official thread of the UNH wildcats

[Homer]

exactly. unh fans should absolutely dream and hope and get pumped and psyched about this team because they've given themselves a chance at the frozen four. i saw harvard and unh stage some of the greatest women's college hockey duels ever in 1999 and i've seen where each program has gone from there, so yes, i understand the pain and the renewed sense of optimism. all i'm saying is, don't worry too much if brian mcloskey's comments seem less optimistic than the overall buzz (he is a coach after all and most coaches i know try to keep the keel as even as possible...that "not too high, not too low" cliche exists for a reason), and don't lose sight of the bigger picture, which is what brian mccloskey is ultimately responsible for.

[dave1381]

What most interests me about those comments: What if UNH edges out Dartmouth for that final spot? (and I mean edged out, like if Dartmouth and UNH each win all but a game or two down the stretch). If I were Dartmouth, I'd be pretty infuriated if I got beaten by a team whose coach said his team couldn't compete with Dartmouth. I respect McCloskey's goals, but it'd make the whole NCAA selection process look really bad if UNH makes the Frozen Four and their coach has publicly said his team's not even close to being one of the top four teams in the country. (Though quite frankly, the selection process is pretty bad and it will inevitably be made to look bad at some point if it is never changed. Just look at the BCS.)

[HEfanatic]

UNH 3
UCONN 0

-shots 29-22 in favor of UNH
-22 saves for huggon in another shutout effort
-UNH stays undefeated in hockey east
-UNH scores 2 empty net goals in the last 2 minutes of the 3rd period
-davis scores in the first
-macmaster and fahlenbock get the 2 empty netters

[HEfanatic]

Originally posted by dave1381
What most interests me about those comments: What if UNH edges out Dartmouth for that final spot? (and I mean edged out, like if Dartmouth and UNH each win all but a game or two down the stretch). If I were Dartmouth, I'd be pretty infuriated if I got beaten by a team whose coach said his team couldn't compete with Dartmouth. I respect McCloskey's goals, but it'd make the whole NCAA selection process look really bad if UNH makes the Frozen Four and their coach has publicly said his team's not even close to being one of the top four teams in the country. (Though quite frankly, the selection process is pretty bad and it will inevitably be made to look bad at some point if it is never changed. Just look at the BCS.)

i know mccloskey said UNH couldnt compete with both minnesota and harvard on a regular basis because of the caliber of their olympians but did he ever make the same comments concerning dartmouth? i know UNH lost 3-0 to the big green in hanover but i got the impression from the players that they felt it was a winnable game.

[fan for life]

There are lots of reasons a coach may downplay the talent on his/her team.
1/ to catch teams offguard and overconfident
2/ to instill fear and determination in their own team
3/ to set up the goalie for awards,
4/ to set himself up for coaching award,"look what i did with the talent"
5/to put down the team with Olympians or their coaches. All the coaches are women, except SLU. "If I had that talent I could win too"

This type of comment is removed from its original context. Assume the coach, in his mind, was setting up for building a stronger team. Time will tell if it worked.

In the alternative, he doesn't like getting his ***** kicked by female coaches. Too bad, he should get used to that.

[Grandaddy]

Originally posted by dave1381
What most interests me about those comments: What if UNH edges out Dartmouth for that final spot? (and I mean edged out, like if Dartmouth and UNH each win all but a game or two down the stretch). If I were Dartmouth, I'd be pretty infuriated if I got beaten by a team whose coach said his team couldn't compete with Dartmouth. I respect McCloskey's goals, but it'd make the whole NCAA selection process look really bad if UNH makes the Frozen Four and their coach has publicly said his team's not even close to being one of the top four teams in the country. (Though quite frankly, the selection process is pretty bad and it will inevitably be made to look bad at some point if it is never changed. Just look at the BCS.)

McCloskey NEVER said they couldn't compete with Dartmouth. I was at Dartmouth and Dartmouth wasn't 3 goals better than UNH that day. The difference was special teams.. UNH didn't have a great power play (and they had a ton of chances in the 2nd period). When did he say they weren't 'close to being one of the top four teams'? they're not UMD, Harvard or Minnesota's level, but those three are a step above the rest, and yes I realize that Dartmouth beat Minnesota.

[Grandaddy]

Originally posted by fan for life
There are lots of reasons a coach may downplay the talent on his/her team.
1/ to catch teams offguard and overconfident
2/ to instill fear and determination in their own team
3/ to set up the goalie for awards,
4/ to set himself up for coaching award,"look what i did with the talent"
5/to put down the team with Olympians or their coaches. All the coaches are women, except SLU. "If I had that talent I could win too"

This type of comment is removed from its original context. Assume the coach, in his mind, was setting up for building a stronger team. Time will tell if it worked.

In the alternative, he doesn't like getting his ***** kicked by female coaches. Too bad, he should get used to that.

YOu've got to be kidding me. That's one of the most ridiculous comments I've seen on any of these boards lately. You must be someone who's still bitter that Sasner wasn't taken at UNH as the head coach.

Boo frickety hoo.

With the talent on that team (that a FEMALE coach brought in), McCloskey has done wonders for that program. No they're not at the level of Minnesota, UMD or Harvard, but give him a few years to get some recruits in....

The fact that they've only lost 4 games out of 24 (even though Hockey East is weak and they haven't played Providence, the only other good team in that league), it says a lot.. they have a similar team to last year, and they folded like a tent after a good first half (with a FEMALE coach)

[Homer]

And I should add I have absolutely no "inside info" here and know nothing of what Coach McCloskey has or hasn't said to his players. All I know is the experiences I had playing for first-year coaches in high school and covering a first-year hockey coach in college. Based on that information alone, I don't find his comments that surprising or unexpected as I've heard similar refrains before.

[fuzzytacoman5012]

McC may be hedging on a finish little better than last year looking at the remainder of schedule.

Note that a lot of top 10 contenders on the schedule were not competive at that level this year (i.e. niagara, uconn, ne,maine)

Puzzling use/misuse of the word "talent" with players like Thomas, Fahlenbock,Butt, Gordon, Jones---not to mention his reliance on netminder.

More suprising, as noted in hefanatic's official web, is McC has shown ability to win close games where Kay did not, except for end of season last year where a couple of ff contenders were eliminated by unh( NE and Dartmouth as i recall)

[Grandaddy]

Originally posted by fuzzytacoman5012
McC may be hedging on a finish little better than last year looking at the remainder of schedule.

Not following you here. They've already won as many games as last year (19-12-5). They have 10 more regular season games left, plus playoffs (at least one, but probably two Hockey East tournament games)...

Wisconsin this weekend and the three Providence games will be tough, but they should win a few of those games. THey should also have no trouble with the other five games, QU, Niagara, Maine and two at home vs. Boston College. Fact is, right now, they're in the frozen four if the season ended today. Last year at this point, they had fallen way off, and weren't even a top ten team. At the beginning of the season, their goal was to win the first ever hockey east championship. They're on track to do that, with only Providence posing any serious threat...

Yes they have some tallented players, but compared to the top teams in the nation, they're not deep at any position. They have one of the best goaltenders in the country and that helps.
They have a nucleus of four very good forwards (Jones, MacMaster, Davis and Hansen) to build around for the next couple years. It will be interesting to see what kind of class McCloskey brings in next year. Does anyone have any idea of any recruits coming in?

[interestedobserver]

Coach Mac promised his players a serious championship bid in the next couple of years. By inference, I assume he intended for this year to be a building year, and I think that is what is happening - with a pretty successful record as a happy unexpected consequence. He had his work cut out for him when he started; it must have astonished him how little the team knew about hockey technically and how well they performed on talent alone. Watching BC and UConn, one can see how things are starting to come together, but when UM played their man really close, the lines fell apart and didn't have a habitual disciplined response to tight situations and started running around. It happened a couple of times at UConn, too, and to some extent, we were lucky to win that one. I think UConn can correctly state it wasn't a 3 goal-difference game. But with Mac at the helm, that won't be the case for long. Now if we can just get to the FF......
He is bringing in a big class of defence (I heard 7?) and of course has to replace Huggie, a huge task. One thing he has going for him which should not be underated - how well this team gets along and genuinely like each other. From the best to the least talented, this team is one very functional family unit.

[sieve]

Who has UNH signed for a goalie next season? Is anything known about her?

[HEfanatic]

so, UNH leaves wisconsin with a 2-0W and a 1-1T. Although a sweep would have been huge for the cats, i think they did what they needed to do this weekend by stealing 3 pts on the badgers home ice. afterall, UW has yet to give up 4pts to any team in one weekend on their home ice, including UMD.

UNH deserves some credit for their effort this weekend. wisconsin is no slouch team and they have been hot since the break with big upsets over SLU and UMD on the road. good to see the cats bounce back well after a slightly disappointing loss to minne last weekend. its tough to go into wisco and take 3 of 4 pts. only UMD has been able to do it this year.

this weekend has huge implications on the FF race. it puts UNH in a great position. UNH has a legit chance to sweep the rest of their schedule, with the only real competition coming from providence. granted, the cats have 3 contests with the friars, but PC hasnt faired that well since the break.

another big weekend coming up for UNH. sweeping providence this weekend would be enormous. dartmouth will have its hands full down the stretch with brown, princeton(2), harvard and mercyhurst(2), with 5 of 6 of those on the road.
you have to believe that UNH will beat BC twice and quinnipiac at the whitt. maine and niagara on the road will be tougher but there is no reason that UNH shouldnt take both of those contests too. that leaves 3 games with PC, 2 on the road and one at home. so this coming weekends home and home series with the friars is huge.

the cats have earned the position they are in right now and it really is in their hands. its time to run the rest of the schedule right into the hockey east championships. unh has had an 8 game winning streak, and an 8 game unbeaten streak during this season. they have 8 games left. lets see another

[Da Big Bad Cow]

Originally posted by HEfanatic
so, UNH leaves wisconsin with a 2-0W and a 1-1T. Although a sweep would have been huge for the cats, i think they did what they needed to do this weekend by stealing 3 pts on the badgers home ice. afterall, UW has yet to give up 4pts to any team in one weekend on their home ice, including UMD.

UNH was close to getting 4 points....wisco scored with .6 seconds left in the first period :eek:

[HEfanatic]

i have a question about UNH's scheduling. is it possible that they will try and make it so that they dont have 3 games v.quinnipiac next year? or how about replacing vermont with a stronger ECAC team? why doesnt UNH play dartmouth twice? they are fairly close in proximity and it would make sense to see them both at home and away, them being the only 2 NH schools.
the thing is that UNH needs to play the best if they ever want to be the best. unfortunately they are in a league, hockey east, where they have 3 games against BC and some other weak competition. id like to see UNH get at least 1 game with UMD, minnesota, harvard, brown and then maybe 2 with dartmouth. the 2 games with princeton was nice to have as well as with SLU and wisconsin. but the 3 with quinnipiac is ridiculous and seeing vermont isnt all too neccessary either. UNH has plenty weak competiton within their league. it would be nice to have strong nonconference games to balance that out.

[dave1381]

My understanding of the Hockey East split from the ECAC is that the Hockey East teams would only maintain their scheduling commitments with the non-Hockey East former ECAC East schools (Niagara, Quinnipiac) for this season (and they maintained those games this year simply because the Hockey East split happened after all the schedules were set). So I'd think there's no way UNH would choose to play Quinnipiac three times next year.

That said, I'd be thankful that they did play Quinnipiac three times this year. Starting the season with Vermont, OSU (2), Quinnipiac (2) was a nice way for McCloskey to break in before his team hit the meat of its schedule. But yes, next year I'd expect UNH to up its SOS.

[Grandaddy]

dave that is correct... the schedules were set before Niagara and QU split (or H.E. split from ECAC East). UNH still did a decent job with NC games this year: Minny, Harvard, DC, Brown, Princeton (2x) Wisconsin (2x). Niagara 3x wasn't a bad set up as they were a frozen four team last year, who knew they'd be mediocre. They spread it out pretty good in the NC games except the 3 with QU, but that couldn't be avoided at the time (same with Niagara). Hockey East is very weak though, so it is important that they've beaten every team that they were suppoesd to beat

[HEfanatic]

im just wondering if anybody who has any inside info can explain to me how the hell jen huggin didnt get picked for the 10 patty k's while chanda gunn did. i have my own hunches but i am going to choose to leave them off this board.

[Grandaddy]

Originally posted by HEfanatic
im just wondering if anybody who has any inside info can explain to me how the hell jen huggin didnt get picked for the 10 patty k's while chanda gunn did. i have my own hunches but i am going to choose to leave them off this board.

Please share, as I'm curious too... if you have any info... it's an absolute joke

[HEfanatic]

is the list of committee members that can be found on the usahockey article the ones who choose the final ten?