photo courtesy of Don Treeger
The highly anticipated battle for second place in Hockey East between the UMass Minutemen and the Boston College Eagles was anything but a battle. The Minutemen played poorly and the Eagles took advantage taking a 7-1 win and demoralizing the sold out crown at the Mullins Center Friday night. Continue reading »
Since the Olympics are right around the corner, we figured it would be a good time to get a hockey preview happening. As always, the Canadians are the favored team, but not as much as one would think. The Russians behind superstar players such as Alexander Ovechkin appear to be up to the task of defeating the Canadians. Then there are the Americans, and to be honest it looks like we will need another miracle on ice for us to grab gold. Here are the reports on all of the teams.
Table of Groups
| Group A | Group B | Group C |
| USA | Czech Republic | Finland |
| Canada | Russia | Sweden |
| Switzerland | Slovakia | Belarus |
| Norway | Latvia | Germany |
One month ago, the world junior hockey tournament started in Canada and like most, it had some very exiting moments. Canada came in as tournament favorites, having one five gold’s in a row, and 11 straight medals. The squad featured top draft prospect Taylor Hall along with a whole host of top prospects for their respective NHL teams. Then only criticism of the Canadian team could be that they had a host of eligible players that could not make the tournament due to their commitment to their NHL teams. This group included the past two number one overall picks Steven Stamkos and John Tavares, as well as Matt Duchene of the Avalanche, and five others. No other team faced this problem heading in. Sweden came in looking as the top threat to the Canadian squad, and the American team was also highly praised after they decided to have a camp and cuts instead of just choosing a team for the first time in their history, and in the end it paid off. Continue reading »
UMass entered the weekend two-game series with the Vermont Catamounts with a 9-6 record in Hockey East play and were fresh off two big wins against UMass-Lowell.
The first game started off fast, when James Marcou used a defenseman as a screen and snapped a wrist shot past Catamount goalie Rob Madore on the first shift of the game. The pace fast, and the action was back and forth until late in the opening frame when Jay Anctil of Vermont hopped on a bouncing puck in the UMass slot and beat Paul Dainton on the glove side. In the second, Casey Wellman rushed end to end, and like linemate Marcou, used a Catamount defenseman as a screed, wiring a shot though both the defender and goalie’s legs to give the home team Minutemen a 2-1 lead. UMass controlled the majority of play for the rest of the game, and would have gotten a larger lead if not for the play of Vermont goalie Rob Madore who made great scramble saves multiple times. With a minute remaining, Vermont pulled Madore, but had mis-communicated as the puck came to their end as doing so. James Marcou passed on a shot at the empty net and passed to Casey Wellman who buried it for his second of the game as UMass went on to take game one 3-1. Continue reading »
We are coming down the home stretch of the High School season and I just wanted to clarify a rule that seems to get a lot of grumbling from the stands. Although I took the rule out of the Federation book, this basically applies to every rule book in hockey. So lets get to it.
Rule 6-40 article 3 states that a penalty shall be assessed to a player who intentionally or recklessly contacts a player to the head, including with the stick or by an illegal body check. Penalty-minor or major if flagrant. Continue reading »
The Winter Classic was a great experience to anyone that was fortunate to be at the game and we have seen thousands of stories, images and video clips from the press. What we haven’t seen is a kids point of view on how it was to witness history, so I asked my daughter who has been begging to help on this blog to write a story for everyone to see. Continue reading »
