Alaska Blanks St. Lawrence in Lake Placid

Alaska Fairbanks won its first game since Oct. 18 with a 2-0 victory over St. Lawrence yesterday in the semifinal round of the 2025 Adirondack Winter Invitational in Lake Placid, N.Y.

William Fleet and Michael Citara provided all the offense needed for the Nanooks (3-8-1 overall) with second-period goals, while Lassi Lehti made 19 saves for his first shutout of the season and the third of his UAF career. Colin Winn recorded 23 stops for the Saints (2-12-1) as SLU lost its sixth straight contest.

Alaska will play for the tournament title tonight against Clarkson, a 2-0 winner over UMass Lowell in the other semifinal, at Herb Brooks Arena.

ADDENDUM: The Nanooks claimed the Adirondack Winter Invitational championship with a 3-2 triumph over Clarkson in the title contest. Lehti finished with 21 saves in net, while Citara scored UAF's first two goals and Rylen Roersma tallied the game-winner late in the third period. UMass Lowell took third place by beating St. Lawrence, 7-2.

45 Years Ago Today in Lake Placid ...

 

R.I.P. Mark Wells

 

39 Years Ago Today in Lake Placid ...

" .. this impossible dream has come true ..."

USA 4, Finland 2 #MiracleonIce #1980OlympicGold

Princeton Wins 2018 ECAC Men's Hockey Championship

Every year that ends in a number eight is a good one for the Princeton Tigers. At least it’s been that way the last 20 seasons.

Now 2018 has joined 1998 and 2008 as years in which Princeton won the Whitelaw Cup as ECAC Hockey champions. The Tigers outlasted Clarkson, 2-1, in overtime at Herb Brooks Arena in Lake Placid on Saturday evening to win their seventh straight game, and their first league title in a decade.

Max Becker, who wears No. 8 for Princeton, scored just in front of the Clarkson net in the third minute of the extra session to send the Tigers to their fourth NCAA Tournament ever, and their first since 2009. Princeton had held a 1-0 lead since the first period on a goal by Josh Teves, and made it stand up until Josh Dickinson deflected home a screened shot with seven seconds remaining in regulation to tie it for the Golden Knights, who had pulled goaltender Jake Kielly (21 saves) for an extra attacker.

Ryan Ferland, who was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, finished with 31 stops for Princeton, which was outshot, 32-23. The two teams combined to go 0-for-3 on the power play, while Clarkson won 28 of the game's 51 faceoffs.

Princeton need the victory on Saturday to qualify for the NCAA Division I Men’s Hockey Tournament, as its only road to the nationals was with the automatic NCAA bid awarded to the ECAC Tournament champion. Clarkson had already virtually locked up one of the 16 spots in the field due to its higher standing in the Pairwise Rankings (PWR), which mimics the NCAA selection process.

The 2018 NCAA Tournament bracket will be announced at 12 p.m. ET on Sunday on ESPNU.

Morris Takes Over at St. Lawrence

Former Clarkson University head coach Mark Morris is the new bench boss at North Country rival St. Lawrence University.

Morris, who coached the Golden Knights from 1988 to 2002 and led them to nine NCAA Tournament berths in 15 seasons, will take over at Appleton Arena this fall in place of Greg Carvel, who left Canton last month to take the top job at Massachusetts.

A 1981 Colgate graduate, Morris, 58, posted a 306-156-42 mark in Potsdam, according to USCHO.com. He guided Clarkson to five Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference hockey regular-season championships and three league tournament titles in his tenure, plus five consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances from 1995 to 1999. 

Morris, who was an assistant at both Union College and St. Lawrence prior to taking over at Clarkson, according to hockeydb.com, has spent the time since Clarkson coaching professional and prep school hockey. He is the only head coach to win at least 300 games both professionally and in college hockey in North America.

A native of Massena, N.Y., Morris was a four-year letterman on the blueline at Colgate, tallying 73 points in 116 career games for the Raiders while helping them to the NCAA Tournament as a senior. He then played professionally with Dallas (CHL) and New Haven (AHL) before embarking on his coaching career with Union in 1984-85.

ECAC Quarterfinals this Weekend

The quarterfinal round of the 2015 ECAC Division I Men's Hockey Tournament is set, as outlined at USCHO.com, following last week's best-of-three opening round for the bottom eight seeds:

No. 10 Union at No. 1 Quinnipiac (Season series: Quinnipiac won, 2-0)

No. 9 Rensselaer at No. 2 St. Lawrence (Season series: Tied, 1-1)

No. 6 Harvard at No.3 Yale (Season series: Yale won, 3-0)

No. 5 Dartmouth at No. 4 Colgate (Season series: Colgate won, 1-0-1)

Union ousted No. 7 Cornell in two games over the weekend, including a 7-0 win in the clincher on Saturday. Rensselaer advanced after outlasting Clarkson in three games, the only conference first-round series to go the distance. Harvard swept No. 11 Brown, and Dartmouth did likewise with No. 12 Princeton.

The quarterfinal winners advance to the single-elimination ECAC Championship in Lake Placid on March 20-21, with the conference's automatic berth in the 2015 NCAA Tournament at stake. Union has won the last three Whitelaw Cups.

Hockey East, ECAC Tournament Fields Set

The first round of the 2015 Hockey East men’s championship is set. This year’s opening round will be best-of-three series for the lower eight seeds, instead of the single-elimination games that were played last season. Higher seeds will be the host teams:

No. 5 Notre Dame vs. No. 12 Massachusetts

No. 6 Northeastern vs. Mo. 11 Merrimack

No. 7 Vermont vs. No. 10 Maine

No. 8 New Hampshire vs. No. 9 Connecticut

The survivors will be re-seeded and will advance to the second round, also on best-of-three and played on campus sites. Having byes this week are the conference’s top four finishers, Boston University, Providence, Boston College, and UMass Lowell, who will all host games on March 13-15.

The four second-round victors will then advance to the Hockey East semifinals at TD Garden in Boston on March 20-21 for single-elimination matchups , with the winner claiming Hockey East’s automatic bid to the 2015 NCAA Tournament. UMass Lowell won its first league postseason title last season.

The Eastern College Athletic Conference's men’s division championship will open its own best-of-three first round set of series this weekend, with the top four seeds having byes, and the bottom eight looking to advance to next week. Higher seed is again the host school:

No. 5 Dartmouth vs. No. 12 Princeton

No. 6 vs. No. 11 Brown

No. 7 Cornell vs. No. 10 Union

No. 8 Clarkson vs. No. 9 Rensselaer

Winners will be re-seeded to face the top four teams in Quinnipiac, St. Lawrence, Yale and Colgate in best-of-three series played on campus sites. The four second-round winners will be off to Lake Placid on March 20-21 for the ECAC Championship and its single-elimination contests, with the ECAC’s automatic bid to the 2015 NCAA Tournament at stake. Union is the defending three-time ECAC Tournament champion.

Utica One of Four Left for Division III Men's Frozen Four This Weekend

The final weekend of the NCAA Division III men's campaign is here, with just four teams left to compete for the national title.

The semifinals will be held tomorrow in Lake Placid, N.Y., with No. 2 Norwich taking on No. 3 Oswego, and No. 4 Wisconsin Eau Claire facing fellow Frozen Four rookie No. 7 Utica. The championship game will take place on Saturday.

Norwich has won three national titles in its history, while Oswego won it all in 2007 and was runner-up to St. Norbert last year. Eau Claire topped both St. John's (Minn.) and No.1 St. Norbert to open this year's tournament, while ECAC West regular-season champion Utica ousted No. 5 Bowdoin last weekend in its NCAAs debut.

More on Utica and its quest for its first national title can be found here.

ADDENDUM: Utica fell to Wisconsin Eau Claire on Friday by a 5-1 score. The Blugolds will now take on Oswego, a 6-3 winner over Norwich, in the NCAA Division III title game on Saturday. Utica finishes the campaign at 21-6-1 overall.

ECAC Headed Back North in 2014

Just when I get back from Atlantic City, the Eastern College Athletic Conference Hockey Championship is also getting ready to leave the "World's Favorite Playground".

After two years of very low attendance, and likely another one in March, on the fabled Boardwalk in southern New Jersey, the ECAC announced last week that it will be returning its men’s hockey semifinals and final to Lake Placid in 2014 for the first year of a three-year deal.

The ECAC previously held its title tilt in Lake Placid from 1993 to 2002 before shifting to Albany in 2003 and then Atlantic City in 2011.

I had the feeling last week while walking the Boardwalk that the ECAC was going to pull the plug on AC after that three-year deal expires in 2013. As compared to the last two Augusts, there was virtually no promotion near the site of the 86-year-old venue, Boardwalk Hall, nor anywhere else for that matter.

The past two years saw a large four-color banner that featured all twelve ECAC school logos and a color photo either of game action or a past champion, announcing the championship rounds, stretched across the outside of the venerable facility. This year there was a small green-on-white placard mounted on a column that announced next spring’s playoff, the winner of which gets the league’s automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.

That small sign was it for marketing, as far as I saw.

There was also the standard inflatable goal-shooting game outside the arena, where kids could step up and take a shot on a plastic net  –  but hardly anyone was using it the day of the annual Atlantic City “Thunder Over the Boardwalk” air show, which in itself didn’t seem quite as heavily populated as in the past.

It’s just as well. Atlantic City is a great place with a lot of tradition, but unfortunately ice hockey doesn’t rank very highly on that list. The Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies (still can’t stand that name) won an East Coast Hockey League title in 2003, and then moved to California two years later simply because they couldn’t get enough people out of the casinos and into their games.

Lake Placid isn’t exactly inexpensive, and isn’t easy to get to in late winter – but no one can say it lacks hockey tradition. The Olympic ice surface may be larger than what Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Union and the other seven league schools are used to; but with the memory of the “Miracle on Ice” as strong as ever 30-plus years later, the ECAC returning to upstate New York for its conference championship will definitely be like coming home.