Tagged: WIIIIILLLLSOOOOONNN

Doesn’t it always come down to this?

Walsh has some more pressing things to deal with at the moment, so it’s me, Max, to the rescue with your weekend preview of the Maine series. So without further ado, here are the keys to #WINNING.

1) The playoff scenario is pretty clear. UMass, Vermont, and Providence – three teams, two playoff slots. UVM gets Lowell for two. Providence gets Merrimack for two. The most likely scenario is UVM wins two and clinches 7th place, and Providence loses both and would finish out of the playoffs. UMass just needs to win one of these two games and it would take a miracle sweep for the Friars to knock out UMass. But a win tonight and a Providence loss would clinch that playoff spot and take all the pressure off of senior night. Let’s try to do that one.

2) Maine hasn’t won a game in Amherst since October 2005. I was still a BU fan back then – that’s how frickin’ long it’s been. Meanwhile, let’s look at some fun shit.

Note: Fucking Hockey East Online. I can never get this stuff to format properly, and if you think I’m not too lazy to retype it all, you obviously don’t know me very well.

Fri
 
03/02/07
 
vs. MAINE *
 
W 3-1
 
Box
 
Recap
 
Sat
 
03/03/07
 
vs. MAINE *
 
W 5-3
 
Box
 
Recap
 
Fri
 
03/09/07
 
vs. MAINE

Hockey East Quarterfinals
 
W 3-2
 
Box
 
Recap
 
Sat
 
03/10/07
 
vs. MAINE
Hockey East Quarterfinals
 
W 5-2
 
Box
 
Recap

And then…

Fri
02/20/09
vs. MAINE hea
W 4-3 OT
Sat
02/21/09
vs. MAINE hea
W 4-3

And oh yeah, even though it wasn’t in Amherst…

Fri
03/05/10
at Maine hea
W 5-2
Sat
03/06/10
at Maine hea
TV-WABI
W 4-3

So, seriously, guys. It’s tradition. Don’t fuck this up.

3) A glance at Maine’s top three scorers: Gustav Nyquist (16-26-42), Spencer Abbott (15-20-35), Brian Flynn (18-14-32). They’re all juniors. Needless to say, if Gus returns for his senior year (he’s Red Wings property), combined with UNH losing its formidable senior class and Merrimack’s inevitable return to Earth with Cannata graduating and the Flyers hovering around Da Costa like vultures, Maine will be likely to give BC a run for its money next year.

But that’s next year. This year, even with all that talent, they enter the weekend out of a home ice slot in Hockey East, although they walloped Merrimack last weekend. And we all know how important home ice can be in the playoffs. Hopefully, the pressure gets to them like it did a year ago, and that was on their own home ice!

4) Dan Sullivan is fucking ridiculous. Like, almost Tim Thomas-in-Boston-this-year ridiculous. Well, okay, not rally. But a 2.28 GAA. A 90.3 save percentage – not the greatest ever, but pretty damn good for a freshman. But, uhh, fuck it. Break him. His mom’s name is Doris, by the way. (And just for good measure, in case we see another goalie, Shawn Sirman’s mom’s name is Heather. Martin Ouellette’s mom’s name is…uhhh…France Gagnon? What the fuck kind of name is that? You can’t even chant that. Never mind. Call him Frenchie or Marty McFly or something, I don’t even know.)

4a) BTW, “Wilson” chants are, and always will be, still relevant somehow.

4b) Oh, and “She-Man” chants for Adam “I like to fake getting seriously injured so my team can be justified in headhunting Casey Wellman, then play the very next night because it was all an act, and also my name sounds girly” Shemansky. He’s #26. And he sucks.

5) We are all rooting for UNH this weekend, and not just because I’d root for the Yankees, Canadiens, Jets, and Lakers if they were all playing BC. But really, the tiebreaker scenarios only involve that series in one unlikely situation: the bottom 3 all winding up tied with 17 points if UMass and Maine tie both games. Then, the three-way tiebreakers (I believe) come down to the teams’ record against the conference champion, and so the difference between 7th place and 9th place (thus sharing the basement with Lowell)  will be whether UNH or BC finishes atop the conference. TL;DR: UNH-BC probably means nothing, but the only way it helps us is if UNH wins.

6) It’s for the seniors. Saunders, Keane, Langeraap, Kubbie, Concannon, Lecomte, and of course Dainton. It’s certainly not the greatest senior class we’ve ever had (although it might have been if certain people had stayed) but it is one of the most likable and hard-working. They deserve one last gasp against BC or UNH next weekend, both of whom UMass has shown they can hang around with this year. It’s the playoffs. Anything can happen.

6a) Oh, that goes for the senior fans, too. Matt and Derek and Ben in particular, and also everyone else who has spent the last four years making the trek to the Bill to cheer on this team. This senior class has had a rough go of it hockey-wise, and, while likely, it would suck if they went their whole four years without seeing a Garden run. It was bad enough for my class, getting that taste freshman year and never seeing it again. This freshman class has a bright future, no matter how much this year has sucked, and a surprise run right now would be a great springboard going forward. They’ve been so damn close to breaking through for four straight games. Which ties in to my final key:

7) Winning. Duh.

-Max

P.S. There are also temporary plans to join Triangle in gracing Garber Field with our presence as our 9th-ranked(!) lax team takes on Brown, which is the color of poo. But we make no promises.

Thoughts on Casey/Jimmy, and other HEA playoff musings

I posted this just now in a discussion on UMassHoops’s forums, which, for the uninitiated, are not just for basketball, as the name suggests. Of course, the basketball discourse over there is probably the best you’ll find for UMass on the web (and their chat room is a ton of fun to peruse while watching/listening to road games). Nevertheless, to save myself the trouble of rewriting all of these thoughts and rewording it to sound like I did twice as much work, here’s some thoughts on Jimmy and Casey:

Here’s the thing about Casey, though. DO we want him back? I mean, sure, we want the Casey Wellman back who was one of Hockey East’s most feared weapons all throughout the first half. But even if he returns, he’s going to have the scouts and distractions hanging over him again, and I’m in the party that believes that this is why his second half fell apart. Anyone doubt that his improvement in the BC series was because he suddenly had something to prove again? Now, I really thought that scouts would see his getting-distracted as a sign that he’s not ready for the big show. Clearly, teams like the Wild, who (in my opinion, wrongly) believe he can play in the NHL right now, see it differently. Much as I hate to say it, Casey probably SHOULD take advantage of their poor judgment while he still can.

Jimmy’s a fantastic college player, but I really feel that we’re overrating his NHL potential. He’s a fantastic passer, but NHL teams need a pure goal-scorer with size like Casey right now. How many 5’9″ guys have success at that level? Martin St. Louis is the only one who immediately comes to mind…and he went undrafted after four years in a great Hockey East program. Jimmy can come in next year, play one more season with his brother, graduate with a degree (in case his game doesn’t translate to the pros) and leave a legacy as the best player ever to wear the maroon-and-white. Honestly, it makes more sense for him to stay, and it makes more sense for Casey to leave.

So, to recap: I think Casey goes, and Jimmy stays. If Jimmy’s here, I’m pretty confident that between Pereira, Syner, Hobbs, Carzo, a healthy Lecomte/Langeraap (knock on wood), et al. this team can put up some goals, and they return a senior goaltender with some promising freshmen waiting to back him up. It’s the defense, which already struggled WITH Marty and Bronco here, that worries me a heck of a lot more. There’s a LOT of stepping up that needs to happen in that corps of youngsters.

(That said, if I’m wrong, and Jimmy goes too…well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

As our older, wiser counterpart Fear the Triangle relayed this morning, the Minnesota Wild are already offering Casey Wellman a contract. Not in their minor leagues, mind you, but, like, actually signing him to their NHL club. As I said, if he doesn’t go now, he might be even more of a distraction next year. Still, he’s probably the best pure goal-scorer I got to see in my four years in Amherst, and you can’t blame a guy for taking the money and running (especially when it entails taking advantage of the desperation of the 11th-place team in the Western Conference). I’d love to see him come back with a sense of purpose next year, but realistically, I think this is goodbye for #7. Until anything’s made official, though, we’ll just have to wait and see.

—

Elsewhere in Hockey East, Vermont shocked the Jekyll-and-Hyde UNH Wildcats, 1-0 in overtime. BU cut the cord on Merrimack’s Cinderella act at Agganis with a 3-0 win. Lastly, Maine rallied twice and ousted Lowell in overtime, 3-2.

We’re torn on that last outcome…now, don’t get me wrong, there’s something satisfying about seeing our state-school rival fall flat on its face in the wake of the greatest expectations in school history, to see the appropriate karma exacted on certain Lowell trolls (or Trowells, if you will — credit Walsh with this portmanteau) who have stalkerishly harassed certain writers of this blog via Facebook message, with their embarrassing “Lowell is a better academic school than Amherst” and “we made it further in the tournament!” wharrgarbl. (Oh, and by the way, that’s as close as we’re going to come to acknowledging you. Honestly, I’ve probably said too much already, so consider this your 15 seconds of fame.) Not to mention, their collapse was completed against a horrendous defensive team playing its backup goalie (the immortal WIIIIIIIIILLLLLSSSSOONNNNN, of all people!), missing two key defensemen, and with its best player playing on one leg. So yeah, for a variety of reasons, that was pretty enjoyable.

That being said…when all of that comes at the expense of seeing another hated rival, the impossible-to-love hicks up in Maine, take an undeserved spot in the Garden…our revelry is a little harder to swallow. It’s even less fun when you realize that a direct consequence will, in all likelihood, be yet another BC-BU final in the Garden. Yawnzo. (Plus, we’ll miss out having the hilarious musings of a certain Lowell blog for the remainder of the playoffs. We’re pretty sure there aren’t any similarly enjoyable Maine blogs to read, namely because literacy is a prerequisite for using the Internet.)

Nonetheless, the NCAA tournament itself figures to be an exciting venture. When that bracket comes out, Fight Mass will be there with our picks. In the meantime, we’ll be keeping an eye on the Wellman/Marcou situations and have the latest news as it breaks.

-Max

Pushing the button

Well, another weekend, another disappointment for UMass athletics. The 12th-ranked men’s lacrosse team managed to falter on the road to an inferior Yale team, killing any sort of mome…

Hold the phone.

What’s this you’re wharrgarbl-ing on about?

Hockey SWEPT Maine? Basketball BEAT Rhode Island?

….PLAYOFFS? You can talk to me about playoffs, because both teams won a game (and then, in hockey’s case, another game)?!

Okay, so we at Fight Mass will admit, we had higher hopes for both of these teams than “barely sneaking into their conference tourneys on the last day of the season.” Particularly after basketball beat Memphis and looked poised to at least improve on last year’s in-conference performance, and after hockey got up to #9 in the country with the harder half of their schedule seemingly in the rear-view mirror.

Regardless, the Mass Attack took advantage of Scott Darling’s mysterious suspension and roughed up Shawn “The New Wilson” Sirman two nights in a row, then had to withstand the storm of a furious comeback bid by the Black Bears last night, and nearly doubled their all-time Alfond win total in a 26-hour span. The offense woke up again by running through the points, with Justin Braun and Matt Irwin exploding onto the scene in a manner eerily similar to last year’s near-shocker at Matthews Arena. Paul Dainton was magnificent in holding Maine’s potent offense to 5 total goals in two nights. In what can only be described as “Derek being proven triumphantly right,” the defense gelled around the return of Doug Kublin from mono. And Brett Watson of all people provided two more goals.

So yeah, next weekend, UMass gets to return to the Conte Forum, where we’ll likely see the bizarre sight of a noticeable BC student section at home against the Minutemen. The Iggles haven’t played a truly meaningful game in a couple of weeks now and are, naturally, considered the runaway favorites in the series. However, if the Minutemen play as well as they did last weekend, and are able to catch a couple breaks and ride the momentum of this Maine sweep, and Dainton is on his game…okay, that’s a lot of if’s. But “if” is a fun word to toss around when, just a few days ago, things were as grim as they were. There’s hockey yet to be played, and that’s all we can ask for.

Meanwhile, the basketball team (unlike hockey, those bastards) send out the seniors in style, continuing the annual tradition of ruining Rhody’s season. This is the third year in a row; two years back, the Minutemen dragged URI kicking and screaming into the NIT (and then damn near won it). Last year, UMass marched into the Ryan Center and made little Jimmy “Date Rape Baby” Baron cry on his senior day, the game we will always know as the C-Lowe/Matty Glass Game (I could watch that Glass pick on Ulmer every single day until the end of time). And now, the year in which the gap between the teams is the greatest, where URI is a win away from the NCAA Tournament and UMass needs a win just to make the conference tourney in which only 2 of 14 teams miss it, and yet history just continues to repeat itself with these two. If the roles were reversed, I think we might hate URI even more than we hate BC here. And we hate BC a lot.

Honestly, it wasn’t a pretty game. At one point, when the teams were trading fast-break misses back and forth, someone near me likened it to a hockey game, with the near-misses coming fast and furious – only there’s no goalies in basketball, and the scores aren’t supposed to be that few and far between. The officiating — horrendous, but it was bad both ways, and we’re used to that by now. And the thing that struck me the most was that URI really does not have a go-to guy. They’ve got a lot of pretty good players, sure, but they had no answer for Ricky Harris, who woke up in a big way after a just-okay first half. It’s worrisome that the future of this team will bank on someone (Freddie? TV?) stepping up and becoming the new face of the team next year, and although I think that taking the Ricky crutch out of the equation will speed up the process, there’s no doubt that he will be missed. 3rd all time in school history in scoring, no matter how you look at it, is fantastic. Ricky’s the one guy who played for all four of my years at UMass, and for that, I’m certainly grateful.

The URI student section was impressive (although not unexpected given that this is pretty much the only sport they have), but I saw hope for us as well. Sure, a number of kids were coming over from the Rec Center to grab t-shirts and promptly leave, but for the most part, I felt like kids were into it. They should definitely try to schedule more Saturday afternoon games next year if that’s at all possible; this was definitely the best student section of the year even having to compete with the Blarney Blowout over in town, and the end of the game was as loud as I’ve seen the Mullins for basketball in quite some time. Hopefully the kids who came out for this one were sold on this team’s potential and will be more inclined to see more games next year as a result, but, of course, the guys need to win games to attract fans, simple as that.

And so now the Minutemen survive to play Tuesday at Charlotte, a team in freefall mode, and whom UMass owes some revenge from a few years back. At the very least, Ricky gets one more game, and the freshmen get their first taste of playoff basketball together. This can only be a good thing.

Unlike hockey, whose expectations were understandably a lot higher (both at the beginning of the year and, especially, after their stellar first half), basketball’s fate for much of year has been a first-round road game and likely exit from the A-10 Tournament. A strong showing against Charlotte, and especially a first-round shocker (and I can’t stress enough how due this team is to be on the other side of that equation), could do wonders for this team going forward.

And if they lose by 30 in Charlotte? We’ll always have that senior night. Sad to think I will never again set foot in the Mullins Center as a UMass student, but the memories from my tenure here will live forever, and my entry into the alumni club – my graduation to the other side of the arena (not that I won’t be general-admissioning it up and joining the student fray for a few more years, naturally) is an exciting prospect that is just beginning.

So, not to crib that whole “live together, die alone” theme that Rocks has been using lately, but the countdown to the weird red hieroglyphs and the accompanying disaster has been, for the moment, put on hold. UMass typed in the Numbers and hit execute. Now, the road ahead is wrought with challenges. But for at least one more week, there is a road ahead.

-Max

The funeral WAS about to begin…

…and, given the dire situation UMass found itself in coming into this weekend’s tilts in Middle-of-Nowherono, ME, it may yet be ongoing. But let’s not take anything away from the fact that the Minutemen sounded like a team on a mission tonight. They pounced all over freshman Shawn Sirman, to the point where we actually did get to see old friend Dave WIIIIIIILLLLLSSOOOOONNNN make a cameo (and, oddly enough, he didn’t give up any goals, which is decidedly un-Wilson-like).

Now, granted, we’re talking a UMass team with the season on the line against a Maine team that might not get home ice if they drop both games and the rest of the league action goes against them, not to mention playing in a not-so-hostile Spring Break edition of Alfond Arena. But the stakes for UMass’s last game were basically the same on both ends, and despite playing one of the best defensive games we’ve seen from the maroon-and-white all year long, against an Eagles team playing in front of a listless crowd and with 2nd-place (no more, no less) all but locked up, the Minutemen still weren’t able to capitalize on their chances.

Now, the three principal writers here at Fight Mass were sitting mere feet away at the Hangar on Tuesday for the RNX hockey show, and though we weren’t really able to hear most of Toot’s outburst about his team, we were able to piece together between the various web recap/transcripts and our visible impression of him that Mr. Cahoon was mad as hell and wasn’t going to take it anymore, regarding the behind-the-scenes behavioral stuff going on with this team. Clearly, his words finally got through tonight, and Hockey East was reminded that UMass is about as big a wildcard as one can imagine.

Could they still miss the playoffs? Easily. But the Minutemen have nonetheless put themselves into a position to climb as high as 6th, grab some positive momentum (which had slowwwwly been building during two straight frustrating L’s), and crash someone’s playoff party, like they came so very very close to doing to Northeastern last year.

Barring a disaster tomorrow, the Minutemen have, at the very least, shown us that they cared. The eulogy we were prepared to write for these guys a few weeks ago involved more of the same from the past couple years: lamenting the Cahoon Swoon, pondering what might have been had a key underrated defenseman not missed significant time down the stretch, wondering what exactly is going on with the discipline behind closed doors and the mentality of the players, even considering blaming ourselves and our friends for contributing to the players’ sense of celebrity and entitlement on this campus.

But why worry about the eulogy before we know when the funeral is?

-Max

P.S. Tomorrow afternoon. Senior night for men’s hoops at the Mullins Center, 4 PM. Free t-shirts, and a chance to honor one of the all-time greats to don the maroon-and-white, or at least one of the best pure scorers in school history, Lex Mongo Ricky Harris. Plus, it’s URI (sucks). So, uhh, go. And get your friends to go too. Did I mention free t-shirts?

I’ll send the weak ends down the drain, down the drain…

Hockey has lost five of six and is seeing its home ice chances slipping away. Basketball has put together consecutive wins and, in their latest endeavor, looked – dare I say – dominant at times, albeit against a fairly bad St. Joe’s team. In fact, they won on national TV (being CBS College Sports, but still)…on Valentine’s Day.

…What the hell is this, bizarro UMass?

It’s been a weekend nobody would have seen coming about a month ago. Hoops rallied from 16 down on the road to force overtime, then from 5 down early in the extra frame to knock off Duquesne, and now three days later they’re looking at a tie for the 8th seed in the A-10, with plenty of momentum going into the home stretch. Hockey, meanwhile, got flustered by a hot freshman goaltender at home, then watched the defense and their own ace goalie give up another six-spot to a Boston team.

As big fans of the Hold Steady here at Fight Mass (well, Matt and myself, anyway), we live by the mantra “stay positive” around here – to the extent that I’ve seriously considered getting the band’s infinity/plus-sign logo in tattoo form. So I’d like to talk about the bright spots first, and in greater detail. The Hold Steady don’t have a song that adequately reflects how I witnessed the basketball game first-hand (and called it on the radio) while I only heard the hockey game on RNX, and even then only intermittently; however, I should mention that this also factors into the equation.

Regardless, DK’s defense was suffocating at times. Phil Martelli’s Hawks went nearly 11 minutes without scoring to close the first half. That’s over a quarter of the game. Granted, that team’s a mess right now; their top two players (Williamson and Govens) are glorified role players, their big guys (Hilliard and O’Brien) are foul-prone and they have basically zero depth. I’m not sure what they were trying to do on offense, but it involved a whole lot of dribbling and passing around the perimeter until the shot clock was down to 10. Still, you have to give UMass credit for all the flustering they managed to do. No D-1 offense could possibly be that bad on its own, and guys like Farrell, Vinson, Sean Carter, and (I can’t believe I’m saying this) even Correia were fiends on the defensive end.

The offense? Eh. ‘Twas sufficient. Another dazzling performance by Ricky, and Gurley once again decided to join us prior to the last couple minutes and knocked a few shots down. I thought Riley got a quick hook; he played sparingly in the second half so, baring an injury, it appears that he found his way into DK’s doghouse, which is surprising because now that City is finally there I’m surprised there’s any room….

Okay, sidebar time: Look, we (okay, I) feel really bad about this whole Big Shitty situation. It sucks to have to shit all over one of our own players. But really, if you haven’t seen a game yet (or if the only one you saw was Memphis), you have to watch him play to understand. He’ll play astronomically poorly for several minutes, making even the most routine rebound look like an ordeal, and then every so often he’ll dive for a loose ball or something and, because of how much better “making a fairly difficult play” looks than “botching a fairly easy one,” the crowd oohs and aahs. It’s like a Nickelback concert; their couple of I guess-they’re-serviceable hit singles sound like pure musical genius next to the rest of the shit they play. I’m sure he’s a great guy and all, and players have feelings too, but honestly – every time I watch him play I become less confident in his ability to play the game of basketball. DK finally appears to feel that way too, based on these last few games. It’s unfortunate, and I’m personally rooting for City to turn it around. Until he does, though, his minutes belong to Hov.

Ahem, as I was saying, Riley didn’t play much, and the same goes for Sampson, but the dribble drive looked refreshingly effective. It’s easy to get carried away with a couple wins when it’s literally been nearly two months since the last time they did it, but if – and I repeat, IF – they can put a nice little run together, and 3-2 is certainly doable in the last five games, then I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Minutemen hosting that new first-round campus site home game in the A-10 Tournament. Lord knows UMass can’t win in Atlantic City to save their lives, but if UMass can hold onto or even improve on that #8 seed, the Minutemen have a chance to do something Travi$ never did: win a goddamn conference tournament game.  In a rebuilding year, you can’t understate the importance of postseason experience, however fleeting it may be.

Now, going from the light at the end of one tunnel to the trainwreck on the side of the tracks, the Mass Attack Express got derailed pretty hard this weekend against the red-hot Chris Rawlingses N’Eastern Huskies. Having not been there, I’ll have to defer you to Ben’s wrap-up, but let’s just say that the last thing the struggling Minutemen needed was a game dictated by horrendous officiating (though it’s tough to say whether Toot’s bench minor-worthy outburst was fueled by the blue-balls-inducing tease of UMass’s offense the last few games).

But the fact of the matter is this: UMass has now given up 6 or 7 goals a remarkable five times in the second half of the season. To say that the defense lost it completely with Lecomte and Kublin sidelined is an understatement, and even with Lecomte and Langeraap back to bolster the size, experience, and physicality up front, the blue line is still in disarray. Kublin’s not a game-changer the likes of, say, Jeremy Dehner for Lowell (quick side note: UMass’s own struggles, aside from pissing us off as UMass fans, have severely limited the amount of enjoyment we’ve been able to draw from the ugly sister’s epic collapse). Just the same, though, his absence has had a trickle-down effect on his fellow blue liners. Mikey Marcou, while continuing to surprise on offense, has been a disaster the last few games defensively, which is a huge regression for someone who had been playing well earlier in the year. Bronco had a good game Friday night, but has been maddeningly inconsistent. Younger guys like Irwin and Rowe are, like Mikey, good offensive d-men who have struggled on D at times. Kessler’s a mixed bag, and Donnellan hasn’t gotten enough playing time to make a name for himself yet. The only constant has been Nolet, and you simply can’t get by with just one consistent defenseman. Not in this league.

So here we are with five games left, one at home, two being against a suddenly-hot Merrimack team, a game in Chestnut Hill against a BC team that might not be quite as amped up about it, and then two more up in Maine, whose freshmen want revenge for the Wilson series and whose hick fans want “revenge” for She-Man-Gate.

As UMass fans, we’re used to this script: the Cahoon Swoon, the fade to black at the end, the whimper and then, nothing.

That’s the beauty of sports, though…you never know when the script will get flipped. Here’s hoping that this Bizarro Weekend is a harbinger of said script-flipping.

-Max

Season blow-by-blow

Merry Christmas, everyone! (Don’t complain to me about political correctness. It’s Christmas. I’m not even religious. It’s basically a secular holiday now anyway. Get over it.)

Alright, so the other night’s loss to the Superfrauds, where, according to everything I hear, it was as predicted a pro-UMass crowd, puts the boys back in their place a little bit. However, they did have an awful shooting performance, like, beyond-awful; embarassing. And the aforementioned STUD Terrell Vinson was in foul trouble (I think) and didn’t play most of the game. So there’s that.

I still think the boys can bounce back. They’re 1-1 on this three-game trip, though I figured the two outcomes would be reversed. Let’s see how they respond at Davidson and we’ll have an idea of where they’re at as A-10 play begins.

ANYWAY…with this little basketball interlude out of the way, it’s time to get back to the ice, my focus on the game having been renewed by the Bruins’ 6-4 win against Atlanta that I had the pleasure of witnessing a few hours ago. The UConn tournament is fast approaching, but before it does, it’s time for some 20-20 hindsight analysis of the road they’ve traveled thus far.

10/3 vs. New Brunswick (exhibition)

Never happened.

(No, seriously, we all thought the team was doomed after that painful experience of a preseason hockey game. Definitely woke them up a bit methinks. Maybe a blessing in disguise. Still embarassing.)

10/8 vs. RPI

A 5-2 win for our boys which felt a lot more excruciating, mostly because of what happened five days prior. Irwin’s two goals seem like a distant memory now, but Jimmy’s four assists were just the opening act of a masterful first-half performance. The slow start to this game was worrisome, as was getting outshot by the Engineers; conversely, the team showed it could grind out ugly wins.

10/16 vs. BU

Kinda funny how beating the #2 team in the country and the defending national champs is now our least impressive win, but the truth is, the 3-2 score didn’t even really reflect how badly we outplayed the Terriers. I called this one for WMUA and I remember how many close calls there were, and it’s fortunate, because Chiasson damn near won this game by himself for BU in his first collegiate game.  It’s funny how completely the tables have turned as these teams get set to meet on Comm Ave on Jan. 2nd, and hopefully, BU doesn’t return the favor.

10/23 vs. Maine

Two words: ug-ly. After Adam SHE-MANsky’s Oscar-worthy performance, sustaining what looked like a season- (and perhaps career-) ending injury on what was admittedly a cheap shot by Nolet, and settting off a slugfest. It’s funny that the guy was completely fine and played in the next game. Then again, what do you expect from Maine?

Anyway, in spite of Maine using “defending their ‘fallen’ teammate” as an excuse to take cheap shots at our guys the rest of the game, UMass prevailed 5-3, and we saw Mikey break out offensively, scoring his first collegiate goal on a beautiful feed from his brother. It didn’t look like much at the time, but now that we’re looking up at Maine in the standings (though, with games in hand, we could pass them), this becomes a standout win. I’m not sold on the Black Bears yet, though, not if their game is goon hockey.

Shemansky is lucky the remaining two games are up in the middle of nowhere, because he’s never going to stop hearing it from UMass fans after that one. (Then again, he’s no Dave Wilson.) But I still circle those two games as somehow being “revenge games” for Maine, as if that acting job was a noble cause to avenge.

10/30 at PC, 10/31 vs. PC

Mixed bag here. The 5-3 win at Schneider was a sign of what I think differentiates this team from the one we’ve seen the last few years – instead of falling apart when things went south, the boys rallied in the third period and took over the game down the stretch. I know, the Friars aren’t exactly world-beaters, but the Minutemen have had a reputation for playing to the competition and I think they shook that off with this game. Halloween sucked, but let’s be frank, nobody was going to beat Alex Beaudry that night. He’s the one goalie in Hockey East this year who can single-handedly steal a game like this. To be fair, UMass didn’t exactly come out gangbusters right away, but the extent to which they dominated the 3rd period (we outshot PC 21-0. That’s not a typo. TWENTY ONE TO ZERO) would have been enough to overcome a greater deficit than 2-0 on most nights. Not this one. Sucks when this kinda game happens in league play, but that’s life.

11/06 vs. Niagara, 11/08 at Niagara

A 4-1 home win and a 4-2 road win in one weekend, where again, the boys started slow and finished strong. Honestly, I prefer that to the “score early and pray that Dainton and the D can make it stand” strategy of the last couple years. Meyers finally got a start and looked (well, sounded) good in the road game. Niagara came in a snakebitten team and they certainly haven’t gotten much better since (they’re 51st out of 58 in the KRACH rankings), so these aren’t really resume-building games, but wins are wins.

11/13 and 11/14 vs. UNH

Figures that I got to call the second game for WMUA, right? Funny thing is, UMass got outplayed (perhaps as badly as they have all season) in the first game and still pulled out a win, then controlled play for most of the second game and managed to lose. Hate to bring out the old excuses, but as they’ve discussed to death over on the UMassHoops forums, the ice SUCKS at the Mullins Center when it’s warm, as it was for this weekend series. You could say that we got the appropriate outcome from the series, but we’re really lucky that Wellman knocked home that equalizer (and that Foster fell asleep on Boehm’s game-winner). That said, this looked like a bad weekend for UMass against a supposedly mediocre Wildcats team, but 1-1 against these guys doesn’t look so bad considering how they’ve done against the rest of Hockey East so far. I fully anticipate a tie when we go to Whittemore next month, because it just seems fitting after those first two games.

And I’m done with Bobby Butler. Done. He was a Blue Devil nemesis when he played for Marlboro High, and he’s absolutely TORCHED the Minutemen for four years. Please graduate, and whatever you do, do not somehow end up on the Montreal Canadiens someday.

11/19 at Yale

Just a huge non-conference road win. Once again the boys rallied in the third period, and I just don’t remember the last two years having ANY confidence in the team being able to make such a comeback. I was working security and in the middle of signing someone in up in Sylvan when Jimmy scored the goal, and I remember not really hearing what happened for a moment, but it was undoubtedly the greatest moment of the season that I wasn’t present for.

11/24 at Vermont

I was one of the few scattered souls at the basketball game vs. St. Francis (NY), and let me tell you, the collective groan when we heard “Vermont 1 UMass 0” and “Vermont 2 UMass 1”, followed by the outburst when they announced “UMass 4 Vermont 2” shortly afterward, were the loudest moments of the game. (Not saying much.) I think this game put to bed any notion that Jimmy’s season is a fluke. Vermont is one of those scary places we never seem to win at, and so this was sort of cathartic I think. Plus, Vermont is still #15 in the KRACH, and though I think the Catamounts are gonna have a rough 2nd half if they don’t figure out how to score, right now these two HEA points double as a very nice resume-building road win.

11/28 at Quinnipiac

Ugh. Terrible loss, and avoidable at that. Dan Meyers is an alright backup, but why start him on the road against the hottest team/offense in college hockey? There’s no doubt in my mind the Bobcats are overrated as all hell; they’ve definitely come back to Earth a little since this game and I see them doing more of that in the second half. But even if that’s true, they WERE ranked above us. You start your ace in that case. I know, at least two of those goals would have probably gone in against Paulie. But that’s not how hindsight works. Dainton in goal would almost definitely not have given up that horrendous rebound on the first goal, and the whole complexion of the game would’ve changed. Cahoon agreed after the game that this game was lost in the first period, and who was our goaltender for that period? Exactly.

That said, we still easily could have won this game, if not for a questionable interference call on Braun-co that led to the game-tying 6-on-4 goal. The defensive breakdowns on both that penalty kill and the Wong game-winner cannot be overlooked. The defense has been up-and-down this year, no question, and this was a low. Just painful all-around, especially if QU’s smoke-and-mirrors show falls apart in the second half. At least it wasn’t a league game.

12/4 vs. Boston College

For all the hype and for everything that went into this game – my visitors from home who came up to see the game (my cousin’s first ever UMass game, in fact), the huge crowd, etc; this was probably the most boring game of the year. I walked down to Parking Services that afternoon to pick up some tickets for my sister and her friends, and I remember thinking, “It’s 50 degrees out. I can feel the Mullins ice melting. We’re going to lose.”

Briefly, I thought I would be wrong when Jimmy wrapped around that goal in the opening minutes, but it quickly became apparent that nobody could fucking skate on this ice, and the speed and finesse game UMass relies so heavily upon just does not work on bad ice. Again, it’s been talked to death on UMassHoops, but for those who don’t read it, the Mullins Center has one compressor which it shares with the practice rink (which, for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, has an open-skate/shoot session during UMass hockey games). This is not true about any other rink in Hockey East. As a result, the ice is a huge slushy mess whenever it’s unseasonably warm in Amherst. I swear this is not a conspiracy theory.

Other excuses? What the hell was Watson doing on the top line with Jimmy and Casey? I really hope this decision was more “let’s give Syner just a bit more time recovering from that injury before we stick him on the first line again” but I fear it was Toot trying to overmanage this team. Whatever it was, it didn’t work, and I never want to see it again.

That being said, I really wasn’t all that impressed with BC. UMass was able to get myriad chances, and on another night, they might have gotten a little luckier. Those freshman defenders are pretty good, but again, the game slowed down for them quite a bit. Thankfully, this won’t be a problem for the next two meetings, and since BC has gone from middle-of-the-pack to national championship contenders in a matter of weeks, the two remaining meetings have become that much bigger. The NESN game in February will be massive. Mark my words.

12/5 at Lowell

Warning: Lowell rant forthcoming.

My 22nd birthday was the Monday following this game. Now, the worst thing that happened to me this weekend was Rivers Cuomo getting in a bus accident and getting my birthday Weezer/Motion City Soundtrack concert in Boston cancelled. But this was 2nd – yes, even worse than losing to BC.

Now, last year, it would’ve been different. I liked Lowell, I really did. They were a scrappy bunch of kids that gave BU all it could handle in the HEA championship game (I still rooted for the Terriers, of course, but that’s just personal bias). “UMass Jr.” was an affectionate little name for these guys. It was good to see someone else from the middle of the HEA pack succeed. It gave us hope.

This year, something happened to these guys. They fell in love with themselves. Mostly because, with so many big names in HEA graduating or fleeing to the NHL, everyone looked at the team who had the most coming back. (This involved overlooking UMass, due to their seven graduating seniors; completely ignoring the fact that a bunch of those guys were dead weight at this point, and that all the guys who carried UMass to being a goal away from knocking off Northeastern last year were coming back a year older and wiser.) Certainly, Lowell had a lot coming back as well, but people seemed to conveniently forget that these guys didn’t actually win anything last year. They rode a hot streak into the playoffs, and came one pretty horrible officiating decision short of stealing the Hockey East title.

But the expectations and swagger displayed by their rabid fanbase far overstretch what most people look at as “reasonable,” to the point where not being picked to win Hockey East, something they’ve never ever done, was seen as outrageous disrespect. Umm, okay. Whatever.

What grinds my gears more than anything, though, is this notion that Lowell is somehow a far superior hockey program to UMass. Yes, Lowell has had far more success in the season series. They’ve had our number, in good years and bad. For whatever reason, we don’t match up well with the Loch Monsters (or is it River Hawks? They both sound like AHL teams). But we’ve been to one HEA championship game. They’ve been to two. Neither of us have won it all yet. Meanwhile, we’ve been to the NCAA tournament once, and even pulled an upset in it. They…haven’t. Ever. EDIT: Just kidding, further research shows that they actually have made it on 3 occasions, with a grand total of 2 wins in those trips, making it further in the tournament than UMass exactly zero times. Yeah, yeah, they were a successful D2 program back in the day. Good for them. Doesn’t count.

Look, I’m not trying to say the Minutemen are in the BC-BU-UNH-Maine level of Hockey East prestige. We’re not. At all. But neither is Lowell, not even close. Of late, we’re both middle-of-the-pack teams, with an opportunity to break out of that rut this year. They’re on the same level as we are. Which, I guess, is all you can ask for when you’re Lowell, because that would be the ONLY thing Lowell Community College has that is on the same level as the University of Massachusetts. (That goes back to my hatred for the question “Which one?” but that’s a whole other rant which I’ll get to someday soon.)

Which is why this loss hurts so much more. We had them on the ropes, they lost 3 straight before this game, and proceeded to suffer maybe the worst loss in Hockey East this year (3-2 at home to Princeton, which had been winless on the road) the very next weekend. “Tailspin” doesn’t begin to describe it. We grabbed a 2-0 lead, everything was looking up, and then we blow a long 5-on-3, Ortiz takes a dumb penalty, and it was downhill from there. After we fell down 3-2, there was even hope when Syner found Mikey to tie it up early in the 3rd, but for the first time I think all season, we got badly outplayed in the 3rd period.

Whatever. Lowell desperately needed this win, and it showed. But the battle of the state schools in mid-January will probably be two of the biggest games of the year. A sweep for us would bury their season. A sweep for them would put them right back in it, and we’ll never hear the end of it. I’ll be there for both games so we damn well better win one. I’m still owed a birthday present.

12/12 vs. Merrimack

Ahh. Much better. 4-1 doesn’t even really tell the story; the boys came out guns a-blazin’ in the first two periods and put this one away early. The early-season hype for the Warriors looked pretty silly; these guys didn’t look like a D1 hockey team (save for Da Costa, who is the real deal). But hey, HEA points are HEA points and we’ll take ’em. Good exclamation point for a dynamite first half for Ortiz, too.

…Phew. So that’s what’s happened so far. The wait ends in just three days. Last few years, we’re used to looking back at the first half as the “glory days” of the season. Not this time.

-Max