Team Notes: Big Weekend in New Haven
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The No. 2/3Yale men's hockey team (17-4, 11-3 ECAC), holding a one-point lead over second-place Union in the conference standings, hosts long-time rivals Harvard (4-16, 3-12) and No. 17 Dartmouth (12-6-3, 8-4-2) on Alumni Weekend at the Whale. Opening faceoff on Friday and Saturday nights is 7. Saturday's Bulldogs-Big Green game airs live on the YES Network (DirecTV 631).
TICKETS
There are NO tickets left to purchase for this weekend. Yale
students, with a proper Yale ID, can pick up one ticket at the Yale
Book Store while they last.
VS. HARVARD
The Elis and Cantabs split last year with the home team taking
each contest. Yale has taken two of the last three, including the
game last month at Boston, but Harvard leads the overall series,
135-76-18. Four different players scored and Ryan
Rondeau stopped 29 shots as Yale beat Harvard 4-2 before
3,076 at Bright Hockey Center on Jan. 8. Kenny
Agostino, Chris
Cahill, Brendan
Mason and Chad
Ziegler found the net as the Bulldogs outshot the Crimson
39-31 and converted two of seven power plays. Rondeau had a dozen
stops in the first, seven in the second and 10 in the third. The
Crimson got 35 saves from senior Ryan Carroll and a pair of goals
from Danny Biega.
VS. DARTMOUTH
Yale and Dartmouth have met 196 times since 1907 with Yale leading
101-84-12. The Bulldogs swept the series last year and have taken
the last five straight, including two this season. Ryan Rondeau
stopped 32 shots to help Yale beat Dartmouth 2-1 on Jan. 7 at
Thompson Arena in the most recent meeting. All three goals came in
the second period, including clutch shots from Yalies Antoine
Laganiere and Josh
Balch. Rondeau, who tied a career-high with his save total, may
have played his best game for the Bulldogs. The senior stopped 12
in the first and 10 in each of the last two periods on a night when
both teams went scoreless on two man-advantages. The Blue had the
shots advantage, 37-33, as James Mello made 35 saves for the Big
Green.
YALE IN DIVISION I
Scoring: 4.52 GPG (1st)
Defense: 2.24 GPG (10th)
Penalty Kill: 80.4
(40th)
Power Play: 25.2 (2nd)
Penalty Minutes: 15.9 (15th)
Scoring Margin: 2.29 (1st)
YALE ON YES
This Saturday's Dartmouth game airs live on the YES Network as
part of the winter Yale on YES package with Ron Vaccaro '04, the
voice of Yale football, and Bob Norton calling the action. This is
the first Yale hockey game to appear on YES, available on cable in
New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The home of the
New York Yankees and New Jersey Nets is also available nationally
on DirecTV, AT&T U-verse, Verizon FiOS and select cable
operators. Encore airings of the Yale-Dartmouth game are Feb. 5 at
11:30 p.m. and Feb. 6 at 5 p.m.
LAST WEEKEND
The Bulldogs were outscored 8-4 despite outshooting last week's
opponents 70-52. The Elis converted four of 12 power plays but gave
up five man-advantage tallies on 11 attempts. Allen York stopped 38
shots as No. 10 Rensselaer handed Yale a 5-2 loss on Big Red
Freakout Night before 4,780 at Houston Field House last Saturday.
The Bulldogs outshot the Engineers 40-18, but RPI's junior goalie
stood on his head, making 13 saves in the first, 15 in the second
and 10 in the final period. Denny
Kearney and Kevin
Peel had the Bulldog goals – both on the power play
- while Ryan Rondeau (8 saves), who gave up four goals, and Nick
Maricic (5) combined for 13 saves. Yale fell 3-2 at No.
12/13 Union last Friday before a sell-out crowd at Messa Rink. Ryan
Rondeau stopped 31 of 34 shots and kept Yale in a game they nearly
escaped from with a dominating third period that almost erased a
pair of two-goal deficits. Rondeau, who gave up two on the power
play, saw most of the action for the first 40 minutes with 27
saves. It was just the second time this season the Bulldogs have
been outshot (34-30) in a game. Kenny Agostino and Jimmy
Martin were the two Bulldogs who hit the net with a
man-advantage.
CRIMSON
Harvard, coming off a split at home with Colgate (6-2 W) and
Cornell (2-1 L), ended a seven-game skid with the win in its
highest scoring game of the year over the Raiders last Friday. Alex
Killorn (7-9-16) leads the team in goals and points with brothers
Michael (6-10-16) and Danny Biega (6-9-15) right with him. Kyle
Richter (2.75, .909) and Ryan Carroll (3.45, .906) have the
majority of the net work this winter.
BIG GREEN
Dartmouth, one of the least (10 min. avg.) penalized teams in the
country, had a three-point (Cornell 2-2, Colgate 7-3 W) weekend and
is 5-1-1 over its last seven heading into its Friday night game at
Brown. Scott Fleming (11-12-23) leads the Green in scoring and is
one reason Dartmouth is sixth in the nation in goals per game. Adam
Estoclet is second with eight goals, while James Mello (2.13, .930)
has been in goal for 10 wins this winter.
HOT DOGS
F Kenny Agostino has eight tallies in his last nine games…
F Denny Kearney has points in four of five… D Jimmy Martin
has points (1-3-4) in his last four games, while fellow blueliner
Kevin Peel has them in five of six… F Brian
O'Neill has four goals in his last six games and has a
point in five.
PAIRWISE
The NCAA Hockey Committee's ranking system is called Pairwise,
which it uses to gather teams for the post-season tournament. It
uses four criteria: record against common opponents, head-to-head
competition, record against other teams under consideration and the
RPI ranking. Yale is currently first with 32 points followed by
Denver (30) and Minnesota-Duluth (30).
RANKED TEAMS
Yale is 2-2 vs. ranked teams this year, all four coming as weekend
sets with Union and RPI. The Elis swept at home in December and
were swept on the road in January.
BOUNCING BACK
Yale's consecutive ECAC losses last weekend were the first since
Feb. 2008 when the Blue dropped a weekend set to Harvard and
Dartmouth before the skid went to three the next game against
Union. The Bulldogs went 57 conference games without consecutive
losses.
LEAGUE WITHIN A CONFERENCE
Six members of ECAC Hockey compete for the Ivy League's Hobey
Baker Trophy, which is all that is on the line in this race. Yale
is first with 10 points, but Dartmouth (9), Brown (6), Princeton
(6) and Cornell (5) are all within range. Each team has played six
of their 10 Ivy games.
CAPTAIN AHAB BEWARE
The Whale (Ingalls Rink) has been a tough (12-0 for Yale) place
for visitors this season, Moby Dick would be proud. This is just
the fourth time (last in 2008-09) in school history that Yale has
won at least a dozen at home. The Bulldogs aren't biting any legs
off, but they are 35-9-2 over the last three seasons at the
Whale.
BENCH LEADER
Keith Allain '80, Yale's Malcolm G. Chace Head Coach of Hockey, is
89-53-12 as a head coach, including 9-7 in the post season. Only
two other Yale hockey head coaches have more wins, and none have
reached the 80-win mark faster than Allain. The former Yale goalie
has led the Blue to three Ivy League titles, two ECAC regular
season championships and a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances.
Allain, who played and worked for Tim Taylor at Yale, earned the
2008-09 Tim Taylor Award as the ECAC Hockey Coach of the Year by
leading the Elis 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 he was selected. College Hockey News named him 2008-09
national coach of the year. This is Allain's 12th overall year at
Yale; he spent four as a student-athlete goalie and three as an
assistant coach in the 1980s. Allain, a former NHL (17 years) and
Olympics (1992, 2006) assistant, was named the 11th head coach of
the Yale men's ice hockey program on April 15, 2006. Allain is the
second Yale graduate to take the position and the first since
Holcomb York '17 led the Bulldogs from 1930 to 1938 (Lawrence M.
Noble '27 coached the Elis from 1928 to 1930). The starting goalie
on four Bulldog squads, Allain recorded the second-most (31) wins
for a Yale netminder and ranks third at the school with 2,337
career saves. He owns four of the top 10 Yale single-game save
totals, including 55 stops in a 7-3 loss at Minnesota on Dec. 28,
1978.
WORLD JUNIORS
Keith Allain served as head coach of the 2011 U.S. National Junior
Team and led the squad to a bronze medal at the International Ice
Hockey Federation World Junior Championship in Buffalo, N.Y. The
U.S., which won all but its semifinal game, defeated Sweden to take
the bronze on Jan. 5. Allain, who helped the U.S. National
Junior Team win a second straight medal at the IIHF World Junior
Championship for the first time, owns a 13-4-2 overall record as a
head coach in the event, giving him the top winning percentage
(.736) of any U.S. head coach to have served on multiple teams.
Allain was joined on the U.S. team by Yale's hockey strength &
conditioning coach Joe Maher. Kyle Wallack, Yale's fifth-year
assistant who is in his first season as associate head coach,
served as Yale's head coach in Allain's absence.
MILLER TIME
Sophomore F Andrew
Miller (55 gp, 10-51-61), voted "best passer" by his
teammates, is No. 3in the nation with 1.05 assists per game. What's
more impressive is that 15 of his 22 assists are primary ones. He
is also hitting the net when it counts this season; four of his
five goals have been winners, which ranks fifth in Division I.
Miller (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.), who is 18th in the nation with
1.29 points per contest, registered the most (34) points by a Yale
rookie since Tom Walsh set the bar with 41 in 1984-85. The speedy
forward was the 2008-09 USA Junior Player of the Year and 2007
Michigan High School Mr. Hockey. Last winter, he was second among
conference rookies with one point per game, which also put him
fourth in the country for newcomers. He ranked eighth in Division I
last year with .85 assists per outing.
NET GAIN
A year after four goalies shared the Yale net, Ryan Rondeau
(Carvel, AB), one of the four in 2009-10, has started 19 of the 21
games and has twice been named ECAC Hockey Goalie of the Week. He
has started the last 15 games; the last time an Eli netminder had a
streak like that was 2005-06 (Alec Richards '09). Rondeau, who had
a 141:29 scoreless streak and consecutive shutouts (first time for
a Yalie since 1998) in December, is 16-3. He ranks eighth in GAA
(2.02) and 12th in SP (.924) in Division I. Fifteeen of the 37
goals he has allowed this year came on the man-advantage. Rondeau's
season-high is 32 saves (twice) while his career-high is 40 at
Princeton in 2009. The senior, who owns a 22-7-1 career record, has
been in net for six wins over ranked teams including a 3-2 decision
with North Dakota at the 2010 NCAA Northeast Regional
semifinal.
GOLD STANDARD
Hobey Baker candidate Denny Kearney (Hanover, NH) is third on the
team with 11 goals while his 26 points are second. His assist total
(15) includes 12 that were primary helpers, while he ranks 22nd in
the country with 1.24 points per game. Kearney notched eight of
those over the first two games (Brown, Dartmouth on Oct. 29-30) and
was ECAC Hockey's Player of the Week. That included his first
collegiate hat trick (natural) and a game-winner during the most
prolific weekend of his collegiate career. In addition, all four
assists were primary ones. Kearney (123 gp, 40-76-116), who was
voted by his teammates as the "best dresser" and "most talkative"
among the Bulldogs, is Yale's active career assist leader (7th best
at Yale) but may not be the best athlete in his family. His sister,
Hannah Kearney, won an Olympic gold medal in mogul skiing at the
2010 Games and is the top ranked American in that event.
LOTS OF LITTLE
Yale senior forward Broc
Little (Rindge, N.H.), a Hobey Baker candidate, leads the
team with 13 goals and 27 points despite being kept off the board
the last four games. He is 11th in the nation with .62 goals per
game, 18th with 1.29 points. Little had his third career hat trick
(3-1-4) against Holy Cross on Jan. 2. Eight of his 14 assists have
been primary ones. He was named one of the 20 candidates for the
Lowe's Senior CLASS Award in hockey, which honors student-athletes
who excel both on and off the ice. Little (116 gp, 66-60-126), who
has 10 more points than games played, led the 2009-10 Bulldogs with
27 goals, a Yale record for juniors, while leading all of Division
I in goals per game (.79). He was second on the team with 41 points
and garnered numerous post-season honors, including RBK Second-Team
All-America, first-team All-ECAC, All-Ivy and All-New England.
Little, a political science major, has shown the same dedication in
the classroom with a 3.1 GPA and three-time ECAC Hockey
All-Academic Team status.
VOTE HOBEY
Senior Yale hockey forwards Broc Little (Rindge, N.H.) and Denny
Kearney (Hanover, N.H.) have been nominated for the 2011 Hobey
Baker Memorial Award. The first phase of the process includes fan
voting. Go to hobeybakeraward.com and make your choice once every
24 hours. The results of the fan voting will impact the final
selection process.
CAPTAIN MARTIN
Captain Jimmy Martin (St. Louis, Mo.) is a defensive defenseman
who has turned himself into a player with offensive potential. He
has points in his last four games and had a goal at Union last
weekend. His three goals this year are a career-high. He now has
seven goals and 47 career points, including 2-17-19 last winter.
Martin, who attended three different high schools in three states
before coming to New Haven, is a political science major who helped
the Des Moines Buccaneers make it to the 2007 USHL final four.
BACKSTOP BACKDROP
A pair of experienced sophomores joins Ryan Rondeau in the net
mix. Jeff
Malcolm (12 gp, 4.02, .837, 6-4-0) made 16 saves in the
7-4 win over Brown on Oct. 29 before stopping 25 shots in a 4-3
loss at Air Force. The Lethbridge, AB, native has allowed eight
goals, including six on the power play and two with a 5-on-3
advantage. Alta Loma, Calif., resident Nick Maricic (16 gp, 2.89,
.888, 7-4-2) played the last period against Holy Cross (5 saves)
and some of the third at RPI. Maricic has not had a start this
winter.
ENGINE NO. 9
Junior F Brian O'Neill (88gp, 40-57-97), who had goals in four
straight outings before last weekend, is second on the team with 12
goals and ranks 19th nationally with .57. He began 2010-11 with a
3-2-5 weekend in the two wins including a career-best 2-1-3 and the
GWG against Dartmouth on Oct. 30. Last winter he led the Elis with
29 assists and 45 points while ranking seventh in the country with
1.32 PPG. One of his best plays of 2009-10 was a pass he put on
Sean Backman's stick in OT that set up the winner at Cornell. He
also had the tying goal in the OT draw at the Badger Showdown title
game against Wisconsin. O'Neill (Yardley, Pa.), who was voted "most
humorous" by his teammates, made the 2008-09 CHN (national) and
ECAC Hockey All-Rookie teams after going 12-14-26 in 2008-09.
BLUE LINE
Three seniors, two juniors and a sophomore comprise the typical
Yale defensive lineup this season. These six players, who have
eight goals between them in 2010-11, have a combined 486 career
games played. Two seniors with 12 points each, Jimmy Martin
and Mike
Matczak (Sewell, N.J.), have combined for five goals.
CAHILL
Chris Cahill (North Andover, Mass.) entered the season with 16
goals in three collegiate seasons. He already has 11 this winter,
including four different two-goal games and a trio of three-point
outings. Cahill, 23rd in Division I with .55 goals per game, was
named ECAC Hockey Player of the Week on Dec. 6 after leading
(3-1-4) Yale to a pair of wins over nationally ranked teams with
three goals and four points. The senior forward has career numbers
of 27 goals and 66 points in 111 games.
HOTTEST BULLDOG
Yale freshman forward Kenny Agostino, named ECAC Hockey MLX Skates
Rookie of the Week on Jan. 23 (3 goals vs. Clarkson/SLU), is the
only Bulldog to earn conference rookie honors this season.
Agostino, the hottest hand on the team, has eight goals over his
last nine games. His transition from first half of rookie season to
second
has been tremendous. The former Delbarton School star had a goal
and three assists before the holiday break, and has eight goals and
four assists since. The leading scorer (9-7-16) among Yale
freshmen, he ranks seventh nationally among rookies with one point
per game (21st overall). Agostino became the first Yale
newcomer in 30 years to record five points in one game on Jan. 2.
He notched three goals and two assists against Holy Cross and
became the school's first freshman to tally five points since
former Olympian and NHL star Bob Brooke '83 established the school
rookie record against Dartmouth in 1980.
FROSH
The class of 2014 includes four forwards and one defenseman. All
five competed in the Northeast during 2009-10. Three of the new
Elis played in the juniors (Eastern, North Atlantic) last winter
while two came to Yale from New England prep schools. F Clinton
Bourbonais (Colchester, Conn.), F Kenny Agostino
(Flanders, N.J.) and F Jesse
Root (Pittsburgh, Pa.) have all found the net this season.
D Gus
Young (Dedham, Mass.), who has been fighting injuries, has
an assist in two games played, while F Brad
Peltz (Mount Kisco, N.Y.) is looking for his first regular
season action. Agostino (2), Root and Peltz combined for four of
Yale's five goals in the win over the Russian Red Stars. Agostino
tied a school rookie record with five (3-2) points against Holy
Cross.
RED LIGHT DISTRICT
The Bulldogs have 95 goals and are No. 1 in the nation with a 4.52
average. They scored 10 against the Crusaders and had seven goals
twice, six once and five on seven occasions this year. Yale led the
nation in scoring in 2009-10.
GEOGRAPHIC BALANCE
The Yale roster includes players from 12 different states and
three provinces. Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New
Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are represented twice each while
six hail from Alberta, including a Calgary pair.
FROM WHENCE THEY CAME
Northeast prep schools and the United States Hockey League each
contributed nine players to the Bulldog roster. Six former British
Columbia Hockey League skaters are at Yale while the Atlantic
Junior Hockey League has a pair. One Eli played in the Eastern
Junior Hockey League and another came from a private school.
SHOOTERS
The Bulldogs have outshot 19 of 21 opponents (by 210 combined)
this year after having the advantage in 26 of the 34 games last
year. Vermont (32-30) and Union (34-30) are the only squads to
outshoot the Blue this season.
STREAK
After opening the season with five straight wins, the Blue
stumbled on Nov. 14 at Air Force before bouncing back with a road
win at Cornell on Nov. 19. That was the first of 10 straight wins
that carried through to the Jan. 15 victory over Brown at Ingalls.
Division I's longest win streak this year came to an end the next
day at Brown.
A CLASS OF ITS OWN
The Class of 2011 became the winningest in Yale men's hockey
history after beating Holy Cross on Jan. 2. The current seniors
have amassed 76 victories, surpassing the total reached by the
Class of 2010. In addition, the Class of 2011, which is the first
from this school to be undefeated (3-0-1) at Cornell, is the first
at Yale to have four winning seasons since the Class of 1954.
SCORING SPREAD
Eight members of the senior class have accounted for 45 goals. The
juniors (6) have hit the net 27 times. Yale sophomores (4) have
tallied 10 goals, while the freshmen (4) have added 13. Bulldog
defensemen have hit the net eight times.
SHORTY
Yale had four shorthanded goals last year and led the nation with
nine the year before. The Bulldogs' first goal of 2010-11 was
shorthanded by Broc Little, the school's career leader with seven,
but the team has not done that since.
BULLDOG BITES
This is Yale Hockey Alumni Weekend with the annual Blue-White Game
set for 9:30 AM on Saturday… The Bulldogs wore home white
jerseys in both games last weekend because RPI wanted to wear
red… Four different players scored goals last
weekend… Yale has played in front of four straight sellout
crowds… The last three games at Ingalls have been sold
out.
UP NEXT
The Blue heads to the North Country to face St. Lawrence and
Clarkson next Friday and Saturday.
BULLDOGS IN THE PROS
This season, for the first time ever, two former Yale players
skated on the same National Hockey League team. Chris Higgins '05
and Joe Callahan '05 have been on the Florida Panthers' roster at
times. They played in the same game twice in November. In other
alumni news, Mark Arcobello '10 was named MVP of last week's ECHL
All-Star Game after netting three goals. Thirteen former Yale
players are skating professionally this winter: Sean Backman '10
(Texas Stars, AHL, 36 GP, 5-10-15 ), Ryan Donald '10 (Reading
Royals, ECHL), Mark Arcobello '10 (Stockton Thunder, ECHL), Alec
Richards '09 (Rockford Icehogs, AHL, 61 GA, 2 SO, 2.64, 9-13-1,
.906), Brennan Turner '09 (Gwinnett Gladiators, ECHL), David
Meckler '09 (Manchester Monarchs, AHL), Matt Cohen '07 (Hamburg
Freezers, DEL), Brad Mills '07 (New Jersey Devils, NHL; Albany
Devils, AHL), Chris Higgins '05 (Florida Panthers, NHL, 36 GP,
8-9-17), Joe Callahan '05 (Florida Panthers, NHL; Rochester
Americans, AHL), Stacey Bauman '03 (Tulsa Oilers, CHL), Jeff
Hamilton '01 (HIFK Helsinki, FNL), Ray Giroux '98 (Chelyabinsk
Traktor, KHL).
YALE HOCKEY BROADCASTS
The pay-per-view Yale home hockey "TV" broadcasts on
yalebulldogs.com are a Yale Athletic Department production that
employs students to produce, shoot and broadcast most of the
action. Sam Dorward '13 is the producer and Joel Oblizalo '12 does
the camera work. Evan Ellis '11 handles most of the calls for the
Elis as well as an interview with Coach Allain.
ON 'TV'
The Dec. 5 game against Union aired live on ESPNU, the first of
two Yale games on ESPNU this season. The Feb. 20 game at Princeton
is also on ESPNU. The Union game was Yale's third on the tube
this season. The first was Nov. 19 at Cornell on CBS College Sports
followed by a Nov. 20 game at Colgate on Time Warner Cable. Both
games last weekend were aired on TWC.
WYBC
The Yale student radio station formerly found on AM-1340 and on
wybc.com, is only available via internet this season. WYBC does
most of the home contests and a pre-game interview with Coach
Allain.
INGALLS RENOVATIONS
Yale hockey celebrated the re-dedication of Ingalls Rink (3,500
capacity) on Jan. 16, 2010, with ceremonies on and off the ice. The
rink built in 1958 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 for the building nicknamed the Yale
Whale because of its humpback-shaped roof.
NCAAS BACK AT BRIDGEPORT
Yale and Fairfield hosted the 2009 East Regional in Bridgeport at
Webster Bank's Arena at Harbor Yard, and the Bulldogs were one of
the four teams to participate. The 2011 and 2012 East Regionals are
also slated for the Yard. This coming NCAA tourney is March 25-26.
Game times on the 25th are 3 and 6:30 with a 6:30 p.m. championship
contest on the 26th.
IN THE POLLS
Yale dropped from the top spot in both polls on Monday. The Elis
are now No. 2 in the USA Today/American Hockey Magazine Poll with
three of the 34 first-place votes. Twenty-six went to No. 1 Boston
College with Denver and Minnesota-Duluth splitting the remaining
votes. The Bulldogs are No. 3 in the latest uscho.com poll with BC
and Denver ahead of them.
filed by Steve Conn, Yale Sports Publicity Director
