UConn Hockey 2012-13

[brasssbonanzaa]

Glad you enjoyed NoDak, never made it out there but the only benefit of HE expanding is more OOC games and I believe they're due for another BC/BU weekend either next year or the following.

Watched Friday night on mute while listening to BC up in Orono, hope NESN continues to pick up these games (Jack Edwards will be on the call Sunday afternoon -missing my first game at Agganis in 7 years).

As for UConn, while you can hang your hat on 1 tie to a team that made it out of the always comically easily BPT bracket, I prefer to look at the 4 game sample size against teams that wouldn't and won't come close to sniffing home ice (and probably playoffs for all but maybe UMass) where the aggregate score was 14-2.

Yes, we get NoDak, Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State all at home next season along with Cornell at MSG. Egads.

I'm more concerned about the overall direction of the UConn program as opposed to results here and there. Of course, there's going to be an adjustment period when they join HE where they'll get pasted in most games, but it'd be more important to see progress over the first couple of seasons. Wins against BU, BC, UNH and the like will be few and far between, if any at all. I'd be more concerned how they match up against the likes of PC, UMass, Northeastern, and if he stays Timmay's Maine. Wins there would be a sign that UConn can be competitive in the league and will make for a good addition. If they continue to get steamrolled by the middle and bottom of the league, it'd be cause for immediate coaching changes and potential re-evaluation of the entire program track.

 

[Kgun7]

I know you're new to the conference but using Bertanga as a reference towards your point really doesn't help it.

He's the buffoon that still thinks HE officiating is some of the best in the country despite multiple embarrassments on the national stage.

Of course, the here and there results in the large part are irrelevant but an 0-4-1 start against teams that would struggle to make HE playoffs isn't a great start which caused me to raise the question.

If UCONN started 4-0-1 against the teams that would struggle to make the HE playoffs ... they wouldn't need to "actually improve the program" and would likely not seek an invitation to HE. Maybe (this is pure conjecture on my part) ... part of the plan to improve the program "includes" entrance into HE to elevate the quality of their recruits. Bertanga didn't create his own agenda and decide to aimlessly add teams to HE ... somebody gave him a directive ... you don't think anyone from BC went along with this?

And nobody is debating you when you state ... " the program has a long way to go to even be somewhat mediocre in HE."

 

[The Viking]

I know you're new to the conference but using Bertanga as a reference towards your point really doesn't help it.

He's the buffoon that still thinks HE officiating is some of the best in the country despite multiple embarrassments on the national stage.

Of course, the here and there results in the large part are irrelevant but an 0-4-1 start against teams that would struggle to make HE playoffs isn't a great start which caused me to raise the question.

UConn beat Merrimack tonight 3-1 after beating Sacred Heart on Friday night. 2-4-1 on the year.

Everyone chillax. We got this. Claver while you're at it, go bang a goat.

 

[Adios]

Claver while you're at it, go bang a goat.

I agree.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Mack's a nice win, Lawler is a tricky place to play, and they've had an exceptional record there over the past few seasons there. Mack is one of the HE teams UConn needs to be competitive with for the path to look bright down the road.

 

[kingdobbs]

The Huskies have played well against the two tournament teams from last year thus far on their schedule, 'Mack and Union (only one more remains, and that's Air Force in two weeks). Which makes the early season stinker against UMass and the shutout sweep at the hands of Niagara equally worthy of a head scratch.

 

[Dann]

i think this team has no depth.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

The Huskies have played well against the two tournament teams from last year thus far on their schedule, 'Mack and Union (only one more remains, and that's Air Force in two weeks). Which makes the early season stinker against UMass and the shutout sweep at the hands of Niagara equally worthy of a head scratch.

To be fair, Mack didn't make the tournament last year, though they did in 2011. Hockey is an odd sport.

 

[freescooter]

Nice win...who knows what was going on earlier with the coach, too. that might have influenced play. Plus whoever said they have no depth I think hit on something. When you watch UConn they often have 1 line that could play with anyone. Maybe not first line at BC but they could play at BC. But it tends to drop off faster than at some other programs. Then add in the fact that historically UConn relies on a fair number of freshmen and it often take them a few weeks to adjust to the college level. I typically watch what they do starting with the UConn tournament. If they can play well there, it usually sets up fairly well for the league season.

 

[kingdobbs]

To be fair, Mack didn't make the tournament last year, though they did in 2011. Hockey is an odd sport.

Huh, I guess I misremembered that, although they were close to an at-large now that I look at last year's ranking.

 

[mets1090]

To be fair, Mack didn't make the tournament last year, though they did in 2011. Hockey is an odd sport.

Without knowing anything about college hockey (watch a lot of NHL though - love hockey), I imagine that if a team loses their goalie it can completely change the success of a team from year to year.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Yes mack was the last team out in the pairwise. They did still have their stud goalie Joe cannata, but he's gone this year and theyve regressed a bit though not to the point they were five or so years ago when they were a doormat for everyone else in the league. Still a good win for UConn.

 

[freescooter]

It will be interesting to see if UConn can build on this. They have a couple of tough games coming up. it would be nice to see them win this weekend then win at least one against Air Force next weekend. But as I said, they tend to play lots of freshmen who just take time to become acclimated. If they could put together a few wins during this stretch it would put them in a good spot going forward.

 

[Dann]

our puck guys, recruit brent norris info?!?!?!

 

[kibblesnbits]

I've never seen him play but here's his player page for Nepean (http://nepean.stats.pointstreak.com/playerpage.html?playerid=3143747&seasonid=5781). He's a smallish '93 center who is putting up a good scoring total in an OK league that turns out a decent number of D-I players. It's his 4th season of junior A which usually means he wasn't considered a highly regarded prospect for the top lines/top teams but you can often get solid, mature players that way to fill out the roster.

 

[Dann]

So he did commit and i saw a tweet that said he was a pc commit before

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Don't know much about the league, if he's a '93, he'll be coming here as a 20 year old freshman (not unusual in hockey). If he was formerly of PC it would seem they might have wanted him to spend another year in juniors before coming there for roster reasons (again, not uncommon) and he may have wanted to play quicker and looked elsewhere. I don't know about that, total guess, I don't really follow much hockey recruiting, mostly because it's far more convoluted than basketball or football.

 

[kibblesnbits]

Norris may be an interesting story. He was apparently committed to PC for this season. After a high scoring '10-'11 for Nepean he joined Cedar Rapids of the USHL for the '11-'12 preseason but he either didn't make the team or left. He then signed with Youngstown of the USHL and produced 3 points in 15 games (slow starts are pretty normal for kids making the step up in class). He was either let go or chose to return to Nepean where he once again scored at a good clip. Sometime along the way he and PC split up.

His Jr A scoring rate shows he has potential but the failure to stick in the more advanced USHL is a red flag. Let's hope it was just a mismatch (it happens) and not an indication that he's maxed out.

 

[kingdobbs]

Attendance for the Saturday afternoon game against Air Force in Hartford was reported as 1,985 (by comparison, the Friday afternoon tilt with the Falcons drew only 640 to Freitas, but that's just about the expected total when students are on break).

I was at the XL Center for the game, and I wasn't sure it was *quite* that many, but that's an encouraging sign for the HEA future. As an alternative to switching an already-scheduled game in the fall, they could (and probably should) schedule a handful as part of their spring release (maybe swing something with a future HEA opponent like Amherst or Providence), and I think there might be a slight bump in interest.

 

[freescooter]

I was away for the holiday weekend but I was curious about attendance at the XL. I figured even if the number was sightly high it was still pretty solid. I agree that rather than a last minute switch they could play a couple of games there next season with some advanced notice and billing. PC, UMass-Amherst or somebody makes sense.

 

[kingdobbs]

It wasn't heavy by any stretch (I would've guessed it was around 1K), and a visual survey saw more Whale green than UConn blue during the game.

The promotion of UConn during the Whale game was pretty weak, though, in spite of it being declared "UConn Hockey Day", which is less than encouraging. Whale fans should be a pretty easy sell on UConn hockey, but apart from a couple appearances from Jonathan (who was curiously absent from the *actual* UConn game), there wasn't a whole lot of promotion there.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

For fun, I decided to try and find a way to buy tickets through UConn's website for the XL game, and the website was screwed up and there wasn't an option to do so, at least last week there wasn't. Pretty bad job there. sub 2K numbers at XL would not be a good sign for a UConn HE game, that would put them more or less dead last among average HE attendance numbers.

 

[freescooter]

For fun, I decided to try and find a way to buy tickets through UConn's website for the XL game, and the website was screwed up and there wasn't an option to do so, at least last week there wasn't. Pretty bad job there. sub 2K numbers at XL would not be a good sign for a UConn HE game, that would put them more or less dead last among average HE attendance numbers.

Not so sure about that. Keep in mind that A. UConn isn't in Hockey East. They played Air Force not BC.
B. The game wasn't scheduled at the civic Center until about 2 weeks ago and it wasn't exactly pushed as "must see"
C. the "casual" UConn fan was home watching what ended up being a pretty exciting football game.
D. It was a holiday weekend so the students were home visiting Mom, Aunt Flo and Grandma...In my mind if attendance is more than double your typical gate (and even if they over-stated the gate, I doubt it was by 50%) in a game that was moved with minimal fanfare, that is pretty hopeful.

 

[kingdobbs]

For fun, I decided to try and find a way to buy tickets through UConn's website for the XL game, and the website was screwed up and there wasn't an option to do so, at least last week there wasn't.

Yeah, that was a mess. The fact that it was basically a Whale game with a UConn undercard probably had something to do with the online ticketing arrangements being fubarred.

Pretty bad job there. sub 2K numbers at XL would not be a good sign for a UConn HE game, that would put them more or less dead last among average HE attendance numbers.

It certainly wasn't ideal. We could go through the myriad ways in which it wasn't ideal (which freescooter really nailed most of), but I'm certain that the intent here was to do a dry run to find out where the warts are, from both the UConn and the XL side of things (we do not under any circumstances want the XL management to be getting cold feet about this arrangement, because it would be a major embarrassment to both UConn and HEA if the arena falls through).

So I think the next logical step, like I said upthread, assuming another game can't be arranged for the late season with a little more lead time to advertise, is to negotiate for 2-4 games next year to be pre-scheduled at the arena rather than at Freitas (1-2 league games, and another 1-2 non-conference matchups).

 

[freescooter]

Yeah, that was a mess. The fact that it was basically a Whale game with a UConn undercard probably had something to do with the online ticketing arrangements being fubarred.



It certainly wasn't ideal. We could go through the myriad ways in which it wasn't ideal (which freescooter really nailed most of), but I'm certain that the intent here was to do a dry run to find out where the warts are, from both the UConn and the XL side of things (we do not under any circumstances want the XL management to be getting cold feet about this arrangement, because it would be a major embarrassment to both UConn and HEA if the arena falls through).

So I think the next logical step, like I said upthread, assuming another game can't be arranged for the late season with a little more lead time to advertise, is to negotiate for 2-4 games next year to be pre-scheduled at the arena rather than at Freitas (1-2 league games, and another 1-2 non-conference matchups).

Right. and you could do all sorts of things from selling "XL season tickets" to providing busses for students if this was arranged for next season. I'd hope to land a couple of HEA teams or maybe one plus Yale or some better known ECAC, plus maybe Holy Cross and Army from Atlantic.