Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

[Marmot]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

Now, he has a *HUGE* new recruiting tool in our gorgeous new rink.

With that in mind I can certainly see giving him more time to rebuild the program.

But a third straight season like the last two . . .

[Marmot]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

I'm in such a funk about the direction of the program.

If anyone can give me any reason why they think next year's team won't be playing on the road in the first round of the playoffs again, I'd love to hear it . . .

[sshablak]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

I'm in such a funk about the direction of the program.

If anyone can give me any reason why they think next year's team won't be playing on the road in the first round of the playoffs again, I'd love to hear it . . .

Colton Point and our defense

[TheGreenCoat]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

I will say this...I think we did a good job tightening up defensively during the last c. half of the season. SOG were down generally and egregious plays in our defensive end were few...I just do't think that at least on paper we have the necessary speed and skill set offensively to at least break out into the #5 through #8 placings in the standings. And I agree, I expected a little more from our freshman forwards this year. Next year Kulevich will be a huge loss and Corkey was a mainstay as well...Quillan and Cosgrove should help, especially in puck movement, but effective transition requires both skilled D-men and forwards with both some speed and skill. And if you look at next year's incoming forwards I don't see talent jumping off the page at me; I really hope I'm dead wrong. For Christ's Sake, we averaged 2 goals/game in the ECAC this year (not 2 1/2 mind you) and how do you win 50% of your games averaging less than 2.5 goals/game. Our goaltending this year was pretty solid (B to B+), but we all saw the same games...bad passes, passes off sticks, missed breakaways, etc. The Red Wings are toast and The Gate is done. Harder may be developing into a good recruiter - he's only been at it for a year or two - but time is passing and the competition only gets tougher. Virtually all our wins were one or two goal margins. Yes, we lost some close ones as well, but our record in 3+ goal margins was horrible. Our record against the top five teams in the league was 0-8-2. Historically over the past decade we have very few "high quality" wins EXCEPT during the 2013-14 season. Our two out-of-conference wins (2-7-3 prior to the playoffs) were against a bad Maine team and Arizona State. No question in my mind...more and more I miss the Andrew Dickson/Stan Moore recruiting years...

[ColSkate65]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

i would say that is where i was going, i respect dv but sometimes young blood needs to be brought in and colgate has some pretty prestigious alums. I don't want to to repeat myself but clarkson is heading towards its 2007-2008 form, hopefully with more consistency, there is potential that vigneault leaves early for us but will be replaced by nick campoli who should end up being drafted this summer and has major upside, he was hurt a lot of the year but had a great close to the year with north york in the ojhl, he will be a true freshman but is physically ready for d1, with jack jacome (ojhl regular season points leader, 2018 recruit, potential ohl flight risk), josh dickinson (top 10 in ojhl regular season points, plays on a line with jacome in georgetown), chris klack (having a nice season with the penticton vees of the bchl, is from georgetown, on), carson pearce (big athletic tough to play against dman that plays with dickinson and jacome, future recruit for 18' or 19') we have recruited the area well so i will be interested to see if slu with morris, potentially rpi with their new coach, potentially colgate, disrupts the momentum swing clarkson has right now in that league/area, princeton is also trying to dip into the ojhl a lot as well and have secured a few top kids from the league.

Clarkson also added josh hauge to our staff to increase our ushl recruiting production, he added jake kielly from tri-city (current goalie and should only get better), haralds egle (late add in the process, should be a 100 point guy at tech), shane kuzmeski (great skater, ended up impressing in practice so he's ended up being a mainstay in our lineup down the stretch), jere astren (former wisconsin commit, had a good year in fargo last year but wasn't eligible this year, should play from day one next year), kuzmeski played in the nahl but the other 3 were all ushl talents and that league prepares you for d1 hockey the best, the pace is quite similar just things are a lot more organized come college time. Clarkson has never really excelled in recruiting the ushl but if you add nico sturm to the list that andy jones (former assistant) got to commit then clarkson has 3 potentially 4 instant impact recruits from that league and things are looking up.

Hauge has also worked on getting kevin charyszyn who is a late bloomer but is one of the top goal scorers in the ushl this season on a top tier waterloo team. Clarkson struggled under jones to bring in just an average goalie so having kielly now and then ryan bischel who is committed for 18' or 19', he has a bright future in the ushl and next year he should find a starting spot somewhere in that league. Phil roy has done a great job with recruiting quality dmen over the years and he continued with connor mccarthy who has major upside, he's a former denver commit and flipped to clarkson for next season, he's 6'6 and is quite mobile and skilled, his frame will need to fill out but he should see ice time next season. Roy also got cameron ginnetti who is almost at a assist per game as a d for langley in the bchl, he is smaller at 5'11 but can move pucks and sees the ice well, he's a 98' but we are pushing him up and he could instantly see pp time next year.

tmi

[techtodenver]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

tmi

Develop relationships on the recruiting trail/hire someone who already has relationships on the trail, you have to get players to say yes to a visit and from there you're at least in the convo.

[Marmot]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

Good point.

You figure if you can get recruits to see our campus and the amazing new facility, we've got a good shot at landing some of them.

[TheGreenCoat]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

I think Marmot in particular will love this statistic...I've analyzed the KRACH rankings since 2006-2007 (essentially when I started to become concerned about the direction of the program and after several very successful years for The Gate)...I believe KRACH is sufficiently close to the so-called "Pairwise" system to be an accurate tool for top-to-bottom rankings of all 60 DI hockey programs (program participation has ranged from 59 to 58 to 59 and now 60 over this time period)...over the last two years Colgate is 0-23-2 against top 20 KRACH teams (and 1-32-3 over three years - surprisingly so since it ultimately cost us an NCAA bid in 2015)...now we're talking NOT top 5, nor top 10, but top 20 - fully 1/3 of teams we compete against...this is a very disturbing and frankly embarrassing statistic...almost impossible to achieve...since the 2006-07 season our record is a subpar 22-87-15...mind you, we went 7-7-3 against top 20 competition in 2013-14 (hence the #12 ranking in the KRACH that year)...without this very good performance, 10 of the last 11 years has seen our record vis-a-vis the top 20 is 15 WINS, 80 LOSSES AND 14 TIES...JUDGE FOR YOURSELF...

[TheGreenCoat]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

these #s are important...10 of last 11 years is 15-80-12 (not 14 ties)...

[ColSkate65]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

P'ton giving Union a fight, 3-3 going to OT in Game 2. P'ton is not the same team we knew from years past...hummm

[Rainman]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

This Date in Colgate Hockey History

6 years ago, it looked like our season was going to end, until this happened:
http://ecachockey.com/men/video/2010...rs-desktop.flv

[TheGreenCoat]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

please folks...want some feedback on my recent statistic regarding Gate hockey's record against top 20 KRACH teams over the last 2 years, 3 years whatever...I WANT SOME GOOD NEWS (we signed a young man last week to a letter of commitment for the 2018-19 season who looks quite intriguing) and, in a desperate attempt to be positive, I am not overly impressed with RPI's incoming freshman...but 1-32-3 against top 20 teams over the past three years is, even for this contributor who does see a lots of turds in the punch bowl, simply unacceptable...DV can coach kids; I don't really think there's any question about this. Are we going to really recruit? Really recruit? It undoubtedly involves a commitment (to be repetitive) from our new president on down, to Chun, to a Board (even a feckless Board), to even the Silver Puck Council (good luck with that)...as we know, Union was at a crossroads and dealt with it (successfully)...St. Lawrence went through the same thing in the early 1980s...it's tougher for us...we're DI in a lot of spots, we're subject to an Academic Index, yes, but I expect MORE of my university...am I wrong???

[TchrBill]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

Are you saying that you want feedback, but only want it to be positive?! It pains me to say it, but DV should probably go, and that applies to his staff, too. With a new rink that he helped cultivate, it will never happen.

In relation to the ECAC, Colgate has always felt like an anomaly to me.
Ivies - Princeton, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Cornell
D-III - Clarkson, Union, SLU, RPI: hockey is the crowned jewel.
Other - Quinnipiac, Colgate

I would say Quinnipiac and Colgate are more dissimilar than similar. Quinnipiac may be D-I, but it feels more like RPI. Colgate feels like it has an identity crisis and it has difficulty selling its unique, yet special, brand. That seems impossible to fathom because Colgate has so many attributes. I don't see a positive change or reason for optimism in our program. It would not surprise me to see more early defections in the future like Wagner and Johnson (Colton Point) who saw the writing on the wall.

[Rainman]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

Here is what I've compiled for next season's schedule:

Nov. 3 @Princeton

Nov. 4 @Quinnipiac

Nov. 10 Harvard

Nov. 11 Dartmouth

Nov. 17 Clarkson

Nov. 18 St. Lawrence



Jan. 5 Quinnipiac

Jan. 6 Princeton

Jan. 12 @Brown

Jan. 13 @Yale



Jan. 26 @Dartmouth

Jan. 27 @Harvard

Feb. 2 RPI

Feb. 3 Union

Feb. 9 @St. Lawrence

Feb. 10 @Clarkson

Feb. 16 Yale

Feb. 17 Brown

Feb. 23 @Union

Feb. 24 @RPI

Cornell games TBD. While we have an open weekend Jan. 19-20, both schools are still "on Winter Break" during that time period. Dec. 1-2 is another option for playing Cornell home-and-home. Outside of that weekend, we may get stuck playing Tuesday night games with the Big Red again

Confirmed OOC opponents:
-Arizona State (home x2)
-Merrimack (home x2)
-@Army (single game)
-@UConn (single game)

We will also play in a holiday tournament (2 games), and the remaining 4 OOC games will be against Atlantic Hockey and Hockey East opponents.

[TheGreenCoat]

Re: Colgate 2016-17 A New Beginning

TchrBill...totally agree with your analysis of the 12 ECAC teams...Colgate is an anomaly, to be sure...competitive academically with the Ivies but not officially "Ivy" and only 1/2 the size of the average Ivy school...several DIII schools athletically in all but hockey with resources allocated accordingly, and, finally, Q-Pac, also an outlier with triple the enrollment, a very supportive administration and less onerous academic standards. Yet we build a $38M facility which says to me that, at least in one respect, we ARE saying that college hockey is a high priority endeavor in Hamilton, NY. We have no baseball team, no wrestling team, a shell of a men's swimming program, a basketball program that will struggle to reach .500 every year adn a lacrosse team that really hasn't brought in much talent since Coach Nagle left for Stony Brook. What is also interesting is that the last 11 years of subpar performance coincides with the switch from need-based to grant-in-aid scholarships. A coincidence or not? Of course we never have gone to 18 scholarships; we were apparently satisfied with 16 (and now, finally, 17) athletic scholarships. It is my hope that everyone who both advocated the new rink and who benefits from the new rink feels some real pressure to truly make it a real "value add" to the school and the program. Impatience is difficult to overcome, but I will say that we are now proximate to fifty games below .500 since the 2006-07 season. Losing close games against top 20 teams by a goal shouldn't cut it anymore. Losing for Pecknold, Allain, Bennett is losing; expectations are simply higher. I'm just getting tired by the "happy talk", the myriad number of excuses, and what seems like a comfort with mediocrity...