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ANOTHER QUARTERFINAL FOR BULLDOGS, BEARS
NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The Yale men's hockey
team (19-7-3, 15-5-2), the No. 1 seed which had a bye last weekend
during the first round of the ECAC Hockey Playoffs, is back in
action this weekend. The Brown Bears (10-18-4) come to Ingalls Rink
to determine one of the four slots for the conference championship
next weekend in Albany. The Bulldogs-Bears, best-of-three
quarterfinal series is scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday
(if necessary). All face-off times are 7 p.m. with live video from
B2TV.com and audio from WYBC Radio (AM-1340, wybc.com).
TICKETS
Quarterfinals tickets are available online at yalebulldogs.com or
by calling 203.432.1400. Yale students will be admitted free when
presenting valid Yale student identification at Ingalls Rink on
game nights.
WATCHING THE SERIES
All ECAC Hockey playoff games can be seen live on B2TV.com, a
pay-per-view stream that uses the home school's radio team to
provide audio.
SERIES
The series began in 1897-98 and Yale has an 84-67-8 lead,
including wins in the last eight. Five of those meetings were last
winter; the Blue and Brown skated in a non-conference season-opener
at Providence before the two ECAC contests and a pair of
quarterfinal tournament games. The Bears' last win was a 3-2
OT game in December of 2006 at Meehan Auditorium.
FORMAT NOTES
The team that wins two games advances to the semi-finals at
Albany's Times Union Center. There are no ties; all games
even after regulation include 20-minute overtime periods until
there is a winner. There are no media/TV timeouts, but video review
for officials will be in effect.
STATS LINE
Here are the per game averages for each team and where it ranks in
Division I and in ECAC Hockey.
YALE
BROWN
Offense
4.19
(1,1)
2.91 (34,9)
Defense
3.00 (33,6)
3.84
(56,12)
PIM
12.5 (42,9)
16.4
(11,1)
Power
Play
24.1 (2,1)
14.5
(50,12)
Penalty
Kill
81.0 (31,4)
77.9 (49,8)
VS. BROWN
Brown erased a three-goal Yale lead in the third period and sent
the first meeting of this season to OT before Broc Little won it,
6-5, at Meehan Auditorium. Six different Bulldogs hit the net
against two (Mike Clemente, Anthony Borelli) Brown goalies as the
Blue had the edge in shots, 42-22. Ryan Rondeau (14 saves) started
in net for the Blue, while Billy Blase stopped all three shots he
saw in late relief to earn the win. The Bears came to New Haven on
Ingalls re-dedication night and Yale won another high-scoring
affair, 8-5. Little, the only Eli to score in both games, hit the
net twice and six other teammates followed suit. Jeff Malcolm (23)
got the win in goal for Yale, which outshot Brown 53-28 and notched
five power-play goals. Clemente made 45 saves for the Bears.
YALE IN ECAC PLAYOFFS
The Blue has played 63 ECAC Playoff contests since the first in
1967 and are 17-41-5 overall. Yale, winners of four straight in
conference playoffs, swept its 2008-09 quarterfinal series before
winning two at Albany on championship weekend, the Elis'
first ECAC tournament title. The four-game ECAC playoff win streak
is the longest ever for a Yale team.
REGULAR-SEASON FINISH
The Bulldogs finished off the regular campaign by splitting a
tough weekend set. Yale erased a three-goal deficit with six
straight tallies in a 7-4 win at Princeton before falling 4-3 at
Quinnipiac. Senior forward Sean Backman and junior Denny Kearney
led the Blue offensively on Feb. 26-27 with two goals and three
points each. Freshman forward Antoine Laganiere had two goals
against Princeton, his first multiple-goal outing, and Mark
Arcobello added a goal and three points on the weekend. Nick
Maricic (2.95, .888), who stopped 23 of 27 shots in both games,
played every minute of the two-game weekend in the Yale net. Yale,
which earned its second straight ECAC regular season title, outshot
Princeton/Quinnipiac 71-54 and was a combined 3-for-8 on the power
play last weekend. The Elis, outshooting teams 40-26 on average,
scored seven times on just 33 shots at Baker Rink.
DA BEARS
Brown, for the second season in a row, went on the road in the
first round of the conference playoffs and pulled off the upset.
The Bears did it in two straight at Harvard in 2009 but needed
three as the No. 11 seed to eliminate No. 6 RPI last week. The boys
from Providence won 3-1, lost 4-1 and then held on for a 3-2
victory on Sunday night at Houston Field House. Senior Aaron
Volpatti leads the team with 14 goals, but junior Harry Zolnierczyk
and sophomore Jack Maclellan each have a dozen. Mike Clemente
(3.45, .897) has all the Brown victories in goal this year.
Volpatti and Clemente earned ECAC Player and Goalie of the Week
honors, respectively.
PAIRWISE
The PairWise sytem is a ranking established by uscho.com that
tries to imitate the NCAA Selection Committee's ordering of
teams for the tournament. Yale, idle last week, fell to No. 9 with
a slight RPI edge over No. 10 Cornell and New Hampshire.
BACK-TO-BACK
Yale's back-to-back ECAC and Ivy titles are the first
consecutive championships of any kind for a Bulldog hockey
team. Yale is the first ECAC Hockey squad to win consecutive
regular-season championships since Cornell in 2001-02 and 2002-03;
the Big Red were the last ones to take two straight (2003-04,
2004-05) Ivy crowns as well.
ALLAIN
Keith Allain '80, Yale's Malcolm G. Chace Head Coach
of Hockey, won his 70th game in four seasons as leader of the
Bulldogs on Feb. 26 at Princeton. ECAC Hockey announced Monday that
he is one of four finalists for the 2009-10 Men's Tim Taylor
Coach of the Year Award, which is voted on by the coaches. The
former Yale goalie has led the Blue to three Ivy League titles, two
ECAC regular season championships and a 2009 NCAA Tournament
appearance. Allain, who played and worked for Taylor at Yale, had
an eye on Vancouver whenever possible during the Olympics because
of his connection to the U.S. players. He worked with 13 of the 22
on the Olympic roster, either in the National Hockey League or at
the 2006 Winter Games, including Chris Drury, Zach Parise and Brian
Rafalski. In 2008-09 Allain earned the Taylor Award by leading Yale
to the best season in the program's history. A school-record
24 wins, Yale's first ECAC Tournament Championship and a
school-best No. 5 national ranking in late March were a few reasons
why the coached picked him. College Hockey News named him 2008-09
national coach of the year. This is Allain's 11th overall
year at Yale; he spent four as a student-athlete goalie and three
as an assistant coach in the 1980s.
ARCOBELLO
Senior F Mark Arcobello (11-17-28), who has been over 20 points in
each of his four seasons, is the Yale career games played leader
with 126, a game more than Jeff Hamilton '01 and Jeff
Hristovski '06. Arcobello hit the career, 100-point mark on
Feb. 6 against Harvard with two assists and has 108 career points
including 45 goals. He is currently on a five-game point streak.
His top game of 2009-10 was a two-goal performance at Dartmouth. He
scored his first collegiate SHG before tallying the winner.
Arcobello added his second SHG against Dartmouth at home this
winter. He was a 2008-09 second-team All-American after recording
17-18-35.
BACKMAN
F Sean Backman (21-14-35) is a first-team All-ECAC pick and the
Ivy League Player of the Year. He is alone at No. 7 on the
school's career points list with 126. His 77 career goals are
fourth best at Yale and put him one behind Bob Kudelski for third.
His 126 points in 122 games puts him in a select class of current
Division I players who have over 100 games and as many points as
games played. Backman, who was named to the College Hockey News
(CHN) 2009-10 Pre-Season All-America squad, lived up to the
billing. He has a point in 20 of 29 outings this winter and is
fourth in Division I with .72 goals per game. He was second-team
All-ECAC last year after leading his team with 20 goals. Backman, a
four-time, first-team All-Ivy selection, tallied the team's
lone hat trick of 2008-09 in a 5-0 win over Cornell that gave the
Blue the ECAC Hockey Tournament Title and made him tournament
MVP.
Yale Career Goals
Yale Career Points
Ding Palmer 87
1927-30
Jeff Hamilton 173
1996-01
Jeff Hamilton 80
1996-01
Mark Kaufmann 160
1989-93
Bob Kudelski 78
1984-87
Bob Kudelski 158
1983-87
Sean Backman 75
2006-Pres. Bob
Brooke 155 1979-83
Randy Wood 141
1982-86
Dan
Poliziani 131 1978-82
Sean
Backman 126 2006-Pres.
Bob
Logan 122 1982-86
Jack
Morrison 119 1964-67
DIGNARD
Senior D Tom Dignard (5-17-22) earned second-team All-ECAC honors
for the second straight year. He was first-team All-Ivy this winter
and ranks fifth among Division I blueliners and No. 1 in the ECAC
with .95 points per game. He has 18 career goals, which is fourth
on the school charts and 11 shy of the record set by Dave Baseggio
'89 (29-79-108). Dignard needs four goals to catch Darcy Ryan
and Ray Giroux (22) and tie for second. He is tied for fourth among
Yale blueliners in career points (71) with Jack Duffy '93.
Dignard, who has a 3.71 GPA in economics and math, is Yale's
candidate for ECAC Hockey's Student of the Year Award.
Yale Defensemen Career Points
Dave Baseggio 29-79-108
1985-89
D'Arcy Ryan 22-62-84
1971-72, 73-75
Ray Giroux 22-62-84
1994-98
Jack Duffy 16-55-71
1989-93
Tom Dignard 18-53-71
2006-Pres.
Jeff Dwyer 14-55-69
2000-04
CAPTAIN DONALD
Ryan Donald (St. Albert, ALB), a class of 2010 defenseman, is the
captain of the 2009-10 Bulldogs. The 6-foot-3, 220-pound skater has
already tied his career-high for goals (2) in a season and has
surpassed that mark in points with nine. The defensive-blueliner
(5-19-24 career) is a political science major who was recognized as
a conference all-tournament selection as well as a member of the
ECAC All-Academic team in 2009. Last summer he skated in the
Vancouver Canucks' free-agent camp.
KEARNEY
Junior F Denny Kearney (8-22-30) is one of the premier set-up men
in college hockey. He ended the regular season with a 2-1-3 weekend
that included two goals at Quinnipiac (he has 4 against the Bobcats
this year). He has a point in 22 of 29 games. Kearney has 25 career
goals and 83 points in 97 games, but may be equally famous for
having an Olympic gold medal winning sister, Hannah Kearney, who
won the 2010 mogul competition two hours after the Bulldogs beat
Cornell on Feb. 13. He and many of his teammates were glued to a
computer monitor watching the live coverage on the bus ride back
from Ithaca. Hannah, during a Feb. 14 Bob Costas interview on NBC,
mentioned being a hockey fan because her brother plays for
Yale.
LITTLE
Junior F Broc Little (25-13-38), a first-team All-ECAC and Ivy
League selection, was named the Player of the Month (Feb.) by the
Hockey Commissioner's Association. He leads Division I
players with .89 goals per game and seven game-winning goals. His
25 goals (29 games) are second only to RPI's Chace Polacek
(26 in 39 games). His season total is the most by a Bulldog since
Jeff Hamilton '01 had 27 in 1997-98. He has one SHG this year
after leading Division I with five in 2008-09. Little's nine-
game point streak to start 2009-10 is a team best. He has 51 goals
and 96 points in 90 career games.
MILLER
Freshman F Andrew Miller (4-21-25), the Feb. 15 ECAC Hockey Rookie
of the Week, is third among conference rookies with .93 points per
game, which also put him seventh in the country for newcomers. He
is ranked 18th in Division I with .78 assists per outing. The most
points by a Yale rookie are 41 by Tom Walsh in 1984-85.
NETS
This is the first time in the 115-year history of Yale hockey that
three different Yale goalies have at least five wins each. Four
Bulldog netminders have a decision this winter, the first time
that's happened since 2003-04. The goalie with the best (6-0)
overall record, is not the player with the most saves or minutes
played on the team. Senior Billy Blase (2.37, .895), who has four
starts, seven appearances and just 17 percent of the goalie time,
does not qualify for any of the conference or national rankings. He
is the only current Eli netminder with post-season experience and a
collegiate shutout. Blase started two of the three games in the
2008 ECAC Quarterfinals at Princeton and earned a win (4-3) and a
loss (4-0) while making a total of 60 saves. Freshmen Nick Maricic
(2.95, .888, 7-4-2), who leads the team in wins, and Jeff Malcolm
(2.89, .882, 5-2-0) have most of the work in goal this year. Junior
Ryan Rondeau (3.84, .880, 1-1-1) has the top save night with 40 at
Princeton but has not played since Nov. 21 at Brown.
O'NEILL
Sophomore F Brian O'Neill (12-24-36) is second to Little in
points on the team. He has points in 21 of 29 games, but his most
memorable plays of 2009-10 are easy to recall. He put the puck on
Sean Backman's stick before the OT game-winner at Cornell on
Feb. 13, and he had the tying goal in the OT draw in the Badger
Showdown title game against Wisconsin on Jan. 3. O'Neill had
2-1-3 in the win over Sacred Heart on Nov. 24 and 1-2-3 vs. Ferris
State. O'Neill's 1.24 points per game are 16th in
Division I. He made the CHN (national) and ECAC Hockey All-Rookie
teams after going 12-14-26 last winter. His career numbers are
24-37-61 in 62 games.
30 POINTS
Juniors Broc Little and Denny Kearney, senior Sean Backman and
sophomore Brian O'Neill have all hit the 30-point mark. It
was the third time for Backman (21-14-35), the second for Little
(25-13-38) and the first for Kearney (8-22-30) and O'Neill
(12-24-36). Two other Bulldogs are within five points of that mark.
The Elis had four players over the 30-point mark last winter.
20 POINTS
Yale has seven players who have reached 20 points this season.
Last year, during the Elis' best winter on ice, there were
just five skaters over that mark. The last time the Blue had that
many 20-point guys was 1991-92 with Mark Kaufmann, John Sather,
James Lavish, Jack Duffy, Martin Leroux, Craig Ferguson and Jeff
Blaeser.
IVY
Yale clinched (16 points) its second straight Ivy League title by
winning at Ithaca on Feb. 13 before beating Princeton on Feb. 26 to
finish 9-1 for the second straight year. Second-place Cornell had
12 points. The Elis now have nine (12 if you count titles before
the league officially formed in 1956) Ancient Eight crowns
including three in the four seasons under Keith Allain '80,
Yale's Malcolm G. Chace Head Coach of Hockey.
Hockey Ivy League Titles (since 1930)
1. Harvard: 25
2. Cornell: 18
3. Dartmouth: 14
4. Yale: 12
5. Brown: 7
6. Princeton: 4
SHUTOUTS
Yale has not blanked an opponent this season. Last year, Alec
Richards had a school-record four SHO and finished with six, a Yale
career record. The Bulldogs have had at least one SHO in seven of
the last 10 seasons.
CAREER-HIGHS
Three (non freshmen) Bulldogs have career-highs for goals this
season: Broc Little (25), Brendan Mason (9) and Chad Ziegler (3).
Seven players have had their best point output: Brian O'Neill
(36), Tom Dignard (22), Jimmy Martin (16), Kevin Peel (14), Mason
(14), Jeff Anderson (11) and Ziegler (5).
PROSPECT'S RED LIGHT DISTRICT
Yale averages 5.4 goals playing at the corner of Prospect and
Sachem this season and have a 10-2-1 record. The Elis lead the
nation in goals per game and have a power play that ranks second in
Division I. Two Bulldogs (Sean Backman, Broc Little) are among the
top five in the nation in goals per game, while defenseman Tom
Dignard is fifth in Division I points per game for defensemen. Yale
has scored 41 power play goals and 123 (most since 2002-03)
overall. The 1985-86 Bulldogs own the school record for both, 59
and 160 respectively.
CLASS OF '10
This weekend is the last home games for five Yale seniors: Mark
Arcobello, Sean Backman, Billy Blase, Tom Dignard and captain Ryan
Donald. They have accumulated 145 career goals and 331 combined
points in 616 games. A few other classes have produced more offense
-- all with at least two more skaters -- including 1993 (Mark
Kaufmann, James Lavish, Yannick Chiasson, Jack Duffy, Peter Allen,
Dean Malish) which had 170 goals and 431 combined points.
CLASS MIX
The current Elis are a true mix of experience. The last lineup
included six juniors, five sophomores, four seniors and five
freshmen, including two goalies. No class has been common for any
one Bulldog line or defensive pairing.
SELLOUT STRING
The crowd of 3,500 for the Feb. 20 Clarkson game marked the ninth
sellout at Ingalls this year and the seventh straight. Yale had six
sellouts in 2008-09.
GEOGRAPHIC BALANCE
The Yale roster includes players from 12 different states and
three provinces. The most from a state is two (California,
Connecticut, Illinois and New Hampshire) while six hail from
Alberta, including a Calgary pair.
SHOOTERS
The Bulldogs have outshot opponents in 22 of the 29 games and are
16-4-2 in those outings. The Elis average 40 shots and give up 26
while having a 402 shot advantage overall. Yale outshot Clarkson
56-26, a margin that has not been seen since the Blue had a 50-15
game against Harvard last February.
SHORTY
Yale potted a pair of shorthanded goals on Feb. 5/6 and has four
this year. Mark Arcobello has two this winter, Sean Backman and
Broc Little have the others. Little led the country with five last
year while the Elis had nine overall.
SPECIAL
It's been an up-and-down special teams season; the power
play has been up - most of the time - and the penalty kill has been
good - some of the time. Yale is third in the nation on the power
play with a 24.1 mark. However, the Elis went one for 19 over three
games during the middle of the campaign. The Blue, 12-0 when
tallying at least two PPG, was just over 11 percent after the first
six games but went on a tear. The best night was 5-for-8 against
Brown on Jan. 16, the most productive PP day since Nov. 13, 1992,
when the Blue went 5-for-7 in a 10-6 win over Colgate at Hamilton.
The penalty-kill unit is at 81 percent, which is fourth in the
ECAC.
FROSH
All seven members of the class of 2013 have been in the lineup at
times this year. The seven frosh have all seen action this winter
with 13 goals and 47 points. Antoine Laganiere leads the newcomers
with five goals, while Andrew Miller has 26 points and is ranked
seventh among Division I rookies and third among ECAC newcomers
with .90 points per game. The two goalies, Nick Maricic and Jeff
Malcolm, who have contributed a combined four assists to the
offense, own 20 of the 29 decisions and 12 of the 19 wins.
BULLDOG BITES
The Yale junior class has 112 career goals and 301 points…
Yale goalie Billy Blase has 40 career games played; the other three
goalies average 11 career outings… The Bulldogs have four
double-digit goal scorers this year and 12 who have 10 or more
points… Yale's third-period comeback against Clarkson
was just the second time this season the Elis have erased a deficit
to win in the final frame; Yale is now 2-6-3 when trailing after 40
minutes… Three goals in 51 seconds against the Knights
reminded some of the comeback at Colgate in 2008-09 (down 4-0 with
11 minutes left, 5-4 OT win)… Yale is five wins from the
total (24) from 2009-10… The Elis had the same (15)
conference win total as last year... The junior class has
contributed 49 goals this season, the seniors have 39. The
sophomores are third with 22 while the newcomers have 13 goals.
THE FUTURE
On one hand, the Bulldogs lose three of their top five point
producers to graduation after the 2009-10 season. On the other
hand, Yale returns seven of its top 10 point scorers and three of
the four goalies next season.
CAREER OUTINGS
Senior F Mark Arcobello broke the school record for games played
with his 126th at Quinnipiac. Teammates F Sean Backman (122) and D
Ryan Donald (118) recently followed Arcobello to the century mark.
The old record was shared by Jeff Hamilton '01 and Jeff
Hristovski '06.
IN THE POLLS
Yale has been No. 6 in both major polls the last two weeks after
earning its best-ever ranking of No. 4 in the USA Today/USA Hockey
Magazine Poll on Feb. 22. The Bulldogs are 3-0-1 against top 15
teams in the current USA Today rankings and 4-1-2 vs. the
USCHO's top 20. Yale is 6-2-1 against teams that were ranked
on game night.
MATURO RETIRING
Ed Maturo, in his 33rd year as Yale's Director of Equipment
Services, will be retiring at the end of the 2009-10 season.
Maturo, who began working with Yale hockey teams in 1977-78 and was
nicknamed “Fox” because of his silver-colored hair many
years ago, missed the 1993-94 and 2005-06 seasons to work for U.S.
Teams at the winter Olympic games. He has worked 950 Yale
men's varsity hockey games.
BULLDOGS IN THE PROS
Fourteen former Yale players are skating professionally this
winter. Here are the details on each. Alec Richards '09
(Rockford Icehogs, AHL), Brennan Turner '09 (Elmira Jackals,
ECHL), David Meckler '09 (Manchester Monarchs, AHL), Blair
Yaworski '08 (Wheeling Nailers, ECHL), Matt Cohen '07
(Trenton Devils, ECHL), Brad Mills '07 (Lowell Devils, AHL),
Chris Brooks '06 (Bakersfield Condors, ECHL), Joe Zappala
'06 (Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, CHL), Chris Higgins
'05 (Calgary Flames, NHL), Joe Callahan '05 (Worchester
Sharks, AHL), Stacey Bauman '03 (Rio Grande Valley Killer
Bees, CHL), Jeff Hamilton '01 (Lugano, Swiss-A), Ray Giroux
'98 (St. Petersburg SKA, KHL) Alex Westlund '98 (Linz
EHC, Austria). Higgins has played 61 games between the New
York Rangers and the Flames and has six goals and 14 points.
Hamilton has 22 goals and 45 points in 44 games for HC Lugano this
winter.
INGALLS RENOVATIONS
The Yale hockey program celebrated the re-dedication of Ingalls
Rink on Jan. 16 with ceremonies on and off the ice. The rink has
been modernized in many ways while adding 13,000 square feet of
varsity operational space. The additions include locker rooms and
space for strength & conditioning (including skating
treadmill), student-athlete study area, medical & training,
officials, video, coaches, equipment, reception (Schley Room) and
more. There are new historical displays and concession stands and
bathrooms.
BULLDOGS ON THE AIR
All Yale home games include live video and audio streaming. All
games from Ingalls can be seen live through Yale's All Access
on yalebulldogs.com. The audio is provided by WYBC radio, and the
broadcast can also be heard on either AM 1340 or on wybc.com. Both
games this weekend air live on WYBC. Mike Dunn and Chris Hudson
call the action this weekend on WYBC.
Report filed by Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity Director
Image by Jack Warhola
