Tues. 11/5/2013
A Big Change in Prep Playoffs
The New England Prep School Hockey Tournament has bid goodbye to the Icenter in Salem, NH. The new home, at least for this year, will be Yale University’s Ingalls Rink, where the small school, large school, and open ‘elite’ tournaments – title games only -- will be held on Sunday March 2nd. Starting times are expected to be 2:15, 4:45, and 7:15 p.m.
The semifinals will be played the day before, Sat. March 1st, at the home rinks of the top-seeded schools, except when driving times between schools exceeds two hours and 45 minutes. If such a case arises, neutral sites will be utilized.
No longer will the New England amateur hockey community be able to watch the semifinals and finals all in one building, as we have become accustomed to over the past 20 years.
Pressure from athletic directors, led by Kent AD and long-time football coach Todd Marble, who for several years has made an issue of the time and cost of traveling to Salem, was the driving force behind the decision to scrap the all-in-one-site format.
NEPSIHA second-year president Sean McCann, the head coach at St. Sebastian’s, is the man in the middle, as many prep coaches are upset over the new format. The decision, however, was not the coaches. The ADs voted it down.
“This is a one-year trial period,” McCann told USHR. “We’ll try it for a year. I understand that it has its pros and cons. I have heard both sides. But Yale University has a beautiful rink, and that is certainly a proper venue for prep hockey to showcase itself.”
This has been building up for quite a while. It’s long been clear that NEPSIHA would like to move their tournament to a medium-sized college rink, preferably in central New England or, failing that, shifting from an eastern New England to western New England college rink in alternate years. Everybody has been of one mind on that but, since ECAC and NESCAC colleges need to reserve their buildings for potential playoff games for both men’s and women’s programs, that idea remained stuck, and Salem, where the tournament has been held for 13 of the last 14 years, remained the default home.
“Our goal is to alternate between east and west,” McCann said. “It would also work if we put it in the middle.”
That actually was tried. In 2002, the tournament left Salem for UMass’ cavernous Mullins Center, where fans bounced around like buckshot in a boxcar.
It’s true that the travel has largely been a one-way proposition. Things came to a head last year when three of the four schools competing in the elite division Friday night semifinal all hailed from a tiny corner of northwest Connecticut, with the fourth, Westminster coming from a bit north of Hartford. In the days running up to last March’s tournament rumors that Kent and others wouldn’t be coming to Salem – but instead going rogue and playing their NEPSIHA semifinal games at home -- were flying all over the place. They were not unfounded: Marble was adamant about his unhappiness about traveling 175 miles to play Gunnery, which is only 20 miles from Kent, a jaunt down winding Connecticut country roads. Adding to the tension was the fact that many hockey coaches felt Marble’s stance was hypocritical, given that he had taken Kent’s football team to play a game in England in 2009, and then followed that up by taking the team overseas again, this time to Ireland, in 2012. That, hockey coaches felt, made any complaints over the cost and distance of a trip to Salem slightly ridiculous. But Marble was adamant -- and other ADs were in his corner.
“The three-day tournament was a great tradition,” said McCann, “but, by more than a three to one vote, the NEPSAC board felt it was time to make a change that was better for the kids. And with the (semifinal) games at home rinks, all the faculty and students will be there.”
“We’re going to try to make it better,” he added. “Of course, we’ll have people who like it and people who don’t.”
Those upset with the change feel that it was important to hang in there with the current format for the good of the greater prep hockey community.
We agree. From this typist’s point of view, the quality of the venue is less important than the quality of the tournament. Think how much more electric the Beanpot was in the old Boston Garden.
Salem, warts and all, was the place to be, a place where the prep game had some of its finest hours in this millenium, and a place where the prep hockey community came together as one. The atmosphere on some of those weekends was electric, particularly Saturdays, with busloads of kids coming from all over New England, alums appearing like ghosts from the past, and public school kids and youth hockey players from the Boston suburbs stopping in, mingling, curious to see what the prep game was all about. Then there were the casual fans and local types, folks not likely to go to any other prep games all year but who would walk out excited over all the hockey they saw -- for a mere five bucks. And last, though far from least, were the NHL scouts and college recruiters who would settle early into their seats behind the south goal, watching the more obscure small schools that they may have missed during the regular season, looking for that overlooked kid. Later in the day, the heavyweights would hit the ice and the scouts and recruiters could see how the kids they’d followed all season long would perform under the intense pressure. We weren’t crazy about the recent addition of Friday night games, but we certainly loved those long Saturdays, even if the ice was pretty beat by the end.
The beauty of it all was that the college coaches could still hustle back to their games at night. If you’re in Lakeville, Connecticut, as postcard pretty as that town is, you aren’t getting back in time for your team’s game, unless perhaps you’re at Trinity College. If getting kids exposure to college recruiters means anything at all, the tournament must play those semifinals in one location.
There are those who will argue that more students and faculty will show up if a school is hosting a tournament in their home rink. That will certainly be true in some cases. But it will be hit or miss. You might have overstuffed rinks where people are actually turned away – how many busloads of Avon kids would it take to bust out the side walls of Gunnery’s barn? There are also schools that are already on break when that first weekend of March comes around. That could be a real dud, atmosphere-wise. College hockey struggles with this, where home playoff games in March sometimes draw barely more than an early October exhibition against Dalhousie.
There are things that need to be changed, for sure. It’s important that the tournament rotate between east and west, not only to make the driving distances equitable, but also to mix things up a bit. When that first Saturday in March rolls around, having to choose just one game to attend is going to be a sad exercise.
Basically, playing those semis all in one building was special, and if you have a special tradition going, you shouldn’t give it up without a fight. It can be very hard to get back.
And someone else might fill the void.
Perhaps the Mass. Super 8 will move their tournament up by just one day, and all those college recruiters, NHL scouts, and Boston area fans may find something else to do on the first Saturday in March. After all, four games in one barn in one day is pretty enticing.
Mon. 11/18/13
Prep Girls Schedule, Week of Nov. 18th
Mon. Nov. 18
Northern Lights @ Pomfret, 7:00 pm (S)
Wed. Nov. 20
St. Paul's @ Holderness, 3:00 pm
Stanstead College @ Northfield - Mt. Hermon, 3:00 pm
Vermont Academy @ New Hampton School, 3:30 pm
Islanders Hockey Club @ Exeter, 5:45 pm (S)
Connecticut Polar Bears @ Pomfret, 6:30 pm (S)
Thurs. Nov. 21
Jr. Eagles @ Southfield, 5:15 pm (S)
Fri. Nov. 22
New Hampton School @ Noble & Greenough, 3:45 pm
NEWHL @ Holderness, 6:00 pm (S)
Sat. Nov. 23
New England Pride U19 @ Worcester Academy, 11:45 am (S)
Cushing @ Milton, 12:00 pm (S)
Stanstead College @ Kimball Union, 12:00 pm
Pomfret @ St. Mark's, 1:00 pm
LaSalle Academy @ Tabor, 1:00 pm (S)
Kents Hill (neutral site) Millbrook, 4:30 pm
Mon. Nov. 25
Greenwich @ Portledge, 5:30 pm (S)
Wed. 11/13/13
This Week's Girls' Schedule
It's not exactly a heavy schedule, but it's a start. The U.S. Hockey Report wishes the best of luck to all the girls’ prep teams in the upcoming season. It should be a good one.
Fri. Nov 15
Northfield - Mt. Hermon @ Winchendon, 5:00 pm (S)
Sat. Nov 16
NJ Rockets @ Northfield - Mt. Hermon, 10:30 am (S)
Kent @ Canterbury, 1:15 pm (S)
TBA @ Lawrence Academy, 2:00 pm (S)
Worcester Academy @ Lawrence Academy, 4:00 pm (S)
Quakers @ Millbrook, 5:00 pm (S)
Fri. 3/8/13
New England Prep All-Star Teams 2012-2013
Division I
Player of the Year:
Phoebe Staenz, F, Choate, Sr. (Zurich, Switzerland)
First Team
Forwards:
Lexi Laing, Nobles, Jr. (Marblehead, Mass.)
Caitrin Lonergan, St. Paul’s School, Fr. (Roslindale, Mass.)
Briana Mastel, Choate Rosemary Hall, Sr. (Wallingford, Conn.)
Defensemen:
Natasha Rachlin, Nobles, Sr. (Brookline Mass.)
Eleni Tebano, Westminster, Sr. (Glastonbury, Conn.)
Goaltender:
Katie Burt, BB&N, Soph. (Lynn, Mass.)
Second Team
Forwards:
Tori DeAngelis, Westminster, Jr. (Sounderstown, RI)
Haley Mullins, Nobles, Jr. (East Greenwich, RI)
Makenna Newkirk, Pomfret, Soph. (Scottsdale, AZ)
Defensemen:
Bella Sinsigalli, Berkshire, Sr. (Redding, Conn.)
Jane Pagano, Tabor Academy, Sr. (Erie, PA)
Goaltender:
Brittany Bugalski, Loomis Chaffee, Soph. (Lake Worth, FL)
Division II
Player of the Year:
Kelcey Crawford, G, Proctor Academy, Sr. (Amherst, NH)
First Team
Forwards:
Annemarie Ng, Southfield, Sr. (Milton, Mass.)
Alison Quinn, Southfield, Sr. (Canton, Mass.)
Pam Schulman, Greenwich Academy, Sr. (Greenwich Conn.)
Defensemen:
Ashley Arnold, Middlesex, Sr. (Boxborough, Mass.)
Erin Hall, Southfield, Sr. (Pembroke, Mass.)
Kate Haslett, Brooks, Sr.. (Rothesay, NB, Canada)
Goaltender:
Lan Crofton, Worcester Academy, Sr. (Milton, Mass.)
Second Team
Forwards:
Maeve McMahon, Groton, Sr. (Duxbury, Mass)
Melinda Prevost, Vermont, Jr. (Pierrefonds, Que., Canada)
Melissa Sheeran, Millbrook, Jr. (Schaghticoke, NY)
Defensemen:
Isabela Bagi, The Gunnery, Sr. (Branford, Conn.)
Emily Even, Millbrook, Sr. (Montreal West, Que., Canada)
Goaltender:
Jessica Thulin, Southfield, Sr. (Reading, Mass.)
New England Prep Hockey News
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