Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

[garnetfan]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

Union has done very well with kids from Powell - Presizniuk, Wakita, Carr, and the Bodie brothers were all former River Kings. If these 2 turn out to be anywhere close, would be real nice.

How do we see things shaping up next year, we lose a lot of experience on defense as well as some talented forwards, a two way center and a nifty goal scorer.

Stevens based on his past performance should be seamless, but in need of game in and game out experience. THOUGHTS anyone?

 

[Wholin1]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

(U)npaid shameless plug, my apologies. There is still time to register for the Garnet Blades Golf Tournament being held on Friday the 31st at Stadium Golf Course. There will be two hole in one contests, one for a BMW 2 year lease and the other for a $2,500 custom wardrobe from Christopher's Custom Clothing. Plenty of auction items including an ECAC Lake Placid Package, Travel with the Team to UNH including guest behind the bench with coaches, Giants, Pats and Jets Tickets, Dinner for 16 at Chef's Table at Cafe Capriccio and more. Here's the link for more info and registration http://www.unionathletics.com/sports/2013/5/7/MICE_0507134930.aspx. It's always a fun day.

 

[rdf8585]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

2014 commit Michael Pontarelli is making his official visit this weekend.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Union bound! Official visit this weekend</p>— Michael Pontarelli (@Pontnasty09) <a href="https://twitter.com/Pontnasty09/status/337613859047219200">May 23, 2013</a></blockquote>
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[rdf8585]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

2013 commit Michael Vecchione coming in this weekend as well.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Off to Union to see my future school <a href="https://twitter.com/search/%23dutchmen">#dutchmen</a></p>— Mike Vecchione (@Mvecc8) <a href="https://twitter.com/Mvecc8/status/337626358375141377">May 23, 2013</a></blockquote>
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[rdf8585]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

Home game vs Dartmouth, originally scheduled for late Jan, now scheduled for a Wednesday in Dec:

http://unionhockeynews.blogspot.com/2013/05/dutchmen-to-host-midweek-game-vs.html

 

[Dutchfan]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

The Mayor's Cup game will be January 25th (RPI released their schedule today) which explains why the Dartmouth game was rescheduled.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

Home game vs Dartmouth, originally scheduled for late Jan, now scheduled for a Wednesday in Dec:

http://unionhockeynews.blogspot.com/2013/05/dutchmen-to-host-midweek-game-vs.html

Not surprised, given that late January slot is filled with the TUC game. Actually, I think it was originally scheduled for a prohibitive time to schedule games (there must be a full week of break with no practices around the Christmas time of year, and it does not count against the 26 weeks you're allowed by NCAA regulation).

 

[rdf8585]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

Having it on December 20th, the Friday before Christmas, wouldn't have been beneficial for attendance either.

 

[garnetfan]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

USHL announces former Union captain Jay Varaday now head coach and general manager of the Sioux City Musketeers replacing Brett Larson who moved over as an assistant at Ohio St.

Jay previously played in the USHL.

 

[rdf8585]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

The 2013-2014 schedule is official: http://bit.ly/11crvV8

 

[herbst20]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

Mark Dufour has been drafted in the 10th round (146th overall) by the Cedar Rapids Rough Riders.

Dufour is in Cedar Rapids camp this weekend. I only saw him play 1 period an take a shootout attempt.

Good size and vision on the ice, but looked as if he was feeling out the pace of play. I will try to report more when I have seen a better sample size.

 

[Dutchfan]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

Dufour is in Cedar Rapids camp this weekend. I only saw him play 1 period an take a shootout attempt.

Good size and vision on the ice, but looked as if he was feeling out the pace of play. I will try to report more when I have seen a better sample size.

Thanks for the update. I haven't had a chance to see Dufour play yet, so anything you can add on here about him will be great.

 

[Dutchfan]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

The 2013-2014 schedule is official: http://bit.ly/11crvV8

The schedule is alright, I guess. On paper the non-conference slate isn't as bland as last season's was. UNH and St. Cloud are quality opponents, but still no exciting home non-conference games. I hope UNH will finally come to Schenectady for at least one game in 2014-2015 since they seemingly give home and homes to everyone else in the ECAC. It would also be nice for St. Cloud to finally come to Messa as well.

The Wednesday night Dartmouth game followed by two games at St. Cloud on Friday/Saturday after a 1,000 mile trip is BRUTAL, but from Bennett's comments it almost looks as if it was designed on purpose to be that way.

 

[rdf8585]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

Supposedly, UNH and St. Cloud State are coming in 2014-2015.

I like seeing the regular season home slate go from 14 to 15 this year. At the same time, the fact that only five of those games occur after Dec. 11 is pretty rough. For the most part, though, it's not a bad schedule.

One of these years, I'd like to see Leaman bring the Providence men's team in.... one can dream. As a side note, the Providence women's team will playing at Messa on Oct. 4-5.

 

[rdf8585]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

Trying to get details, but it appears as if senior defenseman Greg Coburn has signed with a Finnish Elite League team.

 

[herbst20]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

Dufour ended up having a tough time adjusting to the speed an physicality and did not make the top prospects game

 

[ADK11]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

I think this is a very good schedule, especially compared with last season. No disrespect to last year's OOC opponents, but I think the boys had a hard time getting up for some of those games. St. Cloud and UNH will be very hard series played on big ice surfaces, Penn State proved last year they will be no pushovers & will be doubly hard in their brand new barn. Lake State has most of their team returning, including everyone on defense & in goal, and very well could be one of the top teams in the "new" WCHA - not to mention the fact they swept U last year. UConn is now using scholarships and is moving to HE in another season and RPI should be one of the top teams in ECAC. BGSU is maybe a weaker type opponent, but early in the season this should be a tough matchup given that U has a lot of new players to break in. The team really should have no excuse for not being motivated for every game.

I'm also thrilled that there are more home games and I'm ok with most of them being in October.. after all what else are you gonna do, watch football . Also hope its true that SCSU & UNH will do reciprocals - SCSU has played a couple ECACs in their barns, but haven't seen as much from UNH. I know with the shuffling of the conferences that quite a few of the "big" teams will have more non-conference games than they did in the past, so maybe we'll actually get to see some of them in Schenectady.

 

[Wholin1]

Dufour ended up having a tough time adjusting to the speed an physicality and did not make the top prospects game

I see that Heisenberg has him listed for 2015, is that a change?

I like the schedule also but the limited number of games in January and February is kind of odd. I guess last year the game drought was in December so it is just pushed back a month. Also the RPI game in Albany is one more opportunity to see the boys in action during that period.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

I think this is a very good schedule, especially compared with last season. No disrespect to last year's OOC opponents, but I think the boys had a hard time getting up for some of those games. St. Cloud and UNH will be very hard series played on big ice surfaces, Penn State proved last year they will be no pushovers & will be doubly hard in their brand new barn. Lake State has most of their team returning, including everyone on defense & in goal, and very well could be one of the top teams in the "new" WCHA - not to mention the fact they swept U last year. UConn is now using scholarships and is moving to HE in another season and RPI should be one of the top teams in ECAC. BGSU is maybe a weaker type opponent, but early in the season this should be a tough matchup given that U has a lot of new players to break in. The team really should have no excuse for not being motivated for every game.

I'm also thrilled that there are more home games and I'm ok with most of them being in October.. after all what else are you gonna do, watch football . Also hope its true that SCSU & UNH will do reciprocals - SCSU has played a couple ECACs in their barns, but haven't seen as much from UNH. I know with the shuffling of the conferences that quite a few of the "big" teams will have more non-conference games than they did in the past, so maybe we'll actually get to see some of them in Schenectady.

I hope SCSU does FULL reciprocals, and don't decide to do some cheap two-for-one where they play you one night and RPI the next, given RPI went out there last year.

As for getting more "home" non-conference games, have you thought about possibly playing a couple games at the TUC (i.e. someone other than RPI)? This is what RIT does to get the high-caliber opponents to travel despite having a small rink (Blue Cross Arena in Rochester in their case).

 

[ADK11]

Re: Union Hockey Official off Season Thread: Can U Three Peat?

I hope SCSU does FULL reciprocals, and don't decide to do some cheap two-for-one where they play you one night and RPI the next, given RPI went out there last year.

As for getting more "home" non-conference games, have you thought about possibly playing a couple games at the TUC (i.e. someone other than RPI)? This is what RIT does to get the high-caliber opponents to travel despite having a small rink (Blue Cross Arena in Rochester in their case).

That's a great idea and hopefully somebody in "the know" at U will think of it too. A similar idea would be to do a tournament with RPI/U taking turns playing the out of town opponents (high caliber ones preferably). I've noticed that some schools do things like that.