BGSU Update & What The Hell Is A Lord Jeff?

I just wanted to add a couple of things to the Bowling Green Hockey story here so you the faithful few can help the cause as best as one can do on the Internet.

First off, you can do your part to stay apprised on new information and fun ways to try and reach out to the BGSU administration by checking out the Facebook group "Save BGSU Hockey!" and joining up with them. If you're not on Facebook, where the hell have you been?

One thing that's been mentioned in the discussion over there is how, on top of funding for improvements to the hockey team's facilities being cut and the building of the Sebo Center for the football program there's also another massive project underway at Bowling Green that was just announced in December.

The university has unveiled the design of the Stroh Center, the new campus basketball arena. I'm not going to point out the obvious here about their new facility sharing the name of a legendary brewery but I will at least show you this that by doing so, you'll further upset the hockey gods:


Stroh's: Good enough for Mario, yet not good enough for BGSU Hockey

The cost of the Stroh Center is slated to clock in at around $36 million dollars. I guess it would be unreasonable to ask that this be a multi-purpose arena.

Wait? It is?

The 131,000 square-foot building will also house the Champions Court practice facility, a BGSU team store, the BGSU Hall of Fame, the University’s main ticket office, athletic offices for men’s basketball, women’s basketball and women’s volleyball, conference and video rooms and sports medicine areas.

Oh, I see. BGSU Hall of Fame? I guess that won't have any mention of hockey there, right? You know, once they make the program a distant memory and all, right? I can see the entry for Rob Blake now...


What's this "hockey" you speak of?

That seems fitting. I'm sure this will be placed right next to the NCAA Championship trophy that'll be covered in dust and buried in the back of the display case behind all the MAC basketball participation trophies.

I guess my point here is that if you're in charge of a university's spending and you're contemplating cutting off programs, ones that at one time were powerful National Championship programs, because of budget concerns... Why build a new arena with that money?

Oh I get it that the Stroh family gave them an $8 million gift to erect something in their name and they're very generous for that, but that's still $28 million coming from elsewhere, $22 million of which is coming from each BGSU student in the form of a $60 student fee.

Real nice, right? I guess asking for fiscal responsibility or accountability or even common sense is asking for the world. Amazing.

I have a feeling we'll be revisiting this story more in the future.

As for actual hockey that's going to be played...

Gross Misconduct is hitting the road for more Back To School action - this time I'll be heading to Amherst, Massachusetts for the NCAA Division III Quarterfinals between the Hobart Statesmen and the Amherst Lord Jeffs.

Wait, the what now? Lord Jeffs?!

Yes, it's true - Division III hockey is made all the more entertaining by the incredible nicknames many of the teams have. In Amherst's case, a ridiculous team nickname is made much less intimidating and impressive when you look at a picture of the man responsible for the name.


Lord Jeffrey Amherst: Supermodel

Be afraid everyone! It's the dandy fops!

With that said, Lord Amherst was a real son of a bitch to deal with during the French and Indian Wars and might be one of the most sadistic people around as he's credited with being the first military man to incorporate germ warfare into his strategy.

I'm not joking. Quoth Lord Amherst:

Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them.

Yes, but you see, Native American nicknames are a big problem in college sports.

Right.

Aside from that, I don't think I'll be accepting any free gifts the college might hand out, my paranoia level is sky high after reading this. Then again, after reading all that information about Lord Jeffrey Amherst, the Hobart nickname of Statesmen seems even more cartoonish than their logo:


Ooooh... Scary!

Hobart would be better off posting a picture of the least favorite Congressman or Senator at the time to scare people, but they apparently want to avoid rioting. I can't really fault them for that.

Amherst earned their way to the quarterfinals by defeating Babson College 4-1 and Hobart advanced after taking out Nichols College 3-0. The winner of this game advances to Division III Frozen Four in Lake Placid to face the winner of the Plattsburgh State-Neumann College game, so to say it's kind of a big deal is an understatement.

Cancelling Falcons Crest

I've been jumping back into my collegiate hockey roots here a bit because, frankly, this point of the NHL season bores me while also making me furious. I know that the playoff races are crazy and "anything can shake loose" and all that. I get it, that's great, that's fine. Whatever.

It bores me because you have mediocre teams stepping up their play when they've been sleepwalking all season long and you've got teams that have been legitimately great all year dogging it because they're equal parts injured or bored and have coasted along waiting for the playoffs to begin. It happens every season and it's frustrating to try and cover. I made my calls on who was missing the playoffs before the season was even starting and somehow it's looking like I'm going to be, at worst, 60% correct.

Suck on that Dwayne Klessel.

With that said, it's not all sunshine and rainbows in the college game. It's conference playoff time in Division I and NCAA Tournament time in Division III, and that's the greatest time of the year to be a college hockey fan - but there's dire talk coming out of Ohio.

College Hockey News broke a story discussing the financial muck and mire the Bowling Green University program is in:

Bowling Green school president Dr. Carol Cartwright was rumored to have made a recommendation that cutting hockey be one of the options. University trustee Michael Marsh denied that was the case, and said that decisions on alleviating a large budget shortfall would come from the athletic director Greg Christopher.

If you've been following college hockey for any amount of time, this story line isn't anything new. Last season, Wayne State University ended their program thanks to budget cutbacks in higher education in the state of Michigan. It's an all too familiar story and with college hockey not being one of the cheapest sports to maintain, especially if you don't own your own facility, it's one that hurts schools that haven't been successful at all.

That's not the case with Bowling Green.

Bowling Green University boasts a pretty impressive list of players who have come out of there. Take a look at the names on this list:

Rob Blake: Former L.A. King and current San Jose Sharks defenseman.

Ken Morrow: Former Islanders defenseman and member of the 1980 "Miracle On Ice" Olympic gold medal winners in the Lake Placid games.

George McPhee: A Hobey Baker Award winner and former NHL'er now currently the general manager of the Washington Capitals.

Dan Bylsma: Former NHL journeyman and now head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Kevin Bieksa: Current Vancouver Canucks defenseman.

The list of other former players at BGSU includes 80s and 90s hockey "That Guys" like Garry Galley, Todd Rierden, Nelson Emerson, Brian Holzinger, Mike Liut, Paul Ysebaert, and Greg de Vries.

A couple of the other names familiar with Bowling Green hockey come from their 1984 National Championship team.

Oh, did I forget to mention that BGSU won a title? Yeah, these kinds of things can get forgotten about apparently.

A few of the players on that team have moved on to become great coaches in college hockey, among them RIT's Wayne Wilson, Ohio State's John Markell, Clarkson's George Roll and current Bowling Green head coach Scott Paluch.

Roll in particular had a lot to say about this news with Bowling Green. More from the CHN story:

I don't know the specifics. I do know I have a lot of pride from that program, it was the best years or my life, and I hate to see the program being treated this way.

I don't think the program has been supported like it needs to, just from things I've heard. Being there this year (with Clarkson), the rink clearly needs work. There's a lot of talk amongst alumni in the last couple days. We're doing what we can.

This is what it boils down to for programs in positions like this: Donations from the alumni.

What's worse is that BGSU had planned to do improvements to the home rink but eventually cut the budget down for such things so much they bagged it entirely - money likely reallocated and spent on the football program and to make improvements to Doyt Perry Stadium - including the brand new Sebo Center which attaches to the stadium and is meant to be an all-purpose athletic facility.

What's sadder still is that it took donations from NHL players Rob Blake and Nelson Emerson to even get improvements to the team's locker room handled. Don't get me wrong here, money in college is always better spent on education but given how much students fork over to attend there, monies ponied up from state taxpayers or extremely wealthy donors that enjoy seeing their name carved in stone - it probably wouldn't hurt to see a few things kept up to code, at the least.


Shouldn't a former championship program deserve a better fate than this?

What happens next? Will a big donor or two come forth and help, and (pardon the phrasing it can't be helped here) bail out the program and get it set on the correct course? Will there be a farewell tour next season for the Falcons where they, essentially, play a lame duck season knowing full-well that they're done after the year (similar to what happened to Wayne State)?

It's tough to say, but if I'm going to lean any way on this: I have to think the axe is going to fall and Division I hockey gets a team lighter. Why? Simple. The president of Bowling Green State University has overseen this type of thing before.

Dr. Carol Cartwright is an esteemed woman in academia and someone who is highly regarded at being one of the best in the country at running a university. She's also the woman with the blood of the Kent State Golden Flashes hockey program on her hands.

In 1991, Cartwright was named president of Kent State and in 1994, the program called it quits. Cartwright was just named president of Bowling Green State in January and sees a failing and faltering program that is draining money and not making any of it back. Frankly, in her position you can see why she would make a recommendation to cut the program.

The Falcons suffer greatly in attendance, playing to a 40.9% (2,044 out of 5,000) full arena on average, a mark only better than a few schools: American International, Sacred Heart, Bentley, Alabama-Huntsville, and Ohio State.

The first three schools listed there play to less than an average of 500 fans per game in venues that hold less than 2,000 people. Compare that to Alabama-Huntsville who is in a similar situation to Bowling Green meanwhile Ohio State draws nearly 4,200 per game inside the cavernous Value City Arena at the Jerome Schottenstein Center on the OSU campus, a facility they share with the basketball team.

If folks aren't going to the games, you're not making ticket revenue, people aren't buying team gear - all of that. Then again, who wants to go to an arena that hasn't seen improvements made to it since the school last won a National Championship.

You get back what you put into things and in the case with the Bowling Green hockey program, it appears not much other than basic maintenance and budgeting has been put into it and it's shown in the standings. They haven't made an NCAA Tournament appearance since 1990, and they haven't been above .500 since the 1996-1997 season under coach Buddy Powers.

The school is then in the position of deciding whether or not to reward mediocrity and apparently opted not to while ignoring the fact that having sub-par facilities go a long way towards making a program more successful and bringing in better recruits and putting a winner on the ice that folks want to come watch.

In the financial "chicken or egg" way of thinking, the school administrators simply understand that neither the chicken nor the eggs are making any money and that's all that matters. If the eggs weren't rotten or the chickens were more palatable, then maybe BGSU doesn't have to worry.

Maybe.

The administrators don't have the time nor the patience to worry and they need financial results fast and a good way to score a few hundred thousand dollars is to cut off a program that's not getting it done.

At other schools where this has happened, a lack of success can be blamed but ultimately it's not athletics people are plunking their money down for at those schools (namely Fairfield and Iona College most recently). Sure, they've got football teams too but hockey doesn't carry the zest for any of the big money alums from places like that - there's no history for hockey and unless you're hamstrung by Title IX concerns and money worries, football will always stick around.

BGSU has history and a damn good one at that. This isn't going to be a quiet dismissal the way Fairfield, Iona, Wayne State, Findlay, Kent State and Illinois-Chicago were before.

This one will be loud and it will be felt across the hockey landscape and a lot of the blame can rest on the shoulders of the administration that turned their backs on it for so long.

Bowling Green has been given nothing and now there may be nothing to get back. Maybe this can all be averted but with an announcement like this sneaking out at the end of the season, I can't help but figure that bad news for hockey at Bowling Green is coming sooner than not.

Trade Deadline - Going Wild!

Very literally I'm going Wild - I've got a new column over at Hockey Wilderness dealing with the Wild... not dealing.



Again, as always, pay a visit over to SBN with neide and buddhafisch they do a KILLER job there covering one of the most frustrating teams in the NHL.

Be nice and lend them a soft shoulder to weep on because their team's management hates the fans a lot.

Ahoy - It's the NHL's Great Green Whale

I know when you think of a hockey relic, some think of Gordie Howe or even Red Kelly. Some might think of Don Cherry, although it'd be safe to say that his opinions on the game are even older than he is and twice as tired.

In the current NHL landscape where anything going back as far as (gasp!) 15 years ago seems like and is treated like ancient history, there's one hockey relic that always brings back fond thoughts.



Bow before your legendary icon.

That's right, the Whale.

What folks might not be realizing is that the NHL is very slowly, semi-secretly doing their part to try and win back the city of Hartford and win back the hearts of folks like myself who can hear the strains of "Brass Bonanza" whenever they set foot into a hockey rink.

I just received an NHL Catalog in the mail and was stunned and amazed to see photos of an NHL sweatshirt on sale in there emblazoned with the classing Whalers logo.



This jobber doesn't even realize the greatness he's modeling.

Not only was it that, but it was part of a small collection of other highly-priced NEW Whalers merchandise on sale by the NHL.

This amazed me because the logo is owned by the Connecticut Development Authority and not the NHL. To put the logo on any merchandise you have to get permission from the CDA to make it happen and, let's face it, the NHL doesn't exactly enjoy legal wrangling with anyone. Of course, in this case, there's money to be made for the NHL and Whalers merchandise, after not being available now for the better part of 10+ years would sell like crazy to people like me who look for it on Ebay.

Something is afoot here and the NHL is getting back in touch with the folks in Connecticut and not just for a way to get money out of our wallets. They're also looking into seeing what the city of Hartford has to offer as the home of an NHL franchise once again.

What, you don't believe me? Then explain this:

Mayor (Eddie)Perez, along with Andy Bessette, Chief Administrative Officer of the Travelers Insurance Company (who is leading a task force on private sector support for a new arena) and Oz Griebel, CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance, discussed with Commissioner Bettman the potential for including an NHL franchise in future plans for the development of a new Hartford arena.

“Today’s meeting with Commissioner Bettman was an excellent opportunity to let him know that Hartford remains interested in bringing the NHL back to Connecticut’s Capital City. We had a very good discussion and the Commissioner was generous with his time and thoughts about what was necessary for an NHL franchise to succeed,” Mayor Perez stated.

Incredible, right? After all, the NHL was more than happy to run screaming from Hartford (with Peter Karmanos' help) and head to North Carolina.

Herr Bettman doing something to reach out to other cities, even ones that used to have hockey and didn't do well to sustain themselves. I wonder what the folks in Winnipeg think about this.

What's even more amazing about all of this is that Hartford mayor Eddie Perez fits right in with Bettman and his other business pals and loser owners.

Perez is, allegedly, a crook.

In court papers, prosecutors accuse Perez of hiring city contractor Carlos Costa to renovate his home and not paying for it until after being confronted by investigators.

Charged with receiving a bribe, fabricating physical evidence and conspiracy to fabricate evidence, Perez says he is innocent... Costa and a city employee were also charged with felonies.

So here we've got Herr Bettman showing up playing the part of the Redeemer and Perez trying to cast himself as the Hero of the Day and instead it's Perez being arrested for being a shyster all in an effort to reclaim the greatness and the glory of the Whale.

Amazing. I'm not entirely sure this makes everything even more tragic and disgraceful or one hell of a dire effort. Considering that Bettman is along for the ride, I'll think of this latest series of events as another skid mark on the legacy of the Whalers.


"Moby Dork" featuring Gary Bettman as Captain Ahab and Hartford mayor Eddie Perez as Queequeg.

The extra fun part about all of this is that whether the City of Hartford was able to secure this new arena deal or not, moving an NHL team back to Hartford or giving them (God help us all...) an expansion team might rank out as one of the worst ideas in professional sports.

Hartford is an abysmal city, much like most Northeast cities that aren't named Boston or New York City are. Considering that other cities that I'd compare similarly to Hartford (Providence, Worcester, Albany, Syracuse and Rochester) are all homes to AHL franchises, it's fitting that Hartford is home to one as well and there's a damn good reason for that.

These cities are depressed (or recessed, whatever) and folks that live there or in their suburbs aren't selling out the arenas for any of these AHL franchises so what makes any of these simpletons think that planting an NHL franchise with vastly more expensive tickets is going to change the situation? It won't and Hartford has been through this already once and a new arena isn't changing that.

Look, we all think fondly about the Whalers and everything that they stood for and everything that they ever were but this is a case where keeping the memories alive in our minds and on reverential websites (Like: The Blowhole, Whalers Hockey, Brass Bonanza) are what pay the proper respect to the Whale. Trying to reanimate the corpse of the Whale would only serve to ruin the memories of a much beloved former franchise.

Back To School: SLU 2 - RPI 0

Second verse, same as the first for RPI this weekend in dealing with St. Lawrence. With RPI playing mostly 50 minutes of lifeless hockey and coming alive for the final ten against Clarkson, it was a bit surprising to see a similar situation crop up the next night.

It's also surprising given that this was senior night for RPI. On this night, Arnold Schwarzenegger shed a tear because somewhere else in America, the Austrian national anthem was played, this time in honor the evening's senior starting goaltender, Mathias Lange.


It's like hockey gone emo but the sweaters aren't ugly.

RPI started off well for the first few minutes but after a St. Lawrence power play goal in the first period from Shawn Fensel, the Engineers were frozen in time for the better part of the game through the rest of the first, all of the second and the first half of the third period.

In that time, TSN Hockey God Bob McKenzie's son Mike scored another power play goal for the Saints in the second period to put the lead out of reach for the night. Oddly enough, this was one of those games where there wasn't a lack of shots, there were plenty of those (SLU 31, RPI 29) and St. Lawrence certainly had more than a few great opportunities to score. For the home-standing Engineers, however, it wasn't quite the same until late into the third period.


This ice carving of RPI mascot Puckman sums up their offense this year.

Right about at the ten minute mark of the third, RPI managed to swing momentum on their side simply by having their top line with senior captain Matt Angers-Goulet and sophomores Chase Polacek and Tyler Helfrich cycling well, doing dirty work and getting a few shots on goal. I mention this line by name because it was this same group the night before that woke them up and it carried through to the other lines from that point on.

The issue for RPI on this night would be that they both seemingly waited too late into the game to get it going and allowed some truly crummy officiating get in their way. During a shift featuring the Joel Malchuk line, Malchuk was mixed up with a SLU defender trying to free the puck up on the end boards. Another SLU defenseman skated in planting a check into the back of Malchuk putting him down on the ice leading to an eventual stop in play and players mixing it up a bit.

Malchuk was slow to get up but eventually did and headed to the bench. The problem here is that no call was made on the play. Checking from behind has been a pet issue of the NCAA and all of its conferences for a couple seasons now, allowing officials the discretion to hand out a five-minute major and a game misconduct to players found guilty of this.

Folks at the NCAA go as far as to chart the progress of these calls and revisit the issue to see if anything needs to be altered. At least they're trying to make sure they're doing some things correctly.

The NCAA has adopted some of their rulings from the NHL (for example: no line changes for teams offending on icing, face offs after penalties go to the offending team's defensive end of the ice) however the NCAA's stand on dangerous hits from behind is something they should be commended for. The NHL has been gutless when it comes to protecting their players and only this week started dealing out actual punishment for players delivering dirty hits (See: Brendan Witt and Derek Boogaard).

As for Joel Malchuk, while folks can argue one way or the other whether or not the hit was a minor or major infraction (hits like that have been called either way in games I've watched) the fact that officials Mike Baker and Joe Carusone called nothing on the play is embarrassing.

RPI head coach Seth Appert made sure to voice his displeasure with the officials about this (as well as a potential tripping call on the following shift). Appert was given a bench minor for his efforts.

At least they made one call in the final few minutes. I guess.

Malchuk may feel like the most snakebitten guy in the league given this no-call against St. Lawrence and the embellishment penalty he received in a road game against Union College this year where he was tripped and tossed to the ice by a Union defenseman on a short-handed break.

Black clouds find a way to follow some people around. Malchuk has also missed parts of this season and most of last season due to a myriad of injuries.

As for referee Mike Baker, he heard it loudly and by name from the RPI students. I can't say I recall a game where the referee has been chanted at by name and told how poorly he's doing his job, but this is what makes the RPI fans a fascinating set of creatures with memories as sharp as an elephant.

Flashing back to last season, Mike Baker was one of the two referees on the ice for a home game against, oddly enough, Union College. The NCAA didn't go full-on with the two referee system until this season, but this tilt between travel partners was chosen to be a test run to see how well it would work. If you ask Union fans, it worked out great as the Dutchmen pounded RPI. If you ask RPI fans, they'll start muttering about Mike Baker's work in that game, one part in particular from the first period:

REN-5 Dan Peace (5-Fighting) UNI 1x5

17:56

REN-6 Dan Peace (10-Game Disqualification) (Served by Scott Halpern)

17:56

The problem they have with these penalties is that no Union player was also tagged for fighting, no one dropped their gloves, and it occurred in a harmless post-whistle scrum near the goal.

Could Mike Baker just been interpreting the NCAA Rule Book literally? Sure, absolutely he could have - to quote Section 17a.:

A player shall not fight an opponent or participate in a fight, on or off the playing surface. A punch thrown may be considered fighting.

OK, I can see how a post-whistle scrum could be interpreted that way and be taken very literal by someone hellbent on impressing the boss. Oh, by the way, the boss of officials in the ECAC is former NHL referee Paul Stewart. Stewart knows how things go so cross that one off the list.

That said, if you're going to be a stickler for that rule... why not be a stickler for all of them? I digress. Officiating isn't the reason RPI lost the game, St. Lawrence is playing very good hockey right now and it may have been RPI that woke them up by beating them 7-6 in overtime in January.

St. Lawrence has been on fire since that game, only dropping one contest to travel partner Clarkson since that game with RPI on January 23rd. Come March 20-21st when we'll be visiting the Times Union Center in Albany for the ECAC Semis and Finals I would be surprised if St. Lawrence was not there competing for the automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.

The post game brought about one of my favorite things: The ceremony to thank the seniors and pay homage to them for their hard work and dedication to the program. For RPI, this meant a parting farewell for Mathias Lange, Kurt Colling, Seth Klerer, Andrei Uryadov and captain Matt Angers-Goulet.


Losing on Senior Night is a huge bummer.

It also doubles as a function as a reminder to those who are moving up a class next season that their roles are more important and that their leadership will be demanded of them and for a few players, a big step up in their game and a whole boatload of new responsibilities.


Part of the future of RPI Engineers hockey.

RPI and St. Lawrence now move on to the Conference Playoffs. RPI finished the season with the #11 spot in the ECAC and will visit Dartmouth College in their playoff series next weekend while St. Lawrence's win over RPI gives them a first round bye and the #4 seed in the ECAC.

The other first round pairings are:

Clarkson @ Union
Brown @ Harvard
Colgate @ Quinnipiac

Yale, Cornell and Princeton also have first round byes with St. Lawrence and those four will wait to see who is left standing after this weekend.

Back To School: Clarkson 4 - RPI 2

If you were following along last night either at Gross Misconduct Twitter or thanks to the guys at WRPI you know that Clarkson College took out RPI 4-2.

What folks might not know is that for the fans of RPI, Clarkson is the big rivalry. For Clarkson... not quite so much. Clarkson fans view their travel partners St. Lawrence as well as Cornell to be bigger rivals than RPI.

Having been to a few Clarkson-RPI throwdowns in the past, I can say that I've seen RPI's Houston Field House packed to the rafters loaded with loud and often obnoxious fans.

Not so much on this night. RPI is in the midst of a very down season and Clarkson is in a bit of a rebuilding year. Suffice to say, the crowd was a little bit lighter than usual but with both bands in the house and two fan bases that can be loud when there's reason to be.

Adding to the craziness was it was RPI's night to do their duty for Coaches Vs. Cancer, something taken up by the ECAC on the whole. Very classy, yet confusing since the ECAC has their own style of jersey that the host teams wear on the nights they opt to do their part.

The other fun part of this is that the schools will put the game-used jerseys up for auction as well as the coaches ties as part of the means to raise money for cancer programs. You can find a list of the items currently up for auction on Ebay here, and it won't just be items from RPI but all the teams in the ECAC and if you're a jersey collecting freak like yours truly, the bidding for game worn jerseys starts at $150. Not bad at all.


Let's Go...Black? Pink? Ah screw it...

With the home team in black and pink and the visitors wearing gold, let's just say it made it look like a bit of a technicolor nightmare on the ice. See for yourself:



That's a bit much, but at least they didn't do things over the top the way folks in the AHL are wont to do. Don't believe me? Well, take a look at this Iowa Chops promotion.

Don't get me wrong, this is all done for a fantastic reason it's just that, well, pink ice? Really?

Oh yeah - really.


There are no words for this.

Since it's the final home weekend for RPI, that means they pay tribute to the seniors and before the playing of the national anthems it was announced that instead of playing "Oh, Canada" the Russian national anthem would be played in honor of RPI senior forward Andrei Uryadov.

No, it was not sung by Nikolai Volkoff nor Ivan Drago.


Not singing anything nor breaking anyone last night.

As for the game itself, Clarkson getting a pair of power play goals in the first period really sucked what little life there was in the field house right out of it - it was so down that even the Clarkson fans weren't being their usual boisterous selves.

Down years are a major drag.

RPI freshman goaltender, and Blue Jackets prospect, Allen York made a major blunder in the second period playing a puck and trying to send it behind his net and around the boards to his defensemen but ended up bouncing it off the side of the goal where the oncoming Clarkson forechecker tapped it in for a gimmie goal.

Yeah, it was that sort of night. York later on in the second had a Brandon Defazio wrist shot get ripped by him and the rout was seemingly on with the Golden Knights being up 4-0.

Play plodded along in the third period until about the 12 minute mark. I'm not kidding when I say the game plodded along, there was nothing to write home about or excitement - nothing.

RPI was able to control the puck a bit more, keep it in the zone consistently and then with about nine minutes to play, Chase Polacek rips a wrist shot by freshman goaltender Paul Karpowich and there was much rejoicing as the Engineers wouldn't be shut out.

Two minutes and change later, Tyler Helfrich puts home a backhand rebound in front of the net and now Clarkson is back on their heels and RPI is taking play to them.

Wha...what happened? RPI was lifeless and mostly shotless in this game. After two periods, Clarkson was outshooting them 19-7 and now Clarkson can't even get the puck out of their own end.

With about 2:30 to play, Clarkson picks up a very poor tripping penalty, possibly in honor of the Russian national anthem since Jake Morley appeared to give the RPI player he was chasing after the puck with a Russian leg sweep.


Volkoff approves - Clarkson head coach George Roll does not.

Whether they'll admit it or not, many Clarkson fans might recall being RPI's opponent at the Big Red Freakout in 2002, RPIs big annual tradition, and being up 3-0 heading into the third period only to see RPI storm back to tie the game with under a minute left and then win the game in overtime (check the box score here). Now RPI is going on the power play with all the momentum on their side and a goal away from making things very uncomfortable.

Of course, this is not RPIs year and they may have spent a lot of their magic earlier this season in their incredible 7-6 win in Appleton, NY beating St. Lawrence. Clarkson was able to withstand the pressure, Alex Angers-Goulet flattens Karpowich drawing an interference call with 30 seconds to play and then that's your game. 4-2 Clarkson hangs on.

The atmosphere for this game was a serious letdown as this is the big rival RPI waits for every year and the fans just didn't have it in them until the game got back to within two goals. The Clarkson fans weren't pushing the issue that they were shutting down RPI to the point of boredom and kicking their tails on the scoreboard. Everything about the whole night was just off.

Tonight's game against St. Lawrence is the last home game of the year for RPI and the seniors will all be honored this evening and there's word that many of the big time recruits on the horizon for RPI will be in attendance.

I'd also have to guess we'll hear the Austrian national anthem being played for goaltender Mathias Lange - expect to see lots of this guy in tomorrow's wrap-up.


He's the only other guy in America that knows what the Austrian national anthem sounds like.

Hopefully things for RPI will be more like The Terminator than they will be The Last Action Hero.

"Why don't you call me some time when you have no class?"

What, you don't know where that quote comes from? That's too bad, because it's part of a theme I've got cooked up here for the next month and a half here.

That's right, Gross Misconduct is going Back To School.


Legends don't get PhotoShopped.

Starting tonight, the next month and a half will be loaded with college hockey action and given that I'm located in a nice region to get a healthy dose of a lot of games up close and personal and since Gross Misconduct will be in Washington, D.C. for the Frozen Four I figured we're taking things up another notch.

I'm delivering the Triple Lindy right in your face and I'm going to make it that much easier to tag along for the ride, and there's no way that Billy Zabka can stop it either.


Triple Lindy in your face, Zabka!

The warm-up act this weekend - we're geeking out.

Hardcore.

Gross Misconduct will be firmly entrenched in Troy where the natives of R.P.I. are restless and struggling mightily while the rival they hate the most (Clarkson College) is coming into town along with their potentially NCAA-bound travel partners (St. Lawrence University) from the northern reaches of Potsdam, New York.

Thanks to the beauty of the Interweb, you can come along for the ride.

Sure, I'll be there in attendance at the game and snapping photos of anyone egregious and God help anyone committing jersey fouls because I'll make you famous here... but, if you're at home or have a rad high-tech phone to follow along with such things, you can do so with me thanks to Twitter.

No, I still can't wrap my head around it but I do know that I can fire questions at fake Mike Milbury and fake John Tortorella and it amuses me greatly. It also lets me post updates thanks to my phone and text messages and, yeah, all this freaking technology and it blows my mind.

We'll be giving it a run for the money tonight and tomorrow night from Troy, Tweeting (there's GOT to be a better way to phrase this) updates from the game and just so long as I'm not taken into custody or told to knock it the hell off... we'll keep at it and keep it fun cause that's how I like to do it.

So mark it off, get your computers set to follow along either right here (there's a Twitter box on the side of the page, it's neat and handy) or go to my Twitter page (feel free to follow me if you're a Twit too) while either watching the game on Time Warner 3 (if you're in the Capital District of New York) or on the radio, WRPI will be handling duties for both games this weekend and those guys rock.

7 p.m. starts for both games - and don't do it just for me or just for yourself...

Do it for Burt Young.


"What'd I tell you? My name is Lou, not fuckin' Paulie."