Re: Colgate 2010-11
Tough to even bring myself to stop by this thread this year. How a team with some obvious talent (the Sullivan - no Gate homer - picked us 2nd in the league based on our returning players) can lose so many one goal games (or 2 with eng) without at least getting lucky once is beyond me. But, while I think he over-states his case sometimes, Greencoat is right that depth is the biggest culprit. Too much time played by the top lines results in diminished performance by those lines, poor special teams and late game break-downs - all the things that have killed the raiders this year. And, while I have never been a huge fan of Vaughn's style, I don't believe he is leaving great talent sitting on the bench to play his favorites. Nor do I think the current staff (though so far not as good as Andy and Stan) are incapable of finding good players. There are several NHL/high AHL level players that these coaches have brought to Colgate currently in the pros and several on the team who have a good chance of ending up in that category on the team now. There just simply aren't enough of them. Given who Colgate is, the quality of the team will always depend on finding a few overlooked diamonds in the rough players. Sometimes those players work out, sometimes they don't. Right now if one or two don't work out as hoped, even if they are ok players overall, a promising season becomes a lost season. The hard cap on the number of players allowed on the team is destructive to competitiveness and I can't think of a single rational justification. Moreover, given the nature of modern hockey, the pressure it puts on players to stay on the ice when tired or hurt is scarily dangerous. No matter who the coach is, they are not going to have sustained success with this handicap in place.
In my opinion Starr is a more serious hinderance to Colgate's success than we on this board like to admit. I love the place because of my memories but it is one of the worst rinks in D-I. It has nothing to draw in the casual spectator and is a recruiting millstone. It doesn't take more than 1 or 2 players to completely change the fortunes of a team - my guess is that, at its least damaging, Starr is costing us a really good prospect each and every year. Hopefully, a new varsity sports complex, complete with new rink(s) is not too far off. The Passion for the Climb announcement is good news in that 1) money is obviously out there 2) more fin. aid means better packages for all, including hockey players and 3) it provides cover for Herbst - having his first big announcement be a sports complex could have been a bit difficult politically. As for the lack of mention, fund raising for a sports building would generally occur outside the main campaign for political and donation maximization reasons. Don't know whether the rumors are true or not, but if the quiet phase of fundraising for a new rink is underway, it would be in addition to, not part of the endowment drive.
Couple of other points of potential interest:
Four of the top five teams in the ECAC have coaches with tenure < 10 years. The two longest serving coaches guide the #10 and #12 ranked teams.
Princeton's rise this year shouldn't be all that surprising - they were good in 07-08 and 08-09 before being hit with the injury bug last year
If nothing significant changes, for at least the third straight year, Colgate's "best" player will be its most penalized - Day has 46 PIM y-t-d compared to 26 all of last year and 20 higher than the next most penalized team member ; McIntyre's 60 PIM last year was 28 more minutes then the next most penalized player; McIntyre led the team in 08-09 too but was only a little ahead of McPherson. Don't know what it means except that our biggest scoring threats seem to be spending a disproportionate amount of time in the box.
