Men's Hockey - Shillelagh Tournament (27/28 Nov)

RPI rode into the Thanksgiving weekend atop an eight-game unbeaten streak the likes of which had not been seen with the Engineers in over 15 years. They managed to extend that streak to nine in the opening round of the Shillelagh Tournament in South Bend, Indiana by taking down Western Michigan 4-1, but could not make it an even 10 the following afternoon, falling 4-0 against ECAC rivals Harvard in a game that may well have been more about setting the table for the league meeting this coming week than it was a push to claim the Shillelagh Trophy.

Western Michigan
Liljegren-Bubela-Bourbonnais
Melanson-Miller-Nanne
Wood-Schroeder-Gillespie
Ohrvall-Fulton-Rodriguez

Bradley-Prapavessis
Wilson-Reno
Moore-Hampton

Hackett

With the Engineers beginning to return to full health - or as full as it is going to get with Evan Tironese being lost for the season - the RPI lineup for the entire weekend ended up being the same as the lineup that hit the ice in Troy against New Hampshire. The situation in net remained the same - Jason Kasdorf was available if needed, but continued to rest with Cam Hackett playing well and helping to ensure his fitness for a planned return for ECAC league play when that resumes during the first weekend of December.

RPI controlled play for much of the first period and were rewarded for their efforts with the game's opening goal at 9:03 of the opening frame as Alex Rodriguez scored his second goal in as many outings to put the Engineers ahead 1-0, the lone assist going to Mike Prapavessis, who set up a breakaway for Rodriguez with a great pass out of the defensive end.

The RPI offense cranked things up a notch early in the second period, with two goals in the span of 37 seconds to grab a 3-0 edge for the third time in as many contests. On the power play, Riley Bourbonnais struck for his team-leading eighth goal of the season to make it 2-0, and seconds later Lou Nanne scored his fourth goal of the year with a lead assist by Prapavessis to put the Engineers ahead by three.

Western Michigan would get one back on a major penalty to Jesper Ohrvall, who was shown the door for a checking from behind call midway through the second period, but it wasn't due to their own exploits that they got themselves on the board. An errant pass in the defensive zone by Parker Reno bounced off the skate of Jared Wilson and directly into the back of the net before Hackett could see what had happened, and just like that, WMU freshman Corey Schueneman, last to touch the puck for the Broncos, was credited with his first collegiate goal on the power play.

That "own goal" was ultimately the only one the Broncos would get all night. Hackett made the remaining two-goal margin hold up throughout the third period, stopping 10 shots in the final 20 minutes, while Jake Wood provided an insurance tally with 3:20 left in the game to seal up the victory, RPI's third in a row and ninth consecutive game without a loss. Prapavessis added an assist on the Wood goal to secure the first three-point game of the season for any Engineer skater.

Harvard
Liljegren-Bubela-Bourbonnais
Melanson-Miller-Nanne
Wood-Schroeder-Gillespie
Ohrvall-Fulton-Rodriguez

Bradley-Prapavessis
Wilson-Reno
Moore-Hampton

Hackett

Harvard defeated the home-standing Fighting Irish of Notre Dame 4-1 in Friday's nightcap, thanks in part to a pair of goals on the power play when both Irish backcheckers were called for penalties in taking down Alexander Kerfoot on the breakaway.

The Crimson power play was striking at a rate of 30% coming into the contest, so it is no small feat that the Engineers, who killed penalties for a total of 13 minutes of game time against Harvard on Saturday, managed to go perfect on the penalty kill. Still, the Crimson certainly proved that they didn't need to be on the man advantage to score goals, netting four of them at even strength against the Engineers, including three in the second period, where RPI usually feels most at home.

RPI missed their best opportunities to take control of things early when two penalties in the opening ten minutes against Harvard freshman Ryan Donato - son of Crimson head coach Ted Donato - went unconverted. All told, the first period was a pretty even affair between the two ECAC squads, but Harvard took a 1-0 lead into the locker room on the back of a goal by Jimmy Vesey, a Hobey Hat Trick finalist a year ago, at 14:44 of the first period.

With 40 minutes to play, it still looked like anyone's game, but the Crimson offense put the pedal down early in the second to outdistance RPI on the scoreboard. Luke Esposito's third of the year at 1:32 put RPI down 2-0, and Kyle Criscuolo's sixth of the year made it 3-0 Harvard about six minutes later, marking the first time since Michigan's empty netter on October 24 that the Engineers trailed by three goals - and the first time since the opening game of the year that they'd trailed by three before an empty-netter.

The younger Donato made it 4-0 with just under four minutes left to play in the second period, and from there on out both teams seemed to focus just a little bit more on not getting hurt and getting ready for round two in Troy a week later. Still, both netminders had very solid third periods, with Hackett stopping 17 shots - on his way to a 41-save performance - while Harvard's Merrick Madsen added to the gaudy numbers he's put up in just a handful of games already this season, earning his third shutout of the year in only his fifth appearance by making 14 saves in the final period on his way to a 31-save effort for the win.

Viktor Liljegren picked up RPI's second major penalty in as many days when he was called for charging with just under 7 minutes left to play, but the RPI penalty kill, as noted, was able to keep Harvard's high powered PP unit from scoring throughout the contest. The loss snapped the aforementioned unbeaten streak at nine games, one shy of standing alone as the longest unbeaten streak for the Engineers since the end of their NCAA-record 38-game unbeaten streak from November 1984 through November 1985. The loss came 30 years and a week from the ending of that record run.

Mike Prapavessis was named to the All-Tournament team in recognition of his three-assist efforts the previous night against Western Michigan.

Next up is the final ECAC weekend of the 2015 calendar year as RPI returns home to square off with Dartmouth and then face their rematch with Harvard. The Big Green have, at times, struggled to both score goals and keep the puck out of the net - perhaps typified by the pair of 7-0 losses they've suffered this season, including one this past Friday at Michigan - which makes Friday's game one that a team that fancies itself a contender for a first-round bye should be able to take care of, especially playing at home. Saturday, we'll see if the Engineers can find a remedy for Harvard  or if perhaps they held a little something back for a game that'll mean more at the end of the season than a non-conference game in Indiana.

Current ECAC Standings
1. Quinnipiac - 10 pts (4-0-2)
2. RPI - 10 pts (4-0-2)
3. Harvard - 9 pts (4-1-1)
4. Cornell - 9 pts (4-1-1)
5. Yale - 8 pts (3-1-2)
6. St. Lawrence - 7 pts (3-1-1)
7. Brown - 6 pts (2-3-2)
8. Dartmouth - 4 pts (2-4-0)
9. Colgate - 3 pts (1-5-1)
10. Clarkson - 2 pts (0-3-2)
11. Union - 2 pts (1-5-0)
12. Princeton - 2 pts (1-5-0)

By winning percentage
1. Quinnipiac (.833)
2. RPI (.833)
3. Harvard (.750)
4. Cornell (.750)
5. St. Lawrence (.700)
6. Yale (.667)
7. Brown (.429)
8. Dartmouth (.333)
9. Colgate (.214)
10. Clarkson (.200)
11. Union (.167)
12. Princeton (.167)

RPI vs. Western Michigan

Non-conference Game - Compton Family Ice Arena (South Bend, IN)
11/27/15 - 4:00pm

RESULT: RPI 4, Western Michigan 1

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI
Troy Record

RECORD: 8-4-2 (4-0-2 ECAC, 10 pts)

#8 Harvard vs. RPI
Non-conference Game - Compton Family Ice Arena (South Bend, IN)
11/28/15 - 4:00pm

RESULT: Harvard 4, RPI 0

BOX SCORES
College Hockey Stats
USCHO

RECAPS
RPI

RECORD: 8-5-2 (4-0-2 ECAC, 10 pts)

Upcoming games
04 Dec - Dartmouth
05 Dec - #8 Harvard
11 Dec - Arizona State
12 Dec - Arizona State
02 Jan - at Miami

Know Your Enemy: Western Michigan

It's been a matchup that has been rumored for quite some time - ever since Seth Appert's college roommate became the head coach for a single season on his rocket path up the coaching ranks, RPI-WMU has been something that has been tossed around but has never quite come to fruition for one reason or another. This year, it's finally taking place - as the opening round game in the Shillelagh Tournament in South Bend. It will be the first game that another rising coaching star, WMU associate head coach Ben Barr, will have against the team he captained in 2003-04 since he left Union in 2011.


Western Michigan
Nickname: Broncos
Location: Kalamazoo, MI
Founded: 1903
Conference: NCHC
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2012
Last Frozen Four: None
Coach: Andy Murray (5th season)
2014-15 Record: 14-18-5 (6-13-5-4 NCHC, 7th place)
Series: RPI leads, 4-2-0
First Game: December 28, 1979 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: January 23, 1999 (Troy, NY)
Last WMU win: November 28, 1980 (Kalamazoo, MI)

2015-16 game: November 27, 2015 (South Bend, IN)

Key players: G Lukas Hafner, sr.; F Nolan LaPorte, sr.; D Chris Dienes, jr.; F Sheldon Dries, jr.; D Taylor Fleming, jr.; D Mike McKee, jr.; D Neal Goff, so.; D Scott Moldenhauer, so.; F Aidan Muir, so.; F Willem Nong-Lambert, so.; F Frederik Tiffels, so.; F Johnny Curran, fr.; F Matt Iacopelli, fr.; F Mitch Makin, fr.; F Griffen Molino, fr.

The Broncos are a pretty young program in comparison to most other hockey programs out there in a major conference - their first season in existence was the 1973-74 season, the beginning of a two year process that saw them join the fledgling CCHA, at the time a minor conference by comparison to the two mainstays, the WCHA and the ECAC.

Some of the most famous names to come out of the WMU program actually played on some of those early teams, which featured a number of games against smaller schools without varsity programs. Long time New York Rangers GM Neil Smith played for the Broncos from 1975 to 1978, though he never reached the NHL as a player. Smith's teammates included Bernie Saunders, the fifth black player to play in the NHL, as well as Bernie's brother John, who has worked for ESPN for nearly 30 years and was once a mainstay on the network's NHL coverage (though he only appeared in two games for WMU).

Officially joining the CCHA in 1975, the Broncos were long an afterthought within a league that itself was largely an afterthought until 1981, when Michigan, Michigan State, and Notre Dame defected there from the WCHA. Even when the league had as few as five teams, it was not uncommon to see WMU finish in last place or next-to-last place, which they did in each of their first six seasons in the league. It wasn't until 1984 that the Broncos could even claim a finish in the top-half of the league table, which they did with a 5th place showing in what was then an 11-team league.

That was the second season for WMU's third head-coach, Bill Wilkinson, who would eventually become the most successful coach in program history, and under Wilkinson, the Broncos would quickly reach heights they'd yet to see in their first decade of existence. A season later, in 1985, WMU recorded their first winning season in CCHA conference play and finished 3rd in the standings.

The program's first rise peaked in 1986, when the Broncos took a second consecutive 3rd place CCHA finish and turned it into a title run in the CCHA tournament, ultimately knocking off a Michigan State team that would go on to win the national championship by a 3-1 score at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit for the program's first hardware of importance. That team won 32 games, by far a record for the most wins in a single season in program history, but WMU was swept out of their first NCAA tournament appearance by Harvard.

The next 10 years or so saw WMU settling into a middling role in the CCHA - rarely competing at the very top of the table, but never really falling into the doldrums of the conference, either. Wilkinson's teams earned their first two at-large bids to the NCAAs in 1994 and 1996, but the Broncos dropped lopsided games to Wisconsin and Clarkson in those years, respectively, leaving the program still in search of its first national tournament win.

Those two NCAA appearances proved to be another local peak for the program, as WMU began to tail off following their 1996 appearance. The Broncos struggled to two losing seasons following their loss to Clarkson and were well on their way to a third when Wilkinson was fired in February 1999, in part due to a scandal on the team in which a team party took place at a home that Wilkinson owned. His replacement was assistant coach Jim Culhane, a WMU alum who had played on the CCHA championship team who'd had a cup of coffee in the NHL following his collegiate career.

Culhane had some minor success early in his tenure in Kalamazoo, bringing the Broncos back to the mid-point of the CCHA standings in 2001 and 2002, the former a 20-win season that would be his only one as head coach. But after that, WMU returned to largely being an afterthought in the now powerful CCHA conference, and the program spent much of the 2000s in the doldrums of college hockey, far from competition for national tournament appearances or CCHA glory.

For some time under Culhane, WMU looked like a program whose administration didn't really care much about. In 11 full seasons as head coach from 2000 to 2010, the Broncos finished with a winning record only twice, making it to .500 in 2007 but never better than that after 2002. After two 8-win seasons in three years (2008 and 2010), Culhane was informed late in his final season that he would not be returning behind the bench.

The summer of 2010 was a tumultuous one for college hockey. At its very end, the news that Penn State was moving its program to varsity status threatened to explode the foundations of the college hockey conference structure - and ultimately, it did, with the CCHA right at the epicenter as teams fled for other conferences in a hurry. WMU, heading into that season, certainly didn't look like a candidate for a strong conference, not after essentially 15 years of stagnation as a program.

But Culhane's immediate replacement as head coach would end up leaving an impressive impact on the program in just a single year behind the bench. When Indiana Ice head coach (and former Seth Appert roommate) Jeff Blashill was named the Broncos' new head man, it didn't exactly make waves, but the team he put on the ice made plenty of noise. Against all odds and expectations, the Broncos rebounded from a last-place finish in 2010 to a 4th place CCHA result in 2011, followed by a run through the CCHA tournament that ended in the championship game. They fell to 5-2 to Miami, but still earned their first NCAA tournament bid in 15 years.

Blashill's charges gave Denver all they could handle in Green Bay (just after North Dakota had demolished RPI on the same ice), but fell 3-2 in double overtime. Four months later, Blashill was hired as an assistant coach with the Detroit Red Wings. A year after that, he'd take over the head coaching position at Detroit's AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids, and just this month he became the new head coach of the Red Wings, only four years removed from Kalamazoo.

If there's another coach who had as significant a positive impact on the direction of a college program in just a single year at the helm, it would be awfully difficult to identify him. Less than a year after WMU looked like a program without a prayer, and just a couple of months after Blashill's departure, the Broncos were extended an invitation to join the new NCHC, an invitation to a sure-thing power conference they'd have never earned without the resurgence he brought to the program.

Following Blashill's departure, the Broncos landed another big name to guide the team through the final CCHA years and into the NCHC - Andy Murray, the former Los Angeles Kings and St. Louis Blues head coach. Murray, who had flirted with the head coaching position at RPI in 2006 (he was apparently offered the job first), had coaching college hockey on his "bucket list," and he found quick success at WMU. In his first year, he guided the resurgent Broncos to their second CCHA championship, riding a second place finish - their best final position in the league ever - to a tournament run and a 3-2 title game victory over Michigan.

WMU would fall 3-1 to North Dakota in the 2012 NCAA tournament. The Broncos are still chasing the elusive NCAA tournament victory - with six losses in as many tries, they have the active record for most national tournament games without a win.

In 2013, their tenure in the brand-new NCHC began, and it has been difficult over the first two seasons. The conference has proven to be a total meat grinder, with no "breaks" on any given weekend as basically every team has been among the best in the nation. The inaugural season saw the Broncos finish in the middle of the pack, while last year they were ahead of only Colorado College. As the saying goes, somebody has to be last, but someone also has to be next-to-last. Murray is certainly keeping WMU competitive in a very difficult conference, but there's another step that likely will have to be taken before they can be among the best of the best in this new league.

The Broncos were 8-5-0 in non-league play last season, but only 6-13-5 in NCHC play. The eight non-conference wins included 6-2 and 8-2 destructions of Ohio State and Union in the Shillelagh Tournament, so they enter this year's affair as the reigning champs. This year's WMU squad returns most of the key elements from a decent offensive makeup, with LaPorte. Dries, and Tiffels all having reached double digits in both goals and assists last year. Hafner was strong in the net for the Broncos, with a 2.42, .914 line that really isn't that bad when you consider the level of competition he faced on a night-in, night-out basis.

Most of the top blueliners from last year are back as well, although the defensive corps did suffer one important defection to the pro ranks when Kenney Morrison signed with Calgary at the end of his year, forgoing his senior season. He had previously been slated to be the Broncos' only senior defenseman.

There's no question that WMU was one of the most dangerous sub-.500 teams in the nation last year, so take their losing record with a serious grain of salt. Put that team in practically any other conference and they're likely contenders for a title of some kind. They should be at the very least better than they were last year given what is returning, and while a resurgent RPI team could probably give the Broncos a good game, they're almost certainly the favorites. WMU has only an hour and a half drive to South Bend, RPI's time in the iron lung is 11 hours. This is a neutral site game with a definite home team. Give the edge to the Broncos in what will certainly be another difficult non-conference game for the Engineers, one of many across the first two months of the season.

What If: The King of Troy

* April 2006: Seth Appert is named the 9th head coach in the modern era

Shakira - Hips Don't Lie


Between the time Dan Fridgen took over at RPI in 1994 and the time he left in 2006, college hockey grew in terms of national prevalence. While still a niche sport compared its collegiate counterparts, media and fan attention through cable and the Internet certainly grew over his 12 years as the boss in Troy, as did the growth of the sport as a legitimate breeding grounds for the professional ranks, already well underway by the time he became head coach.

Fridgen departed RPI as the coach with the most wins in program history, the most losses in program history, the most ties in program history, and the second longest tenure behind only Ned Harkness. Fridgen's record benefited from a longer playing season than his predecessors had enjoyed, but he put together some decent squads along the way. In his first season as head coach, with a team he had spearheaded recruiting for during his days as Buddy Powers' top lieutenant, the Engineers made a surprise run through the ECAC tournament, culminating with the program's third ECAC championship during the 10th anniversary of its second national title.

In the mid-to-late 1990s under Fridgen, the Engineers were regulars in Lake Placid, and were sometimes mentioned frequently in the national picture. The team finished with winning records in seven of his first eight seasons behind the bench. But after 2000, the bloom certainly was busy coming off the rose for many alums. Despite strong records in each of the talented Class of 2000's seasons - a class that included Joel Laing, Brian Pothier, and Pete Gardiner - RPI was not getting over the hump. They reached the ECAC title game in 2000, and finished in the top four in the ECAC every season, but won no titles and were not getting NCAA invites. Once the team started facing problems even advancing in the ECAC tournament in 2001, 2003, and 2004, followed by two dreadful losing seasons, Fridgen resigned as coach before the administration had the opportunity to ask him to leave.

Fridgen may have been a victim of his early successes raising expectations, but there was little doubt that teams in the late 1990s tended to underperform late in the season, and after a Lake Placid appearance in 2002, the program had steadily declined. After 12 years there was a lot of hope that fresh blood would reinvigorate things. This time, the search for a new coach would take place in the Internet age, leading to plenty of speculation on who would be the new bench boss in Troy - an open position that was among the most prominent in the nation.

Suggestions ranged from past heroes like Adam Oates and Joe Juneau, both recently retired from the NHL, to other college coaches, past and present, with a history of success, like Stan Moore, Don Vaughan, Mike McShane, Mark Morris, and Mike Addesa's name was even tossed around the rumor mill. Some looked to names long linked with top jobs, such as Ron Rolston, Casey Jones, and Mike Cavanaugh.

When the three finalists for the position were leaked, Boston College's Cavanaugh was indeed one of the finalists, but the other two names appeared to have come out of left field compared to the rampant speculation. One was Denver assistant Seth Appert, who had been a top lieutenant on George Gwozdecky's national championship teams in 2004 and 2005, a man who, if he'd accomplished similar things on the east coast would certainly have been part of the rumor mill. The other was Andy Murray - the man who a month prior had been the head coach of the Los Angeles Kings. Yes, those Los Angeles Kings.

Then word quickly came down that the offer had been made to Murray, whose previous head coaching position had been at Shattuck St. Mary's, a hockey mill that had produced RPI's Ben Barr, among many others. For a day, RPI fans had stars in their eyes, and questions took off. Would Murray really go from the NHL to college, where he'd had no prior experience? If he took the job, would it work? How long could he be stay? How many national championships was he going to win first? (OK, that last question exaggerates a bit, but not by much.)

By the end of the day, word got out again - Murray had declined the offer, and RPI was instead turning to Appert. The Ferris State alum didn't carry with him the spotlight of the NHL, but his resume was plenty good enough to have RPI fans excited anyway when he accepted the position.

The jury is still out on how the Appert era has progressed. Some are pleased that he has been able to bring in talented recruits and helped guide the team back to the national tournament in 2011. Others are dissatisfied with the many losing seasons the team endured on the way there, and the team's poor showing in 2012 (and rough start to 2013). That's a debate for another day - today, we're asking the question of what could have been if Murray had accepted the offer to replace Dan Fridgen in Troy.

Murray elaborated on why he turned down RPI when he was hired at Western Michigan in 2011. It came down to being able to watch his own children play college hockey - his oldest, Brady, had just left North Dakota after two seasons for a professional career. His daughter, Sarah, was about to start playing at Minnesota-Duluth, and his youngest son, Jordy, played at Wisconsin for three years. "I was offered the job," he said. "I remember walking with [Dr. Jackson], who took me past the architecture and biomedical engineering buildings and asking, 'Does the hockey coach have to be smarter than his players? You may have the wrong guy here.' I really looked at that job because I've always been interested in coaching in college hockey. But in the NHL, I did have the possibility to catch the odd [college] game."

Murray ended up coaching in St. Louis that December as a midseason replacement, and he stayed with the Blues through the end of 2009, when he was fired in the middle of the season. Once his son left Wisconsin, he accepted the position at Western Michigan, a team that was coming off its first NCAA appearance in 16 years. He replaced Jeff Blashill, who left Kalamazoo after one season to join the staff of the Detroit Red Wings.

When Murray had been hired by the Blues just months after having been a candidate at RPI, the prevailing opinion had been that the school had dodged a bullet. One of the big questions people had about Murray when they learned of his candidacy was that he may not have been inclined to stay in Troy very long, given that he'd been a head coach in the NHL already. His comments clearly indicate a strong desire to see his two younger children play in college, but would he truly have been a short-term coach if he'd decided to take RPI's offer?

That familial motivation probably leans us in the yes column. At Western Michigan, he no longer has that element to worry about - perhaps the only thing Broncos fans have to concern themselves with is whether the NHL comes calling again. Still, even if he doesn't stay long, he managed to deliver WMU's first ever CCHA hardware of any kind by leading them to the league tournament championship last season, the program's first 20-win season in over a decade, the team's first back-to-back NCAA tournament appearance ever... and oh yeah, his hiring helped facilitate WMU's accession to the National College Hockey Conference for next season. Not bad for a guy who's only been on the job for a year-and-a-half.

But presuming Murray would have been OK with staying in Troy for more than a couple of seasons, would he have been able to spin similar magic? The team he would have inherited was... light on raw talent, to say the least. Presumptions that Murray would have been able to turn RPI around quickly hinge on whether he would have been able to bring in top recruits quickly, something that may not have been the most natural thing in the world for a guy used to dealing with general managers - not to mention having little experience with the added necessity of bringing in top recruits able to hack it at RPI.

One thing Murray would have guaranteed would have been buzz. For a 17 or 18-year-old to have a former NHL coach at your door seeking to recruit you, that's pretty special (and something WMU is likely benefiting from now). The other would certainly have been the product on the ice. If you're a solid enough tactician to coach on the highest level, it's possible he'd have been able to squeeze water from a stone and had the team competing more quickly. Jordy Murray, it should be mentioned, was no slouch at Wisconsin. Perhaps if his dad had been an active college coach, he would have had a shot at RPI?

There are lots of questions that are destined to go unanswered, and there's little doubt that the question of whether Murray coming to Troy would have been good or bad for RPI is going to be clouded by one's perception of the current coach. So all there really is to say is that Murray's decision was pretty black and white for RPI - it probably either saved the school a lot of unnecessary hassle, or it possibly delayed major improvements in the program. It's your call.

Tentative Men's 2012-13 Schedule

RPI's tentative 2012-13 schedule has been released in mailers to season ticket holders. Game times are 7pm unless otherwise indicated. ECAC games are starred.

October
Saturday, 6 October - Acadia (Exhibition)
Friday, 12 October - Ferris State
Saturday, 13 October - Ferris State
Friday, 19 October - at Minnesota State
Saturday, 20 October - at Minnesota State
Friday, 26 October - Western Michigan
Saturday, 27 October - Western Michigan

November
Friday, 02 November - Union* (Black Friday)
Saturday, 03 November - at Union*
Friday, 09 November - at Dartmouth*
Saturday, 10 November - at Harvard*
Friday, 16 November - Mercyhurst
Saturday, 17 November - Mercyhurst
Friday, 30 November - Princeton*

December
Saturday, 01 December - Quinnipiac*
Friday, 07 December - at Yale*
Saturday, 08 December - at Brown*
Monday, 31 December - Sacred Heart, 4pm

January
Friday, 04 January - at Boston University
Sunday, 06 January - at New Hampshire, 4pm
Friday, 11 January - at Quinnipiac*
Saturday, 12 January - at Princeton, 4pm*
Friday, 18 January - Colgate*
Saturday, 19 January - Cornell*
Saturday, 26 January - vs. Union (site TBD)

February
Friday, 01 February - Harvard*
Saturday, 02 February - Dartmouth*
Friday, 08 February - at St. Lawrence*
Saturday, 09 February - at Clarkson*
Friday, 15 February - Brown*
Saturday, 16 February - Yale*
Friday, 22 February - at Cornell*
Saturday, 23 February - at Colgate*

March
Friday, 01 March - Clarkson*
Saturday, 02 March - St. Lawrence* (Senior Night)
Fri-Sun, 08-10 March - ECAC First Round (at higher seeds)
Fri-Sun, 15-17 March - ECAC Quarterfinals (at higher seeds)
Friday, 22 March - ECAC Semifinals (Atlantic City, NJ)
Saturday, 23 March - ECAC Championship (Atlantic City, NJ)
Fri-Sun, 29-31 March - NCAA Regionals (Providence, RI; Manchester, NH; Toledo, OH; Grand Rapids, MI)

April
Thursday, 11 April - NCAA Frozen Four (Pittsburgh, PA)
Saturday, 13 April - NCAA Championship (Pittsburgh, PA)

This may be subject to change, especially if the Engineers end up hosting St. Cloud State, as the recent rumor out of Central Minnesota indicated. They do, however, have all 34 regular season games covered at present.

It is suspected that the third Union game may take place at the Times Union Center in Albany, subject to the AHL schedule for the Albany Devils.

The 36th Freakout! is likely to take place against either Dartmouth or Yale.

Unless something changes, or the Engineers reach the NCAA Tournament, Western Michigan will be the last CCHA team to face RPI. They would be favorites to also be the first NCHC team to face RPI in 2013-14 given the Engineers' almost certain return trip that season, unless fellow NCHCers St. Cloud State are also on the schedule that season.

The women's schedule generally isn't known until late in the summer, but based on previous schedules we can estimate that they will open the season with an exhibition in the afternoon on September 29, and should probably have non-conference weekends at Syracuse and Robert Morris and one at home against UConn. RPI has had four straight seasons of non-conference weekends against Niagara, it is unknown if that will continue.

Expect the women's season to wrap up the weekend of February 22/23. The 2013 Women's Frozen Four takes place at Ridder Arena on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, MN, taking place March 22 and 24.

Tsunami Watch: Double Dipping

Just when you thought the conference carousel might be slowing down, something happens and it kicks right back into full gear once more.

Without much notice, it was announced yesterday that the NCHC would offer membership to Western Michigan and St. Cloud State. The former wasn't much of a surprise, as the Broncos had an offer on the table already, but the latter was... surprising to say the least. Almost as surprising, the Huskies quickly accepted, going against statements the school had made a couple of months ago.

Why the turn around? Well, for one, everyone's still waiting to see what Notre Dame is going to do. In the meantime, the NCHC had only six teams: Colorado College, Denver, Miami, Minnesota-Duluth, North Dakota, and Nebraska-Omaha. Those are some high powered programs, and one of them has to come in last. Thus, thanks to the NCAA's rule that no team with a sub-.500 record can earn an at-large bid to the national tournament, the league would probably restricted to three or, at a maximum, four bids a year. Thus, the need to expand, and in a hurry.

So where does that leave us? Well, let's break it down.

Western Michigan: At the end of the day, this one's not too surprising, especially once St. Cloud was given an offer as well. WMU, through their actions over the last year, have proven that they are going to give 110% to their hockey program, and their athletic director has a stated goal for the program of a national championship. The huge raise they gave Jeff Blashill before the Red Wings came calling and the hiring of NHL coach Andy Murray is plenty to indicate an up and coming program, and the NCHC, in the long run, is probably the best place for the program given those goals.

St. Cloud State: This one's a little more surprising and there's already been a lot of debate in St. Cloud as to whether this was the right move to make. First off, when the NCHC was first announced, SCSU was adamant that they wanted nothing to do with the league and that they planned to take a leading role in the new WCHA. Secondly, when the "new" WCHA started to congeal, most observes had the Huskies pegged as one of the programs that could potentially dominate the conference on a regular basis, leading to more frequent NCAA appearances and, in turn, better shots at the Frozen Four and the national title.

Now, SCSU will have to fight with the big dogs of the NCHC - not that they haven't tangled with most of the teams in the league before, but there were also some minnows to fall back on in the WCHA. They won't have that in the NCHC. They also suddenly look like one of the villains just months after promising to be a hero for the WCHA. This move will help the school with their visibility, but they may find it a tougher row to hoe in the long run.

It's also worth noting that with this move, St. Cloud State turns its back on its MnSCU brethren in Bemidji and Mankato, something that definitely won't sit well with those programs. The loss of St. Cloud State takes an already weakening conference and makes it decidedly more weak.

Notre Dame: Once again, the Fighting Irish dither while the rest of the hockey world moves in anticipation of what they may or may not do. The options are still mostly the same as we've gone over many times before - NCHC, Hockey East, or independence - but in the much larger picture (not something hockey fans are used to examining), there may be a fourth option opening.

If you've been paying attention to the NCAA as a whole lately, you've seen the carousel going on at the highest levels as well, with teams changing conferences left and right. The Big East especially seems to be in serious danger of either fracturing outright or what we should probably call WCHA-ization in that they won't be much of a major conference anymore by the time the wheel stops spinning. The problem here is that while Notre Dame is famously independent in football, they're a member of the Big East in everything else. If the Big East implodes, Notre Dame will need a new home, and the rumor that will never die always revolves around the Big Ten. So that route may yet be open.

By the way, there's even talk of these BCS superconferences breaking from the NCAA altogether - and that would make some serious waves in college hockey as well since you're talking the Big Ten plus Boston College and Notre Dame among those. Topic for another day, perhaps, but... that would make this tsunami look like a ripple in a kiddie pool.

Bowling Green: The only other CCHA program without a dance partner, the Falcons appear to be out of options other than the still-pending WCHA invitation. If the NCHC had any interest in BGSU, they probably would have already sent them an invite, and since league members are already talking about how eight teams is fine and a ninth would have to bring a lot to the table (code for Notre Dame), BGSU might as well just take the WCHA invite while they have it.

Alabama-Huntsville: This new development actually opens the door a little bit for the Chargers as it pertains to the WCHA. Adding BGSU would leave the WCHA in the same place they were before this new development: nine teams. UAH could potentially round that back off to ten... if they can find a way to be palatable to a league that's already going to have to deal with having a pair of teams from Alaska in it, as we've already mentioned.

NCHC: Sitting pretty now that they've got a couple more teams to boost that at-large potential. The numbers and teams involved definitely make the conference better able to compete with the Big Ten head to head, which was the goal all along, though purists will point to its makeup - 6 WCHA teams and 2 CCHA teams - and call it a WCHA rehash, more polite than asking UAA, MTU, Mankato, and Bemidji to leave.

Big Ten: Of course, it's worth mentioning that the Big Ten, like the NCHC before yesterday's announcement, has only six members right now, and thus has the same issue with top programs potentially being forced out of the NCAAs due to their record. Unlike the NCHC, however, the Big Ten doesn't have any real prospects for expansion on the horizon (with the possible exception of the Notre Dame scenario above). The league has the stability that comes with direct affiliation with a major non-hockey conference, but it also has the limitation that it can't just throw invites to teams the way the NCHC just did. If the Big Ten expands, it's going to be with new varsity programs at Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska-Lincoln, Northwestern, or Purdue. That's it.

By the way, do you know who the sub-.500 at-large rule now benefits the most? WCHA, Hockey East, and ECAC teams.

RPI: Speaking of ECAC teams... we're still keeping an eye on the Notre Dame situation as it could pertain to new opportunities for RPI as we discussed earlier this summer. There are two things this NCHC expansion does to the metric we laid out for a potential RPI-Hockey East merger. First, it makes larger conferences more acceptable again. Second, it may increase the likelihood of Notre Dame choosing Hockey East, though they're certainly still more than welcome in the NCHC. As it is, there's little doubt that RPI is keeping a hawk an eagle eye on Notre Dame and weighing their own options. As always, stay tuned.

Tsunami Watch: Settling Point?

While we dry out a bit here in Irene-ravaged Troy (which was almost wholly to blame for this not running yesterday), here's the latest on the conference carousel that may soon be grinding to a halt.

Last week, the rumored WCHA-CCHA merger that had been discussed came to fruition as the WCHA offered membership to the remaining members of the CCHA with the exception of Notre Dame, which is still on the fence between the NCHC and Hockey East (and, apparently, becoming an independent).

Alaska, Lake Superior State, and Ferris State quickly accepted. Thus, the WCHA currently looks like this in 2013:

Alaska

Alaska-Anchorage

Bemidji State

Ferris State

Lake Superior State

Michigan Tech

Minnesota State

Northern Michigan

St. Cloud State

There's one thing that all of these schools have in common: Division II. That may be one of the things that is causing hesitation for the other two WCHA invitees, Bowling Green and Western Michigan, both of whom play at the highest level of Division I.

That leaves the following remaining question marks.

Notre Dame: Once again, it was something other than Notre Dame which moved first. We all thought the Irish would be the first to make a move... they're now almost certain to be last. Well... maybe next to last.

The options are still pretty much laid bare on the table. They're one of three remaining CCHA teams, so they can't reasonably stay there - not that that's ever been something that was realistic to begin with. They've got a standing offer from the NCHC, and Hockey East wouldn't say no if they wanted to join there.

If Notre Dame preferred to align themselves with the Big Ten, there's another option that the Irish could be considering - independence. Now, this wouldn't leave the Irish as independents in the style of Alabama-Huntsville, which will be in its second season of fully cobbling together a schedule this year, but rather, would be a situation where the Irish had long-term scheduling arrangements with other leagues, almost certainly with the Big Ten and probably with the NCHC as well. Such an arrangement would allow Notre Dame to keep playing the schools they're already used to playing without having to tether themselves to the Big Ten (which they've famously refused to do for decades) or a conference largely consisted of less prestigious institutions in the NCHC. They wouldn't be able to vie for an automatic bid and they'd have to find a way to keep playing into March (when the conferences are in tournament mode), but with the scheduling arrangements, a good Irish team with a solid record would probably be in contention for an NCAA bid without much problem.

Bowling Green: The Falcons are in an interesting position. They have the WCHA invite in their back pocket, but as a Division I school, they could arguably have the clout to join the NCHC, which would probably like to grow larger than just six schools - not to mention that BGSU's MAC cohorts, Miami, are already there. They're almost certainly going to wait to see what Notre Dame does before making a decision.

Western Michigan: The Broncos are, even more than BGSU, waiting to see what Notre Dame is going to do, in part because their proximity to South Bend could potentially allow them to latch on with the Irish as a travel partner in either the NCHC or Hockey East. It remains to be seen if the latter would be interested at all in WMU, though the former has apparently already extended an offer. Now they also have an offer from the WCHA. Options abound. It's amazing what one outstanding rebound season combined with a new commitment from administration will do for a program.

Atlantic Hockey: The WCHA-CCHA merger kills any chance that the four potential departures - Canisius, Mercyhurst, Niagara, and Robert Morris - had of being able to leave, since they had interest in playing in a revamped CCHA that will no longer exist. Those schools - and RIT as well - still have interest in improving their station in college hockey, however. What options do they have? Honestly, they don't have many places to turn. They could seek to join the ECAC, but even with the WCHA filling back up again, there's not much of a reason for the ECAC to expand (further diluting the pool for the automatic bid). For the time being, they're probably stuck where they are.

Alabama-Huntsville: The WCHA-CCHA merger is kind of a nightmare scenario for the Chargers... unless they can somehow petition the WCHA to become its 10th, 11th, or 12th member. The problem is, we're already talking about a league that is going to have to figure a way to include a pair of schools as isolated as Alaska and Alaska-Anchorage, bringing on another isolated team - and another D-II school - might be a dicey proposition.

Revolving Door

It's one of the items that we touched on in our last posting about a week and a half ago, but even then, we had no idea just how crazy and how fast the coaching carousel would spin... or just how much impact it would have on the ECAC.

Here's the rundown.

Michigan Tech: Still looking for a coach after alum and long-time Michigan assistant Mel Pearson left them at the altar at the very last minute. Much of the most recent talk has been about Nebraska-Omaha associate head coach Mike Hastings, who coached the USHL's Omaha Lancers from 1994 to 2008.

UMass-Lowell: Norm Bazin, the head coach at Division III Hamilton for the last three years, will be the new head coach in Lowell, and the first alum to ever coach the program. Prior to that, he spent eight seasons as an assistant at Colorado College. So the Lowell coach doesn't touch off another search elsewhere, at least not at the Division I level.

Clarkson: If you'd asked me two weeks ago which coach in the ECAC was most likely to lose his job, I'd have told you that it was Harvard's Ted Donato, with the qualifier that he wasn't likely to get the boot. Unfortunately for George Roll, he was the right answer, he lost his job last week without much in the way of an official explanation. We can presume that the three straight losing seasons were more than the alumni, who are used to winning all the time, were willing to tolerate. I'd thought Roll would get at least one more year to turn the team around, especially considering that he brought Clarkson within a goal of playing in the Frozen Four in 2008. A lot of what happened to the team in the last two years was hardly his fault - most notably, a rash of injuries last season and some legal problems for some important recruits.

It's Clarkson's loss, in my view. Roll is a proven winner - it's the ECAC and the college hockey landscape that has changed. It's not going to be easy for Clarkson to be as dominant in the ECAC as they were for decades, but Roll knew what he was doing. The only message this firing sends is to anyone who would have interest in the job. You get very little margin for error.

At any rate, the names that were immediately thrown around are a couple of guys who have been behind the bench in Potsdam before, US Under-18 Team coach Ron Rolston and Cornell associate head coach Casey Jones, but it's worth pointing out that those guys have had their names thrown around for every opening in college hockey since the Clinton administration, including the one at RPI in 2006, regardless of prior links.

And let this be a lesson to the tiny but whiny minority of RPI alums and townies who have been agitating for Seth Appert's head. We've said it about a million times, but it still needs to be said - it's a dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb idea. Uber-dumb.

Providence: Found their man in Union's Nate Leaman. Notably for RPI fans, Ben Barr will follow Leaman from Schenectady to Providence. That begot...

Union: The Dutch wasted no time whatsoever in promoting the associate head coach, Rick Bennett, as soon as the Leaman move became official. Bennett ironically is a Providence alum, who spent five years as an assistant with the Friars before joining Union in 2005 when Paul Pooley was let go. He was promoted to associate head coach in 2007. Hard to say right now what this means for Union but they were clearly comfortable with the idea even before Leaman left, so they must believe he will be able to carry on Leaman's work in Schenectady.

Penn State: All the buzz was on Minnesota-Duluth's Scott Sandelin and Wisconsin women's coach Mark Johnson, but instead, it'll be Guy Gadowsky, the man that brought Princeton hockey back into relevance. Word came out on Easter Sunday that Gadowsky was the choice to become the first varsity hockey coach at Happy Valley, and he was formally introduced today. Therefore...

Princeton: Still too early to tell who might be a candidate for the sudden opening at New Jersey's lone entry in Division I college hockey, and truth be told, the level of fan buzz at Princeton is so generally low that we may not find out much until the process is over unless there's a present coach who ends up in the mix for this one. Eh, why not. How about Ron Rolston or Casey Jones?

Elsewhere: For a short time late last week, there was concern that something was happening at Western Michigan. It was announced that WMU had a press conference ready to go regarding the future of the head coach, which lately has been code for "he's leaving" or "he's getting canned." For Jeff Blashill, however, it was merely a much deserved raise and extension, intriguing especially considering the question marks surrounding WMU and the rest of the CCHA in the light of the pending Big 10 conference, which will likely tear the league asunder.

Also, just to throw this in - interesting story out of Tucson, AZ. Yes, that's right. Leo Golembiewski, who has run a very successful semi-independent club team at the University of Arizona since 1979, may be on his way out. Few people realize that the U of A has a fairly noteworthy club program, known as the IceCats, that draw just as many fans as many ECAC teams do on a regular basis. Golembiewski has been running almost every element of that program for 32 years, but it appears that Arizona is ready to step in and wrest most, if not all, control away. Arizona, to me, has always been an interesting "what if" candidate for Division I expansion given the popularity of the IceCats, so this may bear keeping a semi-interested eye on.

Hacking the PairWise

What happens when you combine a mathematically defined system for selecting the NCAA field, the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world, and two weeks of waiting around to see if said university (or Institute, if you prefer) is going to get a bid to the tournament?

Well, you get this: a program that runs all of the permutations heading into the final three days of games before the field is chosen.

Reilly Hamilton, an enterprising CompSci/Economics major from RPI's Class of 2012 (and a key component of RPI TV's broadcasts as president), took it upon himself to write a program that essentially played the remaining 19 games to each potential overall result, then weighted those results using KRACH, the best statistic available for determining the likelihood of one team beating another (which we've discussed here before).

Those results can be found here. They include numbers for every team that is either still playing or can still potentially make the tournament. If your team isn't listed here... sorry. Your season's definitively over.

Now, this isn't perfect for a couple of reasons. First, in these calculations, KRACH doesn't change as the games are played. To do that would require a whole new set of calculations taking up a heck of a lot more time... and the games start tonight, so time is something we don't have a lot of. The second is that KRACH really doesn't have a good way of predicting the likelihood of a tie, and there are two games this weekend - the ECAC and CCHA consolation games - that could potentially end in a tie. But they are at the very least a rough estimate of the likelihood of teams making the tournament, and what seed they're likely to be.

The unweighted listings are very simple: they are a list of the total number of scenarios that could result after the 19 games this weekend are played.

Since we're an RPI-centric site, here are the Engineers' results. They are in the tournament in permutations listed in green, out in the ones listed in red.

Seed	Weighted	Unweighted	Permutations
10	0.0005%	0.0058%	68
11	0.4574%	1.5599%	18401
12	7.8356%	12.7865%	150836
13	19.9679%	24.7119%	291514
14	28.6039%	27.0253%	318803
15	24.5002%	8.2914%	97809
Seed	Weighted	Unweighted	Permutations
13	0.0062%	0.5383%	6350
14	0.3022%	4.4988%	53070
15	5.2459%	13.6443%	160955
16	11.2954%	6.4567%	76166
17	1.7260%	0.4508%	5318
18	0.0583%	0.0299%	353
19	0.0005%	0.0004%	5

As you can see, RPI could finish as high as 10th in the PWR, but that's not only highly unlikely (68 possible scenarios out of 1,179,648 overall scenarios), the situation is also fairly fanciful, because the weighted percentage is less than the unweighted percentage.

A simple way to explain this is to look at Colgate's tournament chances. Given that they will only be in the tournament if they win the ECAC title, their unweighted chances of making the tournament are 25%, because in 25% of the possible scenarios, they win the ECAC tournament. However, not all teams are created equal, and in the scope of the entirety of the season, their chances of actually winning the tournament isn't really great.

With that said, the Engineers, according to this model have an 81.3656% chance of playing next weekend. Slightly better than 4 in 5? What's not to be excited about there? It's not a given, which would be better, but beggars can't be choosers. Their unweighted chances are 74.3808%, which means that even if you treated every scenario as being equally likely, they're still in almost 3 times out of 4.

This analysis proves what we already knew about teams that are already in the tournament: Yale, North Dakota, Boston College, Miami, Michigan, Denver, Union, Merrimack, and Minnesota-Duluth can't miss the tournament.

It also shows that the bandied about scenarios of Notre Dame or New Hampshire missing the tournament are extremely fanciful. Barring something extremely, extremely unlikely, both teams are in.

Nebraska-Omaha, for all of its problems, is also almost certainly in.

That leaves the teams that are firmly on the bubble, and that's RPI, Western Michigan, Colorado College, and Dartmouth. Depending on the number of upset champions, there will be between 0 and 3 at-large bids that will go to these teams, discounting the fact that BU, Alaska-Anchorage, and Maine are also alive in this group but with much worse chances of making it. Of that group, the Engineers stand the best chance of emerging in the tournament field. That's a wonderful place to be.

So special thanks to Reilly Hamilton for putting in the time and effort needed to create this program. He has promised some updates over the course of the weekend, and we'll be glad to bring them to you here.

Go Seawolves (tonight)!