Harvard Crimson 2014-15

[Watson Rink]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Congrats to the Crimson players for making their U22 development teams. Miye D'Oench (F) Michelle Picard (D) Team USA and Karly Heffernan(F) Abbey Frazer(D) Emerance Maschmeyer(G) Team Canada. Should be a good series.

Not to be a broken record, BUT.........the foregoing post reminds me that if Pucci plays D, there will be 7 people at that position who have U-18, U-22 and/or Olympic experience whereas they don't have 9, much less 12 forwards with that particular credential (not that it's the be-all and end-all, of course, but still....).

But who knows? Perhaps injuries will keep a theoretical seven-pack an effective six-pack, or perhaps the coach will opt, as in the Olympics, for dressing 7 D and 11 F?

 

[Hux]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Not to be a broken record, BUT.........the foregoing post reminds me that if Pucci plays D, there will be 7 people at that position who have U-18, U-22 and/or Olympic experience whereas they don't have 9, much less 12 forwards with that particular credential (not that it's the be-all and end-all, of course, but still....).

But who knows? Perhaps injuries will keep a theoretical seven-pack an effective six-pack, or perhaps the coach will opt, as in the Olympics, for dressing 7 D and 11 F?

Nah, Coach Stone is switching to a 2-3, so she is actually two D short.

 

[driventoit]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Wow. Pucci is off the roster. A real loss. It only remains to salute her for her wonderful play and for her equally wonderful perseverance, and to wish her all the best.

 

[Watson Rink]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Wow. Pucci is off the roster. A real loss. It only remains to salute her for her wonderful play and for her equally wonderful perseverance, and to wish her all the best.

Do we know what happened?

 

[Trillium]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Do we know what happened?

Apparently sustained another concussion in final Olympic game. Actually may not be the only high profile player at Harvard--or on other highly ranked teams for that matter--who may have issues being cleared to compete for the full season. Time will tell.

Being able to complete a degree is far more important.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Wow. Pucci is off the roster. A real loss. It only remains to salute her for her wonderful play and for her equally wonderful perseverance, and to wish her all the best.

I'm wondering why it took so long to make this move. If the injury truly happened at the Olympics, didn't they have enough information in the spring to make a determination? I've spoken with female hockey players who have had concussions that ended their playing careers and they knew almost right away that it was over for them. The docs didn't mince words.

Given Jo's concussion history, why wait so long? We might have been able to convince Erin O'Connor to stick around. Here's hoping for the best for Jo's future. At least she got the chance to compete on an international stage one more time.

 

[Eeyore]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

I'm wondering why it took so long to make this move. If the injury truly happened at the Olympics, didn't they have enough information in the spring to make a determination? I've spoken with female hockey players who have had concussions that ended their playing careers and they knew almost right away that it was over for them. The docs didn't mince words.

There are many times it's not that simple. Corey Koskie spent years thinking he'd be able to play again eventually.

 

[charlieconway]

I'm wondering why it took so long to make this move. If the injury truly happened at the Olympics, didn't they have enough information in the spring to make a determination? I've spoken with female hockey players who have had concussions that ended their playing careers and they knew almost right away that it was over for them. The docs didn't mince words.

Given Jo's concussion history, why wait so long? We might have been able to convince Erin O'Connor to stick around. Here's hoping for the best for Jo's future. At least she got the chance to compete on an international stage one more time.

Who cares about O'Connor? That's not even a blip on the radar when we're talking about a gifted athlete having to hang up the skates way, way too early. It's sad to learn Josephine won't be able to contribute this year, but she's obviously looking out for her own health and life beyond hockey. She didn't owe it to anybody to throw in the towel at an earlier time.

Thankfully for Harvard, the blue line is still stacked. Tough to feel awful about having Edney and Picard in place to gobble up a big chunk of the tough minutes Pucci would have seen this year.

 

[driventoit]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Who cares about O'Connor? That's not even a blip on the radar when we're talking about a gifted athlete having to hang up the skates way, way too early. It's sad to learn Josephine won't be able to contribute this year, but she's obviously looking out for her own health and life beyond hockey. She didn't owe it to anybody to throw in the towel at an earlier time.]

This.

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Who cares about O'Connor? That's not even a blip on the radar when we're talking about a gifted athlete having to hang up the skates way, way too early. It's sad to learn Josephine won't be able to contribute this year, but she's obviously looking out for her own health and life beyond hockey. She didn't owe it to anybody to throw in the towel at an earlier time.

Thankfully for Harvard, the blue line is still stacked. Tough to feel awful about having Edney and Picard in place to gobble up a big chunk of the tough minutes Pucci would have seen this year.

You missed my point. Given her concussion history, I was surprised that Harvard waited until the start of the academic year to rule her out if the injury happened back in February. Concussion protocols today are much more stringent than in years past. It could be that she felt symptom free after the Olympics and there was no cause for concern. Perhaps after trying to skate this summer, the symptoms returned and she made the call not to play which is the right way to go. We don't know for sure and I was going on what has been told to me by female hockey players who have had multiple concussions. Docs don't wait around anymore; they make the call in the best interests of the player.

As for O'Connor, she is hardly a blip on the screen. From what I understand, she is a talented player and yes, we have great depth this year but stockpiling talent never hurts especially when injuries hit. And Harvard has had more than their share of tough luck with injuries, especially concussions.

 

[ARM]

I was surprised that Harvard waited until the start of the academic year to rule her out if the injury happened back in February.

I don't see what difference it would make as to when the decision that Pucci was not going to play was announced. I'm guessing Katey Stone knew long before it became public. Harvard has 25 players on its roster, and at a certain point, you're just creating a situation where more people will be unhappy with the lack of opportunity. Cornell has five D including O'Connor, so I don't think it would be in her best interest to be stockpiled somewhere else.

 

[Trillium]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

I don't see what difference it would make as to when the decision that Pucci was not going to play was announced. I'm guessing Katey Stone knew long before it became public. Harvard has 25 players on its roster, and at a certain point, you're just creating a situation where more people will be unhappy with the lack of opportunity. Cornell has five D including O'Connor, so I don't think it would be in her best interest to be stockpiled somewhere else.

I agree wholeheartedly with all this. A minor correction though--Harvard actually has a roster of 26, including 8 D, despite Pucci's retirement. O'Connor is infinitely better off at Cornell as one of 5D on a total roster of 20, and will undoubtedly see major ice time and the opportunity to shine from day 1.

 

[Trillium]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

You missed my point. Given her concussion history, I was surprised that Harvard waited until the start of the academic year to rule her out if the injury happened back in February. Concussion protocols today are much more stringent than in years past. It could be that she felt symptom free after the Olympics and there was no cause for concern. Perhaps after trying to skate this summer, the symptoms returned and she made the call not to play which is the right way to go. We don't know for sure and I was going on what has been told to me by female hockey players who have had multiple concussions. Docs don't wait around anymore; they make the call in the best interests of the player.

This suggests you don't really understand the difference between concussions versus injuries of other body parts. There is extreme variability of symptoms and duration of concussions, and the fact is that, unlike most bone or tissue injuries, no doctor can ever predict when, or if, concussion symptoms will ever subside to allow return to play. Each case is unique. Some players are back in a couple of weeks, others months or years, some are never able to play again and even suffer permanent changes to their cognitive abilities. It is likely that she had ongoing symptoms but was probably hopeful that with treatment (many players including Pucci and Kessel have spent considerable time with Dr. Carrick in Atlanta to try to resolve symptoms more quickly) she might have at some point become sufficiently symptom-free to at least consider playing at some point during her senior season.

And Harvard has had more than their share of tough luck with injuries, especially concussions.

Oh please.... Your opinion simply shows your extremely myopic view of Harvard. If you weren't oblivious to other teams in the league and appreciative of the impacts of injuries on competitive rosters, you would realize that actually Harvard has been fairly lucky with reasonably few injuries to players over the past few years. As was mentioned in USCHO's ECAC preview, in particular concussions and hip surgeries have actually become rampant at this level.

I realize Armstrong and Pucci each missed a season with concussions, but the grapevine says both did exacerbate their injuries by trying to play far too soon after sustaining one. Perhaps Harvard's protocols have not been stringent enough? Other than that, I believe only Gedman had a missed year due to injury, with minimal missed time to any other players over the past few years other than Frazer for a stretch last season, all the way back to when Kessler missed 1/2 a season back in 09-10.

Most other ECAC teams have had to deal with similarly significant losses due to injury in the past 3 -4 years, if not even more in many cases, and with the team impacts magnified when occurring concurrently. Harvard is not hard done by in the least in that regard.

For example, Clarkson suffered the unfortunate loss of Ambrose early at the worst possible time in their playoff run to the title last season. Jacobson also missed 25 games last year on D and backup goalie Horn missed the season. Impact forward Cayley Mercer missed all of the previous season. Fast appears to be out with injury to start this season.

Cornell had to deal with ongoing impact of injury to their starting goalie Slebodnick throughout the season, and prior to the that, Mazzotta also was unavailable due to injury in her senior season of 11-12. In addition, Murray missed about half of her freshman and sophomore seasons on D the past 2 years due to injury and is not returning. Incoming D Saracco will be unable to play this season due to hip surgeries. Last season Leck and Pittens both missed large parts of the season.

Quinnipiac lost Kosta, a huge offensive threat, for all of last season. Another top player, Uden Johansson, not only missed all last season by choice to train for the Olympics, but also missed 15 games as a sophomore. Frykas, a former TC U18 player, missed half of her senior season 2 years ago.

Last year SLU was missing its top D and pointgetter, Boulier, for the year. Habschied missed the majority of last season, and half of her junior year the season before. Sullivan and Goldsmith also missed much of the season a couple of years ago, and going back to 9-10, Emard was missing most of the year.

Injuries are arguably even tougher for teams lower in the league pecking order, because of the lack of depth to begin with.

Last year, Princeton was missing the services of two important forwards--Mucha for more than half her senior season missing 18 games, and Contini missed the entire year. The prior year, McDonell missed her entire freshman season. Going back prior to Newell in goal, Princeton had to scramble for a goaltender when their heir-apparent Seguin was diagnosed with ongoing health challenges, playing only 8 games her sophomore year before leaving Princeton altogether.

Dartmouth lost forward Forfar for the entire season last year (and some of her freshman season), and Odland missed the end of the season in 13-14 plus 1/2 of her freshman campaign. Defenseman Kelly missed parts of her 2 last seasons the past 2 years. Other D lost included Sharp, for 13 games the prior year, while Kliman missed all of her senior year after a summer mishap.

Possibly hardest hit injury-wise in recent years was Yale. Forwards Raines, and L. Kennedy and defensemen Tomimoto, A. Kennedy, and Desmeules all missed 1 1/2+ years of games to injury at times during the past 3 years, often overlapping for long stretches. High impact mpact forward Ciotti lost similar time to injury before being forced to retire in 11-12. Decker, Dunbar and Austin also missed most of last season, with Austin missing her freshman year too.

While RPI and Union may not have faced extraordinary numbers of players lost to injury, the impacts have also been felt. RPI's impact forward Wash appears to be out currently with injury. In recent years, Cox a top scorer missed 13 games as a soph and never returned, and Padmore missed 24 games as a junior and never returned. In Union's case, it was recently announced than one of their top scorers (Turner I believe?) will be unable to play this season, and Kaminsky missed about half of last season.

 

[charlieconway]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

You missed my point. Given her concussion history, I was surprised that Harvard waited until the start of the academic year to rule her out if the injury happened back in February. Concussion protocols today are much more stringent than in years past. It could be that she felt symptom free after the Olympics and there was no cause for concern. Perhaps after trying to skate this summer, the symptoms returned and she made the call not to play which is the right way to go. We don't know for sure and I was going on what has been told to me by female hockey players who have had multiple concussions. Docs don't wait around anymore; they make the call in the best interests of the player.

As for O'Connor, she is hardly a blip on the screen. From what I understand, she is a talented player and yes, we have great depth this year but stockpiling talent never hurts especially when injuries hit. And Harvard has had more than their share of tough luck with injuries, especially concussions.

Waited? You can't honestly believe the timeline of events played out by choice.

For all we know, O'Connor wasn't even an option for 2014-15. Something tells me she would have had to do a year of post-graduate education in order to get into Harvard. From what I understand, many top-notch athletes aren't thrilled about the prospect of attending 19th grade and delaying a college career -- especially when the option exists to play right away at another good school.

Again, that's all beside the point. "Coulda, woulda, shoulda" talk about prior recruiting isn't remotely relevant when we're discussing an Olympic-caliber hockey player having her career cut short. Quickly brushing Pucci's unfortunate situation aside and implying that the way the process was handled might have hurt the team shows that you flat-out don't get it. How anyone (especially a supposed supporter) could react to this kind of news by wondering who could have been in Josephine's place and how it affects the overall talent level on the roster is beyond me.

 

[HockeyEast33]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Couple of questions for those wiser about Harvard hockey:

- Do we make anything of the fact that Brianna Laing didn't dress for the exhibition game? Injury?
- Also - no Dylanne Crugnale - injury?
- Shocked to see Natasha Rachlin as a 7/8 defenseman according to collegehockeystats.net after she was one of 4 most of last season. Thinking that had to do with defensive pairings and that she will be in the top 6 come this weekend.
- Why wouldn't Stone play her backup goalie in an exhibition game, if only for a period? Isn't that pretty much the point of an exhibition game - to give all the players a chance to play with no repercussions to the team's standing?

 

[Trillium]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Couple of questions for those wiser about Harvard hockey:

- Do we make anything of the fact that Brianna Laing didn't dress for the exhibition game? Injury?
- Also - no Dylanne Crugnale - injury?
- Shocked to see Natasha Rachlin as a 7/8 defenseman according to collegehockeystats.net after she was one of 4 most of last season. Thinking that had to do with defensive pairings and that she will be in the top 6 come this weekend.
- Why wouldn't Stone play her backup goalie in an exhibition game, if only for a period? Isn't that pretty much the point of an exhibition game - to give all the players a chance to play with no repercussions to the team's standing?

What does one make of the fact that Armstrong was the 13th forward...

 

[driventoit]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

Anyone walking into the game last Friday night might have thought they were witnessing a Guinness Book of Records attempt to pack a bench with sardines on skates. No more short bench woes for the Crimson, that's for sure! Since the Bright renovations did not include a second bench for the newly repositioned home team, some bodies had to not dress, but who knows why it was Crugnale and Zarzecki in that number. It really was hard to adjust to this surprisingly disconcerting sight of a crowded bench, but the real surprise was, indeed, not seeing Armstrong play, despite being dressed and squished like everyone else. As for Laing, assuming she was healthy, one plausible explanation is that Stone, having decided to give Maschmeyer her 60 minutes, didn't want her #2 goalie to tend the door all night. (The sturdy psyche of any #3 goalie would be a good topic for advanced students of human nature.) And I imagine we will see Crugnale, given good health, back with Harvey before long.

We know Crowe, Reber and D'Oench are going to be exciting, and it was interesting to see Parker assigned a steadying role between two freshmen, but to me the most interesting combo on the ice was L. Laing, Fry and Daniels ---- potentially a lot of pop (or something) there. Laing looked very much at home (the next Miye D'Oench?).

Edney/Mastel, Picard/Frazer seem naturally well-paired, and I would not be surprised to see Ziadie stay in the top six with Gedman. Rachlin as a 7th D seems like a very nice problem to have. (Can you believe we're talking about what to do with a talented 7th D this season?!)

(Haley Mullins took a nasty hit into the boards in the third period ---no whistle--- and lay motionless for a scary long time before skating off the ice, with help, and heading to the locker room. Here's hoping she's OK.)

Anyway, hard to assess much of anything at this stage, especially given the near chaos of numbers, but it would be nice to get an update from anyone able to make it to the Blades game Saturday afternoon.

BTW, you can disregard the number "2" in the official attendance figure of 247.

 

[wwhyte]

I'm planning to be at the second half of the Blades game, will let you know what I see.

 

[driventoit]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

I'm planning to be at the second half of the Blades game, will let you know what I see.

Great! I'm sure they'll still be going for the sardine crown (until NCAA rules kick in, as per ARM), but what I most hope you'll see is a skating Armstrong!!

 

[Skate79]

Re: Harvard Crimson 2014-15

This suggests you don't really understand the difference between concussions versus injuries of other body parts. There is extreme variability of symptoms and duration of concussions, and the fact is that, unlike most bone or tissue injuries, no doctor can ever predict when, or if, concussion symptoms will ever subside to allow return to play. Each case is unique. Some players are back in a couple of weeks, others months or years, some are never able to play again and even suffer permanent changes to their cognitive abilities. It is likely that she had ongoing symptoms but was probably hopeful that with treatment (many players including Pucci and Kessel have spent considerable time with Dr. Carrick in Atlanta to try to resolve symptoms more quickly) she might have at some point become sufficiently symptom-free to at least consider playing at some point during her senior season.

Actually I do understand. I've had a torn rotator cuff, two ruptured discs in my lower back, a sprained MCL in my right knee and a micro fracture in my right foot. And when I was ten years old, I suffered a concussion which at that time was misdiagnosed. Fortunately, it was not serious and I didn't have lingering effects. And my nephew who played football suffered a concussion along with a friend of his during a game - I drove them to the hospital and was there when the doc gave us the news and what he felt were appropriate options for treatment. Before you go off on someone's lack of knowledge, check first. Okay?

And what prompted my original post was a conversation I had this summer with a female hockey player who suffered multiple concussions and was told that hockey was over for her. She played with Jill Dempsey and could have played college hockey. The order not to play was made almost immediately after the last concussion. It's true that docs will have varying opinions on treatment and opportunities to play again. Certainly we see football players returning to play after passing NFL protocols. I was merely questioning the timeline given Pucci's history. I think it is a fair and reasonable question to ask despite what some here feel is an overtly foolish remark.

Oh please.... Your opinion simply shows your extremely myopic view of Harvard. If you weren't oblivious to other teams in the league and appreciative of the impacts of injuries on competitive rosters, you would realize that actually Harvard has been fairly lucky with reasonably few injuries to players over the past few years. As was mentioned in USCHO's ECAC preview, in particular concussions and hip surgeries have actually become rampant at this level.

Fine, I'm myopic. I never said other teams don't suffer injuries. Happy now?