We’ve reached the unofficial halfway point in the Hockey East season.
Unfortunately, your usual scribe, John Doyle, is under the weather so you’re stuck with yours truly filling in to give some thoughts – with the assistance of Hockey East commissioner Steve Metcalf – on some of the topics around the league and college hockey.
Get well very soon, JD!
So, in no particular order, here are a few bullet points from the season to date:
• The standings are hardly what anyone expected. The two teams sitting atop the league are Merrimack, picked to finish eighth and Connecticut, chosen seventh preseason by the coaches. Back in 2019, the athletic directors voted to eliminate the bottom three teams from the postseason. Because of the COVID-shortened 2019-20 season and changes made during the COVID-challenged season of 2020-21, it was the only year in recent history that teams were eliminated after the regular season.
Two of the teams to miss the postseason that year? You guessed it – Merrimack and UConn. Which proves a team’s fate can change rather quickly.
“Any preconceived notions that you have about, ‘This is the way it used to be in Hockey East,’ are gone. Now it’s just so competitive and deep,” said Metcalf. “There’s a combination of new kids coming into the programs. Whether it be from another program, a grad transfer or a freshman, some of these kids can really change the way the program looks like.”
• Metcalf is a PairWise watcher. He admits that every Monday morning it’s part of his routine, and as things get later in the season, those checks of the rankings that mimic the NCAA tournament selection process become even more frequent. And right now, you have to like what you see for Hockey East. The league has six teams in the top 16, including aforementioned Merrimack leading the way in third. Add to that Boston University, UConn, UMass, UMass Lowell and Providence with both Boston College and Northeastern – a team currently battling injuries that will be dangerous if it gets healthy – sitting near the PairWise bubble.
• Non-league play has been good to Hockey East thus far, with teams posting an impressive .629 winning percentage outside of conference play. The only league with a better mark is the Big Ten, which is winning at a .758 clip.
Surprising to note, though, is that Hockey East still has almost 40 percent of its non-conference games ahead of it. The first few weeks back from break combined with the Beanpot games for BC, BU and Northeastern, as well as teams that fill second-half conference bye weeks with non-conference games will account for the more than 40 games remaining out-of-conference.
• It doesn’t take a conversation with Metcalf to understand that the return of the Friendship Four, the Thanksgiving weekend tournament played in Belfast, Northern Ireland, was a smashing success. With more than 22,000 fans passing through the turnstiles of SSE Arena, it’s clear that the region was more than happy to welcome the event back for the first time since November 2019.
And while there is a strong desire to keep things going with this event, Metcalf says that it is more likely than not that the tournament will alternate between a men’s and women’s event each year going forward. Thus, the 2023 edition will likely be comprised of women’s teams before the men head back to Belfast in 2024.
“Belfast will continue, which is good news,” Metcalf said. “It will be women’s games in 2023, so next season, and then the men are likely going to an every-other-year tournament.”
All great news as international hockey is great for Hockey East and college hockey.
• There are a lot of new faces around the league right now. Sure, there were two new coaches this year in Jay Pandolfo at BU and Greg Brown at BC (two hires that could be filed under the “that was obvious category.”) But you also have four new athletic directors that will help guide and shape this league in the coming years.
A couple of those faces were very familiar as Boston College hired former Maine AD Blake James to take over their department. And after legendary AD Bob Driscoll retired at Providence, he was replaced by Steve Napolillo, who has nearly two decades of leadership experience in Providence College athletics, including being an integral part of the committee that hired current coach Nate Leaman.
The other two faces aren’t as familiar to Hockey East. Maine this week announced that Jude Killy will take over as AD in late January. Killy does come from a college hockey school, Miami. And New Hampshire hired Allison Rich, who spent the last nine seasons at Princeton.
Having a college hockey background is hardly a requirement for an AD position, but for any commissioner having those athletic directors familiar with the nuts and bolts of a niche sport like hockey is a luxury.
“It’s great having [ADs] in those positions who support hockey, and are familiar with hockey,” said Metcalf. “That’s good for me. For our schools, hockey is a priority. It’s great to have ADs in there that a very familiar with college hockey.”
• Another great thing for college hockey was the recent announcement that outgoing Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker will be taking over as president of the NCAA in March. It may not seem like a direct correlation to college hockey or Hockey East, but Baker is indeed a college hockey fan.
He recently traveled to Belfast for the Friendship Four and, as Metcalf noted, was very into the games, especially as UMass came within a hair of knocking off Quinnipiac in the title game, a tie and shootout loss for the Minutemen.
But Metcalf recounted a conversation he had with Baker while in Belfast about the 2014 Union team that won the national championship. Baker’s son was attending Union at the time and the family followed the team’s Cinderella run to the national title.
“He was shooting off names of players like Shane Gostisbehere and their goaltender [Colin Stevens],” said Metcalf. “He feels like he’s a pretty good fan.”
• And finally, if you don’t have them yet, now is a perfect time to purchase tickets to Frozen Fenway and the 2023 Hockey East championship at the TD Garden. Both make great holiday presents!
