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UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

Correct me if I'm wrong, but UNH loses:

Butler
LeBlanc
Krates
Foster

Am I missing anyone? Umile has lost more than this in the past and still managed to be near the top of the league. Looks to me like UNH is better off than a lot of teams in Hockey East considering what they lost. If UNH gets some goaltending, wouldn't surprise me at all to see them #2 in the league next year.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

J.D. said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but UNH loses:

Butler
LeBlanc
Krates
Foster

Am I missing anyone? Umile has lost more than this in the past and still managed to be near the top of the league. Looks to me like UNH is better off than a lot of teams in Hockey East considering what they lost. If UNH gets some goaltending, wouldn't surprise me at all to see them #2 in the league next year.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's it. Krates is replaceable, but the other 3 will be sorely missed. Leblanc and Desimone were the only two real offensive threats at the center position. Butler obviously carried the team offensively, and Foster's play was definitely underrated in the second half. I think Digirolamo will be fine in the long run, but the first few months of next season could be wild.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

Foster is a huge loss. Unless UNH is bringing in a great freshman goalie that can start right away there will be issues for them.

I've seen their back-up. He's terrible and is going to have to improve dramatically.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

Terrierbyassociation said:
I've seen their back-up. He's terrible and is going to have to improve dramatically.
Click to expand...
In how many games have you seen him? I'm going to guess it hasn't been many, since no one's seen him in many.

I haven't been impressed by what I've seen, but I haven't seen much. There have been other goalies who looked bad in limited time early in their careers at UNH, who developed into solid goaltenders.

SteveF said:
oh, i could think of at least 4 reasons
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Wow, Fitzgerald can see the future? Impressive pick up by York.

I've been meaning to ask - when are you going to change your sig from that line about Smaby that was funny for all of about 10 minutes back in 2006 to something a little more relevant, like "Making it nearly impossible to root for BC since 2002."

Carmine Scarpaglia said:
Bwahahahahhahaa.
Click to expand...
Honestly, this is kind of sad from you.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

J.D. said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but UNH loses:

Butler
LeBlanc
Krates
Foster

Am I missing anyone? Umile has lost more than this in the past and still managed to be near the top of the league. Looks to me like UNH is better off than a lot of teams in Hockey East considering what they lost. If UNH gets some goaltending, wouldn't surprise me at all to see them #2 in the league next year.
Click to expand...

From my view of least impact to most impact:

Krates will be the least impact loss. IMO he was the 7th d-man on the team by the end of the year. Hardowa will hopefully get just a little better on speed and there are some D-men coming in who could be good. Knodel at 6'6" 220 is suppose to be a stay at home guy, Agosta at 6'2" 197 sounds like a bit of a project and may still need skating work coming from roller hockey, Laleggia is the question mark. Reports float back and forth on if Laleggia is 2010 or 2011 kid, is small at 5'9" 170 but very talented with the puck.

LeBlanc was a solid all around player and will be missed. 5th on the team in points 14G and 21A but by all accounts was a good leader and was solid in his own zone. The progression of some Freshman and Sophomores should be able to fill this loss.

Butler - 29G and 24A #1 in scoring. I was worried going into last year where the goals were going to come from. Butler stepped up and was a fantastic leader and all around player. Until the very last game of the season he was the nation’s leading goal scorer. Bulter was the 1st player since Krog to score 20G and 20A in a single H.E. season which is really surprising. This is a huge loss for UNH as he was 22% of the goals by himself and an excellent two way forward. The only hope is Thompson can make a similar jump and some of the other promising players can step up to Burke, Speelman, Henrion, McCarey have all shown glints. I don’t know what impact Downing and Sorkin will be but I don’t see these two stepping in as instant offense.

Foster - his numbers were not impressive for the season but he got better as the year went on. Very under rated goalie. I rate this loss as the biggest as DiGirolamo hasn't looked great in very limited playing time. The coaches are high on Wyer who has accelerated to come in next year. They can't refer to him by name but there has been some implications of a Mass H.S. goalie they really like. Normally a UNH goalie sits his first year but with Wyer accelerating to come in I wonder if there are some concerns by the coaching staff.

UNH should have a pretty good D group next year - potentially the best in sometime. The question marks are in net and up front. Strange situation for UNH where net and forward have been the strengths for a decade and the D group has always been the issue. To this point UNH has not taken the hit that other teams have.

I see the league as BC and Maine (if they can get goal figured out) with a gap to the rest. BU and Umass had big early departures, Vermont will probably struggle to score and UNH will struggle to score and keep the puck out, Lowell will be very young. Might see Merrimack in the top 4!
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

UNH will be fine. They always find a way to stay at the top through early March. It's like BU in the Beanpot and BC in the postseason. They just find a way to do it no matter who they have it seems like.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

So I was thinking about (and have been talking to a UNH fan at length about) your student section woes and I had a question/suggestion. Do you guys have the equivalent of BU's Dog Pound (or NU's Dog House)? A group of students within the student section that organize cheers, make signs, and generally annoy the other team? (I know all about the Hosers, they're not exactly what I'm referring to.) I can't speak for the Dog House, but when I was a student at BU (class of '06), the leaders of the Dog Pound held meetings to talk about increasing spirit in the BU sections (whether it was uniting cheers in Sections 7 and 8 at WBA or working on getting attendance up in Section 108 at HAA) and to try and get some creativity going in the student section, something a little better than just "BC Sucks" (find opposing players on facebook and getting some dirt or talking to other people who have dirt on players, which is surprisingly easy).

Someone (I don't know who would be appropriate at UNH) would have to organize/suggest a meeting at the start of the school year to get things organized initially with a small group of leaders/diehard students (maybe ask athletics if they can provide a list of kids who frequently attend hockey games/sporting events...you have to present/swipe an ID to get a ticket right? Not sure if you have student season ticket holders) - perhaps some of the Hosers or 2001 or freak or RTW and Rig(if you're still around campus in the fall). Cheers could be passed down/explained/demonstrated by the Hosers, if people want to continue those traditions, and new stuff could be suggested. From there, the new leaders should hold a meeting with any interested students to get the word out. This group (something better than "The Litter Box", I hope :p ) would also work on publicity for the games - facebook notices, flyers on campus, a blip on UNH Radio, webpage, etc - with the help of Athletics, of course. Not sure if you guys want to follow BU's lead, but the leader of the Dog Pound is also in charge of waving the large flag over the student section. He (sadly, always been a "he" :o ) also starts a bulk of the cheers by standing at the top of 118 (just below the band) and his voice carries over the students.

Just a thought - I love traveling up to the Whitt (if BU is further than I want to travel, i.e. Maine, Vermont), you can bet I'll try and be at the Whitt and I'd like to see the student section return to the glory I saw in that video posted earlier this season.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

JB said:
Foster - his numbers were not impressive for the season but he got better as the year went on. Very under rated goalie. I rate this loss as the biggest as DiGirolamo hasn't looked great in very limited playing time. The coaches are high on Wyer who has accelerated to come in next year. They can't refer to him by name but there has been some implications of a Mass H.S. goalie they really like. Normally a UNH goalie sits his first year but with Wyer accelerating to come in I wonder if there are some concerns by the coaching staff.
Click to expand...

I think Wyer's acceleration to 2010 is more closely related to Cody Campbell only getting "back-up" play the last two years. He was 17/18 yrs old this season playing back-up to a 20 year old. I think it would be silly to bring in a kid like Campbell to fit into the typical UNH goalie system (where he could do more sitting than playing for 4 straight years).
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

bostonewe said:
Do you guys have the equivalent of BU's Dog Pound (or NU's Dog House)?
Click to expand...

No.

I can't speak for the Dog House, but when I was a student at BU (class of '06), the leaders of the Dog Pound held meetings to talk about increasing spirit in the BU sections (whether it was uniting cheers in Sections 7 and 8 at WBA or working on getting attendance up in Section 108 at HAA) and to try and get some creativity going in the student section, something a little better than just "BC Sucks" (find opposing players on facebook and getting some dirt or talking to other people who have dirt on players, which is surprisingly easy).
Click to expand...

That would imply that the UNH students want to take the initiative on such things. The argument people have been making is that while we would welcome the students to start cheers, the simple fact of the matter is that THEY DON'T.

As I've said, hockey has become a social thing. It's to be seen and to kill time before going to a party.

This year there was a group of "body painters." I never noticed this group of guys until the end of the season, and shortly thereafter the student newspaper did an article on them. These guys were self described "Best fans" of the hockey team.

And yet they can't be bothered to show up on time, often not arriving in the student section until the middle of the 1st. Not one showed up for the Hockey East quarterfinals. Sure, it was Spring Break, but one would think that the hockey team's "best fans" would put hockey first. I never went on a spring break trip during college BECAUSE I wanted to go to hockey. These guys also didn't show to Albany, and nobody ever saw them at an away game. Apparently the Whitt is far enough, and even that is sometimes too far.

So even when a small group of students organize, there is very little dedication and persistence.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

Say what you will about the guys that paint themselves, but one thing they do is start cheers on a regular basis, contradicting Freak's own claim that students do not.
 
Re: UNH Wildcats 2010 off-season thread

RockTheWhit said:
Say what you will about the guys that paint themselves, but one thing they do is start cheers on a regular basis, contradicting Freak's own claim that students do not.
Click to expand...

I usually stand at the top of the section on the concourse, where I can see the whole section. They do not start near as many cheers as you think. Their appeal seemed to mainly stem from their "entrance" in the middle of the 1st.

My vantage point is great for getting a feel for the section. You can really see the ambivalence among the students, and you see the groups of kids filtering out in the 2nd as party time hits. You see who starts cheers and who doesn't, and who follows along.

The current situation is really untenable, but as I've said, I think we need to move AWAY from trying to have everything organized. There is no innovation or spontaneity from such a system. There have always been organized cheers, but the crowd was also just loud. Now they sit on their hands and don't make a peep unless UNH scores or they're p***ed at the ref.

People's attitudes need to change such that they view the game as their having 60 minutes to yell, clap, and generally be loud. Sometimes it might be an organized cheer, but noise is the key imo.
 
You know what really grinds my gears?

You know what really grinds my gears?

This has been driving me nuts for most of this thread:

EVERY poster on here agrees that the atmosphere at the Whitt is lacking.

SOME posters here are trying to plan and implement a change.

SOME posters on here explain why this or that won't work, or what has been tried before, or why whatever is a bad idea, or whatever. FERCHIRSSAKES!!! All we want to do is improve. Change means trying something new. Change means trying something again under different circumstances. Change means NOT STANDING IN THE WAY, CUTTING US DOWN, WITHOUT A STINKING BETTER IDEA!!!!

:mad:

Quit telling us why whatever won't work. I don't care. THIS KIND OF THINKING IS part of WHY THE WHITT IS WHAT IT IS NOW. Don't you see that? If you can't come up with an idea about how to better the Whitt, then butt the heck out. ANYTHING we try is going to have SOME kind of effect, and we'll learn as we go what will work with this group of students/STHs.

I get the difference of thought on which would be more effective, organized or spontaneous cheers. Who says we can't work on improving both? But let's actually WORK on something, not just sit here, read what the ideas are, and cut them down!!!

When the anthem sign-up-sheet comes around next September, I, for one, will be contacting Amber re: my Big Screen Factoids idea, towards inspiring chatter depth. I'll even volunteer to do research for each home game, though most of you are much better at that kind of stuff than I am. But that's what I've proposed, and since no one here has offered help/advice on that, I'm just going to run with it.

That's my contribution for now. What will you contribute: an action, or a dissention?

NYARGH!!! so angry :o
 
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