Around ECAC Hockey
Before I get started with this week's look at other teams in ECAC Hockey it's time to congratulate the only person to get last week's trivia question correct.
The question was: What was the last U.S. college team Clarkson played an exhibition game against?
The answer, submitted by Dave Minard, was Boston University in the 1997-98 season.
I admit it was a bit of a trick question. Clarkson opened the 1997-98 season by playing in the first Ice Breaker Tournament. The Golden Knights lost 7-1 to Wisconsin and then lost 4-3 to Boston University in the consolation game.
After the team returned home it found out that the games were not going to be considered regular-season games, but instead were exhibition contests. From that point on, however, the Ice Breaker games have always counted.
Is This RPI's Breakout Year?
If you are relatively new to following college hockey you might be surprised to find out that Rensselaer was once one of the top programs in ECAC Hockey.
The Engineers won a national championship in 1985 and had a 22-15-2 record as recently as the 2003-04 season.
But the program has fallen on hard times since, losing 20 games three times in the last five years, including a nightmare 10-27-2 season last year.
Is time running out for fourth-year coach Seth Appert, who has a 31-68-14 record?
Appert doesn't think so. He has brought in some good recruits since arriving in Troy from his job as an assistant coach at Denver.
"I think we should win this year," Appert told the Albany Times-Union. "I am a patient man but, certainly it is time to put wins up on the board. And I expect our team to do so."
Appert's incoming freshman class was ranked ninth in the nation and overall the Engineers have six players who are NHL draft picks.
"Generally speaking, it's easier to transition in young forwards," Appert told the Times-Union. "Forwards can make mistakes and sometimes nobody notices. Defensemen make mistakes and a lot of people notice. When goalies make mistakes, everybody notices."
New Helmet Design at Harvard
An article in Harvard's student paper, the Harvard Gazette, revealed that the Crimson will wear helmets designed by Cascade Sports, in collaboration with former NHL standout Mark Messier, this season.
The Helmets, whose idea came from Messier and his sister, Mary-Kay, are designed to help reduce concussions.
"When Mark started coaching and mentoring and saw the same kind of devastating consequences endured by kids, he really was concerned about it," Mary-Kay Messier told the Gazette.
The duo showed the helmet to Harvard's equipment manager John O'Donnell, who was looking for better helmets after Harvard had three players suffer concussions in one game last year.
"It was a concern of mine, equipmentwise, that maybe we should be doing something more," O'Donnell told the Gazette. "I was worried about the 30 guys in the room, keeping them in the lineup."
The helmet has three key features to make it safer. Ninety percent of the helmet is made from one shell, so it provides more protection on impact. It has a contour system to fit better and the helmet laterally displaces energy from direct impacts.
A Look Back, A Look Ahead
Here are last weekend's exhibition scores:
Saturday
Prince Edward Island 3, RPI 3
Colgate 6, Waterloo 3
Clarkson 6, Toronto 1
Sunday
Quinnipiac 4, Prince Edward Island 3
St. Lawrence 2, Toronto 1
This weekend's schedule:
Tonight
Quinnipiac at Ohio State, 7 p.m.
RPI at Massachusetts, 7 p.m.
Friday
Icebreaker Tournament at Omaha, SLU vs. UMass.-Lowell, 7 p.m.
Clarkson at Michigan State, 7 p.m.
Maine at Union, 7 p.m.
Colgate at Niagara, 7 p.m.
Saturday
New Hampshire at RPI, 7 p.m.
Clarkson at Michigan State, 7 p.m.
Colgate at RIT, 7 p.m. (Time Warner Sports)
IceBreaker, SLU in consolation/final, TBA
