Re: Union College Hockey 2014-2015 "ReUnion 2015? Why "Nott"?
Definite bummer about Shier leaving.. he was one of my favorite freshmen and I thought had a bright future. You could see the talent level was there and that he is a good kid. All I can say is good luck to him going forward and hope this turns out to be the right decision.
Looking at Ryan's list of players that left recently, except for Ekstrom & Ingoldsby (injuries) and Mingoia (Leaman recruit), the rest all fall in the category of "not really good enough for D-1". Could also add Andrew Esty to that group. Saying that these guys didn't have the dedication or work ethic to be D-1, really isn't fair IMO. D-1 athletics is a huge time commitment and requires extensive effort in and out of-season. It's a very tough decision to dedicate incredible amounts of time & effort, knowing that you are borderline talent-wise and may almost never play in actual games. Personally, I think almost all of the players that left early made the right decision. Mingoia is the only outlier, and really benefited from another 1.5 seasons in the USHL and having Leaman in his corner as a potential landing spot. Shier is definitely similar to Mingoia talent wise and I think could be a real good D-1 player some day. My feeling is that it was tough for him to see other players playing instead of him and not exactly "lighting it up". I suspect there is a bit of tension surrounding the fact that the 3rd & 4th lines aren't settled and arent' producing. Hopefully getting Pontarelli back will help with that, but right now U looks like a 2 line team.
As for tonight's game, I'm definitely interested to see how it goes. Cornell is the type of team that U has had tremendous trouble with this season - bigger, physical, good D & goaltending. Can U's speed keep the puck away from the Big Red or will Cornell just continually take away the puck with strength and clog the front of the goal and not allow U to get any shots in close? I'm not entirely optimistic.
Going forward I continue to think that goaltending is a key for U. I'm enthused that Alex has been better this season and has mostly been equal to Colin, but the downside is that Colin has been barely above average after the hot start in the first 2-3 weeks of the season. U needs more than just good goaltending and needs a goalie to steal or game or two down the stretch. In order to make top 4, would have to go somewhere around 9-3 down the stretch.. which doesn't seem very likely with road trips still to the NC, Lynah/Starr, & Dartmouth/Harvard. Hoping tonight is the start of something good..
