This Week in Disrespect: Unfathomable
Imagine, if you will that you’re the head coach of an NCAA Division 1 hockey program. Now imagine receiving a ballot for the Spencer Penrose award, honoring one of your peers for a season of excellence. Further suppose that the ballot for said award reads as the following:
Nominee A
Years as HC of team: 10
Team 2012 Record: 16-16-8 (.500)
Team 2011 Record: 10-18-6 (.382)
Win percentage change from previous season: +.128
Nominee B
Years as HC of team: 18
Team 2012 Record: 31-10-8 (.750)
Team 2011 Record: 30-8-1 (.782)
Win percentage change from previous season: -.032
Postmortem: That just happened
Nothing about this season hasn’t been strange.
We took most of the week off from writing this season recap because the more we thought about how we would approach such a thing, the less sense it seemed to make in the grand scheme of things. Let’s first dispense with the general facts that we knew going into the season:
- There was no definitive goaltender on the team, given that both Doug Carr and Marc Boulanger had regrettable freshman seasons, to put it mildly.
- There was maybe one good all-around defenseman on the team, that being Chad Ruhwedel.
- There was no forward depth to speak of, given that scoring dropped off a cliff from David Vallorani and Riley Wetmore’s 30-plus points to Matt Ferreira’s third-on-the-team 17 points.
- There was a new coach who had never had a head job in Division 1 college hockey.
- There was very little reason to believe any of the above would be conducive to a season of more than, to put it optimistically, seven to nine wins.
There were all more or less understood.
Loose pucks: I wanna go back
Three things that make us proud:
1) A great performance.
Not many people (besides us, obviously) gave Lowell a chance against “mighty” Miami of Ohio, and yet, the River Hawks ran the game for the opening 40 minutes and eventually won in overtime. It was a wonderful feeling when Riley Wetmore chipped the puck over Connor Knapp’s right pad and it slowly rolled into the net directly in front of us. The only thing we have to compare it to is Chris Auger’s overtime winner at the Garden against Northeastern in 2009. It was so great. Let’s do it all again next year, shall we?
2) These seniors.
We would be remiss in not taking the time to recognize the seniors from this team, who have certainly seen their share of ups and downs. As freshmen they got screwed by Hockey East in the league title game, then came very close to winning 20 games two years in a row, and the following year won just five games as juniors. Then to come so close to the Frozen Four as seniors? It must be more than a little surreal. We’ll miss them for sure. Best of luck, guys.
3) This team.
We love it. So fun to watch, so good, so dedicated. And they’re almost all back next year. That’s very exciting.
Weekend in review: That’ll just about do it
Lowell proved the doubters wrong by putting Miami of Ohio down 4-3 in overtime at the East regional on Friday, but caught some tough breaks against Union in the next day’s final, losing 4-2 with an empty netter against.
The River Hawks were the second most successful Hockey East team in the NCAA tournament this weekend, behind only mighty Boston College, which cruised to wins of 2-0 over Air Force on Saturday and 4-0 over Minnesota-Duluth on Sunday. It’s the Eagles’ fifth Frozen Four in seven years, and that’s not a surprise.
BU and Maine each bowed out of their respective regionals in the first round, like losers. BU got drilled by Minnesota, 7-4, and Maine got dropped by Duluth, 5-2.
The sad truth of that matter is that for every team in the country loses its last game.
Sure, there are a few who don’t make the playoffs at all, or win a consolation game but don’t qualify for the NCAA tournament. But the number of teams who actually get to win their last game remains an extremely small one. Lowell found that out the hard way last night in a tough loss to Union — of all the teams in the world — in which they took too long to get their feet under them.
Friday thoughts: Love and honor, dead and buried
The right combination of words to describe tonight’s game are eluding us, so please, bear with us as we work through a bevy of thoughts an emotions after one of the greatest games in the history of Lowell hockey.
Anticipation. The quasi-queasy cocktail of nervous energy, anxiety and clock-watching that started taking root around 8 this morning. No matter how much faith you have in a team (complete and absolute) or how many times your attempt to delude yourself that this is just another game, the weight and ramifications of this game turned those 8 a.m. butterflies into squad of Zero fighters by the time Union (more on them later) and Michigan State took the ice around 3 p.m.
Weekend preview: Fratricide
The Lowell River Hawks (23-12-1, 17-9-1 HE) vs. the Miami of Ohio RedHawks (24-14-2, 15-11-2 CCHA)
6 p.m. Friday at Webster Bank Arena, Bridgeport, Conn.
Lowell finished second in Hockey East with 35 points from 27 games, and Miami of Ohio finished fourth in the CCHA with 48 points from 28 games (what?).
Two Minute’s Hate: Better dead than RedHawk
It’s time for playoff hockey, and that means it’s time to throw rational, fact-driven commentary out the window. We present to you now a positively Orwellian exercise in general dislike: “The Two Minutes’ Hate.”
We readily admit we have it pretty easy: When asked where we went to college we can say “Lowell,” and everyone knows we’re talking about a great school with a terribly definitive geographic location. Same for UNH, Boston College and, under what we’re sure is a hearty cough to hide overwhelming shame and embarrassment, Amherst.
Not so much for the nobodies who matriculated in Oxford, Ohio — wherever that is. When someone shakes them awake from their midday nap on a heating grate, and asks about their alma mater, they must sheepishly reply “Miami University,” sweat beading on their furrowed brow as they pray the questioner doesn’t have any follow-up questions.
“Oh wow!” comes the inevitable reply. “That must have been awesome, going to school on the beach in Florida.”
We imagine at this point that the sinking feeling in their stomach is on par with the Lusitania, as they search desperately for the right words.
The 2011-12 TIIL Awards for Excellent Excellence
Now that Lowell’s in-league season is over and all that remains is a breezy run to a national title in the NCAA tournament, we figure it’s just about time to issue our annual The Ice is Life Awards for Excellent Excellence.
As always, we not only filled out ballots for the annual awards Lowell gives out at its season-ending banquet, but also the league-wide awards, just to prove how brilliantly we monitor all of Hockey East, not just the only team truly worthy of our full attention (and by the way, our votes should count for those).
And so it is without further ado that the most important awards of any kind during this hockey season shall be handed out. Please enjoy.
Special report: Lowell is officially in the NCAA tournament
We remember watching the selection show in 2002. That year, Lowell went 22-13-3 and had made a pretty solid case for itself as one of the best teams in the nation.
Most of those 13 losses, you’ll remember, came because the team’s three best players — Yorick Treille, Laurent Meunier, and Baptiste Amar — had spent much of January and February competing for their native France in the Salt Lake City Olympics. That team was 1-6-2 with the Frenchmen in Utah, and 21-7-1 with everyone home. Unfortunately, the NCAA didn’t make much distinction between those two factors because its ranking system is based entirely on math.
Lowell slipped to something like 12th in the Pairwise, and was muscled out of the tournament picture by MAAC autobid winner Quinnipiac, because that was the final year in which the NCAA tournament was just 12 teams, and not the 16 we see today. How very convenient it is that the NCAA held off on implementing that rule until after Lowell was eliminated, right?
But today, almost exactly 10 years later, there was no denying the River Hawks their first NCAA tournament bid since 1996. This deserving Lowell squad found out for sure that it would indeed be dancing next weekend, in relatively-nearby Bridgeport, Conn., against Miami of Ohio.
