Category Archives: 2012-13

Going Forward

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You’ll have noticed that we’ve been busy in the last couple of weeks in the run-up to our first four home games. Y’all can ready the schedule just as well as I can: it’s seven weeks between home games for us, as the boys start this weekend at St. Cloud State for six straight road weekends. While we’ll be doing Catching the Game posts and some recaps of road games as our schedules permit, things will necessarily slow down here for a little bit.

But with that said, we want to know what you want to see from us. Some ideas that are rough plans: catching up with former Chargers; video interviews with current players; interviews with Coach Kleinendorst and Dr. Brophy about the state of the program. You may have ideas that we haven’t even thought of! That’s why we’ve opened this post to comments if you catch us on the Web; I’m sure that we’ll see some traffic on Facebook and Twitter, too. We earnestly request your feedback.

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UAH 2, MNSU 2

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Johnny Griggs peers through traffic as UAH kills one of its seven penalties. (Photo Credit: Nicholas C. Franklin)

Boy, did we ever see a lot of that tonight.  Johnny Griggs was in full-on beast mode Saturday night in Huntsville,  stopping 51 of 53 shots, and Craig Pierce scored his second goal in as many nights, but it was not enough as a late goal brought Minnesota State level with UAH in a game that ended in a 2-2 tie in front of 1,431 at Propst Arena.

[Hey, 1431 is about average for a Saturday night during football season.  Don’t knock it.]

Mavericks coach Mike Hastings saw this one coming. “I thought that what was going to happen did happen: they were going to come out with a little bit of bite. I thought that they played with a will tonight more than our guys did early.”

Craig Pierce (Photo Credit: UAH Sports Information)

“I think we came back today with a little chip on our shoulder from yesterday’s loss hungry for that win today,” said Pierce. Results came at 5:53 of the first period when captain Curtis deBruyn shot one through traffic and in. What followed was a penalty-filled first period for the Chargers, who picked up four minors in 9:32, including :55 of 5-on-3. Unlike Friday night’s tilt, the team’s penalty killers were up to the task.

“I thought the difference from last night to tonight is that we didn’t cash in on our power play,” Hastings said. “You have [seven] opportunities, and I know that we had a lot of shots, but we didn’t finish.”

Johnny Griggs (Photo Credit: UAH Sports Information)

Griggs was happy with the support that he got from his teammates. “I felt good out there tonight. They were doing a good job in front of me, keeping shots out on the perimeter. They guys played their butts off tonight.”

Chargers coach Kurt Kleinendorst was pleasantly surprised with what he saw from his netminder. “You don’t win at any level if you don’t have goaltending. It’s only two games, and you don’t want to get carried away, but from what I’ve seen so far, he’s pretty impressive.”

Johnny McInnis and Pierce scored two minutes apart to keep the affair a one-goal matter with just 4:57 gone in the second. Kleinendorst was happy with the results that he saw from his team. “We played our hearts out, and for me as a coach, that’s where it’s got to start. If you watched that game closely, there are a lot of things that we’ve been working on that will jump out at you.”

UAH Coach Kurt Kleinendorst (Photo Credit: UAH Sports Information)

Eriah Hayes’s goal with just 2:14 left in regulation brought the Mavericks level against a fatigued Chargers squad. “It’s unfortunate,” Kleinendorst said. “We ran out of gas in the third period against a pretty darn good club.”

Griggs was positive about the strides that he and his teammates have made to-date. “Tonight’s a good step for us. Obviously, the past few weeks have kinda been crazy around here. This is a good start for our team, to have a little adversity and build on that.”

The Chargers will travel to St. Cloud State in the first of six straight road weekends.

Johnny Griggs makes one of 51 saves on the night in a 2-2 tie with Minnesota State. (Photo Credit: Nicholas C. Franklin)

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MNSU 4, UAH 1

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Documentary proof that you can fill the VBC for a UAH game. (Photo Credit: Nicholas C. Franklin.)

The top story of this game is the attendance. The second story is the actual game. Let’s talk about the game second.

I think that we all may be a little tired about haranguing you about coming to last night’s game.  But y’all came.  Boy, howdy.  If you read what I wrote or what Mark McCarter wrote and decided, “Yeah, I should go and support that,” then thank you.  If you came because a friend told you to come, thank them for the invitation.  If you were there because you were cajoled to be there, were you not entertained?

What I’d really love to see is a follow-up tonight of about 2,000-2,500 people.  That’s not a number that we normally get on Saturday nights during college football season: we’re usually around 1400-1500.  But I really get the sense that a lot of people enjoyed the magic last night, and my hope is that they’ll have enjoyed it enough to pay $8 for a GA ticket 10+ times a year.

Photo Credit: Nicholas C. Franklin.

What follows below is the bones of what I wrote for USCHO.  Normally I take that and re-write it a good bit, but since I’m writing this three hours before puck drop on Saturday, I’m working with what I have.  However, I’m getting you photos from Nick Franklin to go in the mix, so hopefully that works for you!

Chase Grant didn’t show any rust from having missed most of the 2011-12 for Minnesota State. The junior forward doubled his career power-play goal on Friday night, scoring three goals and assisting on the Mavericks’ fourth as they pulled away from the homestanding Alabama-Huntsville Chargers, winning by a 4-1 margin.

Alex Allan grinds down low. (Photo Credit: Nicholas C. Franklin.)

Grant led off scoring during a penalty-filled first for the Chargers, which saw three minor penalties and a major + misconduct to Alex Allan for checking from behind. UAH coach Kurt Kleinendorst said, “The first period was nothing but penalty kill, and that’s just putting yourself in a tough spot.”

The Chargers ended up killing Allan’s penalty, which rolled over into the second period, but the next Charger penalty saw Grant strike again. “Those two guys were really good in the exhibition game against Lethbridge,” Minnesota State coach Mike Hastings said. “With their other winger, Bryce Gervais, they’re really got a lot of chemistry. And if you go back, they played juniors together in Fargo. We’ve decided to put them together at the beginning of the year, and they’ve really had chemistry.”

The boys celebrate Craig Pierce’s goal. Craig noted post game that he scored in the first game last year off of an assist from Graeme Strukoff as well. (Photo Credit: Nicholas C. Franklin.)

Photo Credit: UAH Sports Information

The Chargers struck back, with sophomore Craig Pierce finding a seam to score a power-play goal at 15:32 to bring it to 2-1. “Doug Reid dumped it in, and he and I just started cycling the puck, waiting for something to open up,” Pierce said. “Reid finally rolled it up and passed it to [Graeme] Strukoff, who shot it in. I was out front looking for a tip, and it went off of my stick and in.”

UAH had a Division I-era record crowd of 5106, which greeted WCHA commissioner Bruce McLeod and other league representatives at the game. “I thought that the atmosphere in the building was outstanding,” Hastings said. “To me that showed quite a bit. They scored a goal to make it 2-1 and this place started hopping.” Pierce said, “[The crowd was] unbelievable. We appreciate the support from everybody, and we hope that it keeps coming.”

Grant powered a response to Pierce’s goal with an early power-play marker in the third. Grant then broke up a Charger power-play, poking the puck out into neutral ice, chasing it down, and feeding Leitner for a short-handed goal to take the Mavericks to the final score.

Kleinendorst was disappointed in the finish. “We just weren’t able to go out and finish the job. We had a bad line change on the third goal, and that’s all it took.”

The two teams face off at 7:00 p.m. at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville for the concluding match of the weekend series.

For full size versions of any of the images in this post, click the image.  All photos are Copyright 2012 Nicholas C. Franklin.  Please contact me with any requests for commercial use.

Catching the Game: UAH v. Mankato — Saturday, October 13th, 2012

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Holy moly, 5106 people at the rink last night. While I’m writing my recap, I want y’all to be ready for tonight if you’re not at the rink:

The live audio feed was wonky for Mac users, but people on Twitter found a better one. I retweeted it, but I wasn’t in a position to update last night’s CtG post while I was at the rink. Speaking of that, follow us on Twitter @uahhockey; if you don’t do Twitter, just pull the page up and you’ll see our tweets in real-time on the Web without having to sign up for an account.  @UAHChargers will update the game as well; they’re on press row and have full access to game scoring. We tweet more, though.

I made the command decision last night to try to tweet less about penalties and such because you already have live stats with you. I’m going to try to put a little meat on the bones of that. I’m aware that some of you don’t have access to live stats and are following the game solely via Twitter (most likely on your phone), but I can sometimes get backlogged trying to tweet about things that I don’t get to watch the game so I can tell you things about what’s going on.

Happy 22nd Birthday, Mike Webley!

UAH forward Mike Webley turns 22 today.  The 6’0″ sophomore is in his second campaign as a Charger, following up a 1-3—4 freshman season in which he played 25 games. The Stittsville, Ont., native is an Ottawa Senators fan. Happy birthday, Mike!

Catching the Game: UAH v. Mankato—Friday, October 12th, 2012

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So it’s GAMEDAY!  We’ve told you what to expect.  We’ve told you why you should be here.  We’ve told you that tickets to the game are free.  We’ve done all we can to make a case for why you should be there.

But you may not be able to be there.  You may not live in Huntsville.  You may be stuck working on console at the Huntsville Operations Support Center, telling astronauts how to run an experiment on the International Space Station.  You may be sick.  But you still want to follow the game.

Here’s how.

There’s also Twitter, where yours truly will make wiseass comments in between giving scoring updates.  Follow us @uahhockey; if you don’t do Twitter, just pull the page up and you’ll see our tweets in real-time on the Web without having to sign up for an account.  @UAHChargers will update the game as well; they’re on press row and have full access to game scoring.

Series Preview: UAH vs. Minnesota State

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It’s a weekend of new beginnings for the UAH Chargers and Minnesota State Mavericks: On the ice, and behind the bench.

Both clubs feature new head coaches with impressive resumes, but will be making their debuts in NCAA Division I. UAH’s Kurt Kleinendorst spent nine years as an assistant coach and scout with the New Jersey Devils, and led the Binghamton Senators of the AHL to a conference championship.

Meanwhile, Minnesota State’s Mike Hastings made his mark in junior hockey, leading the Omaha Lancers to three championships and becoming the all-time winningest coach in USHL history with 529 wins. He replaced Troy Jutting, who coached the Mavericks for 12 seasons.

The Mavericks were 12-24-2 overall last season, finishing 11th in the WCHA with a 8-18-1 conference slate. UAH is coming off its worst season record-wise with only two victories.

As such, both teams are eager to make this a turnaround season.

The Mavericks return their top four scorers and have added depth on offense with a talented rookie class, but the top man is senior captain Eriah Hayes. Hayes has pro potential, and his line with Matt Leitner and Jean-Paul LaFontaine scored 37 goals last season.

This will pose a challenge to the Chargers’ relatively inexperienced goaltending corps. John Griggs is a third-year senior who played in six games last season, and junior C.J. Groh played in only two. Along with freshman Gregg Gruehl, this series could be an audition for the regular starter spot.

The Mavericks do not have such questions in goal. Phil Cook will start the opener. The 6-3, 195-pound senior had two different seasons in one in 2011-12: He had a 6.68 goals against average in just five games in the first half, then posted a 2.59 average (with a .917 save percentage) in 11 starts the rest of the way. He did not face UAH in the two-game series in Mankato last season.

Senior co-captain Tyler Elbrecht leads a corps of six returning defensemen for MSU. The 6-4, 210-pound Elbrecht is the most physical presence on the team. Zach Palmquist, a sophomore led all Maverick blue liners with 19 points — six more than Kyle Lysaght, UAH‘s leading scorer last season.

So what about the Charger offense? Coach K^2 is preaching the “process.” And that process will be to see how UAH’s top guns — Lysaght, captain Justin Cseter, and alternate captain Sebastian Geoffrion — will get their scoring chances. The Chargers got 22 goals against Alabama, but against real NCAA competition, this will be a work in progress that will likely require patience as coach and players get in synch. Jack Prince had a big weekend against the Frozen Tide, so his NCAA debut will be one to watch.

Minnesota State, which took a 7-1 decision against Lethbridge in their lone preseason game, has the upper hand in all phases — it showed last season when the Mavericks beat the Chargers 4-2 and 9-1 in Mankato. To pull the upset, UAH will need to rely on its five veteran defensemen (with alternate captain Curtis deBruyn) and handful of touted freshmen.

Minnesota State is unbeaten in the last eight meetings with the Chargers, evening the all-time series record at 17-17-4.

For PucKato‘s thoughts, check out their evaluations of their forwards, defensemen, and goaltenders.  Shane Frederick of the Mankato Free Press does great work.

Why Friday Night’s Mankato Game Is So All-Fired Important

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Friday night’s hockey game against Minnesota State-Mankato may be the most important game in UAH hockey history.  It’s so important that UAH and the VBC have come together to give away tickets to the game.  It’s so important because representatives of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, including WCHA Commissioner Bruce McLeod, will be in town to assess our request to be in their league.  Having a great fan turnout is a key component of our presentation to the WCHA.

You may be asking, “Why are we stuffing people into seats if we don’t normally get this kind of turnout for games?”  That’s a great question, but here’s the great answer: the WCHA can read a box score just as well as you can.  They can see that our attendance is dwindling.  But they can also see on Friday night that this community still cares about this hockey program.  That’s what all this is about: bringing people together for the common purpose that is varsity hockey in the South.

In fact, fan support the very point of Mark McCarter’s column today:

If there is a message to the fans, it’s a bit blunt, but it’s not inappropriate.

It’s put up or shut up time. For those who wailed in anger, who made pledges to help, who pleaded what a disgrace it was for an interim president to try to eliminate the hockey program, this is time to show you meant what you said.

You know the story: UAH hasn’t been affiliated with a conference the last two seasons. It’s nearly killed the program. Flatly, UAH director of athletics E.J. Brophy says, “Conference affiliation is essential to hockey’s future.”

The WCHA would be perfect for UAH — and vice versa — when the league shrinks after this season, losing teams to the Big 10.

If there is a message to McLeod and his colleagues, it would be this:

You have been here when UAH was a first-class program with conference affiliation. You have seen the support, the excitement, the talent level. You’ve felt the energy in the building. You know what a unique story Huntsville is in the hockey world.

It’s time for a little history lesson. Let’s look at last year and a decade before that in an effort to learn from our history. In short: attendance was >25% higher a decade ago because 1) we were winning, especially at home, and 2) we had more consistent home schedules.

Let’s look at the attendance numbers for last year, 2011-12, a season where we went 2-28-1, far and away the worst campaign of the program’s history: Lake State—2485, 1060; Bowling Green—1486, 1358; Air Force—1893, 996; Ohio State—2519, 1351; Mercyhurst—1056, 1062; USNTDP U-18 1105, 1089.  That’s an average of 1455 fans.

To give you context and provide a little analysis:

  • The Lake State series was Sat-Sun because you can’t start your season before October 1st; all other series were Fri-Sat.  We always have a hard time getting people in for Sunday afternoon games.  This past Saturday’s game against BAMA’s club team had 1929; Sunday’s game had just 804.  Some of that may have come from the fact that people did not expect a competitive game on Sunday after watching Saturday’s affair.
  • Bowling Green did surprisingly well despite being up against BAMA at Ole Miss and Auburn at home against Florida.
  • Air Force was against Auburn at LSU and BAMA v. Tennessee, which definitely explains the disparity.
  • Ohio State was against BAMA v. LSU—the biggest regular season game in 2011, and a prelude to the national championship game—but Auburn was off.  That game was at 7:00 p.m. Central, right up against our game; we pushed hard to let people know that they could watch the game in the concourse.  Even so, we were just over 100 fans below the average.  Thanks, Aubies!
  • Mercyhurst (12/30-31) and U-18 (2/24-25) had even attendance, but those games come after football is over and after there’s been a long layoff between home games: 54 games for Mercyhurst, 55 for U-18.  Our front-loaded schedule is a direct result of us playing an independent schedule; teams don’t have time for us in January and February while they’re barreling through conference play.

Let’s compare these results with 2001-02, a decade earlier.  That team went 18-18-1, 12-4 at home.  Jared Ross was a freshman.  You could tell that team was going to be even better the next year, but they were very good and faced a standard 20-game CHA schedule along with trips to Canisius, Cornell, UNO, and St. Cloud State and home series with Bentley, Sacred Heart, and Mankato.  In the football world, BAMA went 7-5 and Auburn went 7-4.

  • Bentley (10/12-13): 2180, 1406.  BAMA played at Ole Miss, while Auburn hosted Florida.  CNN’s TV listings for 2001 are incomplete for this weekend; according to CNN’s SEC schedule for 2001, Auburn played at 7:45, so they were probably the night TV game.
  • Air Force (10/26-27): 2170, 1945.  BAMA was off, and Auburn played at Arkansas in a 12:30 game that was probably televised.
  • Niagara (11/9-10): 1945, 1408. BAMA was at State at 12:30, and Auburn was at Georgia at 2:30, likely the ABC game.
  • Sacred Heart (11/23-24): 1612, 1341.  Both schools were off.
  • Wayne State (12/28-29): 2113, 1555.  Both schools were playing bowl games, but neither on the day of the hockey game.  These two games were half of the home losses that season.  Blame David Guerrera.  That WSU team was very, very good.
  • Mankato (1/4-5): 1824, 1862.  Football is a non-factor from here on out.
  • Findlay (2/8-9): 1963, 2102.
  • Bemidji State (3/8-9): 1993, 2283.  It’s a little surprising to see the Bemidji games this low, but again, we’re talking about a month’s lapse between games.

What we’re again seeing is a gap on attendance that’s driven by football; in the second half of the season, we did better on Saturday nights, probably because people weren’t rushing from work to the game.  We’re also seeing 16 home games, 10 of which were conference affairs.  Finally, the average attendance is 1856, 28% higher attendance than a decade later.  You can watch the attendance just fall off as the wins fell; this is no different than any other school.

So what’s the point in this history lesson?  We do better with regular home schedules, with games either on consecutive weekends or with just one or two weekends off.  We struggle when we compete against college football, and our Sunday problems are probably driven by the NFL as well.

Can the WCHA bring us some stability?  The answer is clearly yes: the league wants to play a 28-game schedule, which means 14 home games for UAH.  Those will have to be spread out more than the 2001-02 schedule was: we had a 20-game conference slate in a league that was focused on out-of-conference scheduling, so back-loading our schedule with league games wasn’t realistic.   Those seven home weekends would include some in January and February.  Avoiding football will solve some of our attendance woes, and hopefully it will continue to build a fan base that loves this program.

The WCHA is our way forward.  It is our best hope for the future.  If this doesn’t work out, it’s not entirely clear what will.  The WCHA gives us stability; when we have had stability, we have prospered.

The CHA started having problems in 2005-06, when Air Force announced that they would leave for Atlantic Hockey.  UAH’s record began dipping at that point, and you can easily attribute that to UAH being less attractive to both recruits and potential opponents—who wants to play (at) UAH when their conference might not exist in a few years?  Those naysayers were right, as 2009-10 was the last year of the conference.  Starting in 2005-06, the winning percentages: .588, .403, .258, .250, .409.  Instability has made it hard for UAH to be a successful program; a lack of a conference has made it even harder.

If you want to see UAH hockey succeed in Huntsville, you will be at the Von Braun Center on Friday night; and if you can’t make it, you better get three people to go in your stead.  I cannot stress that enough.  You wanted us to stay, and we need you now more than ever.

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Facebook Cover Photo for Mankato Series

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Hey y’all — if you want to help spread the word about Friday’s game, we have a way you can help: donate your Facebook cover photo for this week!  Just click and then save the image below and upload it to your page.  UAH Sports Information pulled this together, and I think it’s great!

Thanks for your help!  Go Chargers!

P.S.: If people have questions about ticketing for Friday night, please point them to our Q&A.