Author Archives: Geof F. Morris

UAH 2, NMU 1

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… and the other two were against the #6 team in the country.  Suffice it to say that the boys are on a bit of a roll at home.  Where you could write off the win over Lake Superior and the sweep of Alaska-Anchorage as doing the job of beating the teams below you in the WCHA standings, beating Northern Michigan — and better, their top-flight goalie — is a whole other kettle of fish.  The Wildcats are the first ranked team — in the sense that the team has been ranked at any point in the season — that the Chargers have defeated in 2014-15, and after playing Omaha to 1-2 and 3-3 scores, you could tell that they were on the edge.

Don’t it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home,
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down South
They go no work to do,
If you don’t know about Chicago.

You know why there’s no work down South?  Because the Chargers already did it all.

The homestanding Alabama-Huntsville Chargers moved 6-16-3 (5-12-0 WCHA, good enough for 8th place) on the 2014-15 season off the strength of an early 2-0 lead over Northern Michigan (9-7-5, 6-7-4 WCHA) that the boys held on to despite a 14-2 Wildcat shots-on advantage in the third period.  Sophomore goaltender Carmine Guerriero (Montréal, Qué.) moved to 6-9-2 on the season, while Wildcat junior goaltender Mathias Dahlström (Smedjebacken, Sweden) fell to 9-5-3.

There was little significant action in the first period as the teams felt each other out; the score sheet is marked only by three minor penalties (two elbowing minors to UAH, a goalie interference infraction on NMU) and twelve shots on goal, seven for the visitors and five for the home squad.

Things were far, far different in the second.  The Chargers again picked up a pair of minors — another elbowing whistle and one for roughing the goalie — but the key things were two UAH goals.

UAH forward Jack Prince (Leicester, England)

UAH forward Jack Prince (Leicester, England)

Junior forward Jack Prince (Leicester, England) got scoring started for the Chargers, taking a feed from freshman forward Max McHugh (Seattle, Wash.) on a brief rush, winding up from the left-wing faceoff dot to push the puck under Dahlström’s arm (13 sv).  The goal was Prince’s fourth of the season, and McHugh’s assist was his ninth, tying him with freshman defenseman Brandon Parker (Faribault, Minn.) for the team lead while extending his scoring lead.

“That’s the kind of play that we work on in practice,” UAH coach Mike Corbett says.  “Everyone does it: feed a guy on the wing, rip a shot, pounce on the rebound.  This time, the puck went in on the initial shot.”

UAH defenseman Frank Misuraca (Clinton Township, Mich.)

UAH defenseman Frank Misuraca (Clinton Township, Mich.)

Corbett is famous for saying that “there ain’t a lot of one-shot goals“, but both Charger goals on Friday night were twine-seeking missiles.  The game-winner came off the stick of junior defenseman Frank Misuraca (Clinton Township, Mich.), his fifth of the season.  “There was a scrum on the right half-wall,” Misuraca said, “and the puck came to Kestner.  I was calling for it, and he threw a back-hand pass off the boards up to me, and I just put my head down, gathered the puck, and shot it as hard as I could.”  While freshman forward Josh Kestner (Huntsville) was not credited with an assist, it seems likely that he will be in a scorer’s revision.

From that point, it was about holding on to a hard-fought lead.  A goal by sophomore forward Shane Sooth (Canyon Country, Calif.) broke up Guerriero’s shutout bid (32 sv).  The Chargers’ last shutout remains a 1-0 win by Cam Talbot (Caledonia, Ont.) in the 2010 CHA tournament semifinal. You have to go back to October 25, 2003 for the last home UAH shutout, a 6-0 win over Connecticut shared by Adam McLean (Woodstock, Ont.) and Scott Munroe (Moose Jaw, Sask.).

Senior forward and team captain Doug Reid (Innisfil, Ont.) had high praise for Guerriero’s effort.  “He’s been rock solid,” Reid said.  “We knew that it was going to be a goalie battle, too, and he stood out.  When asked about the last goal, both the captain and the coach spoke of a lull in the Charger defense.  “I think that guys were just standing around and watching the puck,” Reid said, “and they took advantage of it and got a luck bounce.”

35-Guerriero

UAH goaltender Carmine Guerriero (Montréal, Qué.)

 

Guerriero was sharp in net, but it wasn’t just Huntsville’s favorite French-Canadian keeping pucks out of the net.  “We had a lot of guys sacrificing their body,” Misuraca said.  “I know that we had a couple of guys get hit up high in the chest by pucks on the penalty kill.”  Assistant coach Gavin Morgan added, “You know what?  [Guerriero] looked great, but the guys are playing well in front of him.”

It’s clear that things are different in Huntsville.  The Chargers are on a three-game home winning streak, an occurrence whose last appearance goes back to the 2009-10 season, culminating in the final home win by the Chargers prior to the Lake State win.  “We’re trying to change the culture,” Corbett said.  “We’re still making it hard for ourselves, but at least they’re aggressive penalties.”

A win streak longer than three goes all the way back to 2005-06, when the Chargers ripped off a staggering ten-game home winning streak, sweeping Air Force 1/6-7, Robert Morris 1/13-14, Bemidji State 2/3-4, RIT on 2/10-11, and Wayne State on 2/24-25.  We’ve talked about that last game in the past, as it’s the high-water mark of Charger hockey at 132 games over .500.  The Chargers went 11-1 at home that season.

Home series are where the Chargers will make their hay.  With both Alaska-Anchorage and Lake Superior winning last night, the Chargers’ hold on eighth place — seventh if you pull the Nanooks out of the standings — remains tenuous.  UAH does pull back to within three points of Bemidji in 7th/6th with the win, but they will need help.

The Chargers’ home WCHA slate to finish has Saturday night’s tilt against Northern and then series against Ferris State (whom the Chargers defeated in Big Rapids) and Alaska (whom the Chargers took the Nanooks to OT).  Getting six points out of those five games would get the Chargers to 16.  The road isn’t as kind, with contests against Tech and BG, who handled the Chargers pretty handily in Huntsville earlier this season; the other road series is a trip to the Soo, and both teams will have that marked as a roadblock on the way to the Final 4ive.

7:07 p.m. Central in Huntsville Saturday night: will the streak continue?

Bemidji State 4, UAH 0, Again

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Two goals by Bemidji State sophomore defenseman Ruslan Pedan (Moscow), a second collegiate goal for freshman forward Kyle Bauman (Apopka, Fla.), and a second collegiate shutout for freshman goaltender Michael Bitzer (Moorhead, Minn.) were more than two too much for the UAH Chargers (5-16-3 overall, 4-12-0 WCHA), who fell by a second straight 4-0 to the homestanding Beavers (7-10-3, 5-6-3 WCHA).

If only it had gone that way, y’all.  If only.

Bauman got scoring started late in the first, putting a puck past Charger sophomore goaltender Matt Larose (Nanaimo, B.C.) at 18:19.  Bauman’s goal was assisted by sophomore forward Charlie O’Connor (Elk Grove Village, Ill.) and junior defenseman Graeme McCormack (Thunder Bay, Ont.).

A last-minute checking-from-behind minor put UAH up on the power play, but neither rough ice in the first nor smooth to start the second elicited much of anything going toward Bitzer, who stopped all 24 shots that he faced.

Junior forward John Parker (Green Brook, N.J.) joined the deuces-wild parade for Bemidji in the second, absorbing a hit deep in his end, staying on the ice, finding the puck in front of the Charger bench, flashing some speed, and getting the puck to the top of the left-wing circle for a snap shot that beat Larose (29 sv) cleanly at 4:10.

Pedan would score the first of his pair at 13:31 of the second, taking a feed from freshman forward Gerry Fitzgerald (Port Alberni, B.C.) at the wall.  Pedan skated into open ice, set himself, and fired one past Larose, who fell to 0-7-1 on the season with the loss.  Parker also assisted on the goal.

Pedan would strike again with 5:11 left in regulation, ripping a shot on the point through traffic after feeds from junior forward Markus Gerbrandt (Edmonton, Alb.) and sophomore forward Nate Arentz (Lakeville, Minn.).

Bitzer’s shutout moves him to 5-5-1 on the year and opens the margin between the Beavers (13 pts) and UAH (8 pts) to five, a comfortable margin that should leave the Beavers looking at the #6 seed at worst and a shot at home ice.

If you’ve noticed that we haven’t talked about UAH very much on the night, it’s that there really isn’t much to talk about.  You can look at the box and see that it was just a generally poor effort at the time of the year where those aren’t a luxury.

UAH had a long shot at making a run at home ice for the WCHA playoffs, but it started this weekend, where they needed a split at worst.  Getting to 10 points would’ve given them some distance on Alaska-Anchorage and Lake Superior, and since the Seawolves have two games in hand, that distance would be critical.  Instead, the Chargers are just two points clear of the pair and five behind their rivals.

Home ice took 30 points last year, and given that the points are spread more evenly, something like 26 should have done it this year, given that there’s a gulf between the Big Three (Mankato, BG, and Tech) and everyone else.  Four points this weekend gets the Chargers to 12 points with twelve games to play, and a team with the confidence from sweeping Bemidji could say, “We’re riding Carmine.”

Instead, UAH has to keep its eyes glued to the rear view mirror to be sure that the teams behind them won’t pass them.  More this coming week on the Chargers’ chances to make the playoffs and, better yet, avoiding the bottom two seeds.

Bemidji State 4, UAH 0

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The homestanding Bemidji State Beavers (6-10-3 overall, 4-6-3 WCHA) had the jump from the get-go, and the visiting UAH Chargers (5-15-3, 4-11-0) never countered the punches, losing 4-0 for their fourth shutout of the season, the second to Bemidji in the last two seasons, and their 38th time since the Chargers’ last shutout.

This one hurt, especially after the raging success of last weekend.  The win pushes the Beavers to 3-0-3 in their last six contests, their best such streak since the beginning of their 2009-10 season.  (Hey, does anyone remember what two College Hockey America teams made the NCAAs that year?)  Lastly, it pulled the Beavers three points clear of the Chargers in the WCHA table, ensuring that the hated intruders from the South wouldn’t leapfrog them in the standings.

Senior co-captain Matt Prapavessis (Oakville, Ont.) got the scoring started for Bemidji, taking a puck high near the top of the right-wing circle, ripping one past UAH sophomore goaltender Carmine Guerriero (Montréal, Qué) for a power-play goal at 6:39 of the 1st, :25 into senior defenseman Graeme Strukoff‘s (Chilliwack, B.C.) holding penalty.  The goal was Prapavessis’s fifth marker of the season, and was assisted by junior forward Cory Ward (Las Vegas, Nev.) and freshman forward Kyle Bauman (Apopka, Fla.).

Sophomore forward Charlie O’Connor (Elk Grove Village, Ill.) pushed Bemidji’s advantage to 2-0 at 10:07 of the 1st, collecting a pass from senior defenseman Sam Windle (Maple Grove, Minn.) to fire one past a screened Guerriero (29 sv, 5-9-2).  O’Connor’s seventh goal ties him for the team lead and also came courtesy of Ward’s secondary assist.

UAH was out-shot in all three periods: 15-8, 10-6, and 8-4 for a game total of 33-18.  Freshman goaltender Michael Bitzer (Moorhead, Minn.) made all 18 saves for his first collegiate shutout, moving his record to 4-5-1 on the season.

Bauman scored unassisted at 7:21 of the second for the Beavers’ third goal of the game and his first collegiate marker.  Senior forward John Parker (Green Brook, N.J.) got the Beavers’ final marker of the night at 16:21 of the final frame, circling around UAH freshman defenseman Richard Buri (Nitra, Slovakia), into the slot, dekeing Guerriero into committing, skating past him, and pushing the puck backhanded into the open net in a highlight-reel goal.

Blargle.

See you tomorrow night.

UAH 3, UAA 2

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UAH (4-14-3, 3-10-0 WCHA) took an early lead on the strength of two first-period goals by freshman forward Max McHugh (Seattle, Wash.), followed by a marker from sophomore forward Cody Marooney (Eden Prairie, Minn.) just 2:03 into the second frame.  From there, the Chargers held on for a 3-2 victory over Alaska-Anchorage (5-8-4, 2-7-2 WCHA), points which moved them out of the basement in the WCHA standings.  (It’s a league game, Smokey.)

McHugh got things started early, taking a drop feed from junior forward Chad Brears (Cold Lake, Alb.) and rifling the puck home past Anchorage freshman goaltender Olivier Mantha (La Tuque, Qué.) just 3:59 into the game.  Freshman defenseman Cody Champagne (Brookfield, Conn.) picked up the secondary assist.

McHugh dented the twine with just :32 left in the first period, when a centering feed from junior forward Jack Prince (Leicester, England) found the freshman with time and space at the top of the circles.  He ripped one through and past Mantha (17 sv) for his seventh goal of the season.  The secondary assist went to Brears.

Let’s stop here for a point that Michael made to me in a text: with 7-7—14, McHugh has already eclipsed the season scoring leaders for 2011-12 (Kyle Lysaght with 13), 2012-13 (then-sophomore forward Jeff Vanderlugt [Richmond Hill, Ont.] with 11), and 2013-14 (Prince with 13).  McHugh looks to be the first Charger to record double-digit goals since Matt Sweazey (Toronto) in 2008-09.  Max McCutie, we’re on the way back because guys like you are giving us a shot.

Marooney muscled the puck past Mantha (4-6-3) after junior defenseman Frank Misuraca (Clinton Township, Mich.) fired up a Misurocket™ and into the Seawolf crease.  Marooney’s goal was his second of the year.  Vanderlugt got the secondary assist.

From there, it was just hanging in there.  The Seawolves cut the lead to two on a power-play goal by senior forward Scott Allen (Edmonton, Alb.), who was assisted by freshman forward Tad Kozun (Nipawin, Sask.) and junior defenseman Blake Leask (Edmonton, Alb.).  The marker ended a shutout by UAH sophomore goaltender Carmine Guerriero (Montréal, Qué.), who had 31 saves overall.

Kozun narrowed the margin to one when sophomore forward Brad Duwe (Solodotna, Alaska) fed him the puck after dekeing a Charger out of position.  Kozun’s shot rang the post on the way past Guerriero, who moved to 4-8-2 on the season.

The Chargers would hold on thereafter, as they were outshot 10-5 by the Seawolves in the final frame.  Worse still for the home squad, freshman defenseman Brandon Parker (Faribault, Minn.) was called for tripping at 16:32, and Prince was whistled for slashing at 19:33.  Mantha was out of the net for the final 2:10 of the game, but Guerriero closed all of the doors that his teammates didn’t.

This wasn’t a statement win for UAH — that would’ve been taking a 3-0 or 4-0 lead into the second intermission.  But this was UAH proving to itself that it could open up a big lead, play with fire, and pull it back in.  While last year’s UAH team, bereft of offense, would’ve never opened up a three-goal lead on an opponent, that team also would’ve likely not been able to hold it.  This team did, though — the lessons of Colorado Springs were learned.

The Chargers and Seawolves are back at it at 7:07 p.m. Central Standard Time in Huntsville.  Michael Napier will have coverage, and woe betide if you’re stuck watching the UAH broadcast on WCHA TV.  (More on that next week.)

2014 in Review, Plus-Minus

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Okay, I hear you: “Coming up with a best-of-2014 list is easy when they won just four games in the calendar year.”  And, well, it is, especially when you’re the guy that wrote all four of those recaps (sorry, Michael).  But let’s do it anyway and then talk about a couple of other things.

5.  UAH 4, Air Force 2.  UAH’s first win in 2014-15 came a full month earlier than it did in 2013-14, and it was the first two-goal win over a Division I foe since December 2011 (#ClarkeSaundersForever).  The Air Force game has the classic blueprint for 14-15 Charger success: strong goaltending, a solid PK, and good puck possession.  UAH can win with just the first two, but having all three really helps.  That Air Force game always felt like a UAH win.

4.  Carmine Guerriero v. the world against Mankato.  Some of those saves were Bill Brasky quality.  I mean, this is my favorite tweet about that game:

https://twitter.com/BravesSwearJar/status/434906353786580992

3.  UAH 2, Bemidji 1.  The rivalry comes back when you start winning, especially when you win in their barn.  The minus here is that we settled on “#UnionJack” for tweets about Jack Prince when, well, “#ElloGuvnah” was the better choice.

2.  UAH 3, Ferris 2.  UAH led for the entire game, controlled it for long stretches, and took down a 2014 Hobey Baker finalist on his home ice.  That game may have been UAH’s most complete effort of the year, especially considering the quality of the opponent (even though Ferris is a step worse than ’13-14).

1.  UAH 5, LSSU 2.  I mean, it was a) the first UAH home win in nearly four years b) UAH hadn’t won by that kind of margin in quite some time c) IT WAS AT HOME.  That game was a domination with a perfect special teams night in the midst of the crazy run that the team had.  Plus …

I mean, we’re not Beliebers.

Here’s the favorite things that I liked for this year:

5.  The class of 2018 is solid, with players that could be on most any WCHA team.  This hasn’t been the case of late, and you can’t blame the kids.

4.  Everyone still works their butts off, even as the talent level rises.  Just ask Mel Pearson, who’s still pissed that the Bulldog Line of Doug Reid, Craig Pierce, and Brent Fletcher shut his top line down all weekend.  Keep complaining, Mel: the boys’ success is directly proportional to their effort, and locking lines down is a part of that.

3.  The coaching staff has been really great this year.  This is the first season that the Chargers have kept a consistent three-man group since 2008-10 (Danton Cole with Chris Luongo and John McCabe as assistants).  Mike Corbett looks to have taken all of last season’s lessons to heart and is even better than he was last year as a coach.  Gavin Morgan has yet one more year under his belt and damn well better be a head coach someday (but not anytime soon, Morgee).  Matty Thomas busts his butt on the recruiting trail (though the other two go out as well).  It seems like I’m always getting texts from Matty in a different town each weekend.

2.  Brandon Carlson is one hell of a hockey player.  The Chargers’ strength runs from the goal line out, but big #6 seems to be the cog to me.  We all know that he’s a ham, too.  USHL guys like Carlson, Max McHugh, and Jordan Uhelski choosing to come to Huntsville make the program better.  The US league is clearly the best Tier I junior league in the US, and in my book it’s right up there with the BCHL.

1.

We're calling him CG35, and we're hope that he's okay with that. (Credit: Todd Pavlack)

The man, the myth, the legend. (Credit: Todd Pavlack)

It’s Carmine Guerriero’s world, and we’re just living in it.

Things that I don’t like (and they’re not all UAH-related):

5.  I don’t like the fact that people still dog on the WCHA.  The league looks set to put three teams in the NCAA tournament after Tech, Mankato, and BG fight it out for the McNaughton Cup — four if the boys pull a 2010 rocketship ride behind a blazing hot goaltender.  (You laugh, but wouldn’t that be a hell of a story?)  That’s pretty good for a league full of teams that nobody wanted to confer with.

4.  WCHA.tv has been a bit of a mess this year, but it’s getting better, and half-season passes at $69.99 are very much worth it.  The WCHA’s Matt Hodson has assured me that “[w]e’ve been able to successfully implement multi-bit rate functionality, which minimizes buffering and enables HD-quality feeds (even with a less-than-optimal in-venue bandwidth), for 8 of our 10 venues. We are working hard with both of those institutions, and on the America One/Akamai back-end, to find a solution for the other two.”  There’s a longer bit from my conversations with Matt on the USCHO forum (done a few weeks ago).

3.  Giving is up, but attendance is flat.  I get that people like to see the home team win, and that it will take some wins to get more fans.  UAH has some very winnable games coming up, including this weekend’s contests against Anchorage.  It’s not unrealistic to think that UAH could split their remaining league slate at home — maybe it’s laughable, but it’s not unrealistic.  But will anyone be there to watch?  I’m hopeful that the usual up-tick in attendance comes now that pigskin has gone to hibernation.

2.  I don’t like the penalties, especially the majors.  UAH is fourth in the nation at 16.9 PIM/G, less than 1.0 PIM/G behind #1 Alaska.  With all the things to love about certain players’ games, the propensity to take bad penalties — especially two majors in the same game — really dims that for me.  Brennan Saulnier (67 PIM in 18 GP, 20% of the team total) and Chad Brears (41) could easily take 100 PIM this year.  Saulnier’s mark already eclipses all sinners’ PIM totalw from 2013-14 (Cody Marooney led the parade with 52).  No Charger has broken 70 since Graeme Strukoff (71) in his freshman year, and no Charger has broken 100 since Sebastian Geoffrion (115 in 2010-11).  Yeah, the UAH special teams units are the best in the nation, but when penalties cost Jack Prince ice time, we have problems.

1.  It’s freaking impossible to get a good UAH jersey.  This has been a complaint for years, and it just won’t go away — and now it’s worse now that UAH is in the WCHA and starting to play better.  People love the underdog!  People love the road blues!  And you just can’t get them.

Now, Michael made the case last year for more blue on the home jerseys, and I stand with him.  I know why this is the case, too: UAH uses black pants to keep from “looking like Smurfs” (no attribution) on the road, but we aren’t so flush with cash that we use blue pants at home.

All you can get on the concourse are the inferior home whites.  Some people have had access to the special grey jerseys that the ended the season with last year — I know this because I’ve seen “KESTNER 26” in the stands — but these aren’t generally available to the public.  You can get jerseys from Anchorage, Bemidji, BG, Ferris, and Mankato at the league shop, but the other half of the member schools don’t take advantage of this.  Furthermore, the UAH bookstore only sells what Athletics gives them, and it’s not been road blues.

UAH is leaving money on the table.  Hockey fans love jerseys (although few as much as Ryan Johnson).  We like wearing them to our team’s games.  We like wearing them to other teams’ games.  When I go to Nashville in February to watch the stRangers play the Preds, I will be proudly wearing my Cam Talbot black third from the Yale series his freshman year.  I paid $300 for that jersey.

I know that game-level jerseys run in the $70 range; sell at $200 and you’re making a great profit, and you could go cheaper on the quality and drop the cost.  We should be doing 2-3 special jerseys a year and doing an auction/purchase for each one: with 26 players and a profit margin of at least $130, that’s almost $9,000 if you’re just moving them for $200.  We should be selling old jerseys on the concourse during games, too, and we definitely should be selling the road blues both in person and online.

Now, I know that this doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and I know that UAH is a Division II school with a proportionally-sized athletic department.  Michael and I both know this because we’ve worked in Sports Information at different times.  We get it.  It would be unfair to overload anyone in the hockey office with this, because they have a lot going.  These kind of things would be so simple for a student worker to do — especially a student-athlete who is working on fifth-year money or work-study or what-have-you.  Design work requires professionals, but execution is grunt work.

Get on it, UAH.

UNO 2, UAH 1

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The announcers on NCHC.tv for #12 Nebraska-Omaha (11-4-2, 6-3-1 NCHC) regularly lamented that the homestanding Mavericks were “letting the Chargers stay in this game”, a remark that kinda irked me on Twitter:

 

But the only way that UAH (3-14-2, 2-10-0 WCHA) are only going to garner national respect when they win these kinds of games.  Unfortunately for the Chargers, keeping an even shots-on-goal differential (31 for UNO, 25 for UAH) didn’t translate into a lot of Grade A chances.  As such, the lone UAH goal came off of the stick of senior forward Jeff Vanderlugt (Richmond Hill, Ont.) with just :11 remaining in regulation, cutting UNO’s final margin to 2-1 and denying sophomore goaltender Kirk Thompson (Surrey, B.C.), who made 24 saves to pull up to move to 2-1-0 on the season.

The Chargers outshot the Mavs 10-9 in the first period, but it was a late power-play goal at 18:56 that put the home squad up 1-0 heading into intermission.  :17 into sophomore forward Matt Salhany‘s (Warwick, R.I.) hooking penalty, Maverick junior defenseman Brian Cooper (Anchorage, Alaska) potted a goal on the nation’s #1 special teams unit.  Cooper’s fourth goal of the season was assisted by freshman forward Tyler Vesel (Rochester, Minn.) and freshman forward Avery Peterson (Grand Rapids, Minn.).

The second period was fairly quiet — as was the whole game, really.  UNO had a speed advantage, but time and again, the recovering UAH defensemen would push the forecheckers wide and deflect shots and passes into the corner.  This is evident in the stats for UAH sophomore goaltender Carmine Guerriero (Montréal, Que.), who made 29 saves in an effort that dropped him to 3-8-1 on the season.

UNO sophomore forward Justin Parizek (Lakeville, Minn.) scored his eighth goal of the season just :13 after freshman defenseman Brandon Parker‘s (Faribault, Minn.) slashing penalty ended, as the Mavs had the Chargers scrambling to return to their standard set.  Vesel notched his second assist of the night on the game-winner.

While UAH kept working to the end, the only reward was Vanderlugt’s goal, which was assisted by freshman defenseman Cody Champagne (Brookfield, Conn.).

There were plenty of things to like tonight:

  • The SOG differential was far more even than I expected, given UNO’s talent level.  That was a very workmanlike effort for the Chargers.
  • Mike Corbett definitely has his shutdown line in senior forward Doug Reid (Innisfil, Ont.), senior forward Craig Pierce (Roswell, Ga.), and sophomore forward Brent Fletcher (New Westminster, British Columbia).  I think that Michigan Tech coach Mel Pearson is still complaining about the Bulldog Line’s harassment of his top line; UNO coach Dean Blais probably feels the same way.  There were a couple of shifts tonight where Pierce was an absolute wild man, seemingly every where at once and using his body to full effect.  Make no mistake: those guys really, really give a crap.
  • Carmine looked very good in net — the game-winner was a slapshot glove/short side that ricocheted in off of the post.  Will he start tomorrow night?  My guess would be that sophomore goaltender Matt Larose (Nanaimo, British Columbia) will get the nod to keep him fresh.  UAH plays all five weekends in January, and since it’s reasonable to think that Carmine starts at least seven of those games, you need to keep Larose in the groove.
  • Penalties!  The boys only committed four penalties for eight PIM!  That’s half of the usual total!  Sadly the blazing hot streak of the PK units seems over, but we’ll take the result.
  • There was just a lot of energy all night long, and let’s be honest — it’s the weekend before Christmas.  The boys went to Alaska right after finals.  They couldn’t really go too far afield before going to Nebraska on Thursday.  They want to see their families just as much as any of the rest of us do.  These pre-Christmas games are really, really hard to play, and you have to respect that the boys came out with jump all night long.

The two teams tangle at 5:07 p.m. Central to finish UAH’s 2014 slate.  Michael will take care of you on Sunday night.  Y’all have a great time with friends and family in the last week-plus of the year, no matter how you choose to celebrate it!  UAH hockey is better for your support and interest.

At the Break

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UAH’s second season in the WCHA is almost half over, and I’ll join USCHO’s Jack Hittinger, who has told everyone what he’s learned so far.  After this weekend’s non-conference tilts with UNO, UAH’s remaining Division I games are against WCHA foes.  UAH is 2-10-0 in its first 12 conference games, a record that ties last season’s conference win total.  If the goal was “be better this year than last year”, UAH has succeeded.

The 2014-15 WCHA looks like it has two tiers: the triumvirate of Tech, Mankato, and BG, followed by everyone else.  UAH has played all three of those teams so far, and despite having home advantage in four of those games, UAH went 0-6-0 and was outscored 25-7.  That’s the bad part.  Worse, UAH still has to travel to both Tech (1/30-31) and BG (3/6-7).

The good part is that UAH does not play Mankato again.  Better, UAH’s 18-41 GF-GA differential means that the Chargers are just 11-16 in the remaining six games to this point.  Better still, with 16 league games left, the Chargers have 12 more cracks at the non-elite teams.

Yes, the playoffs are still very much in play, especially with Alaska being ineligible.

When I look at the league, it’s something like the following:

1a-1b Tech-Mankato

3 (close to the #1s) BG

4 Motte State University (and there’s a big gap to here)

5 Northern Dahlströhm University

6 Rodent State

# Alaska

7 Anchorage (and there’s a bit of a gap to here)

8 UAH (and a bit of a gap to here, to be honest)

9 LSSU

Yes, I have the Lakers behind the Chargers.  The teams split in Huntsville, and the UAH loss was marred by two major penalties that kept the Chargers from having much in the way of even-strength play.  The next night, the boys poured it on and won going away in the first home win in some time.  While you can argue that UAH benefits from home ice advantage in a way that only the Alaska teams do, the matter is that UAH could and should have won both contests.

The Lakers have played two more league contests and are 3-11-0.  UAH could easily split any of their 12 contests against non-powers and be even.  Worse still for the Lakers, they play at Mankato, at BG, and at Alaska for their big road trips the rest of the season.  They have a shorter trek to Marquette for a weekend with the Wildcats and home contests with Bemidji, us, and Ferris.  That is not an easy slate.  UAH has four home weekends left, all of them with winnable games; LSSU has just three.  The teams each play two elite teams on the road, but the Lakers also have that trek to Fairbanks.

With Alaska’s woes, UAH’s road to the playoff runs right through the Soo, where the two will tangle on Valentine’s Day weekend.

With Mathias Dahlströhm banged up in Marquette, the Wildcats fall behind Ferris in my rankings.  Both teams are powered by their goaltending.  The Wildcats’ one bad weekend — 10 GA against the Falcons — came when Dahlstrohm wasn’t healthy; in their other 16 league contests, they conceded just 16 goals.  While UAH picked up a split in Big Rapids, the Chargers’ 3-2 win counts for 21% of the goals the Bulldogs have allowed in league play.  The Chargers have also played a non-conference series with the Wildcats, tying 1-1 and losing 4-1.  In short, the Chargers have a puncher’s chance against both teams, and they get six more cracks at them, four of those in Huntsville.  Figure that UAH could take two of those, and you have UAH up to eight league points.

The Chargers’ six remaining WCHA contests feature the teams in the middle of the remainder of the pack.  The two Alaska schools come to Huntsville, while the Chargers return to the scene of the crime in Brrrrmidji.  While the Chargers were stout on Friday night, Saturday night in Fairbanks just wasn’t any fun.  A one-goal weekend just won’t cut it, but the boys have also had just one off weekend all season, with finals superseding hockey for the weekend prior to the longest road trip in the WCHA.

It’s hard to know what to make of the Seawolves.  After a very strong start to the season, they took care of business against the Lakers at home; fought gamely against the Huskies in Houghton; got creamed against the Bulldogs in Big Rapids, letting the home side nearly double their season goals output; and split with Northern and Bemidji (two ties) at home to end their season.  When they come to town, the green and gold will have not played competitive hockey for a month.

Then there are the buck-teeth rodents.  They’ve had the sixth-toughest schedule in Division I so far, with (all rankings at-the-time) #2 North Dakota (home-and-home split, each road team winning), #1 Minnesota (swept in MSP), #16 Alaska (home sweep), #13 Minnesota State (swept in Mankato), #5 Michigan Tech (swept in Bemidji), #18 Bowling Green (swept in Ohio), #16 St. Cloud (home split), two ties at Anchorage, and a home split with a Northern Michigan team that had just fallen out of the rankings and didn’t have Dahlströhm.   That’s a tough row to hoe.

UAH is lucky in that they’ll face the Beavs after the home team will have had a month away from competitive hockey and a weekend after the Chargers face the Seawolves at home.  While it would be better if Bemidji had some bus legs to go with the rust, we can hope that the rust is enough.  Neither squad seems likely to give an inch in a rivalry that is being reborn.

Michael and I talked before the season, and we figured that the Chargers could win 6-8 games this year, with the real step forward coming next season.  That looks to be the case.  UAH can conceivably win one or two of the first four league games coming out of the break, one or two of the remaining four against NMU, a split in the Soo, and one or two of the four at home against Ferris and Alaska.  That puts the Chargers at anywhere between six and nine wins, and that should be good enough to make the playoffs, especially given the Lakers’ remaining schedule.  They will need home splits every weekend and a split in their series with Northern to stay apace, but this is a team that’s already lost 17 games this season.  Laker fans, we know the pain you’re having.  Stay the course.

You may say, “What difference do the playoffs have?  We’re just going to play Mankato or Tech, and they’ve destroyed us.”  But I say that playing in the postseason is good experience for the boys.  Win-or-go-home is a great way to play, and those are the kinds of experiences that they’ll need in 15-16 and 16-17 when we’re looking to build on the season and hopefully make the NCAAs.  (You laugh, but would you have expected the 2006-07 or 2009-10 teams to do that?)

UAH has exceeded six wins just once since Doug Ross retired in 2007, when UAH won 12 games in a season powered by Cam Talbot.  Cam’s major stats that year were 2.61 GAA and .925 SV%.  Sophomore goaltender Carmine Guerriero (Montréal, Que.) is 2.44 and .934.  Folks, we’re just not that far away.  It starts with putting more shots on the net, cutting the penalties, and continuing to play strongly on special teams.

Let’s end with a song that’s appropriate for a blue-collar hockey team.

College Hockey Isn’t Dead or Dying — It’s Just Changing

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Western College Hockey (thanks to Chris Dilks for popularizing the term) is dying because it has failed to recognize and embrace its own lot in life. In what world does a sport, already extremely regional, think it’s a good idea to take two perfectly good conferences, throw them in a blender and see what happens?

College hockey used to be great, because every fan felt like they had a stake in things. As a Minnesota State guy, I hated St. Cloud State. Hated UMD. Hated NoDak.

— Dan Myers, NHL.com writer for the Minnesota Wild, “College hockey is dying, but the fix is simple”.

Myers’s point — and it’s worth reading the full piece, I assure you — is that the changes out west have harmed the sport because a lot of great rivalries are dead.  The key clause in the quote I pulled from his piece is this: “As a Minnesota State guy”.

As a UAH guy, I have a different perspective.  For one, my school wasn’t part of the old WCHA or the CCHA (though we tried to get into both).  As I noted in a post on the USCHO message board last night,

Through 1.5 seasons in the league, UAH has played Bemidji 74 times, Mankato 47, the Alaska schools 21 each (thanks to the early ’90s independent days), BG 14 times, Ferris 11 (four of those in 10-11), Lake and Northern eight times, and Tech just four times. Most UAH fans understand the rivalry with the Beavs, but you have to go back to the D-II days for fans to get the Mankato and Alaska rivalries.

I mean, really: the four teams we’ve played the most are rivalries from 15-20 years ago.  BG is pretty close and has been willing to schedule us in non-conference games. The Michigan schools have mainly played us in the last six years, and Tech has only in WCHA play.  The only real rival that we have is Bemidji — just revisit the #hateweek shenanigans from last year — and we went two years without playing them thanks to the Beavs’ busy WCHA schedule (soaking up eight games a year that had been free during the CHA) and UAH living the independent thug life.

But I think that the Chargers’ history in the CHA is instructive.  College Hockey America was, well, a collection of teams wanting to play Division I hockey in a quasi-Western league.  Let’s look at the membership of the league:

  • Air Force.  Prior to the CHA, the Falcons played 31 years as an independent.  Air Force saw the writing on the wall that the landscape wouldn’t support independents (no joke).  The Falcons had just one season above .500, going 19-18-2 in their first season in the league.  The Zoomies would head to Atlantic Hockey for the 2006-07 season, the real linchpin for the failure of the league.
  • UAH.  As we’ve talked about before, UAH started in Division II, moved to Division I, moved back down, and moved back up after the NCAA stopped sponsoring a D-II championship, an event that seems to hold the Chargers as the last D-II titlist ever.*  You could say that our Chargers were first in and last out, as they were one of just three founding teams to stay with the league for its entirety, and they didn’t find a new home prior to dissolution.
  • Army.  The Cadets bailed after one season for the MAAC, which would become Atlantic Hockey.  Prior to that, West Point had two stints in the ECAC (1962-1973 and 1984-1991) and otherwise played as an independent.
  • Bemidji State.  Like UAH, the Beavers had been a D-II power before getting swept up in the push to D-I in 1998.  BSU played as low as NAIA and as high as D-I, starting at the top before jumping to the bottom in the NCHA, which is now a D-III league.
  • Findlay.  Oh, what a story.  The Oilers were a from-scratch program, built by Craig Ford to move up quickly in the standings, but they never escaped the bottom half of the league before the program was axed after new University leadership came in.  This after the MAAC forbade all of its member schools from playing the Oilers in 2000-01, as the new team was still a provision D-I member.  That was dirty pool, y’all.
  • Niagara.  The Purple Eagles played their first two seasons (1996-98) as independents and joined the CHA in its inaugural campaign, presumably because the league offered the full 18 scholarships, allowing the men from Monteagle Ridge to fire on all cylinders.  The Purps were the league’s first ever NCAA tournament team, going a stunning 30-8-4 on the season.  After Greg Gardner kicked the net off of its moorings to invalidate a would-be-tying UAH goal late in the first CHA championship, Blaise McDonald’s squad would go on to knock off UNH in the first round of the NCAA tournament.  I mean, go look at the firepower on that team: six 15-goal scorers, three 20-goal scorers, and a senior goaltender who’d been the plow horse all season.  Niagara would leave for Atlantic Hockey when the lights went out, having tried to get into the ECAC (and probably Hockey East) for most of their time in the league.
  • Robert Morris.  Now, depending on who you talk to, the upstart Colonials were either set to play 2004-05 as an independent or as a member of Atlantic Hockey.  Also depending on who you talk to, the Colonials either chose to play in the CHA given an open spot with Findlay’s departure or were shoved there “for the good of the sport”.
  • Wayne State.  The Warriors were an upstart program that, from the outset, was trying to get into the CCHA with the other Michigan schools (less Tech).  They built momentum over four years, finally reaching full form in 2002-03 with a team that CHA old-heads still talk about.  Sadly, the team came to an end in 2007-08 after a long series of failed promises and tough “home” venues to draw fans into. #TartarsForever

Now you can say this: “Geof, if your frustration with Dan Myers’s piece is that he uses the concept that new rivalries hadn’t shown any glimpses of formation, why are you listing the CHA’s rivalries?”  I write this to expose the following:

  1. Air Force and Army had an extant relationship because of their status as national service academies.  Being in a league together made sense, although not enough for West Point officials, who probably sought a conference with lower travel costs and a shorter scholarship outlay (limiting the pool of talent) over one with a national reach (Colorado to the NYC area) that had just one league city near a major metropolitan airport (WSU; RMU wouldn’t join for four more years).  It seems that Air Force, sensing the end of the CHA, chose Atlantic Hockey for all the same reasons that the Black Knights did, with the added benefit of joining Army.
  2. UAH and BSU had their extant rivalry.  Until things picked up, it was the driver of the league.
  3. Findlay and Wayne State were cut from whole cloth; Robert Morris would join in the same condition.
  4. Niagara had only two years under its belt as an independent.

The point is this: there were next-to-no rivalries in the original CHA.  Like the new WCHA, it was mainly a group of teams thrown together in a general arrangement “for the best”.  The WCHA has extant rivalries: 1) Tech, Bemidji, Mankato, and Anchorage were all WCHA members; 2) BG, Northern, Ferris, Alaska, and Lake State were all CCHA members; 3) Fairbanks and Anchorage hate each other; 4) Tech and Northern hate each other; 5) Bemidji and Huntsville hate each other.  That’s a lot more than the CHA started with.

But the CHA built rivalries over time.  Plenty of people hated UAH for all the penalties they took (and those that they should’ve).  Bemidji’s trap was loathed.  Everyone hated playing at Air Force because of the altitude and the relentless nature of Frank’s teams.  Dave Burkholder’s shrill whistling drove everyone crazy.  Findlay … well, I still hate Mark Bastl for dropping four goals on us that one game at home (he had just one other marker all season).  Robert Morris and Wayne State played from the same playbook: build from the net out, check hard, and apply pressure.  I once rode the Warriors’ David Guerrera so hard that he flipped me off as he walked off the ice on Friday night (bro, don’t let me know that I got into your head!).  And Bemidji … I loved seeing them lose 26 games in Bob Peters’s last year.  Also, Says Phrakonkham … say no more.

#

Just as Dan can ply you with his wife’s disappointment with the new league being “boring”, I say, “Give it time.”  The league has played just nine months in this configuration, and with the big names gone and the leagues mashed together, the rivalries aren’t ready just yet.  And to quote parch on USCHO:

Anyone post here who experienced the great rift that formed when Michigan, Michigan State, Michigan Tech, and Notre Dame left to join the CCHA? Was there anywhere near the vocal outcry of losing those schools? What about the ECAC/Hockey East split that took place? Were fans in the ECAC just as hurt?

I think the B1G and NCHC were such a dramatic shift that it over shadows the WCHA/CCHA alignment and the ECAC/HE split. So many moving pieces changed at once that hockey fans weren’t able to take it all in. Considering B1G fans miss seeing the other schools, fans in both the NCHC and WCHA have their gripes. It’s just a lot to take in.

If things ride stay how they are now, this will be normal to the current fans of these schools, and us that remember the old ways can wax poetic about it like older fans reminisce about the “Old Old WCHA” or 17 team ECAC.

Barring injuries, Tech and Mankato look like locks for the NCAAs, and BG definitely looks to make that a trio if they can keep their stride.  If they fall, Ferris could ride Motte or Northern with Dahlströhm to make the NCAAs in the “low scoring, good D, terrific goaltending” formula that works from time to time (see UAH, 2006-07 and 2009-10, although both the Bulldogs and Wildcats are better squads than those Charger editions).  Rivalries are going to be built in March, and we’ve only had the one March.

#

As for Myers’s actual prescription for realignment, it seems fair, generally restoring the old WCHA, lumping in ASU, and booting Tech.  The new CCHA would have the usual non-BTHC suspects plus UAH and an Atlantic Hockey team of choice (hopefully RMU, because they don’t suck).  Would we at UAH like that from a travel perspective?  Sure!  But it’s a league split that definitely favors the WCHA side of things, having more marquee college hockey names than the CCHA, which also has to deal with travel to both Fairbanks and Huntsville.

The real potential here is for some kind of interlock between the two leagues.  If non-BTHC western college hockey is going to thrive, it’s going to have to be because we pummel the hell out of each other every weekend.  More on that someday, perhaps.

—-

* Actually, the last Division II championship was won by St. Michael’s College, which defeated New Hampshire College in 1999, the year after UAH and Bemidji State declared they were leaving for Division I. — Michael Napier

Michigan Tech 5, UAH 2

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The UAH Chargers (3-11-2, 2-8-0 WCHA) were perfect again on the penalty kill, stopping the Michigan Tech Huskies (12-2-0, 10-2-0 WCHA) on all five opportunities.  Unfortunately, the Chargers couldn’t reprise last night’s perfect special teams performance, falling to the #6/5 team in the country by a 5-2 score, the final marker being an empty-netter.

The Huskies went up early when senior forward and co-captain Tanner Kero (Hancock, Michigan) scored fifth goal of the season unassisted as he and his teammates crashed the net minded by sophomore goaltender Matt Larose (Nanaimo, B.C.).  The Huskies kept up the pressure for the remainder of the period, outshooting the home squad 14-3.  The Chargers’ penalty killers were stout in defense of their net when sophomore defenseman Brandon Carlson (Huntington Beach, Calif.) went off for holding at 14:54.

The Chargers’ power play proved unable to the task early in the second, with two consecutive minor power plays coming off of a high-sticking minor on senior forward David Johnstone (Grande Ledge, Mich.) at 7:06 and hooking by Chris Leibinger (Saginaw, Mich.) at 9:06.  The Chargers again struggled with the pace, being outshot 12-5 in the middle frame.

Carlson atoned for his earlier sins late in the 2nd, ripping in a shot off of the faceoff past Tech junior goalie Jamie Phillips (Caledonia, Ont.).  Carlson’s goal was his third on the season, and he was assisted by freshman forward Brennan Saulnier (Halifax, Nova Scotia), who marked his sixth assist on the year.

Unfortunately for UAH, the momentum was short-lived.  Carlson went to the box for tripping just :19 after his goal (and oddly 19:50 after his first-period infraction), but his teammates again picked up the pace, limiting grade A chances for the Huskies.

The Huskies would pull back ahead 1:08 after the Chargers returned to full strength when junior defenseman Walker Hyland (Woodbury, Minn.) picked up the puck just above the dot in the right-wing circle and ripped it through a forest of bodies in front of Larose (0-5-1, 32 sv) to move the score to 2-1.  After that point, the Huskies would never trail again.

The Michiganders took it up a notch when the Kero-Petan-Gould line struck again.  The trio were each +3 on the evening, with each netting a goal.  It was junior forward and assistant captain Alex Petan‘s (Delta, B.C.) turn with just :38.5 in the 2nd, ripping a shot from the high slot that came to him because of the relentless pressure of his line.  Petan’s shot froze Larose, with the missile rising over his shoulder to the top shelf.

Petan would give the Chargers a chance to narrow the game 1:12 into the third when Petan was whistled for a hooking minor.  A tripping minor by Saulnier 1:25 later negated the advantage, however, and the Chargers would have to wait another 4:20 for some signs of life — other than sophomore forward Matt Salhany‘s (Warwick, R.I.) Brian-Rolston-like shorthanded dash into a slapshot from the right-wing dot.

The Chargers were pressing from around the 6:40 mark.  Senior defenseman Ben Reinhardt (Arnprior, Ont.) fed a D-to-D pass to freshman defenseman Brandon Parker (Faribault, Minn.), who ripped a slapshot so hard that he broke his stick.  Instead of Parker retrieving a stick, junior defenseman Frank Misuraca (Clinton Township, Mich.) swapped into the game and skated to the top of the RW circle.  After Reinhardt kept the puck in, he moved it closer in to freshman forward Max McHugh (Seattle, Wash.), who saw Misuraca near the blue line with time and space.  Receiving the pass, Frank edged closer to the center of the ice, wound up, and fired through traffic and past Phillips (12-2-0, 13 sv).  Misuraca’s goal was his fourth of the year, and it was the fifth assist for McHugh and first for Reinhardt.  McHugh’s marker would push him to a team-leading eight points.

At that point, Phillips left the net for an equipment malfunction with his pads, giving sophomore goaltender Matt Wintjes (Holland Landing, Ont.) his first game action of the season.  Phillips returned quickly and would proceed to stop all five shots he saw for the remainder of the game.

Junior forward Malcolm Gould (North Vancouver, B.C.) gave the Huskies some breathing room, potting his fifth goal of the season at 6:57 of the third on an assist from Kero.  While the Huskies would give the Chargers some life a minute later when Johnstone took a slashing penalty, the blue and white would not raise their sticks in celebration.

The last gasp for the Chargers came with just 1:51 left in regulation when Petan took an interference penalty.  UAH coach Mike Corbett called timeout and pulled Larose for a sixth skater.  The Chargers held the puck in for a while, but senior forward Blake Hietala (Houghton, Mich.) made his hometown team happy, potting a short-handed, empty net goal at 18:56.  Matching minors to Leibinger and Carlson at 19:24 finished the scoresheet.

The series in a nutshell: a decided speed and skill advantage by the Huskies, who drew penalties from the Chargers when they were afraid of being beaten; strong penalty killing (12-for-12 on the weekend); and the boys hanging in while being outshot 34-14 and 37-15.  UAH had a litmus test this weekend: how would it fare against one of the top two teams in the league in their own building?  This wasn’t a weekend like the one earlier this season in Mankato, where the Mavericks out-shot UAH 57-18 and 41-9 on the way to a sweep.  Given that the Huskies played the Mavs last weekend to two one-goal games, 2-1 and 3-2, you can sorta hand-wave a transitive theory and show how the Chargers have grown as the season has gotten along.

As I left the arena, I chatted with some Tech fans who’d made it down for the games.  One of them said, “You’ll be in the playoffs if you keep playing like this.”  While the Chargers are tied for 7th in the league, they’ve played more league games (10) than any of the other three teams at four points (8, with Alaska down 3-1 to Northern as I finish this recap).  This makes it harder for UAH to keep pace.

The Chargers have played four of their six games against the cream of the WCHA, with a return trip to Houghton at the end of January.  BG is definitely up there as well, and the Chargers have to go on the road to face the Falcons to end the season in what very well could be a trip for a playoff seed.  UAH has to do well against old pal Lance West and his Alaska Nanooks both in two weeks and when the kids come from Fairbanks to Huntsville in late February.  The Chargers also host the Seawolves of Alaska-Anchorage in the first home series of 2015.  Two wins in the next four league tilts would buoy any playoff hopes.

The Chargers are off next weekend, as finals are this next week at the University.  They will next play Alaska in Fairbanks at 10:07 p.m. starts.  We’ll have coverage then, but it could be slow here this week while Michael and I take a bit of a breather.