I love you Chuck but I did not read this much in four years at WSBE,........ so it's time to dredge back up the "NH Beanpot" concept, Snives!! Lots of free time to banter about the pros and cons, but I've reached out to Chris Duffy, and one of my old travel soccer colleagues who currently works with Mayor Ruais, and *maybe* we can get some traction with folks who have a megaphone and power to make something like this a reality?? There has never been a better time than right now to try to get the ball rolling in a forward direction ... who's with me?!?!?
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UNH 2025 Offseason: Where in the World is MS7?
- Thread starter TheGrouchyCat
- Start date
He has not played through two games, but Luis Lindner is on Austria's World Championship roster.
www.eliteprospects.com
Also looks like he's signed a deal to play with Linz in the ICE Hockey League next season. The ICEHL is mostly an Austrian league, with a handful of teams in neighboring countries, including Italy. Patrick Grasso was the leading scorer for Innsbruck this season...
Marty Lavins has appeared in two games for Team Latvia. Including one against Sidney Crosby and Canada…
Austria - Roster, News, Stats & more
Austria - WC - hockey team page with roster, stats, transactions at eliteprospects.com
www.eliteprospects.com
Also looks like he's signed a deal to play with Linz in the ICE Hockey League next season. The ICEHL is mostly an Austrian league, with a handful of teams in neighboring countries, including Italy. Patrick Grasso was the leading scorer for Innsbruck this season...
Marty Lavins has appeared in two games for Team Latvia. Including one against Sidney Crosby and Canada…
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Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
He has not played through two games, but Luis Lindner is on Austria's World Championship roster.
Austria - Roster, News, Stats & more
Austria - WC - hockey team page with roster, stats, transactions at eliteprospects.com
Also looks like he's signed a deal to play with Linz in the ICE Hockey League next season. The ICEHL is mostly an Austrian league, with a handful of teams in neighboring countries, including Italy. Patrick Grasso was the leading scorer for Innsbruck this season...
I'm loosely following Austria due to DRW rookie Marco Kasper (19G) being one of their top players. Hopefully Lindner will get some ice before they're out.
2013hockeyfan
Active member
NH Beanpot would be....UNH, Dartmouth, St. As, SNHU?... so it's time to dredge back up the "NH Beanpot" concept, Snives!! Lots of free time to banter about the pros and cons, but I've reached out to Chris Duffy, and one of my old travel soccer colleagues who currently works with Mayor Ruais, and *maybe* we can get some traction with folks who have a megaphone and power to make something like this a reality?? There has never been a better time than right now to try to get the ball rolling in a forward direction ... who's with me?!?!?
I think another idea that's been thrown around for a "Public Beanpot" of sorts would be great. UNH, UVM, UMaine, UMass at Verizon Center.
TheGrouchyCat
Litter Box of Bad Ideas
I'd rather UNH focus on the issues it has on hand rather than waste time, energy and budget on a tournament whose outcome is nothing more than a a glorified participation trophy.
The risk of UNH's reputation going lower than it's current status as a perennial Hockey East cellar dweller by playing in this proposed tournament is acute. The program is a borderline laughingstock as it is, let's not not put the final nail in a once proud program by losing to St. A's or SNHU.
2013hockeyfan
Active member
I agree that UNH shouldn't focus their energy on this, but we can.
If we substitute UVM, Maine, and UMass, I am in favor (the reason that I suggested Granite Beanput instead of NH Beanpot). I think that it would be untenable to mix Div 1 and Div 3 teams.
TheGrouchyCat
Litter Box of Bad Ideas
There are only two tournaments that matter:
Hockey East
NCAAs
Everything else is a distraction.
2013hockeyfan
Active member
Brendan Fitzgerald with an invite San Jose development camp per Mark Divver
I disagree. There are four-game, Div 1 tournaments throughout the regular season. We just do not get invited to them any longer. Here is an opportunity for UHN to initiate an annual Granite Beanpot tournament against three other in-conference teams that we would be playing anyway, generate some interest in UHN hockey in the middle part of the state, and restore post-high school hockey at an underused arena that was once vibrant with semi-pro teams in residence.
Having a hard time wrapping my head around this one. And equally difficult for me to accept that BF will be our most experienced blue liner this coming season. Thinking theme music from the TV show Twilight Zone.
TheGrouchyCat
Litter Box of Bad Ideas
There are some great tournaments nationally, without a doubt.
While I agree witj you in the vacuum of theory, as long as UNH nickles and dimes its program and cries poor at every opportunity, any and all budget should be directed towards the resurrection of this moribund team. Anything else is merely a distraction to divert attention from the questionable decisions coming out of the field house and a coach who doesn't have what it takes.
The emporer has no clothes and cheering crowd knows it.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
It's only a pro development camp, Snives. He's an undrafted 22 year old, so what probably happened is one of their scouts saw him in some random game, saw something he liked, maybe someone else confirmed it in a second look, and so the Sharks' head of scouting extended him an invite. Get him in, take a closer look, run the ruler over him, so to speak, and see how it plays out. No guarantees, but definitely an opportunity for a kid who wasn't drafted, and probably not highly sought after coming out of juniors from Governors Academy. Comes from a hockey family, and turns out his dad is Tom Fitzgerald, a 17 year NHL vet and original captain of the Nashville Preds, who is currently the GM of the New Jersey Devils. Has two brothers who went to BC too, with Casey reaching the NHL before falling back to the AHL, and Ryan, who never got past the minors, and looks to have retired after last season. So there are strong bloodlines there, and with Dad a late-blooming player, and now a prominent front office guy, that all might be in play here, too. Think BvR, with WAY better connections.
Gotta think Guiliano had something to do with recruiting him ... penny for dad Tom's thoughts on MS7 and his son's development these last two seasons ...
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
You think they're saying the same things down at BU, BC, Harvard and Northeastern, Grouch?!?
If we're approaching the concept as a short-term concept - and I'll address that in responding to your earlier post on the topic - yeah, it's nothing more than a resurrected Riverstone with an additional round and 2 more teams built in. But think about all the additional publicity the Boston schools have gotten from their two Monday nights in February over the last 75 years ... how many NH kids have been lured away by the bright lights of the Beanpot ... think, when are those schools' most visible games played?!? HINT: It's not some Friday/Saturday night NESN special in January, in their home rinks. Heck, maybe not even those HEA Tourney games in mid-March (albeit more important year-to-year). "The Beanpot" is now appointment viewing, and a hockey family tradition.
The long term impact of a similar event in NH is something that isn't (and arguably shouldn't) even be on Mike Souza's radar, he'll be long gone well before any long-term benefit would inure to his program. Someone would have to be approaching this as a legacy thing, and that's always gotta be the toughest bit of the sell ... but if you can get buy-in from the two key schools (UNH and Dartmouth), then you work on the other moving pieces. And someday, maybe the kids who have left NH to go play in Boston because of the Beanpot, now have one less reason to leave the state to pursue their hockey careers?
Down in Connecticut, the "Connecticut Ice" tourney will be starting Year 6 next season. Sure, they already have the four D-1 teams, which makes it easier to get started. But three of the four teams have already won the thing, and you know at some point Yale will make it all four. My pal Luce won the 5th edition last winter, boosting his barren trophy case. But those guys all have to be thinking long-term, and given Luce's BC ties he's been trading on like forever, I'm sure he's a big booster of the concept (note, this may be as close as Luce ever gets to a compliment from yours truly). That event gets to showcase college hockey in southern New England in a very positive way. A revamped Riverstone at neutral site Manchester could work the same for northern New England?
Robert Balin
Active member
Freshman Connor MacPherson will play for Nanaimo in the BCHL next season. And he will return for the 2026-2027 season, Per UNH Hockey Blog. This could possibly free up some $$ for another Dman?
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I think that the “cheering crowd has no clothes.”
The way to my heart is the make me laugh. You did it here. "I'm loosely following Austria" should be the new motto for UNH hockey. Kudos. That's truly funny and relative to the current status of UNH hockey, completely appropriate.
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Gosh, that's an uncharacteristically defensive approach to take, Grouch ... others have raised it before in the past, but coming from you, I'm honestly surprised. Let's look at it this way ... if there's no reputation to speak of at the present time, what's to be lost here for UNH?? How do you potentially get the two NH D-2's genuinely involved, if they don't think they've got a semi-realistic shot at winning a game? Now may actually be the best time, if such a tourney went the local D-2's route (SNHU and St. A's). Pair up UNH and Dartmouth in the Friday night late game, the two D-2's in the early game, and guarantee one of the D-2's a win, and a trip to Saturday's Finals against one of the big fish. Imagine the push that could be generated at both of the smaller schools to upgrade to Atlantic Hockey D-1 play if one (or both?) of them had success? And if UNH loses, so what? It's a non-conference game, maybe even an exhibition game if there are restrictions on D-1's playing D-2's? Maybe the best thing that could happen - for everyone - would be for an incredible SHNU tourney win?
First year of "Connecticut Ice", with three legit D-1 programs and Sacred Heart from Atlantic Hockey ... guess who won it? Yup, Sacred Heart. Year 2 was lost to COVID and that could have killed the whole concept right there ... but no one was embarrassed to pull the plug. They resumed a year later, and now it's five years in, three different champs, and Year Six coming up. They've gone back-and-forth a couple times on neutral site vs. rotating home sites (where it currently stands) so they're still working out the kinks. Yale has yet to win it. Is Yale embarrassed? Apparently not. Why should UNH be embarrassed then??
If the D-2 thing becomes a start-up hurdle, then maybe you start it as UNH, Dartmouth, Merrimack (closest other D-1 to Manch) and Bentley (closest AHA D-1). Pretty much the same thing as "CT Ice", four teams, three leagues, so minimal impact to your non-conference options if you're UNH or MC. Bentley likely would jump at a future HEA or ECAC offer, and they brought a pretty good contingent up to Manch for the Regionals this Spring, while Merrimack would be a given so long as Scotty B is around, and has a chance to rub UNH's nose in it. Hope that it takes root, and continue with that group until one of the local D-2's decides to upgrade to an AHA program. If Borek isn't still at MC, maybe they lose interest, and drop out? Bentley would still keep it at 3 different D-1 leagues.
The "CT Ice" thing took a couple of years' advance planning to make it happen. Likely would be the same for Riverstone 2.0. The advanced booking for SNHU Arena is pretty quiet this year, but in the past they've had Boston Pops and Trans Siberian holiday musical events in early December (this year it's comedy and PBR for example) so the facility would have way more flexibility now than if/when they eventually get another pro sports tenant in there.
And let's say two years of planning - which just so happens to coincide with the expiration of the current UNH HC's contract - could stand as a celebration of an extension OR a fresh new start for the next HC. Also gives the current AD something to kibbitz about with fellow AD's, rather than sweating over W's and L's for her various programs. Might even look good on a CV or resume for a future employer further up the food chain?
All this stuff is out there to be had. Or we can just stick with mid-Decembers against the Browns and Army West Points of the world in a half-filled Whitt, 'cuz at least then no one will be around to witness any further embarrassment(s).
I've so far spoken with the U-L sports editor, someone at Mayor Ruais' office, and one former HC who also happens to be an alum at one of the four proposed participating schools. None of them seem to think this is a crazy idea. Question is, who would be the person to take the lead, and "carry the torch"? Doubtful that some hockey junkie from Effingwoods is gonna have the necessary pull to make this happen, but I'll probably keep talking about it 'til someone surfaces ...
Chuck Murray
WIS & Effingwoods Hockey Almanac
Whatever floats your boat, potty. If it makes you happy, I'm also "loosely following Norway" (another DRW #1 pick is starring for them). Norway just came back from a 5-1 deficit against the US (and UMaine's Swayman) to get a point with a 5-5 regulation tie, losing 6-5 in the shootout. Not great news for B's fans who are hoping their starting goalie is gonna bounce back quickly after a tough season. If Austria made you laugh, Norway should make you completely spastic.
