UConn Hockey 2012-13

[Adios]

Daily Campus Sports (@DCSportsDept)
3/15/13, 9:04 PM
FINAL SCORE: UConn beats Robert Morris 4-1, and is now one win away from the Atlantic Hockey Semifinals.

Very nice... How was the crowd?


Cornell whacked QU 3-2

552 showed up for the UConn game.

Quinnipiac did not have a sellout crowd, somehow. But they outshot Cornell 2-1. Cornell went 2 for 3 on the power play. QU should come back to win that series. If not, major, major upset.

If anyone got whacked last night, it was Saint Lawrence. Yale is solid. Yale did not sell out either. Nowhere close to selling out. I don't get why some playoff games don't sell out but regular season games do.

UConn's box score:

http://www.uscho.com/box/mens-hockey/2013/03/15/robert-morris-vs-connecticut/

RMU's goalie did not play well.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

No one sells out quarterfinal games, they're always VERY poorly attended everywhere. BU didn't get 3K, BC barely got 3K, Lowell playing their first home series in years with a shot at clinching a ticket to the Garden barely got 5K. Heck, even North Dakota had 1,000 empty seats! Main reason is spring break, a lot of season ticket packages also don't include the QF games. It's a mystery no one's ever been able to figure out completely, but rarely does any QF game sell out anywhere.

 

[dbmill]

552 showed up for the UConn game

Friday was also the last day of classes at UConn before spring break. That's bound to have an impact on attendance.

 

[huskymedic]

Daily Campus Sports (@DCSportsDept)
3/16/13, 9:11 PM
The Huskies are going to Rochester! 4-3 win over Robert Morris to advance to the Atlantic Hockey Semifinals.

Yale wins 3-0. Series over - Advance to Atlantic City.
QU wins 10-0 - Evens series. Deciding game tomorrow night.

College Hockey in CT on a roll!

 

[Adios]

QU game was great. 7 goals in the second period. Second period ended with a fight. 184 PIM between both teams. It was insane. Penalty boxes looked like benches at the beginning of the third period. There were some angry Cornell people in front of me.

http://www.quinnipiacbobcats.com/sports/mice/2012-13/boxscores/20130316_ekkm.xml

Go Huskies!

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Lot of Cornell fans there? They travel extraordinarily well.

 

[Adios]

Lot of Cornell fans there? They travel extraordinarily well.

I read somewhere they do travel well. A good number of Cornell fans did show up. And they were loud. Some were buying tickets to go back for game 3 after the game was over. Even saw one person wearing a Cornell game used jersey. Had to compliment him on it. Beautiful jersey. QU fans need to be louder. But I think this is the beginning of a great tradition for QU. Hartzell said he came to QU because of the facilities and the scenery and he was being recruited by North Dakota at one point.

QU is playing incredibly well right now. What I saw was a legit #1 team. They are not over-hyped. They are going to have to be consistent to get far. They humiliated a national quarter-finalist from last year. I will be going back for game 3 too. 11 NHL draft picks between the 2 teams.

When it comes to UConn going to the Hockey East, I really do not know whether Hartford or Storrs would be the better place to play. Hartford just might be the best way to get the biggest crowds. Our potential in hockey is very, very good. We really need an arena that can at least seat 6-7K. Top notch facilities and a great coach and we can take off to the moon. We might have found a good coach in the interim coach.

College hockey and the Ivy League schools make me wonder whether the FBS schools will really break away from the NCAA. There's so much to lose with a secession of that magnitude.

Does anyone want to make the trip to Atlantic City for the ECAC championship game on March 23rd? Please let me know. Historic venue built in the 1920s.

 

[freescooter]

The Saturday night crowd was about the same, but it was a good atmosphere. The pep band was on hand which added to the overall feel. For a smallish crowd, I do think it was pretty loud. And it was a good hockey game. UConn dominated the 1st period and went off down 1-0. But they came out fired up in the 2nd and put up 3 goals. The first was out of a scrum in front of the net but the second and especially the 3rd were beautiful plays. They got a little sloppy late in the game, and I think it carried over to RMU's 3rd goal, but then they closed the door. I have to say that this is a nice hockey team. They have really improved since I last saw them back in January. Much better defense now. They really took it to a team that I think lots of people thought was better than the Huskies. I don't know that they can beat Niagara, but in a 1 game situation, I'm not so sure they can't either. As far as attendance goes, I've been to a few quarterfinal/1st round games where UConn hosted. All but 1 came during Spring break and that one was the best attended by far. I'm not sure there is much you can do abut it if you're going to play on campus during Spring break. And we were in the area earlier in the day for something. The whole campus was pretty dead.

 

[freescooter]

One other comment on UConn Hockey. Dave Berard needs to be named the head coach. He has done an exceptional job. Interesting to watch him. He is always coaching...most hockey coaches stand behind the bench. Not him, he is always calling out instructions, taking to guys as they come off, and go on.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

I read somewhere they do travel well. A good number of Cornell fans did show up. And they were loud. Some were buying tickets to go back for game 3 after the game was over. Even saw one person wearing a Cornell game used jersey. Had to compliment him on it. Beautiful jersey. QU fans need to be louder. But I think this is the beginning of a great tradition for QU. Hartzell said he came to QU because of the facilities and the scenery and he was being recruited by North Dakota at one point.

Cornell does indeed travel extremely well. When BU plays them at MSG every other year it's usually at least 66/34 in favor of CU, and they come to Harvard, their main rival, in droves. They like to call it Lynah East. Occasionally, those game used sweaters trickle out, they're awesome to get your hands on.

Hartzell is flat lying if he says he chose QU over UND because of facilities. There isn't a nicer facility in college sports than Engelstad Arena, as shown below. It blows the football practice facilities out of the water. The entire damn place is made of marble and smells of roasting Bavarian vanilla almonds, really. Scenery, sure, saying Grand Forks is in the middle of nowhere is a compliment. My guess is he went to QU because they offered him more playing time or possibly more scholarship money, and that he was a lower end recruit for UND. They're a direct line to the NHL, QU is not.

 

[Adios]

He chose QU after North Dakota said they decided to go in a different direction.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Hope you made it to the game tonight, i finally found audio of it in 2OT, hell of a game. Playoff hockey is the best thing going in sports.

 

[huskymedic]

Hope you made it to the game tonight, i finally found audio of it in 2OT, hell of a game. Playoff hockey is the best thing going in sports.

QU dominating extras but can't bury one!

Take it back... wow!

 

[Adios]

Certainly was a great game. Historic weekend for college hockey in the state of CT. Hartzell gave his stick to some little kid. Told him he was lucky and to keep it. The band plays Brass Bonanza at QU games. The bobcat sound bite after goals is incredibly awesome. I am addicted to college hockey.

 

[Jimdish255]

Replay scheduled on DTV tonight I think - NESN. Great job I love the way these guys play.

http://www.quinnipiacbobcats.com/sports/mice/2012-13/releases/20130317xamfdi

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Certainly was a great game. Historic weekend for college hockey in the state of CT. Hartzell gave his stick to some little kid. Told him he was lucky and to keep it. The band plays Brass Bonanza at QU games. The bobcat sound bite after goals is incredibly awesome. I am addicted to college hockey.

There's a reason I've been shouting from the hills for years on the football and basketball boards any chance I got! And to think that game wasn't that close to being one of the 10 longest in NCAA history! If you can't watch a college hockey playoff game and be entertained, you don't have a pulse. Much less an OT game. Now put yourself in the shoes of a fan whose team's season is on the line in that OT, it is absolutely gut wrenching. How many posts did CU hit? BU played a multi OT game for the title against Lake State one year and hit, I've heard, all three posts in the OT periods, and lost. In pond hockey, that's an immediate win.

An on campus rink and a competitive Hockey East team will be the most exciting thing that happened for UConn fans since Jim Calhoun drove into Storrs. College hockey is the best kept secret in sports, anyone can become a fan watching 60 seconds of sudden death OT.

 

[freescooter]

There's a reason I've been shouting from the hills for years on the football and basketball boards any chance I got! And to think that game wasn't that close to being one of the 10 longest in NCAA history! If you can't watch a college hockey playoff game and be entertained, you don't have a pulse. Much less an OT game. Now put yourself in the shoes of a fan whose team's season is on the line in that OT, it is absolutely gut wrenching. How many posts did CU hit? BU played a multi OT game for the title against Lake State one year and hit, I've heard, all three posts in the OT periods, and lost. In pond hockey, that's an immediate win.

An on campus rink and a competitive Hockey East team will be the most exciting thing that happened for UConn fans since Jim Calhoun drove into Storrs. College hockey is the best kept secret in sports, anyone can become a fan watching 60 seconds of sudden death OT.

Absolutely right on that. And there is an intensity in playoff hockey that is unlike almost anything in sports. i don't know what it is but the game is just made for the playoffs. Great stuff.

 

[Adios]

Quinnipiac slipped to #2 according to this poll but still has the most #1 votes. They are still #1 according to the USA Today/USA Hockey poll. UConn actually has a vote in the USCHO rankings. About time. Congrats to the hockey team! I have no idea how Robert Morris has one more vote than we do when we just swept them.

http://www.uscho.com/rankings/d-i-mens-poll/

 

[huskymedic]

Quinnipiac slipped to #2 according to this poll but still has the most #1 votes. They are still #1 according to the USA Today/USA Hockey poll. UConn actually has a vote in the USCHO rankings. About time. Congrats to the hockey team! I have no idea how Robert Morris has one more vote than we do when we just swept them.

http://www.uscho.com/rankings/d-i-mens-poll/

But still #1 in Pairwise!

http://www.uscho.com/rankings/pairwise-rankings/d-i-men/

 

[Adios]

It would be very nice if Yale and Quinnipiac team up with UConn and SHU to create an in-state tournament.

 

[freescooter]

UConn finally shows up both places. The PWR though drives me nuts. Niagara could end up getting screwed not because of what they did, but because Air Force lost to Canisius...and in the real world UConn just beat Robert Morris twice, won 3 of 4 from them this year, finished ahead of them in the AHA, too. But in some mathematical world, RMU is #24 while UConn is 31. For big programs, it doesn't make all that much difference. Hockey East is getting 3-4 teams in most years, but for the smaller ones who have only an outside chance of getting to the tourney as an at-large, it is a crazy system. I know the argument is that it gets the "best" teams, but when a system disregards actual performance, and penalizes teams for the performance of teams they aren't playing, plus it gives equal weight to games in October as it does to those in March I'm not sure it is getting the best. I've always been of th eopinion that if you are the 5th team from Hockey East for example, and you get left out, for the regular season champ from the AHA or the #3 team from the CHA, well, you really weren't that good to begin with, and despite multiple chances to actually earn a spot on the ice, you didn't do that. If you have to depend on some complicated math for your spot, is it really deserved?

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Niagara actually has a 95.9% chance of going to the tournament, at-large or autobid. That chance is calculated weighing each possible PWR outcome evenly against one another, regardless of how likely a permutation is. So, theoretically, UConn has a 25% chance to go, because they have a 25% chance to win the AHA auto bid. Under these set of guidelines, the Washington Generals also have a 50% chance to beat the Globetrotters.

And the 5th team in HE 100 times out of 100 would beat the 3rd place CHA team, mostly because the CHA hasn't existed since 2009.

 

[HuskyDogArt]

There's a reason I've been shouting from the hills for years on the football and basketball boards any chance I got! And to think that game wasn't that close to being one of the 10 longest in NCAA history! If you can't watch a college hockey playoff game and be entertained, you don't have a pulse. Much less an OT game. Now put yourself in the shoes of a fan whose team's season is on the line in that OT, it is absolutely gut wrenching. How many posts did CU hit? BU played a multi OT game for the title against Lake State one year and hit, I've heard, all three posts in the OT periods, and lost. In pond hockey, that's an immediate win.

An on campus rink and a competitive Hockey East team will be the most exciting thing that happened for UConn fans since Jim Calhoun drove into Storrs. College hockey is the best kept secret in sports, anyone can become a fan watching 60 seconds of sudden death OT.

I think if UConn Hockey can win (and I know it will), it will be another sport team that'll help get interest from recruits. Still most NHL players are still from the OHL, WHL and the QMHL, but we can get high schoolers from New England, New Jersey and maybe even Durant High School (a high school with a good team here in the Tampa Bay area. Not saying they'll beat South Windsor, but they might give E. O. Smith a tough game!)

 

[freescooter]

Art,
these days almost every recruit at a d-1 program comes through either prep school or one of the junior leagues. I actually think that one of the NESCAC teams I saw at Wesleyan this year had a player from Durant though he also went to prep school. I remember commenting that he was from Tampa anyway.

 

[freescooter]

See UConn got one guy on the all-conference team. Matt Grogan was 3rd team. I guess I'd rather still be playing than to have multiple all-conference players...