KID’S CLUB TIMES JANUARY 2010 COVER STORY on PAGE 3 First Half in Review Hello Readers! I am Allyson Kummins, the manager of the Kid’s Club Times! Welcome back to another exiting edition of KCT. It’s almost New Year, so please enjoy the explosion of fireworks we have set throughout the paper. Hope you enjoyed your holiday and spent as much time as you could with family. We hope you enjoy this edition of both the Kid’s Club Times and your New Year celebration. Maybe your celebration will include the meeting of some hockey players. If it does be sure to ask a couple questions and e-mail us the answers. Even though we have fireworks exploding throughout our paper we are also exploding with tons of exiting stories and articles! Have fun on this holiday exploding with excitement that is just waiting to be celebrated. Enjoy your holiday. Have a fun New Years Day! Allyson Kummins Manager Contact Us: Mail: 58 Boylston Street, Suites 2 & 3 Malden, MA 02148 Phone: (781)-321-9710 E-Mail: [email protected] www.kidsclubtoppisports.wordpress.com www.twitter.com/hekidsclubtimes For more on our staff and this issue, including credits, see the back page! What’s Up in January?? By Kid’s Club Times Staff • The New Year begins with half of Hockey East participating in four holiday tournaments, which take place between January 1 and 3. UMASS-Lowell and Northeastern will travel to Dartmouth to play in the Ledyard National Bank Classic. UML will play Holy Cross, while Northeastern will play the host. Boston College will travel to the Wells Fargo Denver Cup, where they will face St. Lawrence and Denver. Merrimack will face Wisconsin and either Ferris State or Yale in the Badger Hockey Showdown in Madison. Vermont will host the TD Bank Catamount Cup, where they will face Alabama-Huntsville and either Mercyhurst or Minnesota-Duluth. • The highlight of the regular season comes on January 8, when Boston College and Boston University play continue their season series at Fenway Park in a NESN televised game. The game will be the second game of the Sunlife Financial ‘Frozen Fenway’ doubleheader, which features a Women’s Hockey East game between two women’s hockey pioneer schools, Northeastern and New Hampshire, prior to the Green Line Rivalry matchup. • The Battle of the Riverstone IX between New Hampshire and Dartmouth takes place on January 16 at Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester. • Maine hosts a pair of exhibition games at Alfond Arena in January. The Black Bears welcome New Brunswick on January 2 and the U.S. Under-18 Team on January 23. Frosh File: Stephane Da Costa By Kid’s Club Times Staff #24 Stephane Da Costa Merrimack Warriors Forward Height: 5’11” Weight: 180 lbs. Hometown: Paris, France Last Team: Sioux City (USHL) • Leads Hockey East rookies in scoring; Eight goals and ten assists for 18 points • Finished fifth in scoring last season in the United States Hockey League; 31 goals (fourth best) and 36 assists for 67 points • Led Musketeers in goals, assists, and points • Scored at least three points in seven games last season • Born November 7, 1989…Undeclared arts major at MC Hockey East at Mid-Year By Joshua Kummins, Men’s Info Contact As legendary BU radio voice Bernie Corbett always says, “the college hockey season is a marathon and not a sprint.” With three months of the 2009-10 season down, that race has hit its 13-mile point. We are halfway to the finish, so let’s take a look back on the fall semester that has passed. The Hockey East season has been a very good one so far, as we have a tight race in the conference standings, although the conference has not enjoyed as much non-league success as it has in recent years. We have begun to see some separation in points, but it looks to be an exciting rest of the year. New Hampshire enters 2010 with an 8-6-3 overall record and an 8-2-2 record for 18 conference points. The Wildcats have had great success in conference, but are 0-4-1 in five of seven non-conference games so far this season. “Right now, we feeling good about ourselves,” said head coach Dick Umile…“Although we lost the [non-league] games, I think the competition that we had has made us a better team.” UNH is in the midst of a seven-game unbeaten streak and a four- game winning streak. Senior co-captain Bobby Butler leads the team in points (13-11=24), while sophomore Blake Kessel leads in assists (5-13=18). Kessel is tied with UMASS-Lowell senior Nick Schaus as Hockey East’s leading defensive scorer. Butler is tied with UMASS senior Casey Wellman for the league lead in goals, while having the sole lead in plus/minus with a whopping +13 rate. Senior Brian Foster has become the Cats’ go-to goaltender, as he has collected a 7-6-3 record, 3.44 goals against average, and a .892 save percentage over 11 starts. “He’s been real solid in net for us…I feel bad because his numbers do not reflect how good of a goaltender he is and what he’s done for us this year,” Umile added. Foster leads all Hockey East goaltenders in saves with 448 and a mark of 28 per game. Sophomore Matt DiGirolamo has appeared in three games and is 1-0-0. Boston College comes into the New Year with a 10-3-2 record and a 7-3-2 Hockey East mark for 16 points. BC has reached the double-digit win plateau before Christmas for the first time since the 2003-04 season, when they went 11-2-3 in 16 games. Head coach Jerry York said that he would “like to get our goals against average lower…[although] we’re not giving up a lot of chances.” He adds that he would like to see his team improve upon some things to become a stronger defensive team. Junior Brian Gibbons (5-11=16) and sophomore Cam Atkinson (8-7=15) lead the Eagles’ offense, which is tied with UMASS for the Hockey East lead. Junior John Muse is still the Eagles’ top goaltender, despite having off-season shoulder surgery. Muse sports a 6-3-2 record, 2.70 GAA, and a .893 save percentage in 11 games. True freshman Parker Milner is undefeated in four starts, to go along with a 2.26 GAA and a .905 save percentage. Milner and Muse lead a defense that gives up a league-leading 39 goals and ranks second in the conference behind UMASS-Lowell. BC’s 85.9 penalty kill rate leads the conference. Maine is one of the conference’s biggest surprises this season, as they have garnered a 9-7-1 record and a 7-4-1 HEA mark for 15 points. The Black Bears have matched last season’s conference win total at the halfway mark of the campaign. Head coach Tim Whitehead said that his team is improving, despite the slow start and that they are “chipping away at the win column.” The team’s slow start began right from the get-go, as they dropped three straight non-league games, including being swept at Union. Sophomore Gustav Nyquist ranks second in Hockey East scoring (11-14=25) and “has done a great job along with his fellow sophomores.” He was always a fierce competitor, but that extra strength [he added in the off-season] has helped him immensely.” One of those sophomores, Brian Flynn is second on the team in scoring (5-14=19), behind Nyquist. Maine’s 28.8 power play rate is tops in Hockey East and in the top three nationally. Fellow second-year Black Bear Scott Darling is the team’s leading goaltender, as he has posted a 9-3-1 record, 2.47 GAA, and a .912 save percentage in 15 appearances this season. Rookie Shawn Sirman and senior Dave Wilson have appeared in two and three games, respectively. Sirman and Wilson are each 0-2-0. Massachusetts has also surprised some people, as they enter 2010 in home ice position. The Minutemen have posted a 10-5-0 record and a 6-4-0-conference mark for 12 points. The team has overtaken the 2002-03 team for the fastest date to reach 10 wins in a season. “We’re happy that we’ve been able to execute enough to win a large majority of our games. If you told me we would be [10-5 after 15 games], I would have been ecstatic,” said coach Don “Toot” Cahoon. Junior James Marcou leads Hockey East in scoring (5-21=26), while leading the nation in points per game with 1.73 and assists per game with 1.40. Marcou also leads the HEA in power play points (2-12=14). Sophomore Casey Wellman is ranked second in team scoring (13-9=22). He is tied with UNH senior Bobby Butler for the league lead in goals, while his 0.87 goals per game mark ranks second in the nation. Wellman is also the league leader in power play goals with seven and game-winning goals with three. The Minutemen power play ranks second in the conference and third in the nation at 25.7 percent. The offense is tied with Boston College for the conference lead in goals per game with 3.67. Junior Paul Dainton has seen the majority of time in net, as he sports an 8-5-0 record, 2.61 GAA, and a .922 save percentage through 13 games.