Stonehill at Trinity 7:30 PM

Stonehill Skyhawks (4-4-0) at Trinity Bantams (5-1-0)   
7:30 PM Koeppel Center; Hartford, CT

The Lowdown: Bird's the word 
With conference play over for Trinity until 2014, the Bantams look to close out 2013 strong with two non-conference wins this weekend. First up is a rare Thursday game (the only other Thursday NESCAC game is Colby against Salem State on January 2) against Stonehill, another school with a very angry looking bird mascot. Not sure why the Skyhawk ditched the scarf and aviator goggles from the previous logo, perhaps it wasn't fierce enough?

Anyway, these two schools last met in November of 2012 when Trinity defeated Stonehill, 4-2, at the Koeppel Center despite being outshot, 39-34. Bantams junior Jackson Brewer (F, '15) put in an empty-net goal and Ben Coulthard (G, '14) made 37 saves in the win. Chris Tasiopoulos (G, '15), brother of former Wesleyan leading scorer/current Babson player Nik Tasiopoulos (F, '14), made 30 saves in the loss. Coulthard earned his first collegiate win in November of 2010 against Stonehill when he saved 19 of 20 Skyhawks shots for a 5-1 Bantams victory.

Stonehill played the other NESCAC bird school from Connecticut last week, losing to Wesleyan,5-3, two days before Thanksgiving. The Bantams enter the game at 11th in the nation in D3Hockey.com's first installment of computer rankings, while the binary crowd has Stonehill at 48th out of 79 schools.

Players to watch (provided you could actually watch)  
Robbie Dorgan (F, '16) The sophomore from Ossining, NY leads the Skyhawks in both goals (7) and assists (9) for a team high 16 points (7-9-16).

Mike Hawkrigg (F, '16) The sophomore from Rob Ford land was named NESCAC Player of the Week on Monday by the conference. It is the second such honor for Hawkrigg in his young career. Mike has had an uncanny penchant for distributing the puck this year and leads the nation with 12  assists despite playing at least two less games than everyone else in the top 20. Perhaps he can add to the goal column of his point total (2-12-14) tonight against Stonehill?

Surf rock band The Trashmen had a hit in 1963 when they combined R&B group The Rivingtons "Papa-Oom-Mow-Wow"  and "The Bird's the Word" in "Surfin Bird." The song has extensive reach in popular culture, from use in Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" to a running gag on The Family Guy.