Team Overview: The Mules enter this season looking for some depth having played several games down the stretch with a limited number of skaters. “We will have a lot better numbers this season, noted head Coach Jim Tortorella. We have a nice mix of some veteran guys and some new guys that should help us. TJ (Kelley) and Josh (Reber) are becoming proven players in this league and Arthur (Fritch) is becoming one of the dominant defensemen in the league.”
All three players are juniors and are a big factor in the Colby offense. Kelley finished last season with forty points on sixteen goals and twenty-four assists while Reber had an impressive thirty-two assists to go with six goals for thirty-eight points. Fritch contributed form the blue line with seven goals and nineteen assists for twenty-six points including four power play goals and two game winners.
Senior Ben Grandjean will be back in goal this season having played in seventeen of the team’s games last season. He finished 9-5-1 with a 2.71 goals-against average and .916 save percentage. The White Mules are stingy on defense and solid goaltending is expected to contribute to success in their system.
Special Teams: Colby has long had a tradition of having strong special teams. “It’s something we practice everyday,” said Tortorella. “It’s about building momentum and not necessarily generating goals every time out there.” Senior Greg Osborne will look to build on his success from last year where eleven of his seventeen goals came on the power play.
Schedule: People love to talk about great college hockey rivalries like BC v. BU or Michigan v. Michigan State and even at the D-III level Middlebury v. Norwich — but it might not get any better at any level than a home-and-home series in December between in-state rivals Colby and Bowdoin. This weekend hockey extravaganza becomes a big deal at both schools including added alumni games. It really has become something special as organized by Coach Tortorella and his Bowdoin counterpart, Terry Meagher. Worth the price of admission at either venue on Dec. 8 and 9.
Summary: A strong junior class and a senior goalie who knows the value of a big save will help Colby to the upper echelon of the league this season.
