would be proud.

The Rules Committee took note on this increase in embellishment and is requesting officials to penalize more often for tactics such as diving, and we’re starting to see more being called. But until referees can really get to the bottom of diving and nail people (how many diving penalties have you seen in the past two years?) this will remain a game of cat and mouse with the refs. The problem is, referees must err on the side of caution, and that always means erring on the side of the player that appeared to get hit. Until the refs can get a hold of the diving issue or are provided with stronger tools such as suspensions to deter it after the fact (see the “New NHL”) we’ll be seeing a lot of frustration and a lot of adjusting throughout the season.

How do you think the officials will pan out this season in your conference and how well do you think your team will be able to adjust to way officials call the game?

Comment on this Post ...

You know it’s been a slow week when the biggest press release to hit the wire was the announcement of the schedule of this year’s weekly USA Today Hockey Rankings.

But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Captains have been leading practices for a little over a week now and coaches are starting to get into the mix. And it’s only nine days until the University of Alaska-Fairbanks takes the ice against the U-18 Development Team to unofficially open up hockey season.

The blogosphere has been abuzz recently getting ready for the season. Western College Hockey continues to dig through their CCHA previews, as well as some interesting CCHA and WCHA situational comparisons. Hockey East Blog did the same thing early in the month, and our own Brett Gobe is breaking down the ECAC over at the Clarkson Hockey Fans Blog. We even have Atlantic Hockey previews going on with the newly established RIT Corner Crew blog.

For those of you into the Women’s game, the USCHO pre-season poll is out with defendin champion Wisconsin leading the way, taking 13 of 14 first place votes along with the other usual suspects. Last year’s strong Mercyhurst squad comes in at 5th, and surprisingly a Hockey East squad, Boston College comes in at #10. We’ll come back to this in a month to see what kind of impact the Olympians return on the rankings and game in general.

Lets Go DU found some choice YouTube videos over at Boston University which deserves some mentioning. These will likely go to supplement various arguments around hockey forums across the country.

Apparently everyone else is talking about some guy that shares the same name as a musician, but I challenged myself not to address it any further in this posting.

Comment on this Post ...

Things are about to get interesting in the stands at Boston University this season, as the school’s Dean of Students, Kenneth Elmore, has announced a new policy to kick out of the rink those who use swear words, racist or sexist comments.

It’s only the latest volley fired in a battle that has raged for years at BU and revolves primarily around fans’ use of the third of George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can’t Say On Television” to attack rival Boston College, whether the Terriers are playing BC that night or not. Apparently the obscenities launched at BC during the Eagles’ 5-0 trouncing of BU in the NCAA Northeast Regional last March got the attention of everyone including the NCAA itself, and as a result the administration at BU is taking its crackdown to a new level. Several requests over the years even from revered head coach Jack Parker to the fan base have gone largely ignored, so the administration hopes the threat of being booted from the rink will do the trick.

At first glance, this is an issue that just doesn’t seem that important, yet it garnered a segment of its own on a popular afternoon drive time AM radio talk show in the Hub yesterday. Is this a battle the BU administration can even win? Once you start down this road, where do you stop? With students who regularly attend sporting events ranking among the most loyal supporters later on as alumni, is BU shooting itself in the foot with some of its potential future donors? But what about today’s alumni, who already give a lot of money and have a right to expect that when they attend a game at their alma mater — often with their spouse and young children — that they won’t have to deal with things like this? And what about fans like the BU student quoted in the Globe piece, who said “sports won’t be fun anymore” if the crackdown on profanity succeeds — does it have to involve profanity to be fun?

Overall, this has been going on for so many years that it’s probably less of a surprise that BU made this move than that it took them this long. Still, you have to wonder what’s going to happen the first time they make the decision to kick someone out — particularly with BU’s Agganis Arena being one of the few college hockey rinks left where alcohol is served to patrons. Somehow I don’t think this is the last chapter to be written in this story.

Comment on this Post ...