October 12, 2009
Feels good to be back, doesn't it?
We're trying something different this
season in order to get more of a national feel to our
early-week coverage before delving into the conference
stuff as the weekend nears. Every Monday, the First
Shift will feature INCH's national Player of the Week,
Stick Salute, and Bench Minor. We'll also take a lighter-hearted
look at the weekend that was in our Say What?, Poll
Outrage of the Week, and Tweet of the Week segments.
This is a work in progress, to be sure.
But unlike Phil Cuzzi, we'll try not to miss anything.
PLAYER
OF THE WEEK |
RICH
PURSLOW
Nebraska-Omaha
Jr. | F | Greenlawn, N.Y.
His Statistics:
2 GP, 2-2—4, +3 vs. Army and UMass Lowell
His Impact: If
the results from this past weekend's Icebreaker
Tournament in Omaha are any indication, Dean Blais's
tenure as the Mavericks' head coach should be,
at the very least, exciting. UNO, which ranked
42nd in the country in scoring offense last season
with an average of 2.45 goals per game, exploded
for 10 goals in wins against Army and UMass Lowell.
Purslow, the Icebreaker MVP, led
a balanced scoring attack with a goal and an assist
in each of the Mavs' two wins. He helped set up
Terry Broadhurst's game-winning goal in Friday's
6-4 decision against Army and sparked UNO's come-from-behind
triumph against the RiverHawks Saturday with a
first-period goal less than three minutes after
UML jumped out to an early 2-0 advantage.
His Runners-Up:
Dan Bakela (Bemidji State); Mike Cichy (North
Dakota); Scott Greenham (Alaska); Brayden Irwin
(Vermont); Dan Morrison (Canisius); Eric Lampe
(Quinnipiac); Cameron Talbot (Alabama-Huntsville).
The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop
|
STICK
SALUTE
|
Good
on the hockey fans in the Rochester area (7,421
of them, to be exact) for showing up at Blue Cross
Arena for Saturday's Colgate-RIT tilt. The game
turned out to be a real treat—the Raiders'
Austin Smith scored a shorthanded goal in the
third period to give his team a 3-2 victory. The
building's primary tenant, the American Hockey
League's Rochester Americans, averaged a little
more than 4,000 fans in 40 home dates last season. |
BENCH
MINOR
|
Apologies
for being somewhat CCHA-centric here, but the
opening weekend wasn't a high-water mark for the
league's upper echilon. Most notable (and by notable,
we mean cringe-worthy) were Notre Dame's 3-2 loss
to Alabama-Huntsville at the Joyce Center Friday,
Michigan's shutout loss to Alaska in Anchorage
that same night, and Ohio State's pair of losses
to visiting Quinnipiac, a team picked to finish
in the bottom third of ECAC Hockey. |
SAY
WHAT?
|
“I'm
not one who's going to make a lot of changes when
things are working." — UNO coach Dean
Blais to the Omaha World-Herald's Chad
Purcell following the Mavs' Icebreaker Tournament
championship game win Saturday.
But when things aren't working—especially
for a goaltender—Blais gets out the hook
quicker than Tony LaRussa. UNO senior Jeremie
Dupont learned as much against Army and UMass
Lowell, allowing six goals on 20 shots in just
under 54 minutes of work. Sophomore John Faulkner
earned both wins in relief..
|
THIS
WEEK'S
POLL OUTRAGE
|
It's
early and it's gonna take a while for the national
polls to sort themselves out. That said, we're
not sure how Boston College, the 12th-ranked team
in this week's USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today poll,
earned one first-place vote. By the way, 27 teams
received at least one vote in the same poll. The
Alaska Nanooks, who beat Michigan and Mercyhurst
at the Kendall Hockey Classic in Anchorage, were
not one of them. |
TWEET
OF
THE WEEK
|
@HackswithHaggs:
God bless the dude at Angels stadium wearing a
Whale T-shirt while waiting in line for a hot
dog. What are the odds? |
|