Four Crazy Years

Cole Leaves Program for US National Team Development Program

Cole’s replacement should be announced later this week.

That’s right: today is four years from the day that Coach Cole moved to Ann Arbor to work with the USNTDP, and who could blame him?  UAH Hockey was headed into uncharted waters with life as an independent coming up quickly on the horizon.  None of us knew then how that would go, and goodness knows that it went some very crazy places.  We can look on these last four years as a cycle borne of the complete instability of that uncertainty.  But we know that these things are true:

  1. We’re in a league.
  2. We have a great head coach that’s taking this program forward.
  3. We have a solid recruiting class coming in that is poised to take on large roles from the outset.

Danton’s departure is one of the very first things that I covered here on UAHHockey.com.  He and I stay in touch, and I assure you that he wishes the program well.  I hope that we will soon be a program that can snag one of his kids’ attention for a commitment to play for the Chargers for four years.  That may be more than four years down the line, but hopefully sooner than later.

2014-15 UAH Hockey Schedule Released!

We’re excited to let you know that the University has released the 2014-15 UAH hockey schedule!  Before we give you the whole thing, I want to pass along some highlights:

  1. All of our non-conference games are on the road, which isn’t what we want, but this won’t be the case going forward.  We’ve heard the names — and maybe you have, too — and there’s some good games coming down the pike.  We play at Colorado College in the first series for their new head coach.  We play WCHA foe Northern Michigan in a non-conference series driven by a previously-contracted matchup.  We go back to Colorado Springs the next weekend to play Mike Corbett’s old Air Force squad.  Our NC slate finishes just before Christmas at Nebraska-Omaha.  Mavericks fans, Clarke Saunders has no eligibility left.
  2. The schedule is winter-heavy when it comes to home dates, with five home weekends split between January and February. This will help with attendance, as UAH has historically done better when we’re not up against football games.  (Who would have thought that?!)
  3. We get the USNTDP Under-18 squad this season.  U-18 won the IIHF World Championship gold under the hand of Danton Cole, so we won’t see our old coach then.
  4. The WCHA schedule rotation has you playing four games against five teams and two games against four.  Each team has a designated rival, and ours is Bowling Green: we will see them every season.  If you played a team two games in the previous season — which would be Ferris State and Lake Superior at home and Alaska and Michigan Tech on the Road — you play them four times the next season.  The four non-BG teams that we played twice last year — Bemidji, Northern Michigan, Alaska-Anchorage, and Minnesota State — will be split between home games (NMU, Anchorage) and road games (Bemidji, Mankato).  Yes, we only play the Beavers in Minnesota.  Fret not, fans: we’ll see the Green in Huntsville in each of the following three seasons.

Without any further ado, your 2014-15 UAH hockey schedule!

  • Oct. 10-11 at Colorado College
  • Oct. 17-18 vs Bowling Green*
  • Oct. 24-25 at Minnesota State*
  • Oct. 31-Nov. 1 at Northern Michigan
  • Nov. 7-8 at Air Force
  • Nov. 14-15 vs Lake Superior State*
  • Nov. 21-22 at Ferris State*
  • Nov. 28-29 vs Michigan Tech*
  • Dec. 5-6 OFF
  • Dec. 12-13 at Alaska*
  • Dec. 20-21 at Nebraska Omaha
  • Dec. 26-27 OFF
  • Jan. 2-3 vs Alaska Anchorage*
  • Jan. 9-10 at Bemidji State*
  • Jan. 16-17 vs Northern Michigan*
  • Jan. 23-24 vs USA Under-18^
  • Jan. 30-31 at Michigan Tech*
  • Feb. 6-7 OFF
  • Feb. 13-14 at Lake Superior State*
  • Feb. 20-21 vs Ferris State*
  • Feb. 27-28 vs Alaska*
  • Mar. 6-7 at Bowling Green*

* WCHA series. ^ Exhibition.

We’ll see you at the VBC!  When we know more about promotional details and the PPV offering, we’ll update you.