UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

Congrats UNH football fans! Your season just got extended...playing LeHigh next week!

Coach Umile gets to fly (stumble?) under the radar for another couple of weeks.

[Dan]

Snively65 being the trivial buff you are regarding UNH Athletics...what is the ONLY UNH team who won a D1 (NCAA sponsored that is...) Championship? Hint: it's not a hockey team 2nd hint: one of the players on that team coaches today at the U.

Too easy, WLax. 89?

[Dan]

I thought that was women's swim and dive?

I'll have to double check board guidelines, but I think you have to root for a flagship school before you can make flagship jokes...

[Scott]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

Too easy, WLax. 89?

Nope. '85. Robin Baldacci (field hockey coach) was on that team.

[Dan]

Nope. '85. Robin Baldacci (field hockey coach) was on that team.

Ah, '85 - for the sake of our ice hockey programs it's too bad the coach/program alum in question isn't Katey Stone...

[HockeyRef]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

Nope. '85. Robin Baldacci (field hockey coach) was on that team.

That's correct, she coached in the Lakes Region before heading off to Northeastern; I still have the game ball from an epic fh game my team won in '87. She created a field hockey culture in the little town of Franklin who went on to win back to back state championships right after she left. One other team mate, Sandy Vanderhayden, is former UNH lax coach and is now HC at PSU, while Heather Crutchfield has been the HC at St. Paul's school for many years and has been quite successful. The amazing thing about that team was many had not played lax before, as the sport was not as popular as it is today. Quite the feat!!!

[C-H-C]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

"UNH Captain's Corner: #1 Offense in Hockey East"

[Snively65]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

"UNH Captain's Corner: #1 Offense in Hockey East"

Nice article. A sweep of Maine two weekends from now would go a long way toward home ice in the MBPBEGAM round in HEA post-season.

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

WIS Productions brings you the Thanksgiving '16 edition of "Umile's Last Stand - The _____ for 600".

"Umile's Last Stand - The Quest for 600"

Coach Umile's current career wins total: 577
Wins Remaining to the next round number: 23
*Games Remaining (Next 2 Seasons - Min.): 59
Win Pct. Required to Hit Target: 39%
WIS Estimated Likelihood of Success: 60%
2016/2017 Cupcake Conversion Ratio (CCR): 5/10 (50%)

* - minimum games remaining assumes 34 regular season games, and at least 2 games in the MBPBEGAM "playoffs"

Just what the doctor ordered ... UNH (as WIS predicted in this space last week) sweeps through two cupcakes in convincing fashion to poke their heads ever-so-tentatively above .500 (6-5-2) heading into the Thanksgiving weekend. These were two games Coach Umile needed very badly to keep the fires burning with his Quest for the next round number. Unfounded rumors of a Harry Quast sighting might have given the troops a little intangible boost, but a win is a win, and a two win extended weekend allows Coach to keep from becoming an immediate source of concern for his boss (more on that a little later). Not that margin of victory is a relevant issue for anyone other than the geekiest of stats geeks ... but while UNH overperformed on the scoreboard, WIS showed their inexperience at several key points, with the young forwards getting caught behind the play on transition a few too many times. You can get away with that sometimes - and against a slumping RPI team so obviously low on confidence, this was one of those times - but against the majority of Hockey East ...

In a 5-0 game (which was a very misleading score, I think most would agree), it's hard to heap too much praise on your goalie ... but I'm going to do that here, as Danny Tiirone came up with a pair of monster saves at key points late in the first period and then early on in the second, without which this becomes an entirely different hockey game. I'm not putting him up for All-HE honors just yet, but quietly he's pretty much extinguished the UNH goalie "controversy" (for now) with his recent improved play - not to mention the hairball his understudy hacked up against ASFU. It's hard to imagine Tirone not getting the nod at MSG this weekend, and continuing through the Maine weekend.

Looking at the big picture ... WIS experts' projection that Coach Umile's Wildcats would amass at least 10 wins in the opening 18 game stretch of the season is still looking to be a stretch, but after these last two games, it's still on life support, as the 'Cats will now need to almost run the table with 4 wins in their final 5 games of the 2016 section of their schedule. With 3 of those games being against a UMaine team that's been struggling since opening the season with two wins over RPI (and we can now put that into proper perspective), and one of those against in-state rivals Dartmouth (at 2-2-3 whose own cupcake status is very much on "watch" entering a big weekend series against mighty Robert Morris), you can see why the Cornell game becomes a big one in the overall scheme of things for UNH and for Coach Umile.

As a result of too many squandered cupcakes, WIS has decided to hold firm at its recently downgraded forecast for a happy ending to The Quest at 60% after these last two wins. WIS needs to see better performances against beatable opponents on a more consistent basis ... and it's fair to say that the final 5 games on the 2016 calendar all fall into that category. Winning on a Tuesday night prior to the Thanksgiving Day weekend is a good omen, if nothing else. WIS remains in "Missouri Mode" - as in "Show Me" - moving into December, which for a program that used to major in being "Champions of December" may hopefully be another good omen.

Predictions:

Saturday: UNH 4 Cornell 3 @MSG (OT)

NEXT CUPCAKES ON THE SHELF: 12/2/16 @ home vs. UMaine; 12/3/16 vs. UMaine @ Orono

IS BS35+4 PAYING ATTENTION YET?

Hahahahahahahaha ... good one. Right now (and ever since about 11:10 a.m. this past Sunday morning), BS35+4's dream weekend has played out exactly the way he planned (or TBF, more likely hoped and/or prayed). After scraping past UMaine on Saturday to finish up the regular season at 7-4-0, the Football Cats will be hosting Patriot League champs Lehigh across the street, and the Curse of the 13th Season in a row in the D-2 playoffs has been banished. I'm sure the "Frozen Apple" game that evening against Cornell will provide our esteemed AD with his biggest quandary of the season so far, but you know it's written in stone that he'll be strutting around his new stadium as proud as a peacock for the 2:00 p.m. kickoff. Whether the Clinton Campaign might have some extra helicopter resources still at their disposal in light of the big pre-election event at The Whitt remains to be seen, but if he can pull that off, then an 8:00 p.m. arrival at MSG to catch his former flagship program in action can't be ruled out. Oh, and lookie here - they've got a winning record now. Happy days indeed.

In the meantime, somewhere in Midtown Manhattan before the evening face-off, a middle-aged balding man in a turtleneck will ask the barkeep if he can find the big playoff game in Durham (NH) somewhere on his dish. Praying for just a little more cover to get his boys to the holiday break with a few more chances to fatten up on a few more cupcakes.

[HockeyRef]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

Well whattayaknow we won the Annual Pre Thanksgiving Clunker in grand fashion nice game 'Cats and as always good to see the board folks. TyK, Maller, McNick and Eiserman with 2 pts each and DT gets the shutout!! Nice to see Miller get one and the Frosh line produces again with Blackburn.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and see some of you at MSG!

[C-H-C]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

"Tirone, UNH Shut Out RPI 5-0"

[E.J. Smith]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

Middle-aged?

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

Middle-aged?

I guess I was feeling generous, EJ. I was wondering if anyone would call me out on that one.

[HockeyRef]

I guess I was feeling generous, EJ. I was wondering if anyone would call me out on that one.

Hey I had to read it a couple of times was thinking "who is he talking about" Will be on the lookout for this mystery middle aged man in the Big Apple 😉

[Chuck Murray]

Re: UNH Wildcats 2016-17 -- We're Going to Have a Hockey Season Here!!

Hey I had to read it a couple of times was thinking "who is he talking about" Will be on the lookout for this mystery middle aged man in the Big Apple 😉

He's got kind of a high pitched squeaky voice, and is known to be able to whistle down cabs in heavy traffic.

You'll be able to pick him out of a crowd in a jiffy.