It’s not Friday, but allow us to deviate from our weekly schedule to present the latest installment of the Four-cast. This edition will be the first of two focusing on important holiday tournaments.
Florida College Classic; Dec. 29-30
Germain Arena; Estero, Fla.
Bill Sweatt leads CC with 20 points in 18 games.
This is an intriguing tournament featuring four teams with something to prove. Is Cornell a legitimate top-five team and Frozen Four contender? Is Colorado College as good as its 11-4-3 record indicates or did they simply take advantage of a favorable home-ice schedule in the first half? Is Maine on its way back to the NCAA Tournament and contending for Hockey East honors? Can Princeton play up to its talent level after a difficult first half?
Maine and Cornell are the annual co-hosts of this event and it regularly draws competitive invited teams to fill the field. After lots of snowy bus rides and flights all year long, it’s even a bit of a reward for these teams to make it down to Florida’s gulf coast, where the current 10-day forecast shows high temperatures ranging between 66 and 82. Not too shabby, but the team that comes home with a couple of victories this week will have more to remember than pleasant weather.
Great Lakes Invitational; Dec. 29-30
Joe Louis Arena; Detroit, Mich.
Interesting field, albeit one that won’t drive ticket sales. Two inconsistent teams, Michigan and Rensselaer, meet in one first-round match, and two consistent teams, Michigan Tech and Michigan State, square off in the other (hey, we didn’t say both were consistently good).
At first glance, this appears to be the Spartans’ tournament to lose mainly because they’ve got the best goaltending in the draw with sophomore Drew Palmisano. Don’t be surprised if Rensselaer knocks off Michigan in what could be a high-scoring affair; both teams like to push the tempo, and the Engineers tend to play to the level of their opponent, which explains why they’ve beaten New Hampshire, Yale, and Boston University and lost to Army and Niagara.
IIHF World Under-20 Championships; Dec. 26-Jan. 5
Regina and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Playing on home turf in Saskatoon and Regina and winners of the last five World Junior Championship gold medals, Canada enters this year’s event as the odds-on favorite. Six of the 22 players on the Canadian roster are returnees from last year. That said, the most talented players in the lineup could be a trio of newcomers-forwards Taylor Hall, Nazem Kadri, and Brayden Schenn. Sweden is considered the top threat to Canada’s supremacy.
The U.S. team, meanwhile, is a young group but one that knows how to win on an international stage-a lot of the names on this roster won gold at the World Under-18 Championship last spring. While there may not be the high-end talent like a Colin Wilson or James van Riemsdyk on the U.S. squad this time around, this team boasts great balance. Typically, the U.S. thrives in this event when it gets superb goaltending, which puts the onus on goaltenders Mike Lee, the St. Cloud State freshman, or US NTDP product Jack Campbell.
The U.S. should benefit from a favorable draw-others in Group A are Canada, Latvia, Slovakia, and Switzerland-and should exit pool play as one of the tournament’s top four seeds. A difficult quarterfinal match against the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, or Sweden looms. Given the youth of this team, a top-four finish for the U.S. would be an outstanding effort.
UConn Hockey Classic; Dec. 29-30
Freitas Ice Forum; Storrs, Conn.
Sure, UConn’s annual holiday tournament doesn’t get the national attention of the three aforementioned events. It usually draws a field of teams from within the region, bringing together a quartet of clubs from Hockey East, Atlantic Hockey and ECAC Hockey. That’s the case this year, but the first semifinal is definitely worth taking note of as nationally-ranked teams Union and Massachusetts will drop the puck on this two-day event. That gives the UConn Classic one more ranked team in its field than the Great Lakes Invitational can claim.
Some players worth watching in the early semifinal include UMass standout James Marcou, the nation’s leader in assists and his wingman Casey Wellman, who has 13 goals. Union’s offensive strength is in its depth as eight players have 10 points or more already this season but keep an eye on senior Mario Valery-Trabucco, who has 10 goals and 21 points in 15 games played. Bentley and UConn met earlier this year in an Atlantic Hockey tilt and Bentley got a 4-3 win as Dan Koudys scored with five minutes left to play. Sean Ambrosie had a pair of power-play goals for UConn and Erik Peterson scored twice for Bentley in that one.
