Or, in this case, the potential lack of one for Notre Dame in 2010. They say "a flight is a flight", but I doubt that would be very necessary for much of the CCHA if placed in 2010's midwest regional.
In recent years, and especially since the profile and expectations of the ND program took off under Jeff Jackson, there has been a bit of discussion about Notre Dame hosting a regional. Chicago was one option, with quite a few possible venues; another was a joint regional with Western Michigan. Indianapolis was discussed, especially given their increasing profile in all things athletics under the community leadership of Jack Swarbrick.
But the most common location discussed was Fort Wayne. Notre Dame has played home games at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne (home to the IHL Turner Cup champion Fort Wayne Komets) several times in recent years, including most recently in a 4-3 win against Northern Michigan in the 2006-7 season. Ft. Wayne is conveniently only about an hour and a half east of South Bend, nice and centrally located amidst the CCHA schools of OSU, UM, MSU, Notre Dame, and Miami, any of whom could make an easy trip to watch a regional game. That has come to pass -- the NCAA has announced some future regional sites, as detailed in an article on USCHO. In 2010, the midwest regional will be held at the ACWMC with Notre Dame as the official host school.
As the host school, Notre Dame is guaranteed to be placed in their own regional if they make the field. The regional was attractive to the NCAA for several reasons: it has a first-time host (and, I believe, first-time bidder), it is at a non-campus site and an arena that isn't the home arena for any college team, and it is centrally located amidst several potential regional participants. Finally, it also boasts an NHL sized arena, which is a new point of emphasis for the NCAA (though I don't think ND had any complaints about their results on the Olympic sheet in Colorado Springs last spring!)
Friday, August 29, 2008
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Ryan, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.
Let's start off the rundown on the incoming freshmen with the last addition to the class, Richard Ryan. Ryan is a 6'0 180ish left wing from Toronto, Ontario, ensuring that despite the departure of Brock Sheahan, a Canadian flag is still in fact merited alongside the American and Swedish banners hanging from the ceiling.
Ryan was the last member into the class, committing to the Irish this spring on May 27 and signing in the late signing period (well ... I assume he signed an LOI or signed his enrollment papers or something ... presumably he didn't just show up in Jeff Jackson's office at the start of the fall semester and say "hey, coach! whatcha up to, eh?").
He prepped with the St. Michael's Buzzers, where he was an OPJHL all-star and the winner of the "most gentlemanly player" award for his division. His final season he was the second-leading points man for the Buzzers, just behind Lake State signee Fred Cassiani. Other former teammates he'll run into in CCHA play include Brandon Burlon and Louie Caporusso of Michigan, and Bryan Potacco of Bowling Green.
Trading Card:
An '88 who flew under the radar due to playing high school rather than immediately into juniors and due to an injury his final juniors season, he'll be 20 years old when he laces them up for the Irish for the first time. Despite being an older player, probably isn't the most ready of his class to jump right on the ice and contribute from day one. His game has developed significantly over the last year or two, turning him into a top-tier Division I prospect. He has solid skills as a two-way forward, but at St. Mike's was primarily considered an offensive threat.
(Aside: he has two first names. Those of you who have been following my post titles will find that I've seemingly picked the "wrong" as far as parallelism with the source quotation goes. Deal with it -- I'm planning ahead in case I decide to keep up this gag for post titles, because starting next year there would be namespace issues.)
Ryan was the last member into the class, committing to the Irish this spring on May 27 and signing in the late signing period (well ... I assume he signed an LOI or signed his enrollment papers or something ... presumably he didn't just show up in Jeff Jackson's office at the start of the fall semester and say "hey, coach! whatcha up to, eh?").
He prepped with the St. Michael's Buzzers, where he was an OPJHL all-star and the winner of the "most gentlemanly player" award for his division. His final season he was the second-leading points man for the Buzzers, just behind Lake State signee Fred Cassiani. Other former teammates he'll run into in CCHA play include Brandon Burlon and Louie Caporusso of Michigan, and Bryan Potacco of Bowling Green.
Trading Card:
An '88 who flew under the radar due to playing high school rather than immediately into juniors and due to an injury his final juniors season, he'll be 20 years old when he laces them up for the Irish for the first time. Despite being an older player, probably isn't the most ready of his class to jump right on the ice and contribute from day one. His game has developed significantly over the last year or two, turning him into a top-tier Division I prospect. He has solid skills as a two-way forward, but at St. Mike's was primarily considered an offensive threat.
(Aside: he has two first names. Those of you who have been following my post titles will find that I've seemingly picked the "wrong" as far as parallelism with the source quotation goes. Deal with it -- I'm planning ahead in case I decide to keep up this gag for post titles, because starting next year there would be namespace issues.)
Monday, August 18, 2008
Space is big.
It's a fact, you can look it up. Notre Dame hockey isn't that big, but is big enough, so I suppose I need some ground rules.
Mike Lockert, Tim Connor, and the other people responsible for day-to-day coverage of Notre Dame hockey do a great job with play-by-plays, game summaries, and stats. I can't hope to compete, so while I may discuss games, I don't anticipate doing a tremendous amount of retelling. Instead, I'd like to focus on some analysis and on recruiting.
Yes, there are such things as hockey recruitniks, and yes, as you'd expect, we're dorks. Everyone loves Mike Frank over at Irish Eyes and the motley crew at II for football recruiting, but really, up until the last few years recruiting (primarily football) has been a rather niche area of college sports fandom. Well, tracking future Irish icers is a niche within a niche, but for the handful of ND hockey recruitniks out there at USCHO and Jackson's Rink, hopefully this space can be a nice compendium of ND recruiting info.
As far as the analysis, I admit up front that I'm not a hockey expert. Several years of near-perfect attendance at Notre Dame home games, however, hopefully leaves me more attuned than the average fan. I will offer views as I see them; and hopefully they'll be backed up by stats more often than not. However, since this doesn't really apply until the season starts, I'll be kicking off the real content with a survey of Notre Dame's current recruiting efforts as reported around the web. So in the coming weeks as the new season approaches look for profiles, links, descriptions, etc. on the incoming players.
(Caveat lector: when time permits or the mood strikes, I'll also probably venture into the well-covered world of Notre Dame football. It is still Notre Dame, after all. Other sports might be up for grabs too, but they won't be the focus ... after all, this isn't a "Spike Notre Dame" volleyball blog, a "Love Thee Notre Dame" tennis blog, or a "Down the Lane" swimming blog.)
Mike Lockert, Tim Connor, and the other people responsible for day-to-day coverage of Notre Dame hockey do a great job with play-by-plays, game summaries, and stats. I can't hope to compete, so while I may discuss games, I don't anticipate doing a tremendous amount of retelling. Instead, I'd like to focus on some analysis and on recruiting.
Yes, there are such things as hockey recruitniks, and yes, as you'd expect, we're dorks. Everyone loves Mike Frank over at Irish Eyes and the motley crew at II for football recruiting, but really, up until the last few years recruiting (primarily football) has been a rather niche area of college sports fandom. Well, tracking future Irish icers is a niche within a niche, but for the handful of ND hockey recruitniks out there at USCHO and Jackson's Rink, hopefully this space can be a nice compendium of ND recruiting info.
As far as the analysis, I admit up front that I'm not a hockey expert. Several years of near-perfect attendance at Notre Dame home games, however, hopefully leaves me more attuned than the average fan. I will offer views as I see them; and hopefully they'll be backed up by stats more often than not. However, since this doesn't really apply until the season starts, I'll be kicking off the real content with a survey of Notre Dame's current recruiting efforts as reported around the web. So in the coming weeks as the new season approaches look for profiles, links, descriptions, etc. on the incoming players.
(Caveat lector: when time permits or the mood strikes, I'll also probably venture into the well-covered world of Notre Dame football. It is still Notre Dame, after all. Other sports might be up for grabs too, but they won't be the focus ... after all, this isn't a "Spike Notre Dame" volleyball blog, a "Love Thee Notre Dame" tennis blog, or a "Down the Lane" swimming blog.)
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Mostly Harmless
Coming off two consecutive NCAA tournament appearances and an appearance in the NCAA championship game, Notre Dame hockey is on the upswing. I'm hoping to capture that momentum with a new entry to the blogosphere -- a home for those of us who follow the Irish icers. Hopefully the population of Notre Dame hockey enthusiasts among the legions of Notre Dame Nation continues to grow. So, with that lead-in, welcome to Vita Dulcedo Skate, let's begin. Where better to begin than with a name. What's in a blog name?
Well, unfortunately Grantland Rice never wrote about Notre Dame hockey to my knowledge. And the north dome rink at the Joyce Center doesn't (yet) have a nickname after a former coach, and "north dome" or "jacc" are both boring and both taken. Even the student section doesn't fly, as the NC State Wolfpack apparently got there first. I can't use current player names in the blog name, and I don't think anyone I know has had a bad run-in with a roommate's pet named after Chad Kolarik or Nathan Gerbe.
My next thought was to emulate the Notre Dame study abroad programs (loNDon, aNDes, etc.) and find a word with which I could use creative capitalization. For the same reason as above coNDra is out. "gamemiscoNDuct" is taken, and "stickhaNDling", "butt-eNDing", and "checking from behiND" all have rather disturbing connotations. Providence fans' experiences with a certain ND assistant might prompt "dumpaNDchasehockey" or similar concepts, but that's not my bag. Besides, I wouldn't want to be confused with the Fighting [NCAA redacted] blogs that use the state abbreviation rather than the institutional UND.
So failing on the facilities and funny names front, how about iconic music? The bleacher-shaking jig has already been taken, and the quota of Notre Dame Victory March lyrics has been well filled. From there, I combined iconic music, a Notre Dame tie-in, and sacrilege to stumble upon something that caught my fancy.
And here you have it: Vita Dulcedo Skate. A blog by any other name would read ... er, never mind. For those of you confused about the name, it is a play off of a reference to the Blessed Mother from the Marian antiphon Salve Regina. The invocation opens "Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve", with the pertinent portion naming Mary as our "life, sweetness, and hope". "Vita, Dulcedo, Spes" serves as the motto for the University of Notre Dame. A quick word replacement and a blog was born.
What about me? Well, Jack is short for Jack Jeffson. If you're familiar with Notre Dame hockey and still confused about where my blogger moniker comes from, you're probably Clueless Girl or Mr. Loafers.
Again, welcome to Vita Dulcedo Skate!
Well, unfortunately Grantland Rice never wrote about Notre Dame hockey to my knowledge. And the north dome rink at the Joyce Center doesn't (yet) have a nickname after a former coach, and "north dome" or "jacc" are both boring and both taken. Even the student section doesn't fly, as the NC State Wolfpack apparently got there first. I can't use current player names in the blog name, and I don't think anyone I know has had a bad run-in with a roommate's pet named after Chad Kolarik or Nathan Gerbe.
My next thought was to emulate the Notre Dame study abroad programs (loNDon, aNDes, etc.) and find a word with which I could use creative capitalization. For the same reason as above coNDra is out. "gamemiscoNDuct" is taken, and "stickhaNDling", "butt-eNDing", and "checking from behiND" all have rather disturbing connotations. Providence fans' experiences with a certain ND assistant might prompt "dumpaNDchasehockey" or similar concepts, but that's not my bag. Besides, I wouldn't want to be confused with the Fighting [NCAA redacted] blogs that use the state abbreviation rather than the institutional UND.
So failing on the facilities and funny names front, how about iconic music? The bleacher-shaking jig has already been taken, and the quota of Notre Dame Victory March lyrics has been well filled. From there, I combined iconic music, a Notre Dame tie-in, and sacrilege to stumble upon something that caught my fancy.
And here you have it: Vita Dulcedo Skate. A blog by any other name would read ... er, never mind. For those of you confused about the name, it is a play off of a reference to the Blessed Mother from the Marian antiphon Salve Regina. The invocation opens "Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve", with the pertinent portion naming Mary as our "life, sweetness, and hope". "Vita, Dulcedo, Spes" serves as the motto for the University of Notre Dame. A quick word replacement and a blog was born.
What about me? Well, Jack is short for Jack Jeffson. If you're familiar with Notre Dame hockey and still confused about where my blogger moniker comes from, you're probably Clueless Girl or Mr. Loafers.
Again, welcome to Vita Dulcedo Skate!
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