Lucia gets extension through ’15 to coach Gophers
October 19, 2011
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)—Minnesota hockey coach Don Lucia has agreed to terms on acontract extension through the 2014-15 season.
The university announced the deal Wednesday.
After winning consecutive national championships in 2002 and 2003, theGophers have fallen off in recent years and missed the NCAA tournament threestraight seasons. Lucia dealt with a rare disease during the 2008-09 season thatcaused numbness, headaches and forced him away from the team for days at a time.
Athletics director Joel Maturi says Lucia is “the right man” to lead theGophers as “the premier program in the country.”
Lucia has started his 13th season at the school. The Gophers are off to a4-0 start.
Boston U. holds off No. 3 Denver, 4-3 (CBS Interactive U-WIRE)
October 17, 2011
With less than 15 minutes left against No. 3 U. Denver Saturday night, Kieran Millan was closing in on history.
Thanks to a healthy 4-0 Boston U. men’s hockey team lead and Millan’s perfect 24 saves through two periods, the senior goaltender looked like he was on his way to winning his 63rd game as a Terrier, a new school record.
But 11 minutes and three Denver goals – of the wraparound (6:01), bouncer (13:09) and rebound (17:39) variety – later, the record-breaking win was suddenly in jeopardy.
“At that point [the Pioneers] were bringing it pretty hard,” Millan said. “I know I let in kind of a soft second goal, so the onus was on me to help us pull through.”
Lucky for the Terriers (2-1, 1-1 Hockey East), the defense buckled down for the last 2:21 to top the Pioneers (1-1), 4-3, and get Millan the win to pass former BU goalie Sean Fields, who collected 62 wins from 2000-2004.
“It’s definitely an honor,” Millan said of breaking the record. “I know a lot of great goalies have come through here.”
BU’s ability to hold on might have been inadvertently assisted by a Denver timeout at 19:37.8, giving BU a chance to regroup. Immediately after the following faceoff in BU’s defensive zone, Denver forward Beau Bennett was charged with a holding penalty, bringing the next faceoff to the other side of the ice and effectively ending the game.
Both coaches reacted exactly how one would expect given how it affected their respective teams. While BU coach Jack Parker said it was “absolutely the right call,” Denver coach George Gwozdecky had to check himself before speaking in generalities.
“Can I get fined for making comments on referees outside-of-conference?” Gwozdecky asked. “When you look over the 60 minutes, there were many things, many mistakes that everybody involved in the game made. You focus on [the holding call] for about a minute, you whine and complain a little bit, but the bottom line was we could have made some plays earlier.
“It was an interesting finish, that’s for sure.”
But the third-period dramatics would have been all for naught had BU not controlled the game for most of the first two periods.
The Terriers got off to a quick 1-0 lead thanks to a goal by junior assistant captain Alex Chiasson. Freshman forward Cason Hohmann fed the puck to his fellow forward, who promptly scooted around Denver captain Dustin Jackson and rocketed the puck over Pioneer goaltender Adam Murray’s left shoulder at 10:54 in the first.
“Our defenseman completely misread it, thought the backside was covered, it wasn’t, they made a great play to spring [Chiasson] loose on the back side and he made a great shot to beat Adam,” Gwozdecky said.
The score stayed that way until shortly into the second, despite Denver gaining some momentum in the second half of the first stanza. Denver won the period-opening faceoff, but Millan cleared the puck all the way across the ice, leading to Murray misplaying it behind his own net. Senior forward Corey Trivino capitalized, grabbing the puck for the wrap-around, short-handed goal at 0:19 before Murray got back in the net.
It was the third goal in as many games for the player that Parker called the best “up and down the lineup.”
Just 42 seconds later, a pair of sophomore forwards got in on the action. Charlie Coyle sent the puck to Matt Nieto for a backhanded goal, again with BU playing four-on-five, to make it 3-0.
But the super sophomores weren’t done there. Forward Sahir Gill and defenseman Adam Clendening chipped in on senior forward Wade Megan’s backhander at 2:58 to make it 4-0, ending the three-minute flurry of BU offense.
BU seemed to slow down in the second half of both periods, giving Denver multiple opportunities to get on the board. Millan was in top form though, and stopped all 24 Denver shots, including seven grade-A chances, in the first two periods.
Then, the Terriers took their lead for granted.
“We got stupid,” Parker said. “We got real stupid and selfish to try to get an empty net goal instead of making sure they didn’t score.”
That set up the late-game excitement and eventual history-making win for Millan.
“I know 63 is a great number,” Millan said, “but I think this year we can make it a lot higher. I’m not going to predict anything but hopefully quite a few more.”
Notre Dame moves to Hockey East (CBS Interactive U-WIRE)
October 7, 2011
The ice of the Compton Family Ice Arena was busy Wednesday afternoon — but not with skates, sticks and pucks. Microphones, cameras and reporters instead filled the ice to hear Notre Dame’s big announcement: The Irish are heading east.
Beginning in the 2013-14 season, Notre Dame will play in the Hockey East conference, leaving the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA).
“The addition of Notre Dame signals a significant change in the reach of our conference,” Hockey East commissioner Joe Bertagna said. “When Notre Dame ended the seasons of [Hockey East members] New Hampshire and Merrimack, it was been decided that when we couldn’t beat them, we should join them.”
Preseason No. 1 Notre Dame will join perennial powers Boston College and Boston University in a league that has produced three of the last four national champions and seven overall. UMass-Lowell, Massachusetts, Vermont, Northeastern, Maine and Providence comprise the rest of Hockey East.
“We have been looking to expand Hockey East for quite some time, but with the right partner,” Boston University Director of Athletics Mike Lynch said. “We believe firmly that we have found that partner. We are thrilled to welcome Notre Dame to Hockey East and look forward to many great years together in our conference.”
Notre Dame Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick said Notre Dame considered two other options — hockey independence and the newly formed National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) — before ultimately landing in Hockey East.
“We had to make sure to consider all of the options available to us and make the right choice for our student-athletes and our coaches and the University,” Swarbrick said.
Swarbrick cited many reasons for joining the conference, including the student-athlete experience in which missed class time and travel factored into the decision.
“[We want] to use sports to promote the University and we believe our affiliation with Hockey East sets the platform for us to do that with hockey the way we have been able to do it with football in the past,” Swarbrick said.
Notre Dame will once again partner with NBC, but this time, to broadcast hockey games.
“Our relationship with Notre Dame is one of our most important partnerships,” President of Programming for NBC Sports and Versus Jon Miller said. “The opportunity to broadcast Notre Dame hockey games as well as Hockey East games was very exciting for us as we rebrand the NBC Sports Network. We’re excited about what the future holds.”
Details of the deal have not been finalized although televising all of Notre Dame’s home games is a possibility.
Irish coach Jeff Jackson believes that the move to Hockey East — along with the scheduling flexibility and the new television deal — will help Notre Dame recruit on a more national basis.
“We’ll probably be going east five times and probably west five times,” Jackson said. “I think it will create a more national schedule for us and potentially open up new recruiting opportunities.”
The Hockey East conference schedule is smaller and allows the Irish to play more non-conference games against traditional rivals Michigan, Michigan State and, potentially, Minnesota.
The Irish leave behind a lasting legacy in the CCHA, winning two regular-season and postseason tournament titles (2007 and 2009) during their 13 years in the conference. Jackson has spent his entire collegiate coaching career in the CCHA and said it is sad to see it disband.
“It will be very disappointing for me, as a lifetime member of the CCHA, to see it no longer existing,” Jackson said. “It’s a disappointment but we still have work to do in the CCHA.”
Hockey East, with the addition of Jackson and Notre Dame, now houses five of the top-10 winningest coaches in collegiate hockey. Boston College’s Jerry York, Boston University’s Jack Parker, New Hampshire’s Dick Umile and UMass’ Don Cahoon all rank ahead of Jackson in the wins list.
“We look forward to a very bright future with a conference we have great admiration for that has its core in a part of the country where we have great strength and passion,” Swarbrick said. “We hope we bring to Hockey East as much as we know it will bring to us.”
The Irish open their season on the road against Minnesota-Duluth, the defending national champions, on Friday at 8:07 p.m. The two will also play Saturday at 8:07 p.m.
Penn St hockey on schedule
October 5, 2011
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP)—New transfers are settling in at Penn State, whileschool administrators are putting the finishing touches on plans for the newon-campus ice arena.
There’s even a new brand of coffee being served at the fledgling Penn Statehockey team’s current home, a brew appropriately enough from Canadian doughnutchain, Tim Hortons.
The Nittany Lions are right on schedule a year out from moving up toDivision I status, and two years away from the start of the anticipated Big Tenhockey conference.
“It’s going to be a real fun time, especially with the big powerhousesMichigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin,” said one of Penn State’s four transferswith Division I experience, Bryce Johnson. “It’s going to be nice to know thatevery weekend we go out to play, it’s going to be a bloodbath.”
Good thing Penn State has one more year left to work out the kinks as a clublevel team with a roster in flux.
The final season in the ACHA begins Friday. The Nittany Lions will play as aDivision I independent in 2012-13 before Big Ten hockey begins the followingseason.
Finally, coach Guy Gadowsky gets a chance to see what his team can do on theice, nearly six months after taking over at Penn State.
“The goal is to have a very successful season this year in the ACHA whileat the same time setting a foundation, building the right values that will makeus successful moving forward,” Gadowsky said. “The two (goals) mesh togethervery well.”
Penn State’s move to Division I, first announced in September 2010, helpedset off a chain reaction of events that have changed the landscape of collegehockey.
Former energy company executive and Penn State alum Terry Pegula donated $88million—the largest private donation in school history—to upgrade theprogram and fund a new multipurpose arena. A self-proclaimed hockey fanatic,Pegula bought the NHL’s Sabres in February.
Penn State’s move increased the number of Big Ten teams with hockey to six—enough for the conference to start its own league in 2013. Minnesota andWisconsin are moving from the 50-year-old WCHA, with Michigan, Michigan Stateand Ohio State leaving the CCHA.
“It’s the buzz, I understand a lot of schools are scrambling, movingconferences. The Big Ten conference is certainly poised to be the premier(hockey) conference,” said associate athletic director for hockey Joe Battista.
The league also could increase the popularity of college hockey through itstelevision network, which Battista noted could also be viewed in parts ofCanada.
“Now, how competitive we are remains to be seen,” Battista said, smiling.
Battista, Gadowsky and other Penn State administrators returned Wednesdayfrom a trip to Notre Dame, where they got a tour of the Fighting Irish’s new $50million Compton Family Ice Arena. Notre Dame later Wednesday announced it wasleaving the CCHA for Hockey East beginning with the 2013-14 season, plus a TVdeal with NBC.
At least 18 of the 58 teams currently playing NCAA Division I hockey—31percent—will change conferences by 2013.
Things will look different, too, when Penn State starts Big Ten play in twoyears. Ground is expected to be broken in February on the Nittany Lions’ newarena.
“College hockey is going to have the biggest platform that it’s ever had,”Gadowsky said about the Big Ten. “It’s going to be more visible.”
Gadowsky promises to deliver a crowd-pleasing offensive style of hockey with“a lot of team speed.” Johnson, a 5-foot-10 forward, is considered PennState’s fastest skater. He played three games at St. Cloud State before gettingeight goals and 16 assists in 37 games last season with Omaha in the USHL.
Genaro C. Armas can be reached at http://twitter.com/GArmasAP .
Notre Dame hockey program joining Hockey East
October 5, 2011
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP)—Notre Dame is leaving the Central Collegiate HockeyAssociation for Hockey East, effective with the 2013-14 season.
The Fighting Irish announced the move Wednesday. Notre Dame, which has beena member of the CCHA since 1992, will become the 11th member of Hockey East.Current members include Boston College, Boston University, Maine, UMass,UMass-Lowell, Merrimack, New Hampshire, Northeastern, Providence and Vermont.
Conference realignment is shaking up college hockey.
The Western Collegiate Hockey Association has invited five teams from theCCHA to join in two years, when the Big Ten starts its hockey league. The newNational Collegiate Hockey Conference will also begin play that year with eightschools.
At least 18 of the 58 teams currently playing NCAA Division I hockey—31percent—will change conferences by 2013.
Bowling Green says yes to WCHA for 2013-14 season
October 4, 2011
MADISON, Wis. (AP)—Bowling Green will join the Western Collegiate HockeyAssociation for the 2013-14 season.
The WCHA announced the addition Tuesday, giving the league at least nineteams when it’s revamped in two years. Eight of the current 12 members willleave then for other conferences, two to the Big Ten and six to the new NationalCollegiate Hockey Conference.
Holdovers Alaska-Anchorage, Bemidji State, Michigan Tech and MinnesotaState, Mankato, will be joined by Alaska-Fairbanks, Bowling Green, Ferris State,Lake Superior State and Northern Michigan.
Bowling Green, located in Ohio, won the NCAA championship in 1984. TheFalcons were founding members in 1971 of the Central Collegiate HockeyAssociation, which will dissolve in 2013 when its 11 members join other leagues.
