November
15, 2006
Speak
Softly and Stop Lots of Pucks
By
James Jahnke
Notre Dame goalie David Brown talks more like
a coach than most coaches in the CCHA. He’s got down
pat the coachspeak staples of taking things one game at
a time, crediting teammates for his success and not comparing
one team with another.
CCHA
Notebook
Senior goalie David Brown has been the key to Notre Dame's
surprising 8-1-1 start.
But while Brown doesn’t say much in
regard to what he truly thinks – at least not during
a conversation with INCH this week – his play on the
ice has spoken volumes thus far. The senior ranks first
nationally with a 1.20 goals-against average and .953 save
percentage, and he has led the Fighting Irish to a surprising
8-1-1 start.
“We’ve been playing real good
defense, team defense,” Brown said, “and it’s
been working out so far. I’m just going to keep doing
what I’m doing.”
What Brown is doing is playing with confidence
that was MIA for a couple of seasons. After bursting onto
the national scene as a freshman on Notre Dame’s 2004
NCAA tournament team, Brown saw his numbers slip from 2.32
and .925 as a rookie to 4.30 and .870 as a sophomore. He
started out his junior season in the same funk, and his
negative body language was apparent to everyone at the rink.
But at some point in the second half of last
season, Brown snapped out of it and hasn’t been the
same since – in a good way. Asked about his sophomore
and junior travails, Brown said he didn’t want to
talk about the past.
He’s having too nice of a time in the
present.
“There are a lot of good things happening
around here,” said the native of Stoney Creek, Ont.
“It’s a real good environment. The team is very
committed to what Coach (Jeff Jackson) has to say. It’s
a professional atmosphere around here, and the outcomes
speak for themselves.”
Brown said the program is “completely
different” since Jackson took over from Dave Poulin
before the start of last season. After experiencing unprecedented
heights – the program’s first trip to the Big
Dance – in 2003-04, the ship slipped to 5-27-6 the
following season. Poulin stepped down and moved into an
administrative role, and Jackson brought the Fighting Irish
back to 13-19-4 last season. Now they’re playing like
one of the top 10 teams in the country.
And Brown and his senior classmates have been
around for all of it.
“It’s great to bring that to the
program,” Brown said. “We want to establish
Notre Dame as a national team. We want to cement that this
year, so that future teams have that standard to live up
to.”
SEEN AND HEARD IN THE CCHA
Hang on, Sloopy: INCH will
have a representative in Section 32B at the big football
game in Columbus this weekend, but the Buckeye icers won’t
be so lucky. If coach John Markell had his druthers, his
team would have the night off. Instead, it will be finishing
a series at Bowling Green – and missing the second
half at Ohio Stadium.
“I’m going to be an emotional
wreck,” Markell said. “It’s an emotional
day for our athletes, too. We’re very proud of the
football team, and we have a lot invested in them. We’re
not going to have our guys avoid it, because they’ll
just be walking around the hotel wondering what the frick
is the score. We’ll watch it until it’s time
to go to the rink.”
Markell likens this weekend’s situation
to when Ohio State played Princeton in Pittsburgh on the
night of the football team’s national-title game in
January 2003.
“I pity the poor people who watched
the hockey game that night,” Markell said. “It
was a big game, R.J. Umberger’s return to Pittsburgh,
and we won, 4-1, but we were terrible. You’ve never
seen a team get out of a rink quicker than that. We actually
rented a room in town afterward to watch the end of the
football game.”
Battlin’ Bulldogs: Ferris
State is 0-4-1 in its last five games, but coach Bob Daniels
is quite upbeat. While acknowledging that the mounting losses
are becoming a problem, he can tick off an lengthy list
of things about which he’s pleased. The team is practicing
hard. The players are responding to coaching. There’s
no finger-pointing. The injury situation is improving. The
overall atmosphere is positive.
“It’s still a joy to come to the
rink,” Daniels said. “We can see the light at
the end of the tunnel.”
One tangible bit of good news in Big Rapids
is that senior defenseman Jeremy Scherlinck (knee) is expected
to make his season debut this weekend. He will strengthen
a defensive corps that already is living up to Daniels’
standards. The bigger problem, he says, are the special
teams, which were hurt most by FSU’s early spate of
injuries.
“Five-on-five, we’re fine,”
Daniels said. “But we’re still integrating players
into our power play and penalty kill, so we’re not
set there. We’re constantly tweaking it because there’s
a constant rotation of players in and out. Once we get an
opportunity to jell, we’ll be OK.”
FRIES AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG
Great Weekend Getaway
Michigan
State at Notre Dame (Fri.)
Notre Dame at Michigan State (Sat.)
Notre Dame is one of the feel-good stories of college
hockey after one month, but starting this weekend,
the Fighting Irish’s schedule gets much harder
heading into Christmas. This series should be pretty
physical and will provide a good, where-we-stand-in-the-league
barometer for both teams.
While you’re there: Friday
brings about the fairly interesting dynamic of the
Joyce Center holding a football pep rally in one half
of the building at 6:15 p.m., then the hockey game
in the other half at 8 p.m. Wonder whether Chuck Weis
will step through the curtain and sign a few pucks.
Stick
Salute
Northern
Michigan defenseman Blake Cosgrove has
become a regular on Walt Kyle’s lineup card
after missing all of last season with a wrist injury
and scoring no points in just 14 games as a freshman
in 2004-05. This season, he has played in 12 of 13
games and has a goal and two assists. “He’s
done a very nice job,” Kyle said.
Bench
Minor
Power-play
success tends to go in cycles, so we’ve learned
to ignore the temptation to rip a unit that has a
bad night, bad weekend, etc. But Bowling Green
has passed the grace period. The Falcons
are scoreless in their last 38 man-advantage opportunities,
dating to Oct. 15 against Alabama-Huntsville.
• Nebraska-Omaha senior forward Nenad
Gajic, who played two years at Michigan State before transferring,
decided to forgo the rest of the season and sign with the
Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League. He had
two goals and five assists in six games for the Mavericks
this season.
The situation presents a perfect opportunity
to resurrect this quote I gleaned from Gajic back in August
2002: “I’m a fairly good lacrosse player, but
I don’t want to pump my own tires, you know?”
Gajic said. “I definitely like hockey a lot more.”
Ah, pumping one’s tires. One of INCH’s favorite
pastimes.
• Western Michigan goalie Daniel Bellissimo
didn’t make last week’s trip to Columbus, and
a team source said the Bronco coaching staff wanted to send
a message to the junior. Freshman Riley Gill has started
the last three games (and is 3-0-1 overall), and the WMU
staff wants Bellissimo to put up a fight to keep the job
he held the last two seasons.
• There are a few nonconference morsels
for CCHA fans to chew on this week. Northern Michigan lost
a home game, 6-4, to Minnesota Duluth on Wednesday, but
will get a rematch on the other side of Lake Superior on
Jan. 24. Still to come this weekend, Lake Superior State
hosts GLIAC rival Wayne State for a pair in the Soo. And
next Tuesday, Nebraska-Omaha travels to Minnesota State
Mankato for the first volley of the Maverick War. Round
2 is Jan. 16 at the Qwest Center.
• Lake Superior State will see a familiar
face on the other bench this weekend. Wayne State defenseman
John Nogatch skated for the Lakers in 2004-05.
• Notre Dame freshman Christiaan Minella
played for the first time Saturday, and scored a goal against
Bowling Green. Wondering about the spelling of his name?
Michel Christiaan Minella is named after Dr. Christiaan
Barnard, who performed the first successful heart transplant
in 1967.
• Nobody asked, but here’s a nickname
suggestion for Notre Dame forward Erik Condra (who happens
to be the INCH Player of the Week): Erik “Up, up,
down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start”
Condra. It rolls off the tongue, no?
• If Nebraska-Omaha coach Mike Kemp
can’t get comfortable at the team’s hotel during
this weekend’s trip to Miami, there’s a floor
he can crash on if he wants. His daughter Emily is a sophomore
at MU.
• Alaska freshman forward Dion Knelson
this week became the first Nanook ever to be labeled an
“A” – or “must-see” –
prospect by the NHL’s Central Scouting Service. “This
is the biggest thing that has ever happened to our program,”
coach Tavis MacMillan said.
• Western Michigan defenseman Chris
Frank, quoted in the Kalamazoo Gazette: “I
have the hands of a stone wall.”
• Notes from the box scores: In its
12th game of the season, Northern Michigan finally outshot
an opponent, topping Alaska by a 25-14 margin on Saturday.
... Bowling Green sophomore defenseman Kevin Schmidt scored
in his first career game, on Oct. 14, 2005. He got No. 2
in last weekend’s series opener against Notre Dame,
a span of 392 days.
A variety of sources
were utilized in the compilation of this report