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Category: college hockey (Page 4 of 19)

Terriers in Pro Hockey Update – December 28, 2010

It’s winter break – thus I have nothing else to do but write and catch up on my Google Reader and follow Twitter all day. Your benefit? Tons of updates about former Terriers around professional hockey.

Gilroy celebrates a two goal game on Monday night.

Gilroy celebrates his two goal game on Monday night. (Photo: NHL.com)

– By now you’re read up on Matt Gilroy’s two goal game for the New York Rangers against the New York Islanders on Monday night. NHL.com has a well-written write-up of the 7-2 Rangers win. Gilroy had been very quiet this season, having only played 22 games and spending a tad too much time as a healthy scratch.

Time in the press box seemingly has motivated Gilroy, who is making the most of his recent ice time. Says Kukla’s Korner’s Patrick Hoffman:

“In the last week or so, there has been a noticeable difference in New York Rangers’ defenseman Matt Gilroy’s game.

Gilroy has appeared to be more confident, poised, willing to jump into the play, make smart plays in the defensive zone and more importantly, a steady presence on the club’s blue line.”

As much as we would all love to see Gilroy repeat his two-goal game, the odds are against him. Reported the Elias Sports Bureau in its daily ESPN.com “Elias Says” piece:

“It was the first multiple-goal game of the season by a Rangers D-man, and if recent history is any indication it could be the last. The Rangers had exactly one multi-goal game by a defenseman in each of the past three seasons: by Michal Rozsival in both 2007-08 and 2008-09, and Daniel Girardi in 2009-10.”

– One of Gilroy’s 2009 teammates, Chris Higgins, started the season with Ritten of the Italian Series A pro hockey league, but is no longer on the active roster. He last played on December 11th in a 6-2 loss against Val Pusteria, and had two shots and no points on the night. On December 7th, Higgins had his own 2 goal game in a 6-5 win over Asiago (yes, like the cheese.)

Why Higgins is off the roster is a tad unclear. From my bad translation of German, here’s what Ritten’s website had to say about Higgins’ departure:

“Where’s Chris Higgins will end the season is still unclear. This player clearly has a great technique and great talent: though in the eyes of Rittner he is not yet mature enough to play in the Italian hockey league.”

Ritten only has 13 wins on the season, and they seemed to take their December 11th loss hard. Higgins finished his time in Ritten with 20 points (9 goals, 11 assists.)

– The Netherlands has a goal of fielding a men’s ice hockey team in the 2018 Winter Olympics. To achieve that goal, the Dutch Olympic Committee has created an elite hockey training center in Eindhoven, modeled after the US National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The newly opened Ice Hockey Field Lab and High Tech Center at Eindhoven Ice Arena includes several cameras and video rooms to better break down plays and technique with the Netherlands’ top youth hockey players.

The IIHF was on hand for the opening of the center, which featured remarks from Gilroy and Higgins’ fellow 2009 graduate, Jason Lawrence. The alum of the USA NTDP was chosen to talk about his experiences in an elite U-18 program.

Lawrence is still raking up the points for Eindhoven Kemphanen of the Dutch Elite League, where he has 16 goals and 20 assists in 28 games played. He had a goal and an assist Tuesday night against Herentals HYC.

If Saponari’s Rejection is News, Who Should Have Been the Source?

Vinny Saponari in a March 2010 game against Merrimack College. Photo: Flickr user seriouslysilly

Vinny Saponari in a March 2010 game against Merrimack College. Photo: Flickr user seriouslysilly (Some Rights Reserved)

The story of the day amongst BU hockey fans was the reported Boston College transfer application rejection by dismissed Terrier forward Vinny Saponari. The rumor had been lurking amongst those close to Boston area college hockey for a few weeks, and the story broke for good when US Hockey Report (aka, USHR, a subscription site that reports on junior, youth and college hockey) posted a piece this morning quoting Saponari’s USHL head coach.

Saponari’s current coach with the USHL Dubuque Fighting Saints, Jim Montgomery, is the only interview in USHR’s brief report, which then spurred on reports by the Eagle Tribune’s Mike McMahon, BostonSportsU18 and the Daily Free Press’s Boston Hockey Blog. The Boston Hockey Blog tried to get a quote with Saponari, but “a call and text were not returned.” Word had spread outside of the USHR report – two individuals mentioned to me that area coaches had just started being open about the news last evening, and the news spread like wild fire through the expanding, but still very small, world of hockey.

As the news was circulating on Twitter, a few folks asked within social media, “Well, who are we all to be talking about a pretty embarrassing and private matter for this hockey player? Why is Saponari’s rejection news?”

There is no question to me that this is news – Saponari’s initial dismissal from BU was very public, as the Terrier program had to give reason for his absence in the then upcoming season, and he decided to engage on interviews on the subject. His decision to subsequently transfer to BC, BU’s biggest hockey rival, was made public on his own Facebook page and a few media sources.

So Saponari’s rejection by BC was going to become public whether he liked it or not. For better or worse, his own statements on the matter earlier this fall made us all expect to see him on the Conte Forum ice come next September. Because of the level of expectation already prepared, the college hockey watching public would find out about the rejection eventually. In hindsight, Saponari, his family and his “family advisors” should have kept word of his desire to transfer down Comm Ave quiet until all the i’s were dotted, t’s were crossed, and transcripts approved.

But where the critics of the publicity of Saponari’s denial may have a legitimate point is that the only on-the-record source through this entire story has been the player’s own USHL coach. Was it really appropriate for Montgomery to be so forthcoming with this news with USHR in the first place? Was it his place to do so? Was he representing the family, and if so, should he or the USHR author been more explicit in saying so?

On a much larger level, if a coach is part educator, part advisor, part mentor, and part counselor, shouldn’t he uphold a certain level of confidentiality?

I’m not defending Saponari in any way (if I don’t have anything nice to say, I’m not going to say anything at all), but didn’t he deserve a tad more from Montgomery? Should USHR have looked for a quote from Saponari or his family? If Montgomery was acting on their behalf, shouldn’t that have been more explicit?

What do you think?

The USCHO Pay Wall: Why Putting Today’s Dave Starman Piece Behind It Is a Giant Mistake

Update: Within minutes of my posting this, Todd from USCHO Tweeted at me, said he saw the point and made today’s Starman column free. He also responded in the comments. Class act! Thank you!

———–

I have had thoughts swimming around in my head over the past week regarding the Wall Street Journal article surrounding the growth of college hockey, as well as national hockey commentator and CBS College Sports on-air personality Dave Starman’s USCHO “rebuttal” (to an article that was overwhelmingly positive, I might add.) As my Twitter followers know, my month long battle with bronchitis came to a head as both articles were posted – I ended up in the hospital with a far worse infection – and thus, I wasn’t able to write a response in a timely manner. I was going to leave the issue be.

Then on Wednesday morning, USCHO posted a further Starman commentary where he responds to the many comments he received on his rebuttal. But I, and many other college hockey fans couldn’t read it. It is posted behind USCHO‘s pay wall, called “USCHO Extra”, which costs $14.99 a year.

Isn’t the fact that USCHO hid this rebuttal-of-a-rebuttal behind a pay wall essentially one of the things inhibiting the growth of college hockey? College hockey is a growing sport with a feverous fan base, with message board posters and lurkers galore, with hundreds of Twitter users wanting to be the next Starman or Jim Connolly or Adam Wodon or Bernie Corbett. How can you inhibit this fan base from reading your pieces? Isn’t hiding your content, especially content about an important conversation about the future of the game, behind a pay wall almost an oxymoron?

That a prominent online media source is making their readers pay to access an author’s response to comments, is both traditional and online journalisticly misguided. A good journalist should respond to his or her critics, as long as they are not personally attacking them, in the same forum in which he or she posted the original piece and/or an easily accessible, preferably free, forum. Starman’s original piece last week was free for all to read on USCHO.com. His response to the comments and emails is behind a pay wall, thereby reducing his readership on a popular topic, and shutting out most likely over half of his original readers. I am not saying he had to respond to every commenter or emailer, or even do so on USCHO itself. His feedback just needs to be accessible to the majority of his readers. Take Sports Illustrated’s Peter King or the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle’s Sal Marjorana – they are two polarizing football journalists who respond to their critics via Twitter, a free-of-charge social media tool. It may not be in the original comment section of their pieces, but you can easily find the two and challenge their controversial sentiments (even if their response may be snarky or not you wanted to hear.)

I am not blind to the costs of hosting and maintaining a large-scale website – frankly, it is becoming more than half of my full-time job in higher education and is what I do for various other sites on my home computer after dinner every evening. I understand that ad revenue alone rarely covers the payment of journalists, the hosting, the design, the forum moderation – all the tools that make USCHO one of the big three sites in college hockey. But is college hockey in a place within the American sports landscape that any site can justify having a pay wall?

Isn’t that, after all, the larger question that Starman – and the Wall Street Journal before him – asking with last week’s pieces? Is college hockey a sport that can sustain past the gimmicky nature of the annual outdoor game? And if both the WSJ and Starman are correct and the sport is still growing in popularity with a much higher future ahead of it, why cut off access to any information, discussion or features that may grow the fan base?

Where Are They Now? St. Nicholas Day Edition

December 5th is the feast day of St. Nicholas (the basis for Santa Claus) in the Netherlands and other European nations. I remember this every year because 25 years ago, my preschool teacher at little St. James made us take off our shoes, line them up outside our classroom door, and twenty minutes later, they were filled with candy. To this day, I’m still confused at what happened and why, but that’s neither here or there. To celebrate this important Dutch holiday, let’s check in on some of our former Boston University Terriers playing hockey in the Netherlands.

Former BU Terrier Jason Lawrence playing in the Dutch Pro League.

Former Terrier Jason Lawrence during a October 23rd game for the Eindhoven Kemphanen. (Photo: Eindhoven Kemphanen Facebook page)

After spending the 2009-10 season in the ECHL with Charlotte and Gwinnett, former Terrier right winger Jason Lawrence took his talents to the Netherlands, and now plays for the Eindhoven Kemphanen in the Nederlandse Ijshockey Bond (the Dutch Pro League.) The league has seven teams in its Eredisvie (highest level), and they play in several tournament type rounds throughout the season. The season began in late September and ends in late February. Many of the players in the Dutch Pro League are from Europe, but each team has a handful of foreign (U.S. or Canadian born) players.

Lawrence is one of Eindhoven’s five non-European players, and the only American.  The Canadian and American players tend to lead the league in points, and Lawrence is no exception. He may be 19th overall in points in the entire league with 29 (13 goals, 16 assists), but he’s been on a hot streak as of late. On November 23rd, Lawrence had two goals and an assist in a 5-4 loss to The Hague. In Eindhoven’s next game, November 27th against Turnhout, he had a goal and two assists. In the team’s eight games of the North Sea Cup thus far (this part of the season, which will stretches from the first week in November until February 20th), Lawrence has points in five of them.

Fellow former Terrier Dan McGoff plays for the Dutch Pro League’s team in Nijmegen (the Devils), and isn’t far behind Lawrence with 27 points, good for 25th overall in the league. McGoff is one of three Americans on the Devils’ roster, which includes former Colorado College forward Scott Thauwald.

Interested in following Lawrence and McGoff’s Dutch careers? Even if you have no Dutch language skills (I luck out because I spent time in The Hague during my senior year of high school, but even with that my Dutch isn’t that great), you can follow along on the following sites:

Ijshockey.com (a Dutch hockey news site)

Nederlandse IJshockey Bond (the league’s official site – it also covers youth and junior national teams, so remember that you’re focusing on the “Eredivisie”)

Eindhoven Kemphanen’s Facebook page (which posts mainly in English)

9pm Media (the league’s hockey photographers, worth a look even if you could care less about the league – the photography is just stunning, and you get a real sense of the spirit of the game overseas)

WSJPD? (What Should Jack Parker Do?)

Tonight was hands down the weirdest hockey game I have ever experienced in my 28 years. Yes, Boston College defeated Boston University handily 9-5. Yes, Boston University has been over-ranked in the USCHO and USA Hockey polls for a few weeks. Yes, Boston College finally performed up to their talent level after a few weeks of off-play.

We had penalty shots, penalties that made no sense, goals scored mere seconds apart from each other, a change in goaltender for BU, BU players diving, BC players elbowing, shorthanded goals, power play goals – at one point, my husband said, “I think CBS College Sports ordered a smorgasbord of hockey activity for tonight’s game.”

And yes, BC’s Patch Alber has an old-timey physician’s name, BU needs to shoot the puck and realize that goals aren’t scored unless the puck physically enters the net, and BC’s goalie John Muse resembles a penguin attempting to launch off the ground when he’s making a save or counting off the last seconds of a penalty.

So if you’re BU, what do you do for Saturday night’s game at BC? What do you do for next week’s games against Northeastern and RPI? Who do you start at goaltender? Who is your first line? There is bound to be shake ups – and if there were not, fans would have the right to be livid – but how exactly does one reassemble this Terrier team?

Since I don’t even know where to begin, I leave it to you – if you were Jack Parker and Mike Bavis, what would you do?

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