Night two! Chat it up!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Friday, October 8, 2010
Friday Night in Colorado In-Game Chat
As promised, we're bringing you the first ever dedicated real-time chat environment for you to interact with your fellow fans if you can't make it to the Field House. Listen along on WRPI or simply follow our Twitter updates during the game. Or, if you can't do either of those, you can just enjoy this chat with your colleagues who ARE getting updates. At any rate, it's certainly easier than hitting refresh 2,000 times a game!
This is the second trial run for our in-game chats. We will have at least three more - tomorrow night's game in Colorado, and the Northeastern/Bentley away and home week next weekend. If they're successful, we'll extend the throughout the whole season!
To chat, all you have to do is choose an option for signing in - you can choose to sign in as a guest (with an option to choose your handle du jour), you can sign up with Chatroll and have a designated name, or you can even choose to sign in with Facebook if you like.
This is the second trial run for our in-game chats. We will have at least three more - tomorrow night's game in Colorado, and the Northeastern/Bentley away and home week next weekend. If they're successful, we'll extend the throughout the whole season!
To chat, all you have to do is choose an option for signing in - you can choose to sign in as a guest (with an option to choose your handle du jour), you can sign up with Chatroll and have a designated name, or you can even choose to sign in with Facebook if you like.
The Wait is Over
Time to get psyched - the long, hard summer is over. It's time to see what the season brings, and it starts on the other side of the country as the Engineers face off with the Colorado College Tigers in what should be a very interesting matchup between two teams with similar national expectations.
Meanwhile, the women kick off their regular season home schedule tonight against Vermont in what should be a more competitive series than the one they finished last weekend in Wisconsin.
Let's get pumped.
Meanwhile, the women kick off their regular season home schedule tonight against Vermont in what should be a more competitive series than the one they finished last weekend in Wisconsin.
Let's get pumped.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Men's Hockey - New Brunswick (5 Oct)
We got our first look at the Engineers last night in an exhibition game against perhaps the best team in the CIS - the Canadian equivalent of the NCAA - the University of New Brunswick. The Varsity Reds came into Troy competing in their 10th game of the season (undefeated and untied in their previous nine) and third in four nights (having swept UMass and Vermont), while the Engineers were playing their first game and experimenting with line combinations and getting a close look at the freshmen, many of whom are vying for ice time early in the season. Thus, the final 4-1 score probably doesn't, in and of itself, tell us much about the Engineers, but some interesting things developed during the course of the game.
New Brunswick
RPI really didn't have too much in the way of regular lines in this game, since Seth Appert was focused on trying a number of different lines during the course of the game. There were two scratches, far lower than the usual number. I believe the scratches were simply due to logistics - there's only so much space on the bench - but the two skaters who did not dress were freshman Matt Tinordi and junior Justin Smith.
If you believe in omens, the opening of the game probably put a pit in your stomach as it pertains to the season. The Engineers won the opening faceoff back to Mike Bergin, who then tried to feather a pass across his own blue-line. He whiffed on the pass, instead leaving the puck open in the slot, where Hunter Tremblay, UNB's biggest offensive threat, rushed in to pick it up, leaving him all alone. Tremblay roofed it past York to give UNB a 1-0 lead just seven seconds into the game.
A second miscue would lead to UNB's second goal in the first period, this time coming on RPI's first power play of the game. Jeff Foss was unable to keep the puck in the zone at the blue line, and Chris Culligan pounced on it, earning himself a breakaway with his big speed. Again, hung out to dry, Culligan put it past York for the shorthanded goal and a 2-0 lead.
For the most part, though, the Engineers managed to keep pace in the normal flow of play during the first period. It was a run and gun period in which the transition game was almost non-existent - both teams were moving the puck through the neutral zone fairly quickly. UNB's solid forecheck helped keep the Engineers at bay.
A third defensive miscue leading to a UNB goal took place early in the second period, but York was not as blameless on this one as he had been on the first two, which both came off of breakaways. This time, the puck was given away off a pass from behind the RPI net. York made the initial save on Jordan Clendenning, but Clendenning put back his own rebound to make it 3-0, all goals scored unassisted.
Bergin would make up for his mistake late in the second period. As the Engineers' third power play got going, they did a fantastic job of cycling the puck, and as he did all game long, Nick Bailen shot the puck extremely well a couple of times. Eventually, after a couple of rebounds weren't able to be put back, Tyler Helfrich sent it up to Bergin, who one-touched it from the top of the right faceoff circle and into a yawning net to make the score 3-1. The goal got RPI going in the second period as they began to control play, and a power play carried over into the third period.
Although RPI controlled play during the third period as well, they were unable to get any closer, even with three power plays in the first half of the period - including almost a minute of 5x3 play. The game ended with Tremblay putting the puck in the empty net for the final tally.
Bryce Merriam came into the game about midway through the second period, and played phenomenally, making the plays when he had to to keep the puck out of the net against a very solid team. York did not look as solid, though the Engineers were not playing as well in front of him in the first half of the game as they did in the second half when Merriam was in net. But if you're looking for silver linings, there was one right there - Merriam looked much stronger than the last time we saw him, in the Freakout last season.
The freshmen defensemen, to some extent, looked better than some of the veterans. John Kennedy played the solid, physical game we've come to expect from him, but the big lapses came from Bergin and Foss, lapses that ultimately led to goals. Those have to be cleaned up, but one would expect that their lapses would be more quickly dealt with.
As far as the other freshmen, Brock Higgs had lots of ice time to prove himself and managed to draw a penalty to give the Engineers a power play, Johnny Rogic displayed his speed repeatedly, almost earning himself an unexpected breakaway at one point. Sophomore C.J. Lee played very well too, nearly scoring twice but still searching for his first collegiate goal - not that it would have counted as such if he'd scored.
All in all, RPI didn't look horrible. All teams this early in the season will have some items to iron out, but there weren't too many glaring problems. The defense was expected to be a little bit of a question mark. The forwards perhaps could have finished a little better, but finishing isn't easy against a team the caliber of UNB.
We'll see more in just two days time, when the Engineers travel to Colorado College to really get the season underway.
New Brunswick at RPI
Exhibition Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/5/10 - 7:00pm
RESULT: New Brunswick 4, RPI 1
BOX SCORES
RECAPS
RECORD: 0-0-0 (0-0-0, ECAC)
Upcoming games
08 Oct - at #20 Colorado College
09 Oct - at #20 Colorado College
15 Oct - at Northeastern
16 Oct - Bentley
22 oct - #18 RIT
New Brunswick
RPI really didn't have too much in the way of regular lines in this game, since Seth Appert was focused on trying a number of different lines during the course of the game. There were two scratches, far lower than the usual number. I believe the scratches were simply due to logistics - there's only so much space on the bench - but the two skaters who did not dress were freshman Matt Tinordi and junior Justin Smith.
If you believe in omens, the opening of the game probably put a pit in your stomach as it pertains to the season. The Engineers won the opening faceoff back to Mike Bergin, who then tried to feather a pass across his own blue-line. He whiffed on the pass, instead leaving the puck open in the slot, where Hunter Tremblay, UNB's biggest offensive threat, rushed in to pick it up, leaving him all alone. Tremblay roofed it past York to give UNB a 1-0 lead just seven seconds into the game.
A second miscue would lead to UNB's second goal in the first period, this time coming on RPI's first power play of the game. Jeff Foss was unable to keep the puck in the zone at the blue line, and Chris Culligan pounced on it, earning himself a breakaway with his big speed. Again, hung out to dry, Culligan put it past York for the shorthanded goal and a 2-0 lead.
For the most part, though, the Engineers managed to keep pace in the normal flow of play during the first period. It was a run and gun period in which the transition game was almost non-existent - both teams were moving the puck through the neutral zone fairly quickly. UNB's solid forecheck helped keep the Engineers at bay.
A third defensive miscue leading to a UNB goal took place early in the second period, but York was not as blameless on this one as he had been on the first two, which both came off of breakaways. This time, the puck was given away off a pass from behind the RPI net. York made the initial save on Jordan Clendenning, but Clendenning put back his own rebound to make it 3-0, all goals scored unassisted.
Bergin would make up for his mistake late in the second period. As the Engineers' third power play got going, they did a fantastic job of cycling the puck, and as he did all game long, Nick Bailen shot the puck extremely well a couple of times. Eventually, after a couple of rebounds weren't able to be put back, Tyler Helfrich sent it up to Bergin, who one-touched it from the top of the right faceoff circle and into a yawning net to make the score 3-1. The goal got RPI going in the second period as they began to control play, and a power play carried over into the third period.
Although RPI controlled play during the third period as well, they were unable to get any closer, even with three power plays in the first half of the period - including almost a minute of 5x3 play. The game ended with Tremblay putting the puck in the empty net for the final tally.
Bryce Merriam came into the game about midway through the second period, and played phenomenally, making the plays when he had to to keep the puck out of the net against a very solid team. York did not look as solid, though the Engineers were not playing as well in front of him in the first half of the game as they did in the second half when Merriam was in net. But if you're looking for silver linings, there was one right there - Merriam looked much stronger than the last time we saw him, in the Freakout last season.
The freshmen defensemen, to some extent, looked better than some of the veterans. John Kennedy played the solid, physical game we've come to expect from him, but the big lapses came from Bergin and Foss, lapses that ultimately led to goals. Those have to be cleaned up, but one would expect that their lapses would be more quickly dealt with.
As far as the other freshmen, Brock Higgs had lots of ice time to prove himself and managed to draw a penalty to give the Engineers a power play, Johnny Rogic displayed his speed repeatedly, almost earning himself an unexpected breakaway at one point. Sophomore C.J. Lee played very well too, nearly scoring twice but still searching for his first collegiate goal - not that it would have counted as such if he'd scored.
All in all, RPI didn't look horrible. All teams this early in the season will have some items to iron out, but there weren't too many glaring problems. The defense was expected to be a little bit of a question mark. The forwards perhaps could have finished a little better, but finishing isn't easy against a team the caliber of UNB.
We'll see more in just two days time, when the Engineers travel to Colorado College to really get the season underway.
New Brunswick at RPI
Exhibition Game - Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
10/5/10 - 7:00pm
RESULT: New Brunswick 4, RPI 1
BOX SCORES
RECAPS
RECORD: 0-0-0 (0-0-0, ECAC)
Upcoming games
08 Oct - at #20 Colorado College
09 Oct - at #20 Colorado College
15 Oct - at Northeastern
16 Oct - Bentley
22 oct - #18 RIT
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
New Brunswick In-Game Chat
It's the season you wait for all year... the time is now... the place... is Houston Field House.
As promised, we're bringing you the first ever dedicated real-time chat environment for you to interact with your fellow fans if you can't make it to the Field House. Listen along on WRPI, watch on RPI TV (on campus), or simply follow our Twitter updates during the game. Or, if you can't do any of those, you can just enjoy this chat with your colleagues who ARE getting updates. At any rate, it's certainly easier than hitting refresh 2,000 times a game!
This is the first trial run for our in-game chats. We will have at least four more - this weekend's games in Colorado, and the Northeastern/Bentley away and home week next weekend. If they're successful, we'll extend the throughout the whole season!
To chat, all you have to do is choose an option for signing in - you can choose to sign in as a guest (with an option to choose your handle du jour), you can sign up with Chatroll and have a designated name, or you can even choose to sign in with Facebook if you like.
As promised, we're bringing you the first ever dedicated real-time chat environment for you to interact with your fellow fans if you can't make it to the Field House. Listen along on WRPI, watch on RPI TV (on campus), or simply follow our Twitter updates during the game. Or, if you can't do any of those, you can just enjoy this chat with your colleagues who ARE getting updates. At any rate, it's certainly easier than hitting refresh 2,000 times a game!
This is the first trial run for our in-game chats. We will have at least four more - this weekend's games in Colorado, and the Northeastern/Bentley away and home week next weekend. If they're successful, we'll extend the throughout the whole season!
To chat, all you have to do is choose an option for signing in - you can choose to sign in as a guest (with an option to choose your handle du jour), you can sign up with Chatroll and have a designated name, or you can even choose to sign in with Facebook if you like.
Upcoming Podcast: Seth Appert, Joe Paisley
It's time once again for the wildly successful, growing by leaps and bounds Without a Peer podcast! We'll be on at our usual time - Wednesday night at 8pm Eastern.
There's going to be lots to talk about this week, with both seasons underway. We'll discuss last weekend's rough road trip to Madison for the women's team, and we'll look forward to their return to Houston Field House this coming weekend to face the University of Vermont.
On the men's side, we'll wrap up the Cherry and White scrimmage and discuss the outcome of the exhibition against the Varsity Reds of New Brunswick. We'll kick off the show by talking to men's head coach Seth Appert, getting his reaction to the exhibition game and his outlook on the upcoming season.
Our other guest this week will be Joe Paisley, who covers college hockey - and especially the Colorado College Tigers - for the Colorado Springs Gazette. We'll ask Joe how the Tigers looked in their two exhibition games this past weekend, what we should expect to see this weekend in Colorado, and how the Tigers and the WCHA look to shape up this season.
If you missed our last podcast, today's a great day to check it out! Our first guest last week, David Kilfoil, spoke in-depth about tonight's exhibition opponent. It's a great primer for the end of the countdown! Each of our podcasts are available on demand about 15 minutes or so after the conclusion of the live broadcast. Click on the link in the right-hand corner to reach our podcast homepage to listen live on Wednesday night.
There's going to be lots to talk about this week, with both seasons underway. We'll discuss last weekend's rough road trip to Madison for the women's team, and we'll look forward to their return to Houston Field House this coming weekend to face the University of Vermont.
On the men's side, we'll wrap up the Cherry and White scrimmage and discuss the outcome of the exhibition against the Varsity Reds of New Brunswick. We'll kick off the show by talking to men's head coach Seth Appert, getting his reaction to the exhibition game and his outlook on the upcoming season.
Our other guest this week will be Joe Paisley, who covers college hockey - and especially the Colorado College Tigers - for the Colorado Springs Gazette. We'll ask Joe how the Tigers looked in their two exhibition games this past weekend, what we should expect to see this weekend in Colorado, and how the Tigers and the WCHA look to shape up this season.
If you missed our last podcast, today's a great day to check it out! Our first guest last week, David Kilfoil, spoke in-depth about tonight's exhibition opponent. It's a great primer for the end of the countdown! Each of our podcasts are available on demand about 15 minutes or so after the conclusion of the live broadcast. Click on the link in the right-hand corner to reach our podcast homepage to listen live on Wednesday night.
Listen to internet radio with Without a Peer on Blog Talk Radio
Monday, October 4, 2010
Know Your Enemy: Princeton
Just in time for the season to get underway tomorrow night, we bring the final installment of "Know Your Enemy." This program has the honor of having been the home of one of the greatest collegiate hockey players in the history of the sport, but as a team they have had the least amount of success of any team playing as long as they have during the modern era.
Princeton
Nickname: Tigers
Location: Princeton, NJ
Founded: 1746
Conference: ECAC (Ivy League)
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2009
Last Frozen Four: None
Coach: Guy Gadowsky (7th season)
2009-10 Record: 12-16-3 (8-12-2 ECAC, 8th place)
Series: RPI leads, 62-28-9
First Game: January 18, 1952 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: January 10, 2010 (Princeton, NJ)
Last PU win: February 20, 2010 (Troy, NY)
2010-11 games: February 5, 2011 (Princeton, NJ); February 25, 2011 (Troy, NY)
Key players: F Mike Kramer, sr.; F Matt Arhontas, sr.; F Marc Hagel, jr.; F Andrew Calof, fr.; D Taylor Fedun, sr.; D Derrick Pallis, jr.; D Michael Sdao, so.; D Kevin Ross, fr.; G Sean Bonar, fr.
Key losses: F Dan Bartlett, F Mark Magnowski, F Cam McIntyre, D Jody Peterson, G Zane Kalemba
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly why the Tigers didn't live up to their lofty expectations last season. Kalemba was supposed to be better than he was, and the offense was supposed to be much better than it was. Engineers fans saw a glimpse of the Princeton that was supposed-to-be in the Freakout!, but apparently it was a one-night-only deal.
Like the rest of their Ivy League brethren, Princeton hockey began around the turn of the 20th century, getting underway in November 1900 with a game at New York's St. Nicholas Rink. During the Tigers' first decade, the team generally won more games than they lost, playing schedules that were a mix of amateur teams and other colleges. It was not until the early 1910s, that Princeton would become a notable program, powered by one of the greatest players in college hockey history - Hobey Baker.
Baker led Princeton to de facto national championships in 1912 and 1914, his sophomore and senior years at Old Nassau. During his time in New Jersey, the Tigers had a record of 33-11-0, and Baker himself famously took only a single penalty in his entire collegiate career. Crowds would jam St. Nicholas - whose amateur program he would join after graduating, turning down a $20,000 contract from the Montreal Canadiens to stay amateur - to watch Baker play, with the marquee frequently reading "Hobey Baker Plays Here Tonight."
Baker served in World War I, earning three confirmed kills as a pilot (two short of earning the title of "ace") and was tragically killed in an accident just hours after receiving his orders to return to the United States after the war. After the loss of their greatest alumnus, Princeton, whose hockey programs had been struggling since his graduation, constructed the Hobey Baker Memorial Rink, the school's first indoor rink on campus, in his honor. The team plays in that very same rink today, the second oldest hockey arena still in operation in the world, behind Northeastern's Matthews Arena.
The opening of Baker Rink helped propel Princeton to their first winning season since Baker's senior year, as the Tigers went 12-5-1 in their first year in the new building and 12-6-0 the following year. The remainder of the 1920s were mediocre, but Princeton returned to the top in the 1930s. The Tigers were dominant in the first half of that decade (setting a school record for wins in 1932-33 with 15, a record that would stand for over 60 years) and were more of a "feast or famine" type team in the latter half of the decade. During World War II, Princeton kept the program going - and playing well - through 1943 before suspending the program. That would end the good times in Princeton.
When the team returned in 1946, the glory of the Baker years and the early 1930s was gone. As the modern era of college hockey got underway, the Tigers would struggle to just four winning seasons in the 16 years between the return of the program and the advent of the ECAC in 1961. But it would only get worse from there for the Tigers.
Between 1960 and 1994 - a span of 34 seasons under six different coaches - the Tigers had a grand total of one winning season (1967-68, with a 13-10-1 record) and reached the 10-win mark only nine times. Although they were rarely the very worst in the ECAC, given that they finished with the league's worst record only three times in that stretch, Princeton hockey was practically always an afterthought within the league, never competitive for ECAC or Ivy League honors.
Don "Toot" Cahoon took the reins of the program in 1991 and began the process of turning the Tigers from perpetual also-rans into contenders. The Tigers had three more losing seasons in Cahoon's first three seasons as he began to mold the team through recruiting, but 1995 was a breakout year for Princeton. The Tigers finally broke the school record set in 1933 by winning 18 games, and after a 7th place finish in the ECAC, went on a Cinderella run through the ECAC playoffs, knocking off Union and Brown in the first two rounds, upsetting top-seeded Clarkson in the semifinals to advance to their very first ECAC championship game. RPI would win the day, 5-1, but the Tigers were primed to begin fighting for titles.
1996 was a step backwards for Princeton as they finished with a 7-19-4 record, but Cahoon would have the Tigers contending again quickly. Three winning seasons followed from 1997 to 1999, including Princeton's very first ECAC championship in 1998 as the Tigers completed a second Cinderella run through the ECACs by upsetting Clarkson in two overtimes in the title game to advance to their very first NCAA tournament. In 1999, Princeton won 20 games for the first time in school history while also winning the program's first official Ivy League title (split with Yale), but the Tigers would ultimately miss out on a second NCAA appearance when Clarkson got their revenge for the previous year's title game loss in the semifinals.
Don Cahoon's departure in 2000 to take over at UMass dealt a blow to the upstart program, and under alumnus and long time assistant coach Len Quesnelle, the Tigers appeared to be reverting to the form that had been typical for decades in New Jersey. From 2000 through 2004, under Quesnelle, Princeton suffered a dismal 29-84-11 record. Quesnelle was let go - going back to working under Cahoon at UMass - and the search began for a coach that could bring the Tigers to respectability. That coach was found in the farthest reaches of the college hockey world: Alaska-Fairbanks head coach Guy Gadowsky.
Like Cahoon before him, Gadowsky slowly got the program up to steam in his first few seasons. The Tigers would go through three more losing seasons (making eight in a row following their Ivy League title year), but the team was gradually getting better. Then, in 2008, Princeton caught lightning in a bottle, finishing second in the ECAC with 21 wins - their highest finish ever - claiming their first outright Ivy League title and sweeping through the ECAC playoffs to win their second championship. The following year, Gadowsky and the Tigers set the bar higher, setting a school record with 22 wins and earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament for the first time. Princeton very nearly earned their first NCAA tournament win, holding a two-goal lead with a minute left, but collapsed in the waning moments against Minnesota-Duluth to lose in overtime.
Considering that the Tigers had improved every year under Gadowsky and that they had brought back a significant chunk of the team that had made back-to-back NCAA appearances, it's no wonder why they were picked to finish 2nd in the ECAC last season. But injuries and poor play through much of the season doomed Princeton, as the Tigers barely snuck into the final home-ice spot on the last day of the regular season, then crashed and burned to Harvard in the first round. Kalemba was a shadow of the goaltender that had claimed the Ken Dryden Award the previous season. The penalty kill that had been so key in 2009 became practically non-existent in 2010. Bartlett, Magnowski, and Kramer put up halfway decent numbers, but production trailed off from there, and the former two have now graduated.
But there is some good news moving forward. Gadowsky is still bringing in good talent, and this year's class appears to be one of the better ones in the ECAC. Calof was initially committed to Harvard, but after failing to make it through the admissions process, Princeton was quick to snap him up. Bonar is a 6'1" goaltender who was the starting goaltender for Team Canada West in the World Junior A challenge last year, taking tournament MVP honors and All-BCHL honors as a teammate of Luke Curadi at Penticton.
The problem is, some of the best talent is still young. If Gadowsky brings in another solid class next season, the Tigers may well be working their way back up the ECAC ladder. If Princeton is to do much of anything this season, they're going to need big seasons from Kramer and Arhontas and get breakout years from some of the guys who were role-players last year. On paper, this is not a team that looks terribly dangerous, but then again, they looked dangerous on paper last year and that never panned out. Much like with Quinnipiac, the early season projections shouldn't trouble the Engineers at all, since they won't face the Tigers until the very end of the season, and by that time we'll know all we need to know about what to expect.
Princeton
Nickname: Tigers
Location: Princeton, NJ
Founded: 1746
Conference: ECAC (Ivy League)
National Championships: 0
Last NCAA Appearance: 2009
Last Frozen Four: None
Coach: Guy Gadowsky (7th season)
2009-10 Record: 12-16-3 (8-12-2 ECAC, 8th place)
Series: RPI leads, 62-28-9
First Game: January 18, 1952 (Troy, NY)
Last RPI win: January 10, 2010 (Princeton, NJ)
Last PU win: February 20, 2010 (Troy, NY)
2010-11 games: February 5, 2011 (Princeton, NJ); February 25, 2011 (Troy, NY)
Key players: F Mike Kramer, sr.; F Matt Arhontas, sr.; F Marc Hagel, jr.; F Andrew Calof, fr.; D Taylor Fedun, sr.; D Derrick Pallis, jr.; D Michael Sdao, so.; D Kevin Ross, fr.; G Sean Bonar, fr.
Key losses: F Dan Bartlett, F Mark Magnowski, F Cam McIntyre, D Jody Peterson, G Zane Kalemba
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly why the Tigers didn't live up to their lofty expectations last season. Kalemba was supposed to be better than he was, and the offense was supposed to be much better than it was. Engineers fans saw a glimpse of the Princeton that was supposed-to-be in the Freakout!, but apparently it was a one-night-only deal.
Like the rest of their Ivy League brethren, Princeton hockey began around the turn of the 20th century, getting underway in November 1900 with a game at New York's St. Nicholas Rink. During the Tigers' first decade, the team generally won more games than they lost, playing schedules that were a mix of amateur teams and other colleges. It was not until the early 1910s, that Princeton would become a notable program, powered by one of the greatest players in college hockey history - Hobey Baker.
Baker led Princeton to de facto national championships in 1912 and 1914, his sophomore and senior years at Old Nassau. During his time in New Jersey, the Tigers had a record of 33-11-0, and Baker himself famously took only a single penalty in his entire collegiate career. Crowds would jam St. Nicholas - whose amateur program he would join after graduating, turning down a $20,000 contract from the Montreal Canadiens to stay amateur - to watch Baker play, with the marquee frequently reading "Hobey Baker Plays Here Tonight."
Baker served in World War I, earning three confirmed kills as a pilot (two short of earning the title of "ace") and was tragically killed in an accident just hours after receiving his orders to return to the United States after the war. After the loss of their greatest alumnus, Princeton, whose hockey programs had been struggling since his graduation, constructed the Hobey Baker Memorial Rink, the school's first indoor rink on campus, in his honor. The team plays in that very same rink today, the second oldest hockey arena still in operation in the world, behind Northeastern's Matthews Arena.
The opening of Baker Rink helped propel Princeton to their first winning season since Baker's senior year, as the Tigers went 12-5-1 in their first year in the new building and 12-6-0 the following year. The remainder of the 1920s were mediocre, but Princeton returned to the top in the 1930s. The Tigers were dominant in the first half of that decade (setting a school record for wins in 1932-33 with 15, a record that would stand for over 60 years) and were more of a "feast or famine" type team in the latter half of the decade. During World War II, Princeton kept the program going - and playing well - through 1943 before suspending the program. That would end the good times in Princeton.
When the team returned in 1946, the glory of the Baker years and the early 1930s was gone. As the modern era of college hockey got underway, the Tigers would struggle to just four winning seasons in the 16 years between the return of the program and the advent of the ECAC in 1961. But it would only get worse from there for the Tigers.
Between 1960 and 1994 - a span of 34 seasons under six different coaches - the Tigers had a grand total of one winning season (1967-68, with a 13-10-1 record) and reached the 10-win mark only nine times. Although they were rarely the very worst in the ECAC, given that they finished with the league's worst record only three times in that stretch, Princeton hockey was practically always an afterthought within the league, never competitive for ECAC or Ivy League honors.
Don "Toot" Cahoon took the reins of the program in 1991 and began the process of turning the Tigers from perpetual also-rans into contenders. The Tigers had three more losing seasons in Cahoon's first three seasons as he began to mold the team through recruiting, but 1995 was a breakout year for Princeton. The Tigers finally broke the school record set in 1933 by winning 18 games, and after a 7th place finish in the ECAC, went on a Cinderella run through the ECAC playoffs, knocking off Union and Brown in the first two rounds, upsetting top-seeded Clarkson in the semifinals to advance to their very first ECAC championship game. RPI would win the day, 5-1, but the Tigers were primed to begin fighting for titles.
1996 was a step backwards for Princeton as they finished with a 7-19-4 record, but Cahoon would have the Tigers contending again quickly. Three winning seasons followed from 1997 to 1999, including Princeton's very first ECAC championship in 1998 as the Tigers completed a second Cinderella run through the ECACs by upsetting Clarkson in two overtimes in the title game to advance to their very first NCAA tournament. In 1999, Princeton won 20 games for the first time in school history while also winning the program's first official Ivy League title (split with Yale), but the Tigers would ultimately miss out on a second NCAA appearance when Clarkson got their revenge for the previous year's title game loss in the semifinals.
Don Cahoon's departure in 2000 to take over at UMass dealt a blow to the upstart program, and under alumnus and long time assistant coach Len Quesnelle, the Tigers appeared to be reverting to the form that had been typical for decades in New Jersey. From 2000 through 2004, under Quesnelle, Princeton suffered a dismal 29-84-11 record. Quesnelle was let go - going back to working under Cahoon at UMass - and the search began for a coach that could bring the Tigers to respectability. That coach was found in the farthest reaches of the college hockey world: Alaska-Fairbanks head coach Guy Gadowsky.
Like Cahoon before him, Gadowsky slowly got the program up to steam in his first few seasons. The Tigers would go through three more losing seasons (making eight in a row following their Ivy League title year), but the team was gradually getting better. Then, in 2008, Princeton caught lightning in a bottle, finishing second in the ECAC with 21 wins - their highest finish ever - claiming their first outright Ivy League title and sweeping through the ECAC playoffs to win their second championship. The following year, Gadowsky and the Tigers set the bar higher, setting a school record with 22 wins and earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament for the first time. Princeton very nearly earned their first NCAA tournament win, holding a two-goal lead with a minute left, but collapsed in the waning moments against Minnesota-Duluth to lose in overtime.
Considering that the Tigers had improved every year under Gadowsky and that they had brought back a significant chunk of the team that had made back-to-back NCAA appearances, it's no wonder why they were picked to finish 2nd in the ECAC last season. But injuries and poor play through much of the season doomed Princeton, as the Tigers barely snuck into the final home-ice spot on the last day of the regular season, then crashed and burned to Harvard in the first round. Kalemba was a shadow of the goaltender that had claimed the Ken Dryden Award the previous season. The penalty kill that had been so key in 2009 became practically non-existent in 2010. Bartlett, Magnowski, and Kramer put up halfway decent numbers, but production trailed off from there, and the former two have now graduated.
But there is some good news moving forward. Gadowsky is still bringing in good talent, and this year's class appears to be one of the better ones in the ECAC. Calof was initially committed to Harvard, but after failing to make it through the admissions process, Princeton was quick to snap him up. Bonar is a 6'1" goaltender who was the starting goaltender for Team Canada West in the World Junior A challenge last year, taking tournament MVP honors and All-BCHL honors as a teammate of Luke Curadi at Penticton.
The problem is, some of the best talent is still young. If Gadowsky brings in another solid class next season, the Tigers may well be working their way back up the ECAC ladder. If Princeton is to do much of anything this season, they're going to need big seasons from Kramer and Arhontas and get breakout years from some of the guys who were role-players last year. On paper, this is not a team that looks terribly dangerous, but then again, they looked dangerous on paper last year and that never panned out. Much like with Quinnipiac, the early season projections shouldn't trouble the Engineers at all, since they won't face the Tigers until the very end of the season, and by that time we'll know all we need to know about what to expect.
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