Club Sandwich: November 27th

Freshman forward Mandy Mortach and her teammates are ranked fifth in ACHA WD2.

Both of University Park's ACHA teams were out of action last weekend and will remain so this weekend. However, both recently received top five recognition in their respective polls.

Women

The first ACHA Women's Division 2 rankings of the year were released over the weekend, with Penn State placing fifth overall, fourth among teams in the East Region.

                        Pts.  E/W
1. California (PA)        7   (E)
2. West Chester           8   (E)
3T. Wisconsin-Stout      22   (W)
3T. Delaware             22   (E)
5. Penn State            26   (E)
6. North Dakota State    27   (W)
7. Minnesota-Duluth      38   (W)
8. Michigan State        42   (W)
9T. Wisconsin-La Crosse  45   (W)
9T. Minot State          45   (W)
11. Slippery Rock        50   (E)
12. Rainy River          60   (W)
13. Connecticut          64   (E)
14. South Dakota State   70   (W)
15. Alaska               75   (W)

According to the ACHA website, the WD2 tournament has been expanded to eight teams this season, up from six last year. Despite the issuance of a combined ranking this time around, it's more important to note each school's placement relative to others with the same east-west designation, as the top four from each of the two regions will receive an invite to the national championships. The tournament will take place over the second weekend in March at the Ashburn Ice House in Ashburn, VA.

Long story short: Penn State, which presently has a 3-1-1 record, is in as of this moment. Undoubtedly, the pollsters were impressed with PSU's sweep at No. 8 Michigan State on October 13th and 14th, and possibly even with two tight losses at No. 1 Cal (one in overtime) to open the season.

The next ranking, due out in mid-December, will be interesting because if Penn State is to be punished for its (understandably, given that it's a first-year organization and the soon-to-be-alleviated ice time crunch in central Pennsylvania) light schedule, it will likely be in that poll as no games will be played between now and then. Six games in January and February - including against No. 2 West Chester and No. 11 Slippery Rock - will keep PSU front-of-mind after that point.

Men

For the Ice Lions, still 9-4-1 (3-0-0 MACHA North) following a home split with Ohio on November 16th and 17th, the latest ACHA Division 2 Southeast Region poll was more confirmation than novelty since it was the second ranking of the season.

                        Pts.
1. Miami (11)             9
2. Rowan                 20
3. Bowling Green         33
4. Penn State            40
5. MD-Baltimore County   41   
6. Liberty               50
7. Toledo                56
8. Rider                 82
9. Virginia Tech         84
10. Temple               93
11. Delaware             96
12. Maryland            102
13. Florida Gulf Coast  105
14. Pittsburgh          127
15T. Akron              131
15T. Dayton             131

Others receiving votes: Georgetown, Ohio

Penn State held steady at fourth, and behind the same three teams as in the first poll. Given some of the game results to date - notably PSU's 7-3 loss to Miami at the ACHA Showcase on October 6th - it's hard to take too much issue with the team's placement. No. 2 Rowan, of course, is a MACHA North rival of the Ice Lions, and games on December 15th (at Rowan) and January 26th (at the Ice Pavilion) will provide an obvious opportunity for PSU to improve its position.

In ACHA D2, the top two teams in the Southeast and each of the other three regions at the end of the regular season receive an automatic bid to the ACHA national tournament, held March 15th through 19th in St. Louis. Teams ranked third through tenth in each region battle for two other bids (per region, so eight total) in regional tournaments on the weekend of February 23rd and 24th.

The Ice Lions are back at it December 7th and 8th, with home games against Delaware and Temple.

One Step Back, Two Steps Up

While a handful of teams played last weekend and 2012-2013 opponent Arizona State opened up on Thursday, Friday was the first truly robust day on the calendar of the ACHA season. And it had nothing to do with the Icers. Sure, it was of interest from a Nittany Lions standpoint to keep track of ASU, as well as fellow PSU schedule inhabitants Ohio and Oklahoma (all three won big over bottom feeders), and it was fun to laugh at now-former rivals Rhode Island and Illinois for their embarrassing losses...but beyond that, the only involvement Penn Staters had in the proceedings was based in nostalgia. It's hard to articulate how I feel about that. It's exciting remembering the reason PSU is out of it. It's a little bizarre, knowing that the organization and its teams will continue to grow and evolve without the Icers, to the point where we might not even recognize it after a few years. It's also a little sad.

I celebrated this rebirth of college hockey - sorry NCAA, the ACHA has you beat for allowing games in September - by attending an ACHA Division 2 game between Akron and Ohio State. In a match that read like an early-season game for both teams, with plenty of turnovers followed by unfinished chances both ways and throughout, the Zips managed to barely nurse a 3-0 second-period lead to the finish line, winning 4-2 following an empty-netter.

Akron goalie Max Miller, a Medina, OH native, turned in an excellent effort against Ohio State.

Akron plays at a rink called the Center Ice Sports Complex. Not only is it an off-campus facility, it's in an entirely different county, its location in North Canton about 17 miles from the sports facilities owned by UA. There's actually a (very) tenuous PSU connection to the building in the form of Icers Hall-of-Famer Don Coyne, who briefly played there with the UHL's Ohio Gears, which moved from Saginaw in the middle of 1999-2000. The team suspended operations after that season, eventually folding after a couple failed attempts to re-christen itself with a new arena in nearby Massillon that never came.

Zips hockey also has a pretty unremarkable history. In stark contrast to traditional archrival Kent State, which has had a long run of non-varsity hockey, and was even NCAA Division I from 1986 through 1994, Akron only started up in 2006 as an ACHA Division 3 program. In 2010, the Zips elevated to D2, where they remain today. While Akron has done reasonably well for the most part - they have spent a lot of last two seasons flirting with the poll in D2's Southeast Region - it has never progressed beyond that. In fact, their sole true appearance on the national radar was the result of an exploding hockey bag early in their first D2 season. Seriously.

A hockey bag which appeared to belong to a University of Akron hockey player was blown up by a bomb squad after it was determined to be a suspicious package, according to a report.

According to the website of WEWS, police in Akron, Ohio, responded to two suspicious package calls Wednesday morning, neither of which were determined to contain explosives. One of the packages was reportedly a bag belonging to a University of Akron hockey player. The report says the hockey bag was detonated by the Summit County Bomb Squad.

Things are drastically different now. Under second-year coach Michael Sadjadi, a 26-year-old former junior goalie from Fairbault, MN, the program seems to have a new focus. It now receives regular media coverage - for positive things. It's much more active in fundraising and community outreach. The recruiting, which has generally focused on Northeast Ohio high school and low-level junior players (particularly from the Wooster Oilers of the Great Lakes Junior Hockey League), is on the upswing. And the on-ice payoff is starting to follow. Last weekend, the Zips earned their first-ever win over an ACHA D1 program, topping Canisius 4-3.



They also have The Dream:

The huge support finally drew the attention of the Akron athletic department late last season, as several officials, including athletic director Tom Wistrcill attended a home contest. Though nothing has been made official, it’s become common knowledge that UA is seriously discussing the possibility of adding a D1 sport (or two) soon. And with plans for a new basketball arena currently a hot topic, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that a dual-purpose arena has been discussed.

So why a post about Akron? Well firstly, I see a lot of parallels with Penn State, and how our present circumstances developed. It seems to me like the Zips are currently at the point the Icers hit sometime between the opening of the Greenberg Ice Pavilion in 1981 and 1987, when Joe Battista returned as head coach. In my observation, the Icers of the 1970s had the varsity dream, but it wasn't realistic. Once the Ice Pavilion's size indefinitely delayed that dream, the team refocused on building an support organization that was the envy of many in the varsity ranks. That organization, along with the sheer force of Battista's will, is ultimately what led to Terry Pegula and the NCAA, not the previous approach of merely hoping to be handed a capable rink by the athletic department. It seems as if Akron now has that same sense of purpose that drove the Icers for about 30 years, and hopefully they won't have to wait as long before joining fellow MAC schools Miami, Western Michigan and Bowling Green among the ranks of NCAA DI programs.

More than that though, it helps me confront some of mixed feelings I have about the NCAA transition, as attending the Zips-Buckeyes tilt helped remind me why I became involved with Penn State hockey in the first place, and why I'm still here today.

At the game, I spoke with Kevin Davis, who is in charge of marketing for UA hockey. He described to me how he sold the ads on the boards, then stayed at the rink until the middle of Thursday night/Friday morning to put them up himself before returning early Friday morning to finish his preparations. Signage, streamers and balloons were ubiquitous to the point where Center Ice felt like a campus rink, and I'm sure he and a small but dedicated group of volunteers had something to do with that as well. The game presentation was nearly flawless, worthy of the Icers. And Davis packed the place out too. I have no clue how many seats the rink contains (probably in the neighborhood of 800-1000), but they were all full.

The atmosphere, in my judgment, was only surpassed in any obvious sense by Penn State and Ohio among ACHA venues I've attended. Davis and Sadjadi get marketing in the same way Battista does: there was a Score-O contest (with a car, which was driven on to the ice, as the prize), merchandise sales, a raffle, and a postgame autograph session, all things I've seen at the Ice Pavilion.

It may seem a little crazy to invest so much of yourself in non-varsity hockey, but that's precisely what so many of us did over the years at PSU. I can't speak for every Hockey Management Association member or support staffer ever, but to me, the Icers were easily the most important thing I did at Penn State - much more than school itself or the football team. My Friday night social life during the season was tearing down after the game, which generally took until after midnight for the 9 p.m. puck drops, followed by a late dinner at Perkins or Eat 'n Park (the two 24-hour eateries removed from downtown, and therefore not filled with drunk people), back home to catch up on other ACHA scores, then into bed for the quick turnaround on Saturday afternoon. And I loved every second of it. Well, other than fetching the six-foot sub for the booster hospitality room before games, I could have done without that.

I think there's a closeness to the program that comes from a certain level of involvement, which will be impossible to duplicate with the NCAA program. I can write this blog, obsessively follow every little development, donate money, have season tickets in the front row, but realistically, I'll never be as much a part of the program as I was then. And neither will anyone else who isn't a grown-up employed by Penn State or playing for the team. Yes, the plan is to keep HMA going, but from a distance, it seems like it will mostly be about limited marketing activities and game day operations while the most important stuff will be handled by the athletic department. Future HMA members, for example, are unlikely to be that socially awkward college student trying to sell ads door to door, as I once was (okay, I'm still socially awkward).

So yeah, I'm a little sad for the loss of all of that, while also a little envious of Davis and others all over the ACHA who are truly invested in a way not possible in the NCAA (even for many employees, I have to imagine that it's more job than passion).

There's still plenty of work to do at UA, of course. The team hasn't won on a significant level, it remains to be seen if the off-ice side can be maintained through a whole season let alone several, and to that end it would be nice if Davis had a little more help. The distance that remains was underscored by the people who sat behind me and had evidently never heard "sieve" or "it's all your fault" before. So time will tell if Sadjadi ends up being the Battista of Akron, but at the very least, the early signs are encouraging.

Ultimately, of course, my feelings of loss are outweighed by those of excitement - after all, NCAA status was the goal all along, and PSU finally made it. It's entirely possible that I'll forget all about what I've expressed here by October 6th when I'm skipping the Zips' next home weekend to live blog the NCAA debut of the Nittany Lion women. But hopefully you'll forgive me if one day, when this blog has run its course, I end up volunteering with Akron or another ACHA team local to wherever life takes me between now and then.

M: Penn State 8 vs. Duquesne 1

Collegian recap // Black Shoe Diaries recap

Official site recap // Box score

My apologies once again for having to cancel the live blog for this senior night blowout of Duquesne that pumped the Icers' record to 26-3-1 (including 18 wins in a row at home). For those who don't know, as I was packing up after watching last Saturday's Ice Lions game, I tripped over my laptop's power cord, dragging it from one of the Ice Pavilion's bench seats to the floor. The result: a cracked hard drive. Since then, all TYT updates have been done from a computer lab at the University of Akron, where I attend graduate school. I should be back up and running in the next couple of days (definitely in time to do a live blog next Friday).

In any case, TYT extends its congratulations to seniors Dan Petrick, Dan Loucks, Nick Seravalli, Kurt Collins, Chris Cerutti and Paul Daley - a group of outstanding players. As usual when the live blog doesn't go off as planned, let's defer to IcersGuy from Black Shoe Diaries (linked above) for the rest of the story.

---

Much like the Mercyhurst games last weekend, the Dukes provided little in terms of a challenge for the Icers. The Icers would jump out to a quick 3-0 with goals from seniors Kurt Collins and Paul Daley, along with a goal from sophomore Bryce Johnson. The Dukes would counter with a power play goal, but George Saad would make it 4-1 after one period of play. Mike Longo, Dominic Morrone, and Chris Cerutti would add goals in the second to make it 7-1 through two periods. Cerutti would add a second goal in the third period, and the Icers would cruise to the easy 8-1 victory.

The weekend went as expected - domination from start to finish. Of the healthy senior players, only Dan Loucks was unable to get onto the scoresheet for this Senior Night (Petrick picked up 2 assists). However, Dan looked solid in his return to the ice from injury, and that's the more important piece for the night. Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see what lineup Coach Guy uses in next week's game versus Kent State. The Icers can cycle through 5-6 scoring lines and 4 defensive pairings, so there are reasons to both play and scratch any player. Guy has also sat entire lines on certain nights, but sitting a top line for two weeks might be too much rest. And at the very least, Kent State is ranked and tournament-bound (if based on the technicality that they're the host team). I'd expect players trying to return to game-speed to play, but the rest of the lineup is up in the air.

Three Stars: November 21-27

Cliff Benson (holding coat) is not broadcasting his status with The Second Mile at the moment.

3. Momentum building for Lady Icers program
(Centre Daily Times)

I think I have it figured out: the CDT will cover Penn State hockey, but only when they can get a PSU student to write the article for free/cheap. Regardless, the students do a great job of things.

2. The More Things Change...
(PSU Sports Blog by Lions Pride)

I'll admit to being intrigued when my favorite PSU merch store endeavored to write about hockey. But they lost me in the very first paragraph.

Yawn. Another Thanksgiving, another dominant season, another top ranking; it’s beginning to get boring waiting until March. The Penn State Icers (surprise, surprise) are the best team in the country as the 2011-2012 American Collegiate Hockey Association season begins to heat up.

I'm going to assume that they last checked in with the program in 2007.

There was more, including what I took as digs, or at least backhanded compliments, directed towards the ACHA legacy. Calling the Ice Pavilion a "dump," for example, is a right reserved for people who have set foot in it more than once.

1. Sabres Owner Says Penn State Scandal Is "Not About Covering Your Ass" Before Covering His Ass About Hiring Second Mile Board Member
(Deadspin)

Word to the wise, T-Pegs: before calling out "anyone who knew anything," check your own backyard. That includes friend and Buffalo Sabres employee Cliff Benson - Second Mile board member and "finance chair," whose role with the now-infamous charity was deleted from his sabres.com profile - as well as Pegula-backed Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett, who has come under fire for his handling of the Sandusky scandal, both as the state's chief executive and in his previous role as attorney general.

I should make it clear that none of this, on its face, makes anyone guilty of anything, either legally or morally. However, Pegula's transparent attempt to position himself on the moral high ground, both with the university (as he seeks to acquire whatever influence he hasn't yet purchased) and the public, turned out to be a foolish venture. Once the facts are all on the table, if they ever are, we'll be able to assign white and black hats all by ourselves, despite not being billionaires.

Best of the Rest

Malvern Prep ice hockey to play La Salle at Citizens Bank Park as part of NHL's Winter Classic
(Delaware County Times)

The DCT has some additional information on the PSU-Neumann outdoor game, currently still in "everyone knows it's happening, we're just waiting for an announcement" status. Specifically, it's a night game. Layer up.

The Malvern Prep varsity ice hockey team will face off against La Salle College High School at Citizens Bank Park in January as part of the NHL's Annual Winter Classic festivities.

The Malvern-La Salle game will take place Jan. 4, at 5 p.m. at the ballpark, the home of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The game, being dubbed the first annual High School Holiday Classic, will be followed by a college contest between Neumann University and Penn State.

Gophers series at Michigan State a preview of Big Ten hockey
(1500espn.com)

Illinois and Penn State were always the most likely candidates to be the "next one" and when Buffalo Sabres owner Terry Pegula handed his alma mater in State College a check for $88 million to build an on-campus rink, Nittany Lions hockey was on the way. From there it was only a matter of months before the Big Ten made the official announcement this past March that starting in the 2013-14 season, Minnesota, Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State and Wisconsin would compete in for the conference crown on the ice.

Sorry Ohio State. Sorry that I'm not sorry, I mean.

On Twitter, players are in even more of a public eye
(USCHO)

Rachel Lenzi gets her hustle on with an important piece about the double-edged sword of my favorite social media network, as it relates to college hockey. Twitter is obviously a vital part of what I'm doing here, and believe me when I say I've been on both sides of things.

By the way, I'm cashing in whatever influence I may carry with you to highly recommend her blog, Into the Great Wide Open. It's not a hockey blog per se, but it's a life blog. You're all alive last I checked, so get on it.

By the way, part two: feel free to imagine me humming Tom Petty for the rest of this post.

Gadowsky building foundation for Penn State hockey

(Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)

If you thought Lions Pride was out of touch, the paper of Guy Gadowsky's former, former locale leads off with this gem.

Time is on Guy Gadowsky’s side.

The inaugural head coach of the Penn State University men’s hockey team has the luxury of having a year to build the NCAA Division I program in State College, Pa.

There are no interruptions of games or developing strategies for opponents.

Crap, I must be writing about the wrong team again.

ACHA - Penn State
(flamefans.com)

Mirroring Liberty's institutional lack of tolerance that makes for a rather ironic school nickname, I'm going to have to say that I'm not very tolerant of this entire message board thread. Penn State is indeed eligible for the Murdoch Cup this year. So is Liberty, although they might as well not be.

Nik Cvetinovic demands your audience.

A Study of Point Guards
(The Mid Majority)

Shameless plug for my first of several contributions this season for TMM, which is accepting reader-submitted recaps of college basketball games involving mid-major teams. This one covers Detroit at Akron from Saturday night.

I'll accept your scorn only after you understand that a) I didn't blow off a PSU hockey game to do it and b) I don't subscribe to the unwritten rule that says hockey people have to hate basketball. The NBA? Sure, I'm as upset as the next guy that the lockout ended. College basketball, however, is a great game. Especially mid-major college basketball. Furthermore Kyle Whelliston, the guy who's run the site since 2004 (but is now on "permanent sabbatical" from hauling all over the lower 48 to watch games), is one of my writing role models. If I ever become half as good as him, I'm quitting this and finding something where I can get paid to write.

The Golden Rule

"He who has the gold makes the rules."

And of course, the man with the gold, as related to Penn State hockey, is Terry Pegula.

About a month ago, Matt Walfrand from TakeoverTheGame.com asked me the following question:

"All Buffalo Sabres fans are dying to know, is [Pegula] a hands-on guy or does he stay in the shadows?"

You can read how I answered it at the link - essentially, I said that he's involved yet not overbearing - but upon reflection, I probably didn't think that one through enough. So let's make up for that now.

The guy gave $88 million. Maybe the impact of that number has diminished in the last few months, so I'll re-state it - it's about 30 times what I'll make over my entire career as a plug who sits at a computer and generates sales reports.

I do have an opinion about donations, that being that they're, well, donations. My wife and I donate to things. We don't expect anything in return - if you want to send a calendar and give us priority on tickets, we won't complain, but you don't have to do those things, we donate because we want to help something meaningful to us. Terry Pegula did not "buy" Penn State hockey like he bought the Sabres, he gave it a gift. Sure, on his level, he gets his name on an ice arena (not to mention this blog) instead of a calendar (although I'm sure he can get a calendar too if he wants one), but it's still a gift.


Plugs who generate sales reports get calendars to hang in their cubes next to their Akron basketball schedule posters and are perfectly fine with it. More fine than I am with that wire I can't do anything about.

However, that's the attitude of someone who's never given $88 million to Nittany Lion Club or anything else. Given that tremendous sum of money, who really expects him to say, "oh yeah, you guys go ahead and do what you have to do, just let me sign off on the decision and CC me on all the e-mails?"

For all I know, maybe he did. He did just buy the Sabres and essentially say "keep up the great work, Darcy Regier and Lindy Ruff." My initial reaction to that was something along the lines of being amazed at his deference to his hockey operations people. But then again, there are other explanations. For all we know, he plans to clean house this summer and realized that making sweeping changes during a playoff push was a risky move. Even if you don't have legitimate Stanley Cup aspirations, those extra home dates in the playoffs are always helpful to small-market teams. Or maybe he carefully evaluated the two prior to taking over and decided they were keepers - after all, both deference and heavy involvement could have led to the end result of retaining Ruff and Regier.

Realistically, it's probably too early to say exactly how Pegula involves himself in hockey ops. We simply don't have enough information yet. Walfrand approached me as a Pegula "expert," but at the same time, I've only "known" Pegula for a couple months longer than him. I'd never even heard of the guy before last August, which I imagine is probably the norm, unless you subscribe to Gas Barons Digest or something.

Now swing things back to Penn State for a second. The status quo, what they have in Buffalo, is always the safe call. But there is no status quo at Penn State, not even a previous coach who inspires the decision-makers to say "we need the opposite of that guy." It's just a job opening and a bunch of rumored candidates. We have a decent idea who some of those might be, but we don't know all of them. And more to the point, we don't know who made them candidates and why.


This guy went from a solid career with Pegula's favorite team to an assistant coach at Minnesota-Duluth. Just saying.


So is he a hands-on guy or does he stay in the shadows? We might be about to find out.

Since Last Time: West Chester

Last time: Less Than Golden (11/5/2010) // Weekend Observations: West Chester (11/7/2010)

For reasons you'll see shortly, it's probably not worth getting into too much detail concerning the end of West Chester's fall semester, which involved a 3-4-0 mark for the Golden Rams following those games with the Icers. While some credit is due for two of those three wins coming against ranked teams (No. 25 West Virginia and No. 16 Stony Brook), there was very little indication that the team was moving up in the ACHA world anytime soon. At the break, the WCU Quad gave a brief state of the team address.

The WCU Men's Ice Hockey Club is far from where they want to be. They are far from a winning record, far from a healthy lineup, and certainly far from contention. As dismal as this season has played out, the Rams are also far from giving up. After being thoroughly outplayed for weeks at a time, the Rams still show glimpses of the team they can be. The last few weekends have certainly had their share of bright spots. Coming off four straight losses, the Rams proved they could still skate with the best. The Rams record of late does not tell the whole story. Some luck, aggressive play, and timely heroics have put a little bit of fear back into the opponent's eyes.

You know your season's going well when the school paper's beat writer gets into to the PR business and drops a "they're not giving up." Or the opposite of that.

I'll admit it, I laughed at that "little bit of fear back into the opponent's eyes" line at the end. Then I stopped laughing when I saw "West Chester 4, RHODE ISLAND 3" pop up on my Twitter feed sometime during the evening of January 8th. URI's a team I've talked up quite a bit here, so I'm impressed. WCU certainly got more out of their trip to The Boss (apologies, Bruce) than we did. Quad beat writer Kenny Ayres apparently started a blog about Golden Rams hockey sometime in December, and had this to say about the big win against the (other) Rams on it.

This game was evenly matched from the drop of the puck in the first period. It was physical, up and down, well played game by both teams...[it] was an absolute classic thriller, and the whole weekend showed the WCU squad that they can play with anyone in the country.

By the way, if you clicked on that link, you might have noticed something.

Blogger desperately needs more templates.

Yep, Ayres is a Twitter account and a rink design graphic away from taking over my life, SWF-style. Hopefully that includes my student loans. Enjoy. (In all sincerity, I'm glad to see someone over there take it up - if every ACHA team had a Kenny Ayres, it would be a more enjoyable place, and most importantly, allow me to do more lazy cut-and-paste posts. Welcome to the club, please accept full-time linkage in a moderately obscure place on TYT as a token of my gratitude. But said gratitude doesn't mean I won't rip on you for rationality-optional reasons - see just before the parentheses for reference.)

So...just how does a team go from getting stomped 15-4 (over two games) by Rhode Island in mid-November to beating them in January? Well, that one's pretty easy. The team we'll see tonight and tomorrow will look a lot different than the one we - and URI - saw in November, as it includes eight - that's E-I-G-H-T - new players for the spring semester. Ayers took a look at them in two parts, here and here. It's a pretty impressive group, headlined by forward Chris Gentile, who was recruited by NCAA Division I Merrimack, and goaltender Randy Japchen, who has played in the USHL, even if it was only for 4:45 (still, he was good enough to be there).

The overhaul of the team has been drastic, to say the least. Of WCU's 20 goals so far this semester, half have been scored by newcomers Gentile, Chris Doyle, Harrison Welch and Bob MacLaughlin. Doyle and Welch have joined with Steve Meade to form the Golden Rams' best line right now. Japchen has started three of the four games and played well throughout, and Gordon Nicholson has steadied the defense corps.

All of this has led to a 3-1-0 start to the spring semester, with the Rhode Island split being followed up by a home sweep of ECHA doormats Drexel and Towson last Friday and Saturday. The Towson game was a blowout; the Drexel game was not, with the Golden Rams pulling it out 4-3 in overtime on the back of a Steven Jones winner. Ayres explained the close score between a pretty bad team and his WCU squad thusly.

The story of this game was Drexel netminder, Dan Pyne (as I was afraid of). The Golden Rams seemed a little full of themselves in the first period of the game, perhaps having a little bit of a hangover from their big victory in the previous weekend. They came out and completely dominated the rest of the game, though, firing 40 shots on Pyne in the second and third periods, as well as the overtime period. Pyne was outstanding in the Drexel net, and the Golden Rams had trouble solving him all night. The final shots were 50-28 in favor of WCU. After seeing Pyne live, there really are no questions as to how he made the WUG team.

Pyne's a great goalie without a doubt. So as much as I think the "hot goalie" argument is overused (sometimes by me), I can accept it here.

So there you have it, 2010-2011 West Chester hockey, 2.0. However, despite the improved opponent, once again, wins are what's needed. Without them, whatever margin for error we may have is completely gone - and no, I have no idea if we'll get the appropriate poll credit for these games, win or lose. I'm definitely looking forward to breaking down pairwise rankings as an NCAA team, which is something I think I'd be better at than guessing at the whims of ACHA coaches.

Oh yeah, and - recurring theme alert - we'll have to do it without four key components of our team - don't forget Taylor Cera's shoulder separation in addition to the WUG departures.

Outside Reading

I'm going to break pattern here and start with the opponent's work. My WCU doppelganger previewed the Icers for his blog. I always think it's interesting to get an unfiltered look at your team from the other side's perspective and he doesn't disappoint - dude did his homework and gave me a shout out, which gets you credit every single time from me. Tip of the hat.

Steve Penstone had a pretty prolific week over on VFTB, talking to Chris Cerutti, then Josh Hand, who probably wouldn't have minded a softer entrance into head coaching duties.

The Collegian, in their pregame, does a better job than me at contrasting the roster situations of both PSU and WCU.

One Final Note

No updates for Friday's game. I mean it this time, unlike last week when I said no updates, then ended up retweeting everything I saw about the games from the Robert Morris Twitter and from the Icers' Facebook page.

Why? Well, if you know me personally, you know I attend graduate school at the University of Akron. Akron has an ACHA D2 team, and I wanted to check them out once this year. Their three home games left are Friday, then opposite both games of the Rhode Island series. So I chose this one. It should have zero effect on Saturday updates or my Weekend Observations, because I actually live here. And I get in free because of this.

That's right, I don't have to pay $3 to get in. Jealous?

Some Akron YouTubeyness to close it out. I promise I won't bother you with Zippy stuff ever again unless they do something major, like wear matching uniforms.