RPI 2026-27: Houston Field House, We Have Lift-off!

[Engineers]

While the on ice performance last night was great, it was the off ice performance that I found appalling. After 35 years, most in Section 6, we decided to move to 7 , closer to center ice. When we went to our new seats, the first thing we encountered was the lower seats in that section covered in what I assume is construction dust. How can they let people sit in that? I assume many of the people there are season ticket holders. It was flat out embarrassing.

The second thing that I found absolutely appalling was the men’s bathroom underneath section 8/9. The urinals there are wall to floor and half of them were clogged and some filled with absolutely gross liquid. If the health department ever saw that, they would close the place down. Again quite the thank you to fans coming to see a game.

They need to desperately upgrade the sound system in the field house. It sounds absolutely terrible?!

 

[kurt stutt]

WRPI turns on the transmitter when broadcasting scheduled shows and sporting events. I verified this last night, I picked up the hockey game over FM air.

The technical problems are being addressed, hopefully the station is on the air at full power sometime in November or December. There is currently a temporary fix that does not allow full power broadcasting, which is why it is only activated when people have shows or there are sporting events. It is noticeably weaker than the normal signal.

That is why we announce the frequency. Because we should be on the air during sports broadcasts.

 

[25+years]

Two aspects of the team from the first teo games.
First, they are not a very physical team. OSU seemed to have no problem pushing them around and RPI could not forecheck well enough to generate much offensively.
Second: while I liked their positioning on the power play, the passes were too slow to open up shooting lanes and they made way too many passes.
Overall though I thought they played better than I thought they would. Hopefully they will improve going forward.

 

[engineerhockeyfan]

I don't know how good OSU is, so I am not going to get giddy over this weekends performance.
Someone has to tell them to shoot when they have an open shot and not try for the perfect shot.
I thought that the team defense was pretty good. Only giving up 3 goals for the weekend will work most weekends.
I hope that we learned something about taking a lead into the third period.
You just can't sit back for a full 20 minutes.
Even with all that, I am very happy with the start of the season.
We can only improve with more experience.

 

[jstadts]

I liked that the guys stood up for one another both on Friday with Caron and the running of Krawchuk on saturday. I think with the influx of chl guys college hockey is going to to get a bit more gritty. I thought the refs overall did a good job. The butt ending call was a sharp eye from the ref. It got past me and the people i was there with. I think the OSU player was shocked he got caught.

 

[DrDemento]

It was a very sneaky butt end thrown - congrats to the ref who saw it. not that the 5 minute major did us much good. We played around far too much with the puck bouncing passes back and forth until one would go awry and waste all that time retrieving in our own zone. but that can be fixed. overall the split was considerably better than I thought possible when i first saw the schedule and we started better than last year thankfully. i would hope we are sharper passing for next weekend and can manage to win a couple at home. One thing is truly obvious - #14 can just freaking fly out there (shades of Kelly Askew but with so much better control of both the puck and his skating)

 

[DrDemento]

Early line on next week - RPI football we are 18 point favorites over Rochester (who normally plays us pretty tough regardless of the odds). Guys hockey we are slight Favorites 0.5 goal over LIU.

 

[MikeMidd]

A productive first weekend of the season for RPI. A win and a one-goal loss to a team ranked just outside the top 20, some robust team defense when under pretty heavy pressure, and some opportunistic scoring. Good to see Rullers and Sitar off to a good start, will need them to push us along as the freshmen get used to college hockey.

Equally, relied on Krawchuk to keep us in both games and can't expect him to carry a .957 save percentage all season, took some unnecessary penalties that other teams might punish, and struggled to find the right times to shoot the puck.

Suspect Coach Lang will be pleased with the Friday result, respect the effort but feel we should've been better on Saturday, and take away some good learnings to set us up going forward.

In the game thread someone noted the attendance. Just 2,000 for each game, lower than you'd like for a season opener. May've been the mic placement, but it felt like the student section on the was loud and had good numbers, while the town side looked pretty thin. Curious for impressions from those who were there.

Have also noticed how RPI has upped their game on social media. More active, higher quality content on Instagram in particular. Need to build out the comms and marketing to get local fans back, but a good step.

Let's keep it going.

 

[rpi82]

A productive first weekend of the season for RPI. A win and a one-goal loss to a team ranked just outside the top 20, some robust team defense when under pretty heavy pressure, and some opportunistic scoring. Good to see Rullers and Sitar off to a good start, will need them to push us along as the freshmen get used to college hockey.

Equally, relied on Krawchuk to keep us in both games and can't expect him to carry a .957 save percentage all season, took some unnecessary penalties that other teams might punish, and struggled to find the right times to shoot the puck.

Suspect Coach Lang will be pleased with the Friday result, respect the effort but feel we should've been better on Saturday, and take away some good learnings to set us up going forward.

In the game thread someone noted the attendance. Just 2,000 for each game, lower than you'd like for a season opener. May've been the mic placement, but it felt like the student section on the was loud and had good numbers, while the town side looked pretty thin. Curious for impressions from those who were there.

Have also noticed how RPI has upped their game on social media. More active, higher quality content on Instagram in particular. Need to build out the comms and marketing to get local fans back, but a good step.

Let's keep it going.

Seems like a pretty reasonable assessment, although sitting on the Troy side I actually thought it was better attended than the student stands. Then again, the reality is that work needs to be done to bring back both. The social media improvements are a small, but necessary step.

The new ice seemed to be a huge improvement, which may be perfect timing given the increase in team speed. One thing that surprised me, however, was the new boards. They were fine, but I expected them to be livelier.