Relevant

I was asked at the last home game this season whether RPI was "in danger of becoming irrelevant," with Lake Superior State and Dartmouth offered as examples of "irrelevant."

Sorry in advance to any Laker or Big Green fans who may have stumbled upon this. It wasn't my example - but I did have a hard time arguing the logic.

Lake State had a dynasty in the 1990s with three national championships among nine straight NCAA appearances with four CCHA titles in that stretch. They haven't won a lick of hardware since 1996 and have had just five winning seasons since then. Dartmouth had a couple of moments of national prominence, in the late 1940s and the late 1970s. Otherwise - not a whole lot. The Big Green were awful in the 1980s and 1990s, and while they've been much better under Bob Gaudet since the turn of the millennium, there's still not a whole lot of "there" there. A shared ECAC regular season title in 2006 and a shared Ivy League title in 2007, and that's about it. No ECAC title games, no NCAA tournament appearances despite coming close on both fronts a number of times.

So that got me thinking. What makes a team "relevant?" Winning is really what it comes down to, and there are several great benchmarks to tell you if a team is winning. Let's explore. (TL;DR - If you want to skip the nitty-gritty, just scroll down to the final bold line near the bottom.)

National championships. It's an elite club - only 21 out of 60 programs have even won one, and RPI can count itself among just 14 of those with more than one to their name. So there's a historical aspect here of which the program can be rightly proud.

So when I say that RPI's title drought (now the longest in school history, as 1985 is farther from 2018 than it is from 1954) is the fifth longest in the country among schools with a title, that's really nothing. There are almost 40 schools out there, including some historically heavy hitters like Clarkson and New Hampshire, who don't even have one. This one's not something that should weigh heavily on our minds.

Frozen Fours. I'll skip the honor of even reaching the national championship game, even though we've now had to watch half of the ECAC reach that level (including three champions) since RPI's last one in 1985. Let's just cut to the entire last weekend of the season. The creme de la creme. The top dogs. A party that unites the college hockey world. If you've ever been to a Frozen Four, you know you can see practically every sweater in the country in the stands (and checking them off is a fun pastime there).

21 schools have never been, so again, this isn't a whole lot to quibble over. But since the Engineers were last there, 33 different programs have had this honor. That's more than half of all teams in the country. 22 different schools have been to the Frozen Four just in the last decade.

Since RPI's last turn in 1985, we've watched Clarkson (1991), Colgate (1990), Cornell (2003), Harvard (1989, 1994, 2017), Quinnipiac (2013, 2016), St. Lawrence (1988, 2000), Union (shoot me), Vermont (1996), and Yale (2013) reach the promised land. That's 9 out of 14 ECAC schools, 14 times. The balance? Army, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton... and RPI.

The Engineers just haven't been close ever since hoisting that national championship in 1985. Not even a single NCAA tournament win since then. Not even a goal, but let's explore that further.

The NCAA tournament. Just making it into the tournament field in any sport is a great achievement. Watching those last few days of the conference tournament tick down, keeping an eye on the Pairwise, it's all great fun. We've done it occasionally here at WaP, and the Engineers even snuck into the tournament once during this blog's tenure, backing in for the 2011 edition, where RPI were thoroughly destroyed by North Dakota. That was RPI's first NCAA appearance in 16 years, and it's now been a further 7 years without a bid.

Division I hockey actually has a fairly large tournament for its size - 16 teams out of 60 makes for over a quarter of programs in any given year playing a tournament in which four wins makes you a national champion. Consider that in that other sport that gets all the attention in March for some reason, 68 teams make the tournament out of 351 - 19.3% as opposed to college hockey's 26.7%.

So it's not terribly surprising that since 2012, 38 different programs have earned NCAA bids - nearly two-thirds of the nation has been dancing since RPI last had the opportunity. Only St. Lawrence (2007), Brown (1993), and Dartmouth (1980) have gone longer in the ECAC without a bid (to be very fair, Princeton and Clarkson in 2018 are both on their first bids since RPI's last turn).

The Engineers didn't score an NCAA tournament goal in 2011 (6-0 losers against the Fighting Sioux). Nor did they score in their 1995 appearance (1-0 to Minnesota). Nor in 1994 (2-0 to New Hampshire). In fact, in a stat that will undoubtedly crop up should the Engineers ever reach the tournament again, RPI has gone over 10 and a half NCAA tournament periods without scoring a goal, reaching back to George Servinis' unassisted, short-handed (and, yes, offsides) goal at 3:49 of the second period in the 1985 title game. That's a stretch of 216:11 of tournament play over the last 36 years without scoring even a goal.

So I went and checked. Literally every program that has played in the NCAA tournament since 1986 has scored at least one goal. That makes Dartmouth (1980) the only school in the country with a longer drought by total years since their last NCAA goal, and only seven teams have never made the NCAA tournament, of which Army is the only one that doesn't have the excuse of not having had a D-I varsity program in 1985.

And when it comes to NCAA wins in general - only Michigan Tech (1981), Dartmouth (1980, or 1949 if you don't count the defunct third-place game), and Brown (1976, or 1951 discounting third-place games) have gone longer since winning their last NCAA game. 14 D-I programs have never won an NCAA tournament game, and of those only Alaska, Army, Princeton, and Western Michigan lack the longevity excuse. (And, of course, Michigan Tech and Princeton have the opportunity to remove their names this year.)

League championships. For most programs, just being the top dog in your own conference can sometimes be bragging rights enough to signal a very successful season - Princeton's title this year certainly qualifies as being plenty for them this go round, with the NCAA tournament very much an opportunity to play with house money.

There are only 18 programs that have not won a league championship since the Engineers last enjoyed one nearly a quarter-century ago. 11 of these have never won one (although, to be fair to Arizona State, they've never had an actual opportunity to compete for one). Four are in Atlantic Hockey, which doesn't have a history as long as RPI's current drought. Two more are Omaha and Penn State, who also doesn't have a history that long.

Taking them out, we're left with Lake Superior (1995, along side RPI), Northern Michigan (1992), Colgate (1990), Alaska and Bowling Green (1998),  Alaska-Anchorage (1987), and Colorado College (1978) among teams that have won league titles in the past, and Brown, Dartmouth, Merrimack, UMass, and Vermont among those who haven't.

That means there are only three other ECAC programs that haven't won it all since the Engineers were last on top in the league: Brown, Colgate, and Dartmouth. Four if you want to include Vermont's 10 chances during that time.

League championship game. Just the opportunity to play for a title is enough to send thrills through the spines of supporters around the country. The Engineers last had this chance in 2000, when they fell 2-0 to St. Lawrence in the ECAC championship game in Lake Placid.

2000 was also the last time Omaha (falling 6-0 to Michigan State) and UConn (beating Iona 6-1) played for a league title - titles which no longer exist with the CCHA and MAAC now being defunct (along with Iona). Lake State last appeared in the CCHA title game in 1996 (losing 4-3 to Michigan), while Dartmouth's last hurrah playing for hardware was way back in 1980, a 5-1 loss to Cornell.

AIC, Arizona State, and the two Alaska schools are the only ones that have never appeared in a conference tournament championship game.

Every other school in the nation has had that thrill of seeing their team 60 minutes away from being crowned kings of their conference since 2000. With the notable exception of St. Lawrence (2001), every other team in the ECAC besides the Engineers, Saints, and Big Green have had that experience in the past eight years.

League semifinals. Now we're really lowering the bar - but even just the opportunity to reach what is frequently a neutral-site celebration of the league in general is a chance for fans to hitch up the wagon and go watch their team play as one of the conference elite with a title within reach. This is, as we've seen, sometimes an easy bar to clear, to the point where failing to reach this level can be seen by itself as a total failure for a season. RPI was more or less at this level of expectations when they last reached the semifinals in 2002, their 7th such visit in 10 years, and 9th in 15 years.

At worst, in 12 team leagues like the ECAC, 1/3 of the conference can be among the final four, which is still a significant chunk. It's even "easier" in places like the Big Ten, where the last four comes out to being more than half of a seven team league.

RPI's long-running drought of failing to reach Albany, then Atlantic City, and now Lake Placid again are well known and painful to what can now be termed RPI's long-suffering fans. 2002 was the last hurrah, marking the beginning of what is now a 16-year drought. Only one team that has ever been to a league semifinal currently has a longer ongoing drought - Omaha, who last appeared in a league semifinal (in the CCHA - two leagues ago) during the 2001 season.

This is where I point out that the Mavericks have been to three NCAA tournaments during that stretch, including a Frozen Four appearance in 2015. I'd trade our experience in the last 17 years with theirs in a heartbeat. (They'd probably ask for our prior 50 in return, so no deal.)

Only two other programs haven't been in that timeframe - Arizona State, who again, doesn't have a league semifinal to reach and have only completed their third Division I season, and American International, who came within a win this year of doing it for the first time.

Regular season titles. These mean absolutely nothing anymore, but they're at least good indicators of a great season over the course of four months of league play.

Let's cut right to the chase. RPI hasn't done this since the national championship in 1985, and every other ECAC team has won at least a share of what they apparently call the Cleary Cup since except for Brown and Princeton (and Army).

12 teams nationally have never won even a share of a regular season title (again, this includes Arizona State, who have never been able to), but of the ones who have, only Providence (1983 in the ECAC) and Ohio State (1972 in the CCHA) have gone longer without accomplishing the feat.

Is RPI irrelevant?

I don't know. I don't have a very good vantage point because the team is relevant to me and it probably always will be.

But there are a whole lot of gaps in the line when it comes to benchmarks of success, benchmarks of relevancy. Some of the same teams of comparison keep popping up when you take a hard look at them, and Lake Superior State and Dartmouth do seem to be frequent cohorts. The other ones that are coming up often are Brown and Army - and I will leave it to other observers to determine whether all that adds up to "irrelevant." I don't personally see Lake State and Dartmouth as being irrelevant - especially considering that the Big Green are the conference opponent that RPI has gone the longest without beating at present - but I can see how others might feel that way.

What I can say is that, more immediately, the program has just endured its worst back-to-back seasons in modern history by winning percentage. This can't be pinned on any one person, especially since there were different head coaches in both seasons and a great deal of turmoil with the roster between seasons in part because of that change. So if you're looking for me to point fingers at Seth Appert or Dave Smith, you'll be waiting for quite a while.

It's not a question of whether I or any other observers think RPI is irrelevant. It's a question of whether players think RPI is irrelevant. According to Chris Heisenberg's master sheet, at least 24 programs (including RPI) have at least one committed recruit who wasn't even born yet the last time the Engineers made it to the ECAC semifinals - and the longer it keeps up, the bigger that number will get until it maxes out at every program. There are only five players slated to be on next year's RPI roster who were alive the last time RPI won the ECAC title.

No college hockey player in over a decade was alive the last time the Engineers scored a goal in the NCAA tournament.

It is the players who will decide whether RPI is irrelevant - and if that's the decision they are starting to make, there is not a whole lot of time left to make some of these droughts referenced above start to disappear.

But there is hope. After all, Union was irrelevant for decades before they finally started breaking through and climbed all the way to the top. Michigan Tech needed a shakeup of conferences to help clear their path back to relevance and the NCAA tournament, but that alone can't account for the fact that the Huskies were ranked #1 in the country for a week in 2014. Even if we've found irrelevancy, anything is possible.

We've been searching for rock bottom for a very long time. Let's hope we've found it.

Turning Point

"Something needs to change, or something needs to change."

That's how I ended my last blog post back in December. That was three full months ago - and unfortunately, nothing changed. Today, RPI decided that what needed to change was the head coach. After 11 seasons in Troy, Seth Appert is out.

I must admit, I found the news simultaneously shocking, and not shocking at all. After all, the team managed just eight wins this season, failing to win 10 for the first time since 1982. 28 losses was a school record for a single season. And a .230 winning percentage was the lowest since the benchmark for disastrous RPI seasons, 1966 (still tops at .136). This was a historically bad season.

Worse, it was almost entirely unexpected. This team was supposed to do much better than this. Expectations coming into the year weren't that the Engineers were destined to be cellar-dwellers. They may not have been world-beaters, but they weren't the worst team in the conference either. Amazingly, they didn't end up being the worst team in the conference (thanks, Brown). But it was a brutal, harrowing experience this year.

If this was a serious aberration, it may not have led to a change in management. But the problems really were adding up on a level that the school really couldn't keep living with. By now, they've been repeated over and over again. No ECAC semifinals since 2002. Just four winning seasons in the last 11 - just one 20-win season (at exactly 20) against five 20-loss seasons (all with 23 or more). The frustration has mounted, and a season this bad, against expectations much higher was too much to bear.

Even now, looking back, it's hard to say that Appert's extensions weren't warranted when they happened. His first extension was in 2011, after an NCAA tournament appearance. The feeling was that the program had turned the corner. A second-place finish in 2013 seemed to justify that feeling, and serendipitously for him, the head coaching job at Denver came vacant at the exact same time - one of the few jobs, it was felt, that he'd leave RPI to take. Some reports even suggest that he was offered the Denver gig, and went back to RPI to see if they wanted to counter. The star was on the rise, no doubt, it seemed. RPI anted up. Unfortunately, it appears they lost the bet.

The 2014 Engineers were tabbed to be among the best in the ECAC and potentially among the best in the nation. And then Jason Kasdorf suffered a freak injury that drastically altered not only his own career but the trajectory of the program. That was bad enough. Having to watch Union go on to win the national championship that year only twisted the knife even more. It's not super fair to include that in a list of reasons why Appert is gone, but it's human nature.

There was just never a recovery. A year after the Engineers were supposed to be the toast of the league, they lost 26 games. Last year, they underperformed regularly in a better season, finally killing the home playoff bugaboo but still failing to reach Lake Placid. And then this year.

Eating four years of contract is tough for a big school with a big budget. RPI is neither of those things. We don't know how much Appert was making in his position, but you can bet that the absolute, bare minimum floor of this buyout is well over a quarter of a million dollars - possibly even reaching upwards of half a million. That's why this move is at least a little bit shocking. It cannot have been easy for the athletic department to have made this move. But ultimately, the results of this season left few good options on the table.

The buyout is going to have an impact on the amount of compensation the school can offer a replacement - let there be no doubt about that. Whoever takes this position is likely to be doing so for a salary that's well below the Division I average. That's a reason why I thought it may make sense for RPI keep Appert, who, for all of his well detailed flaws, is at least at this point a well-experienced Division I coach. A low salary will more likely attract a head coach without such experience, making RPI an entry-level position for someone who will either fail to improve the program or will be gone just as soon as improvements start becoming evident to other programs. For those celebrating this moment, we're going to find out in the coming weeks if this is more of a "be careful what you wish for" situation.

Personally, I'm neither celebrating nor lamenting this action. I can understand why it happened. And most people also understand that RPI does lose a class act in Seth Appert as well.

But this story isn't finished being told, either. Who comes in next will play just as big of a role in determining the future of this program as today's decision did. 

On the Recent Unpleasantries

Never fails. The team strings together losses, folks start tweeting at WaP that we're not hard enough on the coaching staff. The team strings together wins, folks start tweeting at WaP that we're too hard on the coaching staff. Both are usually completely unreasonable, and the more extreme the strings, the more unreasonable the shouting.

We've chosen to be agnostic on the coaching staff. We're not going to advocate for either their retention nor their release. It's a departure from where we were when the site began, when we supported the coaching staff against, quite frankly, attacks that were beyond ridiculous given the circumstances at that time.

But here's all that really needs to be said, and it's something I told a friend about a month ago: "something needs to change, or something needs to change."

Take that for what you will.

We've endured some bad RPI teams in the past - but often times, those teams were just bad and the response among reasonable folks was always "well, they're just not good right now."

This year's team is outdoing so many of those other bad teams in producing bad results, but it's been even a step farther now. This squad as the talent to be far better than it has been in other years where the team put up L after L - and there's no really good reason why they haven't been.

In the past, where there have been plausible excuses for falling far too short: running into hot teams at the wrong time, a rise in the number of strong teams in the ECAC, injuries riddling the squad, there's always been something that could be pointed to that says "OK, that's a bad break."

What is it now?

Something needs to change, or something needs to change.

Now's Not The Time

Long time readers of Without a Peer may remember that during the "tsunami" of 2011 - the one which altered the landscape of college hockey on a scope unseen in 25 years - we endorsed the idea of RPI leaving the ECAC and joining Hockey East, had they been offered a spot to go along with Notre Dame's accession.

We had previously outlined the arguments from both RPI's and Hockey East's perspective, and while it was never absolute perfection for both sides, we thought it more or less made sense on the assumption that UConn was content giving hockey the short shrift. When that changed, they became the far more common sense 12th team and Hockey East absolutely made the right call by bringing the Huskies on board.

So, now that the question's come up, where do all of the points stand five years on? A good number of them have definitely changed - and they've started making an RPI-HEA marriage look like it's not quite as good of a deal as it did back then.

From RPI's perspective:

Competition: This simply isn't as big of an issue anymore. In 2011, the ECAC had gone eight years without placing a team in the Frozen Four, and just two in the previous 15. Now, as a conference, we've had teams there in four of the last five seasons, won two national championships (including seeing an all-ECAC championship in 2013), and are standing by for a potential third. Whatever has happened, whether it's a partial function of the shuffling or simply a resurgence of the ECAC, suddenly it's not looking like being in the ECAC is necessarily a roadblock to winning a national championship. That's not to say that Hockey East isn't still a step up, it's just that it's not that big of a step anymore.

Recruiting: To some extent, we could be seeing a microcosm of how RPI might fare in Hockey East in recruiting simply by looking at Quinnipiac. While the Engineers are basically already competing with Hockey East schools for top talent, there's also the academic issue that has to be examined closely - Quinnipiac may be a very good school with higher than average selectivity, but chances are pretty good that they've got a step on the rest of the ECAC in terms of the pool of players that can academically qualify to play there. That's just one team out of 11 - now imagine it being more or less the entire rest of the league. While being in Hockey East may help attract some better players simply by association, there's no doubt RPI's already losing most recruiting battles against Boston College. It gets worse when you're in the same conference. And, honestly, one can just go back to the change in competitive balance. Why take the risk when the step up isn't as big?

Exposure: Still better exposure in Hockey East. The league just markets itself better than the ECAC does.

Alumni base: Boston's still a good focus point with tons of alums. They're well represented every time RPI's at Harvard.

Increased attendance: Probably still a net benefit thanks to new matchups and more traveling fans.

Tournament: Hmm. Maybe let's worry about getting back to the semis first, eh? That task is likely to be slightly harder in Hockey East, but at least the ECAC is back in a desirable spot with Lake Placid.

Women's hockey: Probably still a slightly better situation for the women's team, although the top end of Hockey East is starting to get as good as the top end of the ECAC.

Small school security: This more or less now is a reference to the Ivy threat which always exists but has never seemed to come close to materializing. If the Ivies left the non-Ivies, Hockey East would probably be a better spot. But if they don't, it may not be.

Traditional rivalries and Ivy connections: With the change in competitive balance, the rivalries with the Liberty League teams and the Ivy-by-association elements are a little more difficult to relinquish.

Academic profile: It also makes moving to a league with a large public school contingent a little less attractive.

Glass ceiling: This has actually changed a bit toward the positive. In 2011, the top team in Hockey East had never come outside the traditional "Big Four." In 2013, for the first (and so far, only) time, a non "Big Four" team finished in first place - Lowell. In 2011, "Big Four" teams had won 15 straight Hockey East titles. They've now failed to win three of the last four (Lowell in 2013 and 2014, Northeastern in 2016). And of course, Providence won the national championship last year. So there does appear to be a bit more parity developing in Hockey East.

From the Hockey East perspective, things have changed too.

History: There's still no potential addition that can compare to RPI's overall history, but in terms of recent history, that's all to Quinnipiac. They've become a powerhouse in the 2010s - RPI hasn't been one since the 1990s. That's mighty important, for sure.

Traditional connections: Still there, but Quinnipiac seems to be cultivating their own relationships with Hockey East teams as well. These relationships don't go far enough to make for a logical choice.

Facilities: Houston Field House would still fit, but TD Bank Sports Center in Hamden is a far more desirable place. It's another reason why Quinnipiac is winning the ECAC's recruiting war.

Resurgence: In 2011, it looked like RPI was on their way back to the upper pantheon. That hasn't yet borne out in the intervening five years, sadly. But do you know who is resurgent (or at the very least, surgent - if that's a word)?

Geography: Quinnipiac is in New England, RPI is not (although it's very nearby). 11 of 11 remaining Hockey East teams are in New England. That's pretty solid stuff.

Small school: Still a potential tripping point.

Compact conferences: This stopped being a major concern when the CCHA schools either joined the NCHC or the WCHA. There's no concern about smaller conferences being "trendy."

It all adds up to Quinnipiac being a better candidate for Hockey East than RPI is. And that's something everyone should not only be OK with, they should be glad with that. Going over the points from five years ago, it's just kind of obvious that, from where we're standing, both RPI and Hockey East have very good reasons to not be getting together.

There's another reason RPI should stay away: the school's drowning in red ink. Thanks in large part to that big white elephant sitting on the hill above 8th Street, the Institute was facing $1 billion in debts and liabilities as of 2013-14. That situation hasn't markedly improved. Is this really a good time to move the hockey team to a conference that charged Notre Dame a $250,000 entrance fee and that would likely require an additional outlay of resources in order to be competitive? It doesn't seem like a good time, especially when you look at things from a holistic standpoint - to include the fact that the Institute is now taking over the entire athletic budget from the long-held auspice of the Student Union (which now itself may be about to fall victim to a hostile takeover).

If it comes down to adding a 12th team that currently exists - that is, there's no magic intervention from a sudden varsity program at URI or Syracuse - we'd have to peg RPI as 3rd on Hockey East's calling list, behind Quinnipiac's obvious #1 and Holy Cross' "we'd find a way to make this work because you're right here" 2nd.

Fourth is probably RIT, way out of the way but with a spiffy new rink and the history to make it work. Fifth is probably Bentley, completely predicated on the Falcons getting a new on-campus arena underway. Sixth... Union, maybe? It's kind of a stretch, what with the dump they play in and their immediate downturn after winning the national championship (the only thing that even makes them a candidate), but they're probably the only other ECAC team that would appear on their radar, unless Colgate's new rink is enough to make them look interesting (probably not). Clarkson and SLU are pretty much joined at the hip due to the geography and there's only one spot available.

So yeah, if Quinnipiac wants to stay in the ECAC, and Holy Cross continues to feel like their women's team is just fine in Division III, perhaps Hockey East might come calling. But from where we're sitting, the right response is going to be the same as that of the first two... "move along."

What's Past is Prologue

12 years. Five home playoff series. Four Game 3s. Four heartaches.

And two of those hurt just a little bit more.

2010. Home at last after three seasons in the bottom four. A season after a playoff run that saw the Engineers come within a game of the promised land in Albany. Finally, a winning record. Two super freshmen who had the Field House and the ECAC abuzz. And an opponent in Brown that the Engineers hadn't lost to in regulation in five years.

2013. The end of the tunnel for sure. A first round bye for the first time since the 12-team tournament, finally. 9-1-0 since February 1st. A Brown team as the opponent that the Engineers hadn't just not lost to in three years, but had generally destroyed in those meetings. And a freshman netminder who looked like he could do little wrong.

And the script in both cases was almost exactly the same.

Game 1, late heartache. Brown takes a 2-1 lead on a third-period goal and then hits an empty netter to win 3-1. Both times.

Game 2, big time revenge. Backs against the wall, RPI comes roaring back with games that were still in doubt midway through, but the Engineers make them no doubters by the end. 4-1 in 2010, 6-2 in 2013.

Game 3, too little, too late. Brown jumps on the previously resurgent Engineers, establishing a 3-0 lead. Both times. With the season slipping away, RPI scores twice to cut the Brown lead to one. Both times. Down one, the Engineers throw everything at the Bears - for three minutes in 2010, for the entire third period in 2013. But it isn't enough, and the season ends with a 3-2 loss to Brown at home.

These were not the only three-game home heartaches. 2011, a three-game loss to last-place Colgate, with Game 3 ending in double OT. 2014, a three-game loss to Dartmouth, a team the Engineers swept in the regular season and, in fact, beat 4-1 in Game 1. Both times, getting beaten twice in a row to negate a Friday night victory.

And standing in stark contrast - RPI has won three straight first round series on the road: 2009 at Dartmouth, and at Clarkson in 2012 and 2015.

Last year's senior night victory against St. Lawrence was literally the first time RPI won their final home game in a decade.

This is reality.

It is not preordained.

That said, this isn't going to be a walk in the park this weekend. There's no reason to think that RPI is the obvious favorite at home against the 11th place team.

November 14th, in Troy, Brown should have won. They should have picked up two points. And this isn't the usual "oh, they played good enough to win." They literally should have won the game. They scored a goal in overtime that was waved off and eventually disallowed only due to a lack of replay availability for the referees. But make no mistake. That should have counted. They should have left the Engineers with nothing. (All things being equal, that should have put the Engineers in 7th and playing Colgate instead.)

January 29th, in Providence, Brown should have won. They had a 3-0 lead with less than half the game remaining, and if they hadn't utterly collapsed in conjunction with an RPI surge, they would have. Teams don't blow 3-0 leads with regularity. It hadn't happened that the Engineers came back to win a game they trailed 3-0 in over a decade - since an October 2005 game against Northeastern that the Huskies led 4-0 after one period, only for RPI to score 5 in the second. Remember the two Game 3s above? They couldn't do it then, either.

And let's not forget, Brown actually did sweep RPI last season.

Then there's the trend coming in. RPI won only one game of its last five (1-3-1). Brown lost only one game in its last five (though they also only won one - 1-1-3).

This is reality.

It is not preordained.

But this has got to be the year it ends. It simply has to. It's been far too long. There's been far too much heartache. Forget Lake Placid. Let's win at home. It's AT HOME. It shouldn't be this difficult. Literally every team in the league, save three (Brown, Princeton, and RPI) have won a home playoff series in the last two years. Only two of those teams that haven't have the excuse of not having had one - and for both, their last one was far more recent than ours (2013 for Brown, 2009 for Princeton).

Seth Appert's teams have always relied on their seniors for leadership. It is incumbent upon them now to relate what it felt like when they were freshmen in 2013, to lose to Brown on their own ice and end what had been a promising season.

That's how it started, guys. Don't let it end that way, too. Make this a street fight, where every living second is a battle for survival. Your backs are against the wall starting now, not the game after you lose. Take initiative. Take control. And don't let go. You're at home. Own it. Protect this house.

This has to be the year.

Official Business

Over the weekend in New Jersey, two referees were assaulted by parents following a high school game, and both ended up in the hospital.

The bottom line: don't ever make it personal with the officials. They're doing their best. If there's a systemic problem, it's not their fault (hi, Stewie!). You've really got to love the game to be an official, because you're not noticed when you are doing everything right, and you catch an awful lot of flak when you're doing anything wrong. We've had well documented problems with the officiating in our league and there are a handful of guys we cringe to see suiting up for an RPI game - but be very clear. We have never and will never advocate outright abuse, especially confrontational abuse.

It's just a game. Don't ever forget that. And there's a human being - imperfect, just like you - wearing those stripes.

We asked Dave Aiello, friend of WaP and friend of RPI hockey, who is an official in New Jersey himself, to comment. Here is what he said.

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Some of you may know me as an RPI alumnus who graduated in 1989.  I’ve come back and played in several men’s hockey alumni games, including this season, and I have a tendency to be very supportive of Rensselaer on social media.

I'm also an ice hockey official, and really got started on a path toward high-level officiating at Mike Addesa’s suggestion when I was a sophomore at RPI.  Since then, I’ve officiated hundreds of hockey games at all levels below Division I, both as a referee and a linesman.

Dave Brown, an official I’ve known for 30 years, was assaulted by spectators at a High School varsity hockey game on Sunday, February 7 in Howell, New Jersey.  Two men, who are reportedly fathers of student-athletes who played in the game, took their protest directly into the officials’ locker room afterward. These spectators repeatedly struck Dave Brown and his partner, causing both officials to leave the arena in ambulances.  Thankfully, neither Dave nor his partner were seriously hurt.

I’m telling you this because Dave Brown is also an ECAC Division I linesman who has worked many RPI games.  Whether you recognize him by name or not, you’ve seen him work.  He is one of the best American hockey officials at any level.  He's a good man who you would like, if you knew him the way I do.

I know from watching RPI games and reading what reporters and fans say on-line, that many of you dislike several of the officials that the ECAC Hockey League chooses for its staff.  You may not know Dave Brown in the same way that you think you know the referees who make penalty calls.  All of the officials on the ECAC staff are great officials who do the best job they can every night that they go on the ice.

I hear the referees and linesmen being second-guessed on almost every tough play that results in a whistle.  Perhaps that goes with the territory.  But when a decisive call goes against RPI, there is noticeable use of abusive language by fans in the stands, whether the officials made the correct call or not.

At Houston Field House, no official will get anything other than verbally abused from a distance, because it’s almost impossible to get near them.  The Field House staff is one of the best in college hockey.  But when officials go to almost any other rink-- not just in Division I but at every level of hockey down to Frear Park and Knickerbacker Arena-- the men and women who officiate are much easier to get close to and, amazingly, to physically attack.

I didn’t take this issue as seriously as I do now until a great official that I know personally was assaulted.  My wife and kids know Dave, and what happened to him makes them scared about what might happen to me when I go to officiate my next game.  It will take a long time for our fears to go away, regardless of what happens in the future.

So when the whistle blows and the thought crosses your mind-- that official is an idiot-- or worse, stop yourself.  Remember what just happened to one of the best officials in the ECAC.  Control your emotions, the way all players, coaches, and officials must control theirs.

How you act as a spectator at a Division I hockey game influences what is considered acceptable behavior at lower levels of hockey.

Abuse of officials has no place in our game, at RPI or at any other level.

A Rigged Game

College hockey has a remarkable ebb and flow to it, historically. Ten years ago, it seemed like nothing could ever stop the WCHA. From 2000 to 2006, the conference won the national title six times. From 1994 through 2010, there were no first-time national champions.

And now look at things. Since 2007, just one WCHA crown (and in modern terms, one Big Ten and one NCHC national championship). Since 2011, four of five national champions have been first-timers. And they're from places you wouldn't expect. Yale. Union. Providence. Your last three in a row, none of which were highly fancied at the beginning of their seasons.

Welcome to the new landscape of college hockey. It's all part and parcel of a history that created nationally recognizable programs in places like Colorado College and Clarkson and, until a couple of years ago, a highly insular structure with no national conferences to speak of.

And then along came the Big Ten.

"Men’s ice hockey is slightly more important to the Big Ten Network’s revenue stream than women’s field hockey, yet the conference was willing to blow up college hockey for a few hours of auxiliary programming," writes Patrick Reusse of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune this week. It's a perfect breakdown of why the hockey version of the Big Ten came into being, and what it did to the college hockey landscape. It was about programming for a conference television network focused on football and basketball, but needing other attractions to really make it tick. And it completely unraveled the long-standing order of things, especially out west.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Big Ten bigfooting the rest of college hockey. It didn't.

For a small conference - the smallest member-wise in college hockey - the Big Ten outpunches its size. Its six member schools have combined to win 23 national championships, more than any other conference (17 for the NCHC, 13 for Hockey East, 8 for the WCHA, 7 for the ECAC). But that's an accounting of the past, and this is now.

In its first season, the Big Ten did earn two of the #1 seedings in the NCAA tournament. But last year, its champion - Minnesota - could only manage a #3 seed, and the Gophers were the only Big Ten entrant, unceremoniously dumped by Minnesota-Duluth in the first round. Wisconsin labored last season as one of the worst teams in the nation, and this year, the entire conference outside of Michigan and Penn State is slouching out of the gate with pretty rough records.

So where's the problem? How did big money Minnesota, with its 10,000 seat arena and regional TV contract get embarrassed on national television in 2014 by a small liberal arts school in Upstate New York that plays its home games in a tea cup?

The answer lies heavily in the difference in the way Union and many small schools have been recruiting. If you've been paying close enough attention, the recent Frozen Four appearances by Bemidji State, RIT, Ferris State, and Union should not be blowing your mind. They're instructive instead. These schools don't grab the blue-chip prospects ready for college hockey when they turn 18. Those players go to Boston University (like Jack Eichel), or Michigan (like Dylan Larkin), or Wisconsin (like Nic Kerdiles). And they don't go there very long. Eichel and Larkin left after their freshman years, Kerdiles after his sophomore year.

No, Union built a national championship on the backs of older players who developed longer in junior hockey. Guys that were more experienced as freshmen at the age of 20 or 21 than even those blue-chippers. The next first-round draft pick may not be coming to play for Quinnipiac, but they'll gladly live with bringing in an older player who's going to be around for four years - and potentially playing as seniors at the age of 24 and 25. It's a great equalizer.

And the Big Ten has decided that it isn't fair.  (If you haven't read the story yet, click the link. Adam Wodon of College Hockey News breaks it down very well.)

Their solution? Without consulting the rest of the college hockey world at the annual meeting in Naples, FL, they decided instead to unilaterally submit legislation to be voted on by the NCAA - which they can do because they're the only "all sports conference" in college hockey - that would reduce the age limit before recruits will lose eligibility from 21 to 20.

The big, bad Big Ten needs the playing field leveled against those piteous little upstarts in Canton, NY and Duluth, MN, don't you see? It's just not fair.

Now, hockey does differ from most NCAA sports in the average age of freshmen, but it differs from most NCAA sports in a lot of other ways, too. Major league draftees don't lose eligibility. The aforementioned lack of "all sports conferences." The season length is longer. And of course, the sheer number of "play-up" teams. These are all by-products of college hockey's long-term niche presence and the nature of youth and junior hockey structures.

The Big Ten's excuse for all of this is that they're simply trying to bring hockey closer to being in line with the rest of the NCAA, even though it would be completely unacceptable to require recruits to be on campus immediately after they graduate high school. And why is that? What's the rationale?

We wrote five years ago about the recruiting game and how the NHL was changing things. The NCAA is becoming an ever increasing route for players to reach the pros - more than 30% of NHL players are NCAA alums now, as opposed to just over 20% a decade ago, and far less a decade before that. There was a time that even the very best players would stay for their entire four-year college career before jumping to the NHL. Today, pro contracts can frequently be in the offing even for guys that aren't likely to get a whole lot of ice time at the highest level, to say nothing of the blue-chip prospects.

Ironically, when we wrote that, we were expecting Brandon Pirri and Jerry D'Amigo to return to Troy for their sophomore seasons - and they didn't. So schools like RPI aren't looking for the Pirris and D'Amigos anymore. They're looking for the Chase Polaceks and Nick Bailens. It's the Mat Bodies and Jesse Roots of the world that are winning national championships. It's guys that are staying in college, finishing their education, and playing for four years that are powering the best teams in the country.

Most players who are playing in juniors into their early 20s aren't going to be NHL prospects - if they were, they'd have been pushed to college already, or headed off to major junior. But these players are also far more likely to graduate one day - which is supposed to be the point first and foremost.

Now, does this proposal explode the system? Not entirely. Players are still going to be able to mature in juniors for a couple of seasons before coming to college. But it stinks for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the underhanded way the Big Ten went about doing this. They are trying to ram it through with a vote among college administrators of whom a majority doesn't care a lick about hockey (which should sound familiar if you remember the Prop 65 battle a decade ago). They're doing it over the protestations of the vast majority of college hockey coaches (who opposed the measure 49-11 in a straw poll of all 60 of them), and probably worst of all, it skews things more in the favor of the schools that already have a lot of the advantages when it comes to recruiting in the first place.

Yes, these same institutions who don't bat an eye at accepting the commitment of players not even old enough to drive - and sometimes not even old enough to be in high school - have a problem with RIT stocking their roster with 21-year-old Canadian freshmen. Hear that? That's the sound of the world's tiniest violin. Getting beat by 24 and 25 year olds? Why don't you recruit some 20 and 21 year old freshmen yourself? Seems reasonable enough. Instead of adapting, however, these schools just want to rig the game in their favor instead.

College hockey continues to change. Beyond the Big Ten, it started changing again last year when Arizona State decided to go varsity, a move which could well encourage more big money schools to do the same in parts of the country previously untouched by college hockey. It's good for the sport. But it brings with it the challenge of maintaining traditions. I always love to point out the 1996 national championship game between Michigan and Colorado College as a perfect example of what makes college hockey special - in any other sport, the Wolverines would easily crush the Tigers, but in hockey, the titan and the minnow can meet on equal terms. Perhaps the 2014 title game is an even better example - the minnow won.

But we risk losing that if legislation like this is allowed to go through, especially in the manner that the power schools are trying to accomplish it. And that would be a complete shame.

Brown Experiences the Tute Screw

So this is what it feels like to be on the other end of the screwjob.

As we said on Sunday morning, it still feels kind of hollow, but doesn't hurt nearly as much. Go ahead. You can admit it to yourselves. RPI got away with one, stealing a point from Brown like a thief in the night, due to a bad call and perhaps divine intervention - a malfunctioning replay system.

We're not going to sit here and dissect this one. We did this last year at this time, and it was directly related to how the use of replay and breaking down replay. Getting the call wrong when you've got access to replay is simply ridiculous.

But the referees on Saturday night, for whatever reason, did not have access to replay. They got the call wrong - but not egregiously wrong, even though a look at the overhead pretty quickly confirms that it was a goal. Nobody interfering with the netminder. Nobody in the crease. Net was on its moorings when the puck crossed the line, and clearly it was in well before the whistle. It would have been kind of an "own goal" if it had counted, but those are still good goals.

A lot was happening all at once. A player ended up in the net and the net was dislodged as a number of players were crashing. The puck was clearly not in sight of the officials. Plays like that, sometimes, you're going to get the call wrong on the ice. That's all that happened. And under normal circumstances, you'd just go to the replay and get the call right.

There's still plenty that the league needs to do on officiating - the seemingly arbitrary nature of what constitutes a penalty at times is maddening, and it even reared its ugly head during the overtime period against Brown. Seconds before Riley Bourbonnais was called for a seriously weak elbowing call in the extra session, the Bears arguably got away with an interference call that created a 2-on-1 and a scoring opportunity when Parker Reno was taken down between his man and the puck. Not calling it because it's overtime? That's fine. That's possibly even preferable. So why was the call made on Bourbonnais (as seen in the same link)?

Bourbonnais, as time was about to expire in regulation, laid a nice open-ice check on Tyler Bird along the Brown blueline that left the Bears defenseman resting on one knee for a short time. I'd bet anything that the weak call on Bourbonnais in overtime was because Bird didn't pop back up right away, even on a pretty clearly legal hit. This whole "carry over" or "make up" call thing has got to stop. Mess a call up? Move on.

And let's be real for a moment here, too. If this replay malfunction had happened at practically any other rink in the ECAC, the game's post mortem would have read something like this: "RPI argued that they had scored in the extra session, but a malfunction of the replay system in Providence made it unclear whether they had scored or not, and the officials stuck with their initial call on the ice."

It's only because RPI TV does a superior job with their broadcasts and their camera work - which now includes in-net cameras - that we know for a fact that the Bears were screwed over. Brown goaltender Tim Ernst wouldn't have been making sarcastic tweets at the ECAC (since, wisely, deleted) about the play if RPI TV didn't have a high-definition camera over the goal that they could use to let the rest of the world see the replay. That should be a point of pride - and even more so that it's free to the public to watch this outstanding broadcast. If you watch this broadcast regularly, please, make a donation to their cause.

Yeah, if the shoe was on the other foot, we'd be livid, and Brown has every right to be livid. But this is something out of everyone's control. Technology is great when it works, but it's not foolproof. The officials did the right thing. They went to the video tape. It wasn't there. So they huddled. And they got the call wrong. We can be as upset as we want at bad officiating, but there's an allowance for human error, especially when the technology fails.

Some have used this incident to complain that there needs to be a backup available. How? And more importantly, why? When was the last time we heard about this being an issue? 99 times out of 100, they go to the video system, and it's there ready to be used. It's the officials' job before games to make sure that the replay system is functioning. If it was working before the game and they checked, it's a blameless problem. If it wasn't and they didn't check, it's totally on them. But this doesn't happen frequently enough to require schools that have already had to invest in a replay system to also invest in something additional - like having something like RPI TV ready and able to show a replay.

It sucks to lose a point this way, yes. But from our perspective, it sucks to gain a point this way, too. If you want everything to be above board, you have to admit when you've been the beneficiary of the screwjob just as much as you'd complain about it when you're in Brown's position. But we were the beneficiaries.

And now, we move on - the screwjob balance tipped slightly back in our favor for a change. Sorry, Bears. We may not be elephants, but we have a long memory.

What Now?

OK, so... you might have noticed we took a little bit of a break after the season ended. It's been a very long year, of course. 75 games covered on the year between the men and the women, with 49 of them losses and only 19 of them wins... I think you can understand just wanting to exhale for a few weeks.

At the end of the day, neither the men's nor the women's team really did any worse than they were expected to do at the outset of the year. The women's side had the coaches picking them to finish 10th, they managed 9th. The men's side had the coaches picking 10th and the media 9th, they finished 9th. Look at it this way - both polls on the men's side had Union finishing 2nd. Who really had the worse season, eh?

The question from the outset of the season for the men was never really answered: "who's going to score the goals?" It needed to be a team effort. In the end, it was, but unfortunately there just weren't enough coming from enough people with enough consistency to be competitive night in, and night out. Jason Kasdorf, the team's rock in net, struggled through another season with injury woes. When he's on and healthy, he's hard to beat, and he proved that in the playoffs.

RPI graduates a senior class that always showed a lot of potential offensively, but never seemed to live up to that potential. We thought the Engineers could have a decent season last year based largely on that unrealized potential being tapped, and it just didn't pan out.

Now, the Engineers boast a significant number of underclassmen with the potential to be outstanding and even stars in this league. Drew Melanson, Lou Nanne, Riley Bourbonnais, and Viktor Liljegren all showed at times during the season that they were ready to be key elements in a successful hockey team. Next season is the time for them to grab that brass ring and help pull this team to bigger and better things. They are set to be joined by a number of freshmen who've displayed high potential - Evan Tironese, Brady Wiffen, Alex Rodriguez, and the just-committed Jesper Öhrvall, especially.

What RPI needs now is for potential to be realized. For a long time, we've seen solid freshman seasons lead to higher expectations down the road - as one usually should expect from still developing players - but more often than not seeing more stagnation than growth, and from the ones that grow, we've seen some early departures.

The women have found their greatest successes when working from the net outward. Sonja van der Bliek didn't always have the most scoring in front of her, but when she was on she was one of the best goaltenders in the league and the team had more success than failure. Her replacements between the pipes, Kelly O'Brien and Brianna Piper, were solid Division I goaltenders, but neither could really carry the team by themselves when the offense struggled. Next year's team features a pair of new goaltenders, Kira Bombay and Lovisa Selander. We don't know a lot about either of them due to the limited amount of information that comes out about women's hockey recruits that aren't international-level prospects, but Bombay a season ago had a season in which she finished with a GAA under 1.00. Enough to raise the eyebrows, at least.

So there's really only one thing to say about the future.

There is hope. But we need to see that development.

Ride or Die

I don't want to give the wrong impression from yesterday's editorial. I'm not warning Puckman Nation to moderate their feelings on the season for the better just because we just knocked off Clarkson. On the contrary - soak it in, people. Enjoy it. It's been a tough year, we've earned the right to be happy about it.

One of the things I'm proudest of in WaP's coverage of the team this season is that almost at the same time, we got a couple of pieces of opinion from people complaining about said coverage. One was an e-mail that accused us of being a "cheerleader" for the team. The other was a tweet lambasting our "negative" coverage and questioning our loyalty.

That pretty much sealed it for me right then and there - we were getting it right. When those two criticisms came down in succession, I knew that our quest to be bluntly honest was getting it absolutely right.

Let there be no confusion at all. We're fans. All of us here are RPI fans - through thick and thin.

My favorite tweet of the year, I wrote the morning after the Freakout! was over. The weekend after the gut punch that was getting swept by Brown on the season and having Yale suck the energy out of a packed house early.

Frustration is six losses in a row. Dedication is throwing your RPI hockey hat back on your head the next day. Ride or die. #EngineerPride
— Without a Peer (@without_a_peer) February 15, 2015

The frustration was destined to mount just a little bit more as the winless streak extended a further three games, but there we were throughout, hoping for the best, even as we criticized uneven play. That's all we've ever wanted to do here. We didn't want to be cheerleaders. We didn't want to be strictly dour, either.

And here we stand - on the other side of a season that at times was a long slog, on the precipice of a series no one thinks we're going to win.

That's why I want to take this opportunity to go out on a limb here.

We're going to go back to Lake Placid. If it's not next week, it's going to be soon, and we're going to win it all there.

We're going back to the NCAA Tournament. Probably not this year. But eventually.

That third national championship? It's coming someday.

I don't have any proof. I can point to Union winning it last year as proof that we (that is, anyone) can win it all, but it doesn't mean we're going to.

So how do I know? Because I'm a fan. I believe. Do you? If the answer's no... why are you a fan? What are you hoping for?

I've been blessed to be a part of this family called RPI Hockey for basically my entire life. I was too young to remember the '85 championship, but I remember the '95 title well. We have high expectations on our team because we know where they've been and what they're capable of.

Never forget that the team places high expectations on itself, and that every player in that locker room has the same hopes and dreams that their fans do. They want it even more, trust me.

What Makes a Good Season?

(This is Part 1 - Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow.)

Last week, we called the ECAC Tournament "a new season." And it is, in almost every way that matters. The only thing that really carries forward from the regular season are the built-in advantages in the first two rounds. Home ice for the middle four teams in the first round. A week off for the top four followed by home ice. After you get past that, it's eight pairings of two teams trying to be the first to two wins until the league gets whittled down to four.

The tournament has drama and allure to it. Following the four month grind of the ECAC season, there's a three week stretch where anything can, and frequently does, happen. Everything is earned when a miscue at the wrong time means you're hanging up the sweater until next year, or for the last time if you're a senior, no matter how good or bad your regular season was.

So what's more important, then? Having a good regular season, or having a good tournament? If one is good, does it matter if the other is awful?

It's a fair question to ask, especially when it comes to RPI - a team that for years has pretty much only ever had a good season OR a good tournament, never both, rarely neither.

Growing up, I remember a time when RPI could practically do no wrong in the ECAC Tournament. Even during an age where getting to play in the tournament was never a given - the league admitted only eight of 12 teams following the Hockey East split until 1990, then 10 of 12 until 2003 - the Engineers always managed to find a way.

* The '87 Engineers finished in a tie for 7th, and ended up reaching the third-place game.
* The '92 Engineers finished 10th, and took eventual champions St. Lawrence to overtime in the semifinals after knocking off Vermont and Harvard in succession on the road.
* From 1992 to 2002, RPI missed out on the semifinals only three times.
* The '95 Engineers finished in 6th, and still became ECAC champions.
* The '02 Engineers resurrected their season at the very end, reached a home ice spot, and made their way to Lake Placid, finishing third.

That was quite a stretch. More often than not, RPI was either one of the top teams during the regular season and they translated that to the tournament, or they made up for lost time in the tournament.

Perhaps now, as we sit 13 years removed from that epic stretch, we can see that nothing should ever be taken for granted.

The numbers are stark. No home playoff series wins since 2004, a drought of five series in a row (Quinnipiac, Brown, Colgate, Brown, and Dartmouth). No semifinal appearances since 2002, coming within a single victory of playing in a semifinal in 2004 (Dartmouth), 2009 (Cornell), and 2013 (Brown), but coming no closer.

It's a heartache lane that has even the most stalwart RPI backer just waiting for the next hit sometimes. The ECAC's final four took place in Albany, literally down the road, for eight seasons. We never went. It moved to Atlantic City for three years. We never went. Now it's back in Lake Placid again, a place we rarely missed out on the last time the tournament was held there every year.

Here's a tale of two seasons for you to ponder: 2009 and 2013.

There were a lot of warm fuzzies coming out of 2009. The Engineers won a playoff series on the road at Dartmouth, their first playoff win in five years. They beat Cornell in Game 1 of the quarterfinals. It was Allen York's coming out party. The future looked a lot brighter. People felt good about the team again.

But that was five games. The team was 3-2 in those five games. It was a near sight better than the absolutely dreadful season RPI fans had to endure ahead of that, finishing next to last and in serious danger until the very end of the season of finishing dead last in the ECAC, something the team had never (and has never) done since the mid-1960s. Did those five games seriously make that season better?

Contrast with 2013. A wonderful regular season. Won 11 of their last 12 games, really rolling. Highest finish in the ECAC standings in 20 years. And then, disaster in the tournament. 1-2 in three games, ended their season prematurely. Did those three games seriously make that season worse?

The answer to both questions - yes. Games mean more - far more - in the tournament. But they don't ever erase what happened in the regular season. We shouldn't ignore the bad seasons that precede good tournaments, and vice versa.

I recall hearing from Brown fans that 2010, the year they beat RPI and then top-seeded Yale to reach Atlantic City, was one of the best seasons they'd had in years, and that they were "climbing the ladder." They finished 11th in the ECAC that season. They'd finish 9th and 12th in the next two years. Now, bear in mind that Brown is used to finishing in the bottom four (9 times in the last 10 years), but still... how can you apply two weekends worth of success to wipe out four months of futility? Sure, at least your last impression left you smiling, but... how long did it take you to get there?

It's just a little something to remember when you look back on this season. It's very, very acceptable to be happy with what happened last weekend in Potsdam. Hope springs that a Cinderella run is in store for this coming weekend and beyond. Hopefully at the very least we see, as in 2009 and 2012, hope for the near future. But when the book is written on 2015, it's been a rough season. It's hard to get beyond that.

Can't Stand Losing

It's far easier to write game recaps and write about the team when they're being successful, or at least having some ups and down. It's not as easy when the losses begin to mount. But there's a very different reason why, for the last couple of weeks, I've had a hard time sitting down and adding content here at WaP.

Saturday, after the Engineers fell for the 8th time in a row, I politely listened as a gentleman I don't know but who apparently knew who I was talked my ear off for a good 10 minutes about how much the Institute needed to can Seth Appert. I listened and nodded to be polite but it really was just putting me in a worse and worse place the longer I listened to it.

It was then that I came to the full realization that the only thing worse than having to watch our team lose game after game is to hear people whining and complaining about the team losing game after game - and that this was really the exclusive reason why all of this has been a lot less fun lately.

For years now, both in cyberspace and in the arenas of the ECAC, especially Houston Field House, it's hard to get away from the constant moaning by armchair athletic directors who have the perfect solutions for all of the team's ills. They know exactly why the team struggles and they know how to fix it. They've got rationales for every minor event that happens.

(Oddly, they were seldom heard from in 2010 and 2011, and again were rather silent during the 2012-13 season, up until the end.)

It came to a serious head over the weekend, when conspiracy theories and wild speculation ran rampant over the suspension of the team's four captains for the Miami series.

Once more, there were people who seemed to know exactly what was going on and what it meant for the team. Clearly, one tweeter told WaP, there was some kind of player revolt against the coaching staff and the captains were being punished for it. The gentleman I met at the game on Saturday insisted that the suspensions were proof that Appert had lost control of the team.

On top of this, WaP had a Union fan hurling tweets our way accusing us of some kind of double standard, since we'd dared to mention that something smelled funny at Union when they hit some of their upperclassmen with suspensions. Of course, there's a big difference between being asked if there was a legal matter involved and saying "no comment" like Rick Bennett, or being able to flatly deny it like Seth Appert did this past weekend.

Since we don't know exactly why the suspensions happened, accusations like these are basically just ways for people who already hate the coaches to fuel their own agenda. The suspensions are over, and no one left the team over the incident, but that's not going to diminish the shouting at all.

I've long been hesitant to level criticism against the coaching staff in part because the hysterical, foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Appert crowd has for so long been so over the top that any rational, even-handed criticism will ultimately come off looking either weak or pseudo-sycophantic.

That's because it hasn't just been directed at one person. I've seen people try to blame the athletic trainers for the team's rash of injuries. I've seen gripes leveled at the assistant coaches, whose precise areas of expertise aren't well known outside of what has been passively mentioned in interviews, whose sole fault it is that certain parts of the Engineers' game aren't perfect. I've even seen those who for some odd reason save a special level of vitriol for the athletic director (who's apparently so awful and bad at his job that he's leaving to take a job offered to him at a Division I school).

Long ago, before I was even a student at RPI, I followed the RPISPORT-L discussion listserv, but I abandoned that not too long into my tenure at the Institute because it eventually degraded into a complete cesspool of people lashing out at Dan Fridgen, his staff, and worst of all, student-athletes themselves. I tried joining up again a few years back to see if anything had changed - it hadn't. RPI threads on the USCHO Fan Forum seem to have devolved into a similar mess in recent years.

I can deal with losing streaks. I can even find ways to endure them with at least a fake smile on my face. If you're following WaP on Twitter (and if you're not... why not?), you've seen that our band of loyal twits have even been willing to poke fun at the team's struggles from time to time. It doesn't mean we want the team to fail, it means we're trying to continue deriving enjoyment from something we all love. But now, we're starting to see some folks practically rooting for failure, just to buttress their own positions on things that need to change.

Watching and covering this team on the radio is something that I enjoy - so much so that I have been blogging without pay for six seasons now. But the end of the day, it's still just a game. We all have far more important things to be worked up about in our lives. If I allowed myself, as a fan, to get so consumed by it that I had nothing but bile for the people who run the team, I'd be losing a big part of why I watch the team play in the first place.

And worst of all, I'd be ruining the experience for others.

Everyone's got an opinion. I've got my own, incidentally. There's a serious number of people out there who need to realize that not everyone wants to hear it, especially in detail.

The Walking Dead

The first half of the season is coming to an end following tomorrow night's home game (the first in a month), and it couldn't come at a better time.

Let's recap the situation in the infirmary, shall we?

Chris Bradley suffered a shoulder injury in early November, which kept him out of five games, including four ECAC contests.

Luke Curadi missed four games, including three ECAC contests, with a concussion picked up in the Harvard game. Curadi has been playing at forward since his return due to other injuries - he hasn't seen the blue line in over a month.

Milos Bubela has been in and out of the lineup with concussion issues. He missed three games in October (and basically four, since he didn't see much ice against Notre Dame), and another two in mid-November. He's currently tied for second in goals for the Engineers.

Matt Neal had an illness that kept him sidelined during the last league home weekend in November.

Travis Fulton separated his shoulder, either against Brown or in practice this week (it wasn't made clear). Either way, the spark plug who has played an important energy role for the Engineers is out tomorrow.

Zach Schroeder hurt his ankle against Quinnipiac and missed the next four games because of it. Now word has come out that the injury was re-aggravated against Brown and he'll now miss a fifth game tomorrow.

Mark Miller, according to reports, is playing hurt with injuries to his ribs and shoulder and has been for the last month. He has yet to miss a game this season but has been very limited in practice for the last several weeks - and obviously, playing hurt makes any player more susceptible to picking up an injury they can't play with, no matter how tough you are.

Lou Nanne hurt a shoulder against Quinnipiac, which has been a recurring injury issue for him - he had double-shoulder surgery last year. Nanne was the team's leading scorer before being sidelined. He's missed the last six games and and is expected to miss his seventh tomorrow.

Drew Melanson has mononucleosis and will miss his third game in a row tomorrow night. Following linemate Nanne's departure from the lineup, he became the team's leading scorer. That role is now held by Riley Bourbonnais.

Miller, Nanne, and Melanson made up what was arguably the team's most dynamic scoring line, full of speed and with just the right combination of passing, scoring, and physical play. That line was just beginning to look very dangerous when it was broken up by the injuries and illnesses.

Last and certainly not least, Jason Kasdorf missed time as a freshman with a shoulder injury, missed basically the entire season last year with a shoulder separation that required surgery to keep it from recurring, and now has an undisclosed lower-body injury that he picked up against New Hampshire on the 25th of November. He wasn't removed from that game immediately upon injury, instead coming out during the first intermission for what was then deemed a "precautionary measure." He's since missed the last four games, all losses for the Engineers. He's not expected to play against BU, either.

Add it all up, and 10 injured and ill players have lost 27 games to injuries, mostly within the last month. That number is expected to reach 32 tomorrow, and that doesn't even take into effect the loss of defensemen like Curadi, Craig Bokenfohr, and Phil Hampton who have occasionally had to play forward because of the ongoing injury concerns.

RPI is a team that was expected to have scoring struggles to begin with, and when you have seven forwards that have had injury and illness concerns in a very short amount of time, especially when three of those seven have proven to be very important to helping the team score, you're going to have problems.

It's no secret, either, that Kasdorf has been this team's most valuable player practically since he arrived in Troy. Scott Diebold is a decent enough goaltender - and before him, Bryce Merriam - but over the last three seasons, it's been very apparent that the team simply is better (and plays better) with Kasdorf in net over Diebold or Merriam. Last season may well have been a lost season if only because of the freak injury Kasdorf suffered very early on.

The bottom line is that this all seems to add up to the last month basically being lost because of the mounting and unrelenting injuries this team has had to deal with. Every squad in the nation has to deal with injuries over the course of a season, but rarely does it get this bad, where you have so many important players unable to contribute. The best team in the nation would be struggling without its top goaltender and two of its most important scorers, to say nothing of losing so many other key elements. For RPI, which wasn't likely to be in the discussion as one of the best in the nation, it hurts even more.

If there's anything to be thankful for with all of this, it's that the lion's share of the games during this difficult time have been non-league contests. At the end of the day, this isn't a team that's going to be banking on its overall record to reach the NCAAs, it's Lake Placid or bust, baby. In that light, the brutally difficult non-league schedule, made even more difficult by these injuries, are little more than exhibition outings preparing the team for more crucial games in league play. That's what tomorrow night's game against BU is going to end up being, unfortunately.

The Engineers have 17 days after they play BU before they get back into things with a game that matters at Harvard - arguably, the best team in the ECAC right now, a team that steamrolled RPI at the Field House in November. Bradley was the only major component missing for the Engineers in that game. It's part of a continued grueling schedule facing RPI when they come back from break, many in league play, so let's hope 17 days is enough to get healthy.

Second Impressions

Alternate title: Will the real Engineers please stand up?

A few weeks ago, I pontificated on what RPI looked like after the Icebreaker tournament was in the books.

Then things went south, and in a hurry. Then last week happened. If there's been a more harrowing rollercoaster of an October in the recent past, I certainly don't remember it.

So how are those early observations holding up? Let's take a look.

Kasdorf as the best goaltender in the ECAC: When the team's playing poorly, it doesn't take long for the goaltender to look pretty bad too. While Jason Kasdorf was never blatantly awful during the team's pre-Union stretch, he wasn't looking like a world-beater, either.

The title of top goaltender in the league is certainly up in the air. Union's Colin Stevens has some claim to it (although he didn't look like it against the Engineers last Friday). Colgate's Charlie Finn certainly does as well (especially with a nation leading three shutouts in eight games), and now we can add SLU freshman Kyle Hayton to the list.

Against Union, Kasdorf looked like the dependable stalwart that he was for the Engineers during his stellar freshman campaign - and that certainly bodes well going forward.

Sophomore anti-slump: Jake Wood was apparently a healthy scratch against the Dutchmen (although he did warm up on Friday, not cracking into the lineup), and Jimmy DeVito's offensive threat level diminished almost immediately after the Icebreaker - in part because of the team's scoring drought, but he certainly didn't appear to be the one ready to break that drought with any frequency.

But Riley Bourbonnais continues to play well, and he was finally rewarded for top-end performance on Friday against Union, when he not only scored his first collegiate goal, he also notched RPI's first hat trick in several seasons. He's earned his place playing on some of the best lines out there, and if the Engineers are figuring to create a true offense by committee, he's positioned himself to be an important part of that scoring drive.

Impact freshmen: There should be little doubt at this point that Viktor Liljegren is going to play a serious role in the offense as well this season, but Lou Nanne has done even more, leading the team in points. Sure, it's only five points, but that means he's been a part of more than a third of the team's goals in some way.

Nanne and Drew Melanson have been together on a line with junior Mark Miller for the last two weekends, and the trio has looked very good together. They were the only ones to break through against Bentley, and the Nanne/Melanson wing combination produced a pair of goals on Friday against Union with the speed they've got.

Difficult to be hard on Mike Prapavessis and Jared Wilson this early into their freshman season. Eventually, both are probably looking to be bigger contributors in the puck-moving department, and both have shown bright flashes of potential for their usefulness in the offensive department. Give it time. As both acclimate to the world of college hockey, their contributions are likely to improve.

Defense: Which defense are we talking about now, the one that looked AWOL against Bentley or the one that was clearing rebounds with aplomb against Union? This should still be an area of strength. There's just too much talent and experience back there for the Bentley showing to have been much more than a fluke, especially the way they played last weekend.

Penalty kill: 10-for-11 against Union, which is pretty solid, even against a power play that struggled as much as the Dutchmen did in the home-and-home. There were some holes during the losing streak, but especially in Schenectady, the penalty kill not only looked effective, it also was unlucky to nab at least one shorthanded goal. Being dangerous in transition while a man down can force opposing power plays to be a bit more tentative with the puck along the blue line. Hopefully that's something that can continue.

In lieu of the obvious need for more scoring, let's touch on something I didn't bring up after the Icebreaker due to a small sample size - which has grown a bit since then.

Seniors? Most teams rely on their most experienced players to perform in order to succeed, and Seth Appert in particular has always put a premium on results from his seniors to provide power for the team. Having four senior forwards was supposed to be a point of potential for an offense that wasn't going to revolve around individual big guns - yet those four seniors have combined for a total of six points (2 goals and 4 assists), just one more than freshman Lou Nanne has put together on his lonesome (3 goals and 2 assists).

Mark McGowan broke through with a key goal on Saturday in Schenectady - and he'd been performing admirably on the penalty kill all night - but to some extent, he was basically in the right place at the right time on his game-tying goal.

The biggest names we'd like to see more from are Jacob Laliberte and Zach Schroeder. Their line (with DeVito) was rarely effective against the Dutchmen. If they're still together this coming weekend, they need to provide extra punch to help with the younger lines that are beginning to produce.

Save It

There's no way around it - the Engineers have been terrible in their last three games. Just beyond bad.

RPI turned heads by beating Notre Dame. They looked respectable in losses to Minnesota and Denver (at least, the first night against Denver) despite failing to score goals. The basic understanding was that the team was taking its lumps against some of the best in the nation and that the offense was eventually going to be better off for having worked against tough defenses (although you still wanted to see a breakthrough goal), and that the Engineers' defense, considered a strong point, hadn't been embarrassed against strong attacks.

Then came the Saturday night game against Denver, where RPI looked absolutely abysmal in all facets and probably deserved to get shut out for a third time in a row for the first time in 18 years. That only served as a prelude for what may have been one of the worst weekends in the history of the program.

That's not meant to denigrate Bentley at all. They won 19 games last season and they're one of the better teams in Atlantic Hockey. We pointed out during the offseason that they weren't complete pushovers by any stretch of the imagination. But they're not Minnesota, and they're not Denver, and RPI should not be dropping a pair of games to them by a combined tally of 9-2.

Atlantic Hockey has come a very long way from 2003, when it was considered a point of absolute shame for the Engineers to lose a game to Mercyhurst. But it hasn't progressed past the point where being dominated on the scoreboard, two nights in a row, at home, is something that's something that can be shrugged off. Last weekend was the first time that RPI has ever lost consecutive games in a weekend against AHA opponents.

It's hopefully a bottoming out, especially heading into the ECAC schedule and against Union. There's very little that didn't look terrible in the last three games, including the previously somewhat vaunted defense. All of it looked subpar.

Predictably, many in the RPI fanbase (and even some outside of it) have prepared the long knives for Seth Appert over this weekend. It's a tired refrain that never seems to end from some quarters.

A sizable chunk of the alumni never seemed to forgive him for the three very bad years that started his tenure in Troy despite the fact that anyone who knew the score realized that it was a process of blowing up what was in place in order to rebuild from the bottom up.

The voices got quieter, yet never seemed to go away, after the Pirri/D'Amigo season of 2009-10 and through the beginning of last year, when it appeared possible that the Engineers were over the hump. But a highly disappointing season of high expectations last year is followed by a terrible start to this year, and the lynch mob is fired up again.

If you're one of the people beating the drum, holding the torch, or sharpening the pitchfork, ask yourself this question: what's the point? It's October. Ignoring completely the logistical point that the Institute has Appert on the books through the end of the decade, what's gained by all the whining and moaning and calling for his head? Is the team supposed to magically improve with some spur-of-the-moment interim coach?

In 2010, UNC Wilmington men's basketball coach Benny Moss was fired in the middle of the Seahawks' season. He commented that the "decision to relieve me of my duties... in mid-season does nothing to benefit the program. It serves only as a mechanism to chastise and embarrass me personally."

The Seahawks, 7-14 under Moss, went 2-8 the rest of the season without him.

Is that what the lynch mob is trying to achieve?

This isn't professional sports. Let's let the season develop and see what happens. We all know about the four Game 3 losses at home. We all realize last year was disappointing. It's not hard to see that the last three games have been awful. We can all look down Route 7 and see the local rivals achieving everything anyone could want - not that it's anything that anyone in Troy is responsible for, of course, but it just makes the panic even more heightened for those who are quick to forget the successes and dwell on the difficulties.

Take a deep breath. Relax. The Engineers have at least 32 more games left before the book is closed on this season. Let's see what they can do with them. And in the meantime, quit wasting your breath about the coaching staff. Make your evaluations in April, and if you still feel the need to vent, by all means, go for it.

That said, if RPI continues to play the way they have played for the last three games running now, they will be four-goal underdogs in both games this weekend and they'll be completely run out of the building - and if you don't think everyone in that locker room already knows that, you're probably not smart as you think you are anyway.

First Impressions

Now that we've had a couple of weeks and three games - one exhibition, two competitive - to get a look at this year's Engineers, here are a few first impressions on what's been seen.

1. Jason Kasdorf is back, and he's still the best goaltender in the ECAC.

Nowdays, everybody wanna talk, but nothing comes out when they move their lips, just a bunch of gibberish, and everybody acts like they forgot about Kaz.

He's baaaaaaaack. Last year's Engineers were picked to be one of the best teams in the league in part based on the strength of their goaltending, and they didn't end up having the source of that confidence for basically the entire year. Now he's back, and because of the (correct) concerns about where the offense is going to come from, they're supposed to be a bottom four team? Excuse our guffaws. 62 saves on 67 shots to start the season against some of the best teams in the nation.

When was the last time a team with the best goaltender in the conference finished in the bottom four? For starters, the last four teams that featured the Dryden Award winner also finished first in the league standings. You have to go all the way back to 1997, back to when Union was still Union, to find the only time since the award began that the best goaltender in the ECAC didn't finish in the top four. That year, Trevor Koenig almost singlehandedly guided the Skating Dutchmen to a 5th place finish.

We're a long way from the awards ceremony in Lake Placid, but Jason Kasdorf, much as in his freshman year, looks ready to singlehandedly win more than a few games for RPI this season. He doesn't make the Engineers the best team in the league on his own, but... child, please.

2. The sophomores are vastly improved from last season.

There was much consternation last season about the lack of impact that the freshman class was exerting on the team's fortunes. Jake Wood and Jimmy DeVito were in and out of the lineup even when they were healthy (Wood lost time to a knee injury), and ice time was very scarce for Riley Bourbonnais. The only freshman to get a serious amount of playing time was Parker Reno, and he frequently became a healthy scratch down the stretch.

Reno may yet have trouble breaking the lineup with frequency (more on that later), but after what we've seen from Wood, DeVito, and especially Bourbonnais in the exhibition and the two Icebreaker games, all three look to play far greater roles this season. Bourbonnais may well be benefiting from playing on the clear top scoring line with two seniors who need to be key propellants for the RPI scoring scheme this year in Matt Neal and Jacob Laliberte, but he certainly looks like he belongs on that line the way he's played, and it's unlikely that Seth Appert would put him there for the sole purpose of making him look good.

Meanwhile, Wood and DeVito have proven to be more of an offensive threat while maintaining their physical play. Wood especially seems fit to serve as the team's physical pest.

3. Mike Prapavessis and Viktor Liljegren are ready to be impact players as freshmen.

One a highly-touted NHL draft pick, the other committed to RPI just this past April. Both already look as though they're ready to play serious roles for the Engineers.

Prapavessis looks like the kind of two-way defenseman that RPI was lacking last season, the one to fill the role Nick Bailen played two seasons ago. Appert has made no mistake about his desire to have at least one player to fill that position, and with the addition of Prapavessis, he's got a very talented one to lead a number of options that can attack from anywhere in the zone and provide an important boost to Kasdorf's defensive efforts.

Liljegren, meanwhile, may prove to be a diamond in the rough considering how late in the game he made his college commitment. The way he's played the in the three outings we've seen thus far, he may well be a vital element on RPI's second or third lines, which at the end of the day are going to make or break the offensive structure based on how well they're able to convert scoring opportunities. He already looks solid playing between Wood and Drew Melanson.

The rest of the freshman class that we've seen so far - Kenny Gillespie is the only skater who has yet to dress in any of the three games - also shows some promise. Melanson has played on Liljegren's wing so far and he generated offensive opportunities in the exhibition game especially. Lou Nanne scored a nice put-back in the exhibition and appears comfortable on the fourth line. Both Melanson and Nanne have a tremendous amount of speed, and both could be exciting to watch in the near future as they adapt their games to the college level.

4. The defensive corps is deep.

We knew there would be a lot of experience on the blue line this season, especially with Luke Curadi, Curtis Leonard, and Chris Bradley as three of the stalwarts, but the addition of Prapavessis, and the breakthrough late last year of Craig Bokenfohr that looks to be for real early on this year leaves the Engineers with five fairly firmly established defensemen that are likely to be regular parts of the lineup. That leaves three more-than-capable players for the sixth spot in Reno, Jared Wilson, and Bradley Bell. 

Early returns suggest that Wilson is a step ahead of the others right now, but Bell dressed as a seventh defenseman against Minnesota - and based on what we know about Reno from last season and how he looked in the exhibition, he's far from a throw-in or simply an injury replacement. The RPI faithful can be confident that RPI's eight-deep defensive set (nine if you include Phil Hampton, who's converting to a reserve center position) is among the best in the league.

5. The penalty kill looks sharp.

8-for-9 in the Icebreaker, with the one blemish basically a function of a faceoff loss and about the only mistake Kasdorf made all weekend. During the flow of the penalty kill, with the other team set up in the RPI zone, the penalty killers did a tremendous job of shutting down shooting lanes, keeping the puck to the outside, clearing, and forechecking down a man. Their efforts against Notre Dame were especially crucial to the Engineers' victory. A good penalty kill is an important compliment to strong, physical play. If it keeps up, it's another feather in the cap.

6. Scoring by committee is going to be a necessity, and there's some work still to be done there.

Bear in mind that RPI was taking on top-level competition last weekend, especially on Sunday, but it's very apparent that there isn't going to be a player like Ryan Haggerty last season who takes the team on his back and scores an inordinate number of goals himself. There's no question that upperclassmen like Neal, Laliberte, and Zach Schroeder are going to need to shoulder more of the burden than others, but consistent scoring from the second, third, and even fourth lines are going to be necessary if the Engineers are going to contend.

That said, while the seeds of committee are clearly being sown, there's a lot more that needs to be seen from the first and second lines in terms of attack. Even Liljegren's third line will need to be improved in the coming weeks. When RPI had the puck in the attacking zone, there was an increased feeling that the team wasn't relying specifically on one line, but at times they didn't exactly look dangerous. The first line still needs to lead the way, and the production needs to pick up below it.

No Comment

Here's the worst thing that happened on Tuesday when Union head coach Rick Bennett was addressing the media on the semi-lengthy suspensions handed out to three Union upperclassmen.

From a video shot by the Daily Gazette:

Reporter: Is this a legal matter involved here?

Bennett: No comment.

There's no worse response to a request for a statement of fact - or worse, a yes or no question - than "no comment." None. All it does is make everyone wonder why you won't say yes or no.

If it wasn't a legal matter, it would be easy enough to simply say so. Therefore, if it's not something that can be immediately denied, there's obviously some truth to it.

Saying "no comment" is always a comment - the comment is that you don't want to answer the question. Depending on the nature of the question being responded to, it can quickly lead to some obvious assumptions as to what the answer is.

Let's look at a couple of examples from the recent ECAC past.

A few years ago, Brown head coach Brendan Whittet was being asked about the officiating in an RPI-Brown game at Houston Field House - during the playoffs, I believe. There was a question about the validity of a goal that the Engineers scored, and Whittet responded with "no comment."

It was a response that made sense for everyone. Reporters understood immediately that Whittet was really saying. "Yeah, I thought that goal was nonsense, but I'm not going to complain about it here because coaches get suspended by the league for showing up referees." Whittet gets his point across without having to sit out a game.

The difference here is that Whittet was being asked for a statement of opinion, not a statement of fact.

Even Bennett himself has properly used "no comment." Last year after the Mayor's Cup brawl (popularly known in the Secret Underwater Lair as the "FU at the TU"), Bennett was asked why he went after Seth Appert in the post-game press conference, and he said "no comment."

It works here because he was being asked to divulge information that, unless he's already told someone else, no one else would know. If someone decides not to bear personal knowledge for public scrutiny, "no comment" ends up shutting down the only path to that knowledge.

Whether the suspended Union players are involved in a legal matter is not something that would be limited in that fashion. They either are, or they aren't, and if one can't answer a binary question, anyone with any degree of curiosity about the situation (like, say, reporters) will immediately consider why either answer would draw stonewalling. If they aren't, why would that be something that would be covered up? The opposite question, of course, is easy to answer.

Here's the way Bennett should have handled things if he didn't want to tip his hand here.

Reporter: Is this a legal matter involved here?

Bennett: This is a matter of three players that did something that was in violation of team rules and they have been assessed consequences for their violations, which they fully understand was detrimental to the entire program. They're taking accountability for what they have done and as a program we're moving on from what they did.

Assuming that a legal matter was indeed involved, and getting involved in legal matters is indeed a violation of team rules, this response isn't untrue. If you look closely, you'll notice it doesn't answer the question, but it looks and sounds far less evasive.

Bottom line, if you can't (or don't want to) flatly state the truth, dazzle them with BS. Don't ever look like you're dodging a simple question.

Instead, the response of "no comment" just fans the flames even more, and makes reporters want to dig under the wall - and when they find out what's going on, whether it's a big deal or not, suddenly it's not just the incident in question that is a problem. The cover-up becomes just as important.