Thirty-seven times last season, Boston College goalie John Muse left the ice, changed out of his uniform and had trouble walking out of the rink.

He was playing with a torn labrum in his right hip, an injury he certainly felt throughout the entirety of the 2008-09 season. After all, he was given a stinging reminder every time he extended his right leg to make a save. But Muse kept his iron-man streak alive, starting all 37 of BC’s games despite the injury.

The pain started at the tail end of the 2007-08 season - Muse’s freshman year, in which he started all 44 of the team’s games - but he thought nothing of it, particularly because the Eagles were driving toward a national championship and Muse’s stellar play was a major reason why.

He was named to the Hockey East All-Tournament Team after going 4-0 with a 1.28 goals-against average and .959 save percentage, and he was selected to the Frozen Four All-Tournament Team with a 2-0 record, 1.00 goals-against average and .961 save percentage. All the while, Muse thought he was playing with a strained groin, but he had the makings of a torn labrum.

“It wasn’t excruciating pain,” said Muse, who is now in his junior season. “It hurt on certain movements. When I’d overextend, I’d get a pinching in my hip, and mostly it was afterward when it hurt. It would hurt to walk pretty much every time after I played in a game.

“It started to hurt at the very end of my freshman year. It was giving me problems, and we thought it was a groin strain or something along those lines. That summer [in 2008], I ended up getting mono, and I think I was out for six weeks. I figured once I came back [the groin pain] would be all gone, and I would be healthy again. But when I started playing again, I had the same pain. I think I suddenly realized I should have it checked out. Once we had an MRI done on it, they determined there was something wrong inside and it wasn’t just the groin problem.”

Muse had the MRI during Boston College’s Christmas break in 2008, which was already 16 games into the season. At that point, Muse had a 2.58 goals-against average, which was 11th among all Hockey East goaltenders, and his .907 save percentage was tied for 10th. While his numbers suffered, it’s fair to note BC’s defense fell off from its championship run, too.

When asked if he was diagnosed with a torn labrum after the MRI, Muse responded, “We didn’t really go over what it was. I think they knew, but I wasn’t planning on getting it fixed during the middle of the season just because I wanted to finish off the regular season and figure out what I could do to make it better. I didn’t really pursue anything until after the season was over.”

Muse said it was a pretty consistent pain throughout the season that didn’t really worsen through time - “It was torn pretty early on, and I don’t think it got worse as the season went on or anything.” - but he didn’t think it really hindered his performance. After all, the kid backstopped a national championship on the balky hip. Because of that, he also didn’t want to make a big deal of it around the locker room.

“I tried to keep it quiet,” Muse said. “I tried not to let it bother me because I feel like if I go and tell everybody how much it hurts then I would start to realize how much it hurts. I was just keeping it quiet, trying to keep it out of my mind.”

The Eagles’ 2008-09 season ended with a 3-2 loss to Boston University in the Hockey East semifinals. The Terries scored three goals during a league-record 44-second stretch in the second period. BU forward Zach Cohen started the scoring with a couple of nice moves before backhanding the puck past Muse’s outstretched left skate, which may have caused some discomfort, and BU added two decisive goals within the next minute.

When it was determined the Eagles wouldn’t get a berth in the NCAA tournament, Muse was sent to a doctor in Boston who has worked with Tommy Cross’s knee issues. Coincidentally, a week before Muse’s visit, the doctor diagnosed former New Hampshire goalie Kevin Regan - who was playing with the Providence Bruins at the time - with a torn labrum. The doctors told Muse it has become a fairly common injury, and until medical knowledge improved, it was being misdiagnosed for years as a groin injury.

“When I went in there,” Muse said of the doctor’s office, “within five minutes of seeing me, he knew exactly what was wrong and what needed to be done.”

BC coach Jerry York gave Regan’s number to Muse, who called Regan the day before his own surgery. Regan gave him some advice on how to handle the situation and what to expect after the surgery.

Muse underwent surgery April 30, about five and a half weeks after BC’s season ended at the Garden. He was on crutches for “a tough nine weeks” afterward and finally put some skates on a week after he tossed the crutches aside. It wasn’t until the final week in August when he started taking shots in net.

“It was awesome,” Muse said. “I took a little over five months from completely not playing hockey. That’s pretty tough when you’re used to playing hockey every single day. It was really nice getting back out there finally.”

Even when he was away from the rink, Muse was working out every day with the Boston College training staff. He worked on upper-body strength while waiting for his hip to heal, and then he moved toward stabilizing his right hip. Still, Muse was kept on a very strict schedule, as the team trainers made sure he didn’t overwork himself, which could have led to a setback. Even now, his workout routine is being monitored until the hip fully heals.

Before the season, York anticipated giving Muse a much lighter workload and said he would rely more on backup goalies Parker Milner and Chris Venti. To date, though, Muse has started seven of BC’s eight games, while Milner has played once.

Muse said his right hip was “pretty sore” at the beginning, but things are improving as the season has progressed. He is 3-3-1 with a 2.85 goals-against average and .885 save percentage.

More impressive than Muse’s numbers is his resiliency. Boston College has played on back-to-back nights on two occasions this season, and Muse has played both games each time. He might be ahead of the doctor’s initial prognosis, which called for four to six months of recovery time, but Muse is right on schedule with his own plan.

“I knew I was going to be ready for the beginning of the season,” said Muse, who has played in the Eagles’ last five games. “They told me if I did everything I was told to throughout the summer then I would be ready for the season. I was there working every single day during the summer so I could get ready and be on the ice for the first game. Luckily, everything worked out and went according to plan, and I was able to play in the first game.”

Muse still isn’t pain free, but he’s getting there. He has obviously passed the physical constraints, and the emotional tests are way back in the rearview mirror. For a young athlete who has already accomplished so much, that original gut check can be pretty difficult to take. The mind can play some crazy games on a person who was once indestructible.

Now that Muse has been reconstructed, the Eagles have their workhorse in net and can put themselves in position to return to the national tournament.

“There’s always that thought that it might not heal correctly and I could be out for more than four months,” Muse said. “I could miss the first half of the season or something like that. But luckily, everything has gone according to plan so far, and hopefully it continues that way.

“It was a little difficult just knowing that I was having pretty major surgery on my hip, which is something I use every time I’m on the ice. It’s something that I need to be healthy, and I wasn’t too nervous about it afterward because I saw how many people had gotten the surgery and come back healthy.”

BRIAN O’NEILL
Yale
So. | F | Yardley, Pa.

His Statistics: 2GP, 2-3—5, +3 plus-minus rating

His Impact: Yale’s high-scoring sophomore was involved in a very good weekend for the defending ECAC Hockey champions. After a so-so start to the season, the Bulldogs earned a 4-2 win over unbeaten Cornell and rallied for a 3-3 tie against first-place Colgate. O’Neill factored in prominently with two goals and three assists on the weekend.

He assisted Yale’s first goal as well as the eventual game-winner in the victory over Cornell and sealed the victory with an empty-net goal. In Saturday’s game against Colgate, Yale trailed 2-0 in the second period before O’Neill’s goal got them on the board. He then assisted Sean Backman’s goal later in the period to pull the Bulldogs to within 3-2.

His Runners-Up: Stephane De Costa (Merrimack); Andrew Favot (RIT); Justin Fontaine (Minnesota Duluth); Chris Kushneriuk (Robert Morris); Drew Palmisano (Michigan State)

The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop

The RIT Tigers have bounced back from a slow start to move into first place in Atlantic Hockey. After starting the season with five straight losses, RIT has run off six consecutive wins—the nation’s longest winning streak—and is the only team in Atlantic Hockey with a winning overall record. 

Barely six weeks into the season, a number of high-profile players have been sidelined with various dings and dents—Minnesota’s Jay Barriball and Nick Leddy, Yale’s Thomas Dignard, Rensselaer’s Tyler Helfrich, Northeastern’s Steve Quailer, and Notre Dame’s Ted Ruth among them. Injuries affect every team, but we don’t have to like it. This weekend’s North Dakota-Denver series, for example, should be a doozy … but how much better could it be if we were assured Marc Cheverie, Patrich Wiercioch, and Chay Genoway would be healthy?

“We’re not that good. We’ve got one returning 20-goal scorer, and he’s got one goal, and outside of that … we don’t have a lot of prolific offensive players.” — Michigan coach Red Berenson to the Michigan Daily following his team’s back-to-back losses to Michigan State this past weekend.

If Michigan’s season keeps going in this direction, we may have to officially name this segment of the First Shift in honor of Berenson. The Wolverines have scored a total of four goals in their last four games—all of them losses—and anyone who has watched their last two series against Miami and Michigan State can see that Berenson’s club is severely lacking playmakers and their ability to create scoring chances is virtually non-existent.

This week we won’t point to any unusual voting patterns in the national polls, but to some of the circumstances that we considered when stacking the INCH Power Rankings. Michigan State and Colorado College made huge jumps in both the INCH Power Rankings as well as the national polls after conference sweeps on the weekend. That’s mainly due to the work of MSU and CC, but partially due to a middling bunch of efforts by teams ranked in the 6-15 range. It’s early, sure, but it seems like there’s a definite drop in stature from the top 5-7 teams and the rest of the pack in college hockey.

runwiththedogs: about 4 hats on the ice … pathetic

The people behind the Minnesota Duluth Runnin’ with the Dogs blog tweeted this message shortly after the Bulldogs’ Justin Fontaine scored his third goal in Saturday’s 8-1 rout of Michigan Tech (he would add a fouth goal before all was said and done). The message touches on an INCH pet peeve: If you are wearing a hat to a hockey game and a player scores three goals, it is your duty to toss said hat onto the ice.

Don’t want to chuck your favorite lid? Bring one you don’t care about. And even if it is your best hat, throw it anyway—the good karma you’ll get from the hockey gods will far surpass the out-of-pocket cost of replacing it.

Everyone loves a good story, and this week’s college hockey slate is full of ‘em. Whether its the rematch of conference finalists, a historic rivalry that renews with the specter of an ugly on-ice incident from last season hanging over it, or a rematch featuring two teams that have gone in the opposite direction since their first meeting a month ago, we’ve got it all for you.

Drew Palmisano and his Michigan State teammates were winless in five games against Michigan a year ago.

Michigan vs. Michigan State (at Ann Arbor Friday, at East Lansing Saturday): Any more storylines for this series and we’re going to need J.J. Abrams to sort it all out. Beyond the obvious rivalry—the most heated in the CCHA and among the three or four best in college hockey—there’s Spartan forward Corey Tropp, the country’s leading scorer, returning to a building where last January he used his stick in a confrontation with Steve Kampfer as the Michigan defenseman was flat on the Yost Arena ice surface. Then there’s MSU seeking a measure of redemption; the Spartans dropped all five games to the Wolverines last season, losing by an average score of 5-2.

Coach Red Berenson read his team the riot act after getting swept by Miami in Ann Arbor last weekend, calling them “spoiled brats” after they piled up a number of undisciplined penalties in third period of Saturday’s series finale. Will they be able to keep their emotions in check? Conversely, how will the young Spartans deal with the intensity of this series? Of the 18 skaters Rick Comley had in the lineup for last Saturday’s game with Nebraska-Omaha, half were freshmen.

Bemidji State at Minnesota (Sat.-Sun.): Lost in the clamor of swirling rumors regarding Jordan Schroeder’s future, Jay Barriball’s season-ending injury, and Sam Lofquist’s defection to the OHL is this: The Gophers have played pretty good hockey the last two weekends, scoring 16 goals and allowing just eight in winning three of four against Alaska Anchorage and Wisconsin. Goaltender Alex Kangas has been sterling all along, and he’s finally getting some offensive support. He’ll need it against a Bemidji State team that ranks tied for seventh in the nation in scoring offense (3.75 goals per game). After scoring 40 points in 37 games last season, Beaver junior forward Matt Read has seven goals and 14 points in eight games. By the way, BSU also leads the country in scoring defense, allowing an average of just 1.25 goals per game.

Cornell at Yale (Friday): It’s a rematch of last year’s ECAC Hockey championship game when Yale hosts Cornell in New Haven. The Big Red appear to be the early favorites atop ECACH, but will be playing away from Lynah Rink for the first time this season. Yale won all three meetings against the Big Red last year and comes in after earning just one point on the road in a loss at RPI and a tie against Union to start its title defense. The third period has been the best for both teams. Through three games this year, Cornell has outscored its opponents 7-1 in the final 20 minutes and Yale has a 6-2 advantage over its opponents in the third period.

Vermont at Boston College (Sat.-Sun.): It doesn’t seem like a terrific series on paper given that the Catamounts are a .500 team while the Eagles enter the weekend with a 3-2-1 mark. These two clubs met in Burlington on Oct. 18-Vermont scored a 4-1 victory—but their fortunes have since diverged. UVM is 1-2-1 in four games since beating BC; the Eagles, meantime, are 3-1-1 since the loss at the Gut. Both are currently tied for third in Hockey East and, yeah, it’s early in the year, but a sweep either way would make the possibility of a top-four finish in the league standings that much more remote for the losing side.

Also: Two of ECAC Hockey’s early-season surprises meet Saturday when Rensselaer faces St. Lawrence … St. Cloud State is at North Dakota. The Huskies’ Garrett Roe won’t play Friday; he’s serving a one-game team-issued suspension … Can Merrimack continue its impressive start in its series with Boston University?

TV schedule: Friday—Harvard at Quinnipiac, NESN, 7:30 p.m. ET; Michigan State at Michigan, FSN Detroit, 7:30 p.m. ET; Ferris State at Miami, NHL Network, 7:30 p.m. ET; Alaska Anchorage at Wisconsin, FSN North Wisconsin, 8 p.m. ET; St. Cloud State at North Dakota, Fox College Sports, 8:30 p.m. ET. Saturday—Bemidji State at Minnesota, FSN North, 8:30 p.m. ET. Sunday—Bemidji State at Minnesota, FSN North, 7 p.m. ET.

There’s a reason why Canadians stick with hockey.

“The Canadian guys are not very good softball players,” said UMass junior forward James Marcou, who is no Tom Emanski but can use his New York roots to his advantage in the tactics of international scouting.

UMass forward James Marcou enters this weekend's series with New Hampshire tied for the Hockey East lead in scoring.

Either way, Marcou and the rest of the Minutemen have come to that conclusion this year because they’re spending much more time together when they’re away from the ice. Their familiarity has paid instant dividends as UMass is off to a 6-1-0 start (3-1-0 in Hockey East) and Marcou said there’s simply a better feel about the team in the locker room this year.

“We have a good bond going on with the team,” said Marcou, who leads Hockey East with an average of 1.86 points per game. “I don’t want to say in past years, [but] there’s been some cliques. But this year we’ve seemed to come together, and we’ve really overcame that. I think that’s a big reason why we’re doing so well.

“The older guys have seen what the separation can do to the team and we don’t want to let that happen.”

Marcou credits senior co-captains Brett Watson and Justin Braun for the proactive approach in team unity. The softball games started at the end of last year and have continued through this season, but the Minutemen are doing plenty of things away from the ice, whether it’s bowling or a team dinner.

The idea, obviously, is to bring everyone as close together as possible. Therefore, rather than letting seniors hang out with seniors on team buses or off-ice functions, the players are sort of self-policing their groups, forcing guys who don’t know each other as well to spend more time together during these activities.

“We try to include everyone,” said Marcou, who has a conference-best 10 assists and is tied for the Hockey East lead with 13 points. “After practice, we’ll have get-togethers, team bonding activities.

“You get to know everyone. I would say, just the way you can tell some of the guys are coming together, that you had no idea they had that in them or you learn something new about someone. Personally, off the ice, I think that’s a big part of our success this year.”

At one point, sophomore defenseman Matt Irwin dropped a few jaws when he told everyone it takes him 20 hours to get back home to British Columbia, and his story captivated the room. In the past—or maybe even in other locker rooms—Irwin’s tale could have taken up a few minutes of everyone’s time and then been forgotten. Now, his teammates are more understanding of his situation, which severely limits how often he can get home.

“He gets to go home once a year for five days and guys really notice that,” Marcou said. “He just tells the story, and we were all listening. That really opens a lot of guys’ eyes.”

There are no stat lines for bonding moments but at the very least, the Minutemen can hope this pays off in their nightly consistency, which has plagued them throughout the years.

Last season, for instance, UMass followed up a five-game unbeaten streak—highlighted by a victory against North Dakota—with a 3-1 loss to Merrimack. In the next game, the Minutemen knocked off Boston University, 5-1. UMass then proceeded to get shut out in two consecutive games before beating Boston College, 4-3, in overtime.

Take nearly any team in the country and it’s possible to find a couple of inconsistent stretches, but they typically relate to chemistry and fortitude. UMass has proven it can take down national powers, but it hasn’t always picked off the bottom feeders with enough regularity. Of course, that’s typically the difference between programs such as Boston University and Boston College and then those in the next tier.

“In recent years,” Marcou said, “we’ve had some big games and then fall off after the big game.”

This year, the goals have heightened in Amherst. There’s definitely some talent in the locker room headlined by Marcou, Braun, and goalie Paul Dainton. The chemistry just reinforces their beliefs.

“We definitely saw that we were one goal away from going to the semifinals in Hockey East,” Marcou said of last year’s team, which fell in overtime of Game 3 of a quarterfinal series against Northeastern. “I think that brought us together to say, ‘Hey, we can do this. We’re not that far away.’ That’s definitely a goal this year to get home ice and win Hockey East. I think we finally have come to that goal with all 28 guys that we’ve got in there.”

The goals have changed in North Andover, Mass., and the attitude adjustment sounds so crazy it just might work.

Chris Barton

Those in the Merrimack locker room are thinking big. Despite five consecutive last-place finishes in Hockey East, the Warriors have their sights set beyond minor improvements. It’s not just about getting to the playoffs for the first time since 2003-04. Nope, Merrimack wants its banner hanging from the TD Garden in March.

“I’d say in years past, [the season's goals have] been mainly to make the playoffs,” Merrimack junior forward Chris Barton said. “As of this year, our goal right off the bat is we want to win a championship. I think we believe we can do that in our dressing room. We have the skill set and the hard work to do that. We’re striving a lot higher than we have in the past years that I’ve been here. We just really believe in this group.”

Merrimack (5-3-0, 2-1-0 HEA) has won two of its first three Hockey East games for the first time in 11 seasons, and the Warriors are 5-0-0 at home for the first time in their Hockey East history. They’re coming off of a 5-3 victory against Boston College, which snapped a 20-game winless streak (0-16-4) against the Eagles, a dry spell that dated back to Feb. 15, 2003.

Plus, Barton leads all Hockey East players with seven goals, and freshman forward Stephane Da Costa is second in the league with six goals and first among freshmen with 10 points. Barton said the team’s scoring depth has been a major factor for the team this season, as Merrimack is second in Hockey East with 3.75 goals per game.

“I thought we were strong last year, as well,” Barton said. “We just needed that second punch, or that second line to give us a little more depth to get over the top in a few of those games.”

Granted, the season is only a month old, but it’s a stark turnaround for the Warriors, who were 38-115-19 in the last five seasons. Merrimack is 18-100-14 in that span against Hockey East competition but has actually managed a winning record against non-conference opponents (20-15-5).

Barton thinks the major difference with the Warriors this season is having a group of players who understand how to win - not just games, but championships. Fifth-year Merrimack coach Mark Dennehy has made it a point to recruit winners such as Barton, sophomore forward Jesse Todd and sophomore defenseman Karl Stollery, who all won the Alberta Junior Hockey League championship together with Camrose in 2007. Plus, freshman defenseman Kyle Bigos won the Royal Bank Cup last with with Vernon of the British Columbia Hockey League.

“I think it’s very important,” Barton said about having a collection of players who understand the winning mentality. “What we’re trying to do now is, basically, when we put our jersey on, we want to put it on like [Boston University] would put their jersey on. A lot of teams, when they put that jersey on, they think they’re going to win. We’re trying to bring that here. If you’ve won in the past, you start to believe that. Once you start winning, that will happen.”

It’s obviously not an easy process, but Dennehy knows how to turn around a program, as he was an assistant coach for Don Cahoon at UMass from 2000-05. While Barton and the team’s veterans are hoping this is the dawn of a new era at Merrimack, he refuses to ignore the dark ages they’re still trying to emerge from, and that remains the root of their motivation.

“We will never forget the past and what’s happened,” Barton said. “I think that’s why - what Dennehy has done over the years - he’s brought in so many different guys and changed the face of the program. We want to get it back to where it used to be, 20 years ago, I guess. We’re never going to forget it or forget the guys and all of the hard work they’ve put in. To see the hard work paying off now is great.”

DAN RINGWALD
Rochester Institute of Technology
Sr. | D | Oakville, Ontario

His Statistics: 2 GP, 3-3—6, 5 power-play points

His Impact: The RIT Tigers made the jump to Division I hockey just five years ago and have experienced a lot of success in that time. Entering last weekend’s games with an 0-5-0 record was unfamiliar territory for the Tigers, but they broke through with a big offensive weekend in a two-game sweep of Connecticut in an Atlantic Hockey series.

RIT scored 13 goals over the two games with a 6-2 win on Friday and 7-0 win on Saturday. The Tigers were 4-for-7 on the power play in the Friday win and 2-for-9 in Saturday’s win and power-play quarterback Dan Ringwald keyed the offensive surge.

Ringwald had three assists in Friday’s win, all of which came on the power play, and scored a natural hat trick in Saturday’s win. His three straight goals in the first period stretched RIT’s lead to 4-0.

He’s been a consistent point producer over his entire RIT career and entered the season as RIT’s all-time leader in assists and points by a defenseman at the Division I level and is a two-time All-Atlantic Hockey first-team selection. His big weekend helped start turning RIT’s season in a positive direction.

His Runners-Up: Alex Beaudry, Providence; Scott Greenham, Alaska; Alexander Killorn, Harvard; Nathan Longpre, Robert Morris; Tony Lucia, Minnesota

The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop

Could you tell last weekend was Halloween for college hockey, too? A bunch of defensemen across the nation got into the spirit by masquerading as Paul Coffey.

Ringwald had back-to-back, three-point nights, but five other blueliners put forth three-point games. Ringwald’s RIT compadre, Al Mazur, had three goals and an assist against Connecticut Friday, the same night St. Lawrence’s Peter Child recorded a hat trick against Sacred Heart.

On Saturday, a trio of defensemen racked up three assists—Cullen Lundholm of Robert Morris, who had three assists in a win over Quinnipiac; Wisconsin’s Brendan Smith, who did it against New Hampshire; and Minnesota State’s Ben Youds, who accomplished the feat against Denver.

We briefly mentioned that there was some market correction in this week’s INCH Power Rankings in regard to some Hockey East teams. Specifically, these are teams that are at or below .500 through the first month of the season. Defending national champion Boston University is 2-3-0, as is Northeastern—an NCAA Tournament team from a year ago. Vermont, despite some impressive early wins, is also 2-3-0. BC is at .500 with a 2-2-0 mark and New Hampshire is 2-4-1 after being blown out in two games at Wisconsin last weekend. Full credit goes to Massachusetts (4-1-0), UMass Lowell (4-2-0) and upstarts Merrimack (5-3-0) and Providence (5-2-0), but the trend of slow starts for many of the teams is troubling. 

“I think that’s a terrible precedent for a league, and I think the integrity of the league’s at stake when you make that sort of decision … You’re actually encouraging member institutions to cheat, as long as they don’t get caught before the game is declared over.”—Nebraska-Omaha athletic director Trev Alberts to Chad Purcell of the Omaha World-Herald following the Mavericks’ controversial shootout loss to Bowling Green Friday in which the Falcons used an ineligible player.

Alberts, the former All-American linebacker at Nebraska and football commentator, went on to say that he was disappointed by the CCHA’s “lack of leadership.” He never minced words on the air, and it appears that hasn’t changed. That’s great, because in our opinion the happy-happy-joy-joy CCHA could use a little piss and vinegar. 

We’re nitpicking here—isn’t that the point of this feature?—but New Hampshire somehow appeared on the ballots of enough voters to garner seven points in the latest USCHO.com/CBS College Sports just days after getting throttled twice at Wisconsin last weekend. With a 2-4-1 record, can anyone honestly say UNH is one of the 20 best teams in the country or has even played to that level? It begs the question, are voters actually casting ballots based on the previous weekend’s results? In this instance, it seems more like a vote for the program or a vote of familiarity (i.e. UNH has been good in the past, so they’re probably good this year, too) more than anything.

SchlossmanGF Which Halloween costume of Jonny Toews is better? Dumb and Dumber or Wolverine?

Brad Elliot Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald forwarded the above links Monday. In addition to former Fighting Sioux and current Chicago Blackhawks standout Toews, we get a look at the costumes of ex-collegians Adam Burish (Wisconsin), Duncan Keith (Michigan State), and Patrick Sharp (Vermont). Makes one wonder what these guys did with all the free time they had during the lockout.

Blake Kessel has a shooting percentage that might make his brother envious. Heck, it even puts Shaquille O’Neal’s free throw percentage to shame.

Madison, Wis. native Blake Kessel returns to his hometown as the leading scorer for the New Hampshire Wildcats.

Kessel, the New Hampshire sophomore defenseman who is also the younger brother of Toronto Maple Leafs forward Phil Kessel, is off to a blistering pace on the stat sheet. Through four games, he’s tallied three goals, a team-high seven assists and is tied for the Hockey East lead with 10 points. This is after he compiled six goals and seven assists in 37 games as a freshman.

“I think I’m definitely a little more comfortable this year,” Kessel said. “I feel a bigger responsibility, and I feel I’ve got to step up after losing our seniors last year. Those guys were huge to our team. I kind of took it personally this offseason to make sure I got myself better for the team, and I feel like I’ve got to step up along with the rest of our defensive corps because we are kind of young at that spot. I proved that I can do it in the past, and last year wasn’t a bad year but it wasn’t a year I was looking for. This year, I’m hoping to continue on with the early success that I’ve had.”

Kessel’s three goals this season have come on six shots.

“I’d say I have one good shot,” Kessel said. “The other ones were questionable. Obviously, I need to put the puck on net more often. Hopefully, I’ll get more shots and continue to get more goals, but I’ll take them when they come.”

Kessel has a homecoming this weekend when UNH visits Wisconsin for a pair of games that will be mightily important for the Wildcats, who are 0-2-1 in non-conference games this season. They lost to Rensselaer in the season opener before going 0-1-1 in a home series with Miami. After this weekend, UNH’s last two non-conference contests are against Cornell and Dartmouth, so the Wildcats have little room for error against some tough opponents.

Kessel understands teams can slip out of the NCAA tournament picture by not experiencing success out of conference, and he said the team is aware of what is at stake this weekend.

“Obviously, you’ve got to look at the end of the season when those rankings come out,” Kessel said. “We want to play our best, and we feel like we do need to rebound, one way or another. This is one weekend we have to have, especially with us only having two other games besides these next two out of conference. We’ve got to really show the rest of the country who we are, and hopefully we’ll be jumping up the rankings at the end of the season.”

UNH’s early struggles outside of the league were contrasted last weekend with a pair of convincing Hockey East victories against rival Maine and Northeastern. Kessel had a goal and an assist against the Black Bears in Saturday night’s win at the Whittemore Center, and he knows a victory against Tim Whitehead’s crew is always helpful to jumpstart a run for the Wildcats.

“It sets the tone for the season, especially in Hockey East,” Kessel said. “Against a team like that, they’re always going to battle you hard, and that’s why we’ve got the great rivalry between us. But getting that win sets the stage for Hockey East and shows that we’re here to play. That little momentum will get us excited, our fans excited and get things going in the right direction.”

Boston University celebrates the lone goal of last year's Hockey East championship game.

This weekend features the first marquee home-and-home of the Hockey East season, when Boston University and UMass Lowell square off in a two-part rematch of the 2009 league championship game.

BU and Lowell, Hockey East’s top-two teams according to the preseason coaches’ poll, meet Friday at Tsongas Arena before shifting to Agganis Arena on Saturday.

“They’re the team that ended our season last year, and we’re going to want to try to get back at them,” said Lowell junior forward Scott Campbell, who has three goals and two assists this season.” They’re ranked No. 1 in Hockey East, and we want to see how we match up against them going into this weekend. Even though it’s still early, we want to judge to see where we’re at.”

The Terriers claimed last season’s Hockey East championship by a 1-0 margin before they won the national title in Washington D.C. The River Hawks needed to pull off an upset to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, but the defeat left them out of the picture, which was tougher to swallow because they were one of the hottest teams in the country in March.

BU has entered the 2009-10 season knowing it will get every team’s best effort, but that will have a whole new meaning against the revenge-driven River Hawks.

“They’re obviously going to be pumped up,” said BU sophomore defenseman David Warsofsky, who assisted Brandon Yip’s goal in the Hockey East championship. “It’s a big game for them, kind of to get a little revenge on us from last year. The win last weekend we got against Michigan boosted our confidence a little bit, so I think we’ll be ready to match [the River Hawks].

“Once you get on the ice, it’s kind of a regular game. We know we’re going to get everyone’s best game. Yeah, there might be a little more on the line because we knocked them out last year, but in the end, it’s just another game for all of us.”

It wasn’t just last year, though. The Terriers defeated the River Hawks in three games in the first round of the 2008 Hockey East playoffs. While the 2009 championship was predictably competitive, the 2008 series wasn’t expected to be close at all. Part of that series helped Lowell establish some of the grit it displayed all of last season and through the opening weeks of this season. It’s also fueled Lowell’s fire for its games against the Terriers, as the two teams have developed a growing rivalry.

Both teams areimpressed by the other’s passion and talent, and there is a good amount of mutual respect between the sides. Warsofsky and Campbell also remember last year’s league championship very similarly.

“[I remember] just how hard the guys battled,” Campbell said. “BU had our number. They were such a dominant powerhouse all year. But the way the guys battled, we went down 1-0 and we just kept coming. [Our] guys had a no-quit attitude, and hopefully that’s something we can continue to build on going through this year with most of the guys coming back.”

“It was a hard-fought game,” Warsofsky said. “Nothing came easy that game. Lowell’s a great team. They come hard every shift. They have four lines that can really work, and they get solid goaltending. I just remember it wasn’t an easy game, and I don’t think this weekend is going to be any different.”

And don’t think the River Hawks are looking at this weekend as two regular old games. They aren’t hiding from their history with Boston University.

“From the past two years, BU has been the team that has ended our season both years,” Campbell said. “We are starting to get a pretty good rivalry with them. We’re always looking forward to BU games because they’re always up-tempo, they’re always exciting and a lot of fun to play in. I think this weekend will be no different.”

MARC CHEVERIE
Denver
Jr. | G | Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia

His Statistics: 2 GP, 2 shutouts, 60 saves.

His Impact: It was a weekend of historic proportions for the Pioneers and for Cheverie, who whitewashed Minnesota on back-to-back nights—the first time that has happened to the Gophers since 1930—with identical 30-save efforts. In doing so, Cheverie extended his personal shutout streak to 203:19, second in the DU hockey annals behind Peter Mannino’s run of 208:42 without allowing a goal.

Cheverie has three shutouts this season—he also blanked Ohio State on Oct. 15—and seven for his career. Minnesota has been the victim of Cheverie’s perfection on three separate occasions. In addition to the shutouts this past weekend, he was also the goalie of record in a 4-0 win over the Gophers at Magness Arena on Nov. 22, 2008.

Heading into the Pioneers’ weekend series with Minnesota State, Cheverie leads the nation in shutouts, is tied for first in wins with four, ranks second with a .966 save percentage, and is fourth with a 1.00 goals against average.

His Runners-Up: Blake Kessel (New Hampshire); John Kruse (Air Force); Jerry Kuhn (Western Michigan); Chris McKelvie (Bemidji State); Brandon Pirri (Rensselaer); Bill Sweatt (Colorado College)

The INCH Player of the Week is presented by The INCH Shop

This past weekend was fairly enjoyable for hockey fans in Colorado. In addition to Denver’s series sweep at Minnesota, Colorado College took two games from visiting Michigan Tech. The Tigers were paced by senior forward Bill Sweatt, who in the two games piled up 1-6—7. Up the road a spell, Air Force got off the schneid with a pair of wins over RIT at Cadet Ice Arena. Rookie forward John Kruse led the Falcons with 1-5—6 and a plus-minus rating of +4. (As an aside, INCH hopes Kruse has designs on being a fighter pilot, and gets tagged with the nickname “Maverick.” We feel the need for speed.)

Although it hasn’t yet been formally announced, all indications are that next summer’s NHL Entry Draft will be held at Staples Center in Los Angeles, home of the Kings. We know that the North American geographic footprint for the NHL is significantly larger than that of college hockey, but it was nice for college hockey fans and media to consider nearby locales such as Montreal, Ottawa, and Columbus in recent years.

“They outworked us at times but I think we deserved at least one this weekend.”—Minnesota captain Tony Lucia, to Roman Augustovitz of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune following Denver’s second shutout of the weekend at Mariucci Arena Saturday.

When Lucia the younger says “one”, is he referring to a win or a goal?

INCH has stood by without comment for two weeks, but in this, the third week of absurdity, we are compelled to shed our cloak of silence. What, we ask, is up with one renegade pollster consistently going off the board with his/her first-place vote in the national polls?

It started two weeks ago when Boston College garnered a lone no. 1 mention in both the USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today and USCHO.com/CBS College Sports rankings. Last week, another Hockey East school, Vermont, earned a sole no. 1 vote in both polls. This week, Yale got the outlier in the polls.

Don’t get us wrong; we’re certainly open to radical thinking when it comes to voting in the national polls. Perhaps the voter in question can only give his/her top spot to institutions located in one of the 13 original colonies. We’ll know that’s the case should Old Dominion gets a first-place vote. But this pattern is odd, to say the least.

Obviously, we don’t know the identity of this person (or people). We don’t even know if it’s the same person responsible for the lone vote each week. We’d love to hear this particular voter’s rationale, however. One thing we can tell you is that it’s not us. INCH casts a vote in the USA Hockey Magazine/USA Today poll every week. The ballot we submit aligns with the top 15 teams in that week’s INCH Power Rankings.

@ThatKevinSmith: Via @nerdbastards “If Gozer the Gozerian asked you to choose the form of your destructor, what would it be?” Gretzky, circa ‘84 Oilers.

The successful writer/director (”Clerks”, “Chasing Amy”, etc.) is a big hockey fan, a bigger New Jersey Devils fan, and an even bigger Gretzky fan. A prolific Tweeter, Smith will soon start production on “Hit Somebody”, a hockey-themed flick based on the Warren Zevon song of the same name.

The headline of this piece doesn’t refer to the prowess any member of the INCH family has as a deejay, though, if asked, we’re more than happy to dust off our Eric B. and Rakim vinyl and take a turn on the wheels of steel. Instead, it refers to the picks for this week’s most intriguing matchups—a pair of single games pitting CCHA and Hockey East powers against one another and two conference series.

Junior goaltender John Muse allowed four goals on 16 shots in Boston College's season-opening loss at Vermont Sunday.

Boston College at Notre Dame (Friday): Notre Dame has won four of the last five games in this series with the lone loss coming to Boston College in the 2008 Frozen Four championship game in Denver. The Fighting Irish were shaky in series splits with Alabama-Huntsville and Providence, but shut out a listless Boston University team at Agganis Arena Tuesday. Listlessness must be spreading like H1N1 in the Hub of Hockey, because the Eagles looked as much in a season-opening loss at Vermont Sunday.

The most intriguing matchup in this contest pits the Irish forwards, who’ve yet to fire on all cylinders, against a young BC defensive corps that struggled against UVM. Notre Dame defenseman Teddy Ruth, who hasn’t played this season because of a lower body injury, will not dress against the Eagles.

Denver at Minnesota (Friday-Saturday): In this very space last week prior to its series at North Dakota, it was mentioned that Minnesota was a great unknown that could win by six goals or lose by the same margin. Two games into the season, I don’t know that we have any greater handle on the Gophers other than the fact that goaltenders Alex Kangas and Kent Patterson were pretty sharp.

The Pioneers won’t have standout center Joe Colborne in the lineup—he broke a finger in a loss to Ohio State last week. Also, DU coach George Gwozdecky tells Mike Chambers of the Denver Post that he plans to rotate goalies Marc Cheverie and Adam Murray for the third straight series.

Michigan at Boston University (Saturday): Offense shouldn’t be a problem for these teams, but it has thus far. The Terriers, a few days removed from being shut out by Notre Dame, have two goals in two games. The Wolverines, meanwhile, have nine goals in three games. Keep an eye on a pair of talented forwards who’ve yet to get untracked-or is it on track? Because untracked would seem to indicate derailment, and that ain’t good. Semantics aside, Michigan’s Louie Caporusso, who scored 24 goals and 49 points last season, has bagels thus far. BU’s Nick Bonino scored 50 points as a rookie; he, too, is scoreless.

RIT at Air Force (Friday-Saturday): Atlantic Hockey’s preseason favorites enter the weekend with a combined 0-7 record (to be fair, the league’s 10 teams are 1-23-0 thus far.) Air Force, which started last season with 13 straight wins, is 0-4, its longest losing streak in more than two years. Senior goalie Andrew Volkening has been abysmal as evidenced by his 5.91 GAA and .805 save percentage. RIT, meanwhile, has three narrow losses to ECAC Hockey opponents. In those three games the Tigers have fired a combined 119 shots on target, but have scored just six goals. That a shooting percentage of a little better than five percent.

Also: An offensive explosion could be in the works in Oxford—Miami and Michigan State have each played four games and scored a combined 34 goals … Is there a trio of forwards in the country better than Minnesota Duluth’s Justin Fontaine, Jack Connolly, and Mike Connolly? They’ll meet a St. Cloud State team that has yet to click offensively … UMass Lowell readies for a rugged stretch to open its Hockey East slate (Northeastern, Boston University, at Boston University, at Vermont, New Hampshire) with a non-conference match against Colgate at Tsongas Arena … Exhibitions for Ivies Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton this weekend.