Happy St. Patrick's Day: Unofficial 2018-19 NESCAC All-Irish Team

O'Connor family crest (source)

With Trinity's tough 2-1 loss to UNE last Saturday in the NCAA Opening Round, we were left with no 'CAC team in the NCAA DIII MIH Quarterfinals for the first time since 2014. So to fill the void, let's resurrect a dumb gag from that time period... NESCAC All-Irish (last names) team. 

To celebrate a routine Catholic holiday turned de facto Irish Heritage Day in America, as well as it being awards season in college hockey, we again present the NESCAC men's hockey All-Irish (last names) Team for the 2018-19 season. For information on the Irish origin of these players' last names, whether their individual lineages are actually Irish or not, check out House of Names.

Our apologies to those players that are of Irish heritage but don't have Irish last names or a player's inclusion if he is not in fact of Irish origin but has a last name that could be Irish. Selection is based on a complex algorithm balancing performance in the 2018-19 season with Irish-ness of name. 

Three shillelagh wielding sophomores lead the way in an underclassmen heavy class. In net, Mike Cullen, whose family surname is derived from the gaelic word for holly, almost netminded the Mammoths into the NCAA tournament with shutouts in both the NESCAC quarterfinals and semis before losing to Trinity in OT in the finals.  He's joined in the back by fellow sophomore Jack McCool - whose surname origins lie in the northern parts of the isle- who matched his freshman point total (8) in assists alone this year (7-8-15).  Rounding out the back line is Liam Feeney, a smooth skating blueliner from Trinity who has been a Joe Concannon semifinalist in back-to-back seasons. Besides being the name of one of  the best teachers in pop-culture history, the last name Feeney has its origins in gaelic references to warriors or soldiers. 

Up front, Nick O'Connor, fellow Concannon semifinalist and lone senior on this squad, led the NESCAC in power play scoring (4-5-9) and earned a spot not just on our prestigious team, but also on the conference's First Team All-NESCAC. The Colby Captain also represents our only instance of the O-apostrophe at the beginning of a last name, a gaelic signifier meaning "descendant of". Don't know who the original Connor was but at least one of his descendants can puck. 

Middlebury hopes to build a foundation that will lead them back to the glory of yesteryear from the nadir of missing the playoffs in 2017 and 2018. They took a step forward this season into the playoffs thanks in part to sophomore Michael Fahie, whose surname means foundation and whose family motto means hope, the Panthers leading goal scorer (10-11-21). 

Wesleyan junior Walker Harris rounds out the frontline. Harris hails  from Boulder, Colorado, farther from the emerald isle than any other selection. (The other four are all from Massachusetts with the exception of Ontario native Cullen. )His last name, Harris, also is less solidly Irish than others on the team as it is originally more English than Irish. But the First Team All-NESCAC forward's output (19-12-31) makes him a solid choice for the team.  

This should go without saying, but these honors are completely unofficial and the conference has absolutely nothing to do with them. 

2018-19 NESCAC All-Irish (Last Name) Team

Nick O'Connor*     Colby  F ('19)

Walker Harris*      Wesleyan F ('20)
Michael Fahie          Middlebury (F, '21)
Jack McCool            Williams (D, '21)
Liam Feeney             Trinity (D, '20)
Mike Cullen             Amherst (G, '21)

*Indicates player was selected to 2018-19 First Team All-NESCAC

With the offseason here and spring break coming for those still in school, it is time to take it easy. Here's Irish band Kila with Tog E go Bog E (Irish for Take it Easy).

NCAA Tournament Preview: University of New England at Trinity 3/9/2019 7 PM

University of New England (20-6-2)                                 Trinity (19-3-5)          

Offense - 4.79 G/GM (2nd)                                                 Offense - 3.33 G/GM (24th)

Defense - 2.18 G/GM (17th)                                               Defense - 1.70 G/GM (5th) 

PIM - 15.04/GM (28th)                                                       PIM - 10.93 /GM (63rd)

  Power Play - 28.15 % (2nd)                                                Power Play - 22% (17th) 

   Penalty Kill - 87.23% (17th)                                                Penalty Kill - 87.83% (12th)

A lot has changed since Trinity and University of New England last met in the 2010-11 season, a 5-4 victory for the Nor'Easters in their second year in the ECAC-East, as part of the NESCAC/ECAC-E interlock. The Nor'Easters only reached double digit wins once in their first six years of existence as an NCAA program, but then Kevin Swallow took over and they have won 14, 15, 20 and 20 games, respectively. Before coming to UNE, Swallow took over a Nichols program in 2012, just two years after completing a DI playing career at Dartmouth (pre-titans of hockey twitter days) and University of Maine, and took the Bisons to the 2015 NCAA tournament when they lost to eventual national champion Trinity, led by their own young upstart coach, Matt Greason, who took over the program the year after that loss to the Maine based squad. 

Last season, UNE lost the Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Tournament but received their first ever trip to the NCAA DIII Men's Ice Hockey Tournament with a Pool C bid thanks to their 20 wins. This year, they  got into the tournament by defeating last season's national runner-up, Salve Regina, in the CCC title game to earn the automatic bid and at trip to 2017 national runner-up Trinity in the opening round. 

UNE comes in with the same goals per game average (a very dangerous 4.79) as they did when they hosted Colby in the opening round last season. Swallow hopes going on the road as an automatic qualifier against the NESCAC is better than an at-large bid at home as the Mules quelled the Nor'Easters 4-2 in that game. Then sophomore Tate Sproxton got the start in net over Ben Churchfield (a Brit in DIII hockey with a very British name) after then freshman Churchfield gave up five goals in the CCC title game. Churchfield rebounded this season to earn the starting job outright and to earn All-CCC Second Team honors with a 2.15 GAA and .920 save percentage.  

Up front, UNE returns much of their firepower from last season, including Brady Fleurent, who earned CCC Player of the Year honors and would be in the 100 point club even if he only had assists in his career with a whopping 181 points (61-120-181) headed into his second and final NCAA Tournament. Ryan Bloom, who scored last season against Colby, leads the Nor'Easters with 21 goals this season.

But while the offensive firepower is what stands out for UNE, Churchfield and co.'s defensive stinginess is what coach Swallow credited to a resurgence in the second half of the season. UNE had a three game losing streak that culminated in the Green Mountains at the Middlebury Classic with an opening round loss to fellow NCAA Tournament team Hobart. Since then the Nor'Easters have gone 13-2-2 and have seldom given up more than two goals in a game, the last time coming in a 7-5 loss to Wentworth in January.

Trinity has been even stingier with a 1.70 goals against average, good enough for fifth in the nation and a starting goaltender in Teddy Loughborough that has a 1.54 GAA .940 save percentage stat line and who let up only three goals in a NESCAC playoff run that included two OT games. Unless you were living under a rock, you know by now about Trinity's buzzer beating (or was it?...eh, let's not relitigate that now) 3-2 OT win over Amherst in the NESCAC title game that made ESPN Sportscenter's Top 10 last Sunday. The narrative was made even richer by the one timer being hammered home by Taggart Corriveau - son of former Hartford Whaler Yvon Corriveau - who earned the home ice throughout the NESCAC playoffs in Hartford by scoring in the final ten seconds of the regular season finale against Wesleyan to give the Bantams the top seed. Considering the New England fan reaction to the Carolina Hurricanes wearing the Hartford Whalers jerseys against Boston this week, it was nice to have a positive Hartford Whaler reference point, at least in the NESCAC universe.

Speaking of Hartford, this will be UNE's first game in the state of Connecticut this season. The two teams have common opponents in Colby and Bowdoin, with Trinity sweeping both Colby and Bowdoin this season in home-and-homes and UNE beating both the Mules and Polar Bears in their respective visits to Biddeford, ME.

While I expect a lower scoring game, all bets are off in the playoffs, and these two teams have enough firepower to make this in to an ole fashion New England shootout. UNE hasn't faced many teams that have outshot them but when they have, the Nor'Easters have gone 0-4-1. Trinity has only been outshot twice this season going 0-1-1, the last time coming in a tie at Amherst in January. The Bantams have had eight straight games of at least thirty 30 shots and have reached the 40 shot plateau 14 times this season. While total shots are a crude metric and have all sorts of confounding variables, it is pretty clear that Greason's gang knows how to get the puck on net in droves and it is a large key to their success.

The winner of the game travels to Northfield, VT for a quarterfinal game with D-III powerhouse Norwich. The Bantams lost to the Cadets in the 2017 title game and the last NESCAC team to head to Kreitzberg Arena in the playoffs was Hamilton, who got blown out in the quarterfinals in that same 2017 tournament.

Pre-game Tweets/Gram 

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Thanks to @wmtwtv and @tlee_wmtw for coming out and doing a story on our upcoming NCAA Tournament Game. #unehockey #universityofnewengland

A post shared by UNE Hockey (@unehockey) on Mar 5, 2019 at 3:35pm PST

Final weekend of #toomuchhockey in Hartford!

Tonight: UConn vs. #2 UMass, 7pm, XL Center

High School Quarterfinals, 5:45 & 8pm, Koeppel Center

Saturday: NCAA Division III First Round, Trinity vs. Univ of New England, 7pm, Koeppel Center

Sunday: AHL vs. Hershey, 3pm, XL Center

— Hartford Whalers (@WhalersPlates) March 8, 2019

It's all about Hartford this week. It might be appropriate to go with the Zambonis version of the Hartford Whalers' goal song, Brass Bonanza, but instead we will go with Hartford's Bronze Radio Return and their new single, Entertain You, in hopes of an exciting game that ends with Trinity making Vermont travel plans for St. Patrick's Day weekend. 

NESCAC Finals preview 2 PM

All stats are from regular season and conference rank 

Amherst (15-6-4; 10-4-4 NESCAC) 

Offense - 3.06G/GM (3rd)

Defense - 2.00 G/GM (3rd)

PIM - 8.8/GM (6th)

Power Play - 18.1% (5th)

Penalty Kill- 91.2% (1st)

Special Teams Net - +8 (2nd)

Trinity (17-3-5; 12-2-4 NESCAC)

Offense - 3.11 G/GM (1st) 

Defense - 1.67 G/GM (2nd) 

PIM - 10.7/GM (1st)

Power Play - 20.3% (1st)

Penalty Kill - 87.5% (3rd)

Special Teams Net - +4 (4th) 

The Lowdown: Something's gotta give 

Well, (insert Clay Davis expletive here ), we had quite the eventful semifinal Saturday. First, Amherst and Wesleyan played the longest game in NESCAC history (91:03) with the only tally notched on a Nick Bondra shot from the point on a PJ Conlon feed in double OT for the 1-0 victory.  Mammoths  goalie Mike Cullen made 39 saves and has now given up a grand total of zero goals in 151:03 of playoff action this season. On the losing side, NESCAC Player of the Year Tim Sestak made a heroic 65 goals in defeat. 

The second game was a veritable smorgasbord of scoring, compared to semifinal one at least, with  Ryan Pfeffer lifting  Trinity past Hamilton 2-1 with the overtime goal below. Teddy Loughborough stopped 27 of 28 stops and has now let up just one more goal than his counterpart in Sunday's championship.

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TRINITY IS OFF TO THE NESCAC FINALS!!!!!!

A post shared by Trinity Athletics (@bantamsuperfan) on Mar 2, 2019 at 4:44pm PST

Sunday will be the fourth playoff matchup between Trinity and Amherst (Trinity has won three of the four) and first since the 2016 finals when Trinity easily handled the then nameless Amherst Purple and White for the title. The Bantams, however, have never won the NESCAC title game as a 1 seed (they were a 2 seed in their two most recent title wins in 2016 and 2017) and the Mammoths are the only NESCAC team Trinity hasn't beaten this season. Amherst downed Trinity 3-2 in December at the site of Sunday's title game and tied 1-1 in Amherst this year. Neither of the goalies likely to play on Sunday played in that December tilt with Giancarlo Ventre making 37 saves for Amherst and Jonah Capriotti making 20 saves in the loss. Mammoths senior Jack Fitzgerald had two goals in that contest. Ventre made 26 saves in the tie while Loughborough had 37 saves in a rare game that the Bantams were outshot (only happened one other time this season, a one goal non-conference loss at Manhattanville).  Amherst isn't far behind, as Jack Arena's disciplined defense has only been outshot by opponents three times this season with a 2-1-0 record for the Mammoths in such games.

Fair or not, it appears from the D3hockey.com team's analysis of the NCAA's pairwise rankings (doing it a bit differently than the regional rankings of past season) the NESCAC is only getting one bid in to the NCAA tournament. So that means it's win or the season is done for both teams today. The Bantams haven't missed the NCAA tournament in back-to-back seasons since 2013  and 2014, while Amherst hasn't been since 2015 when they won the NCAA tournament and made it all the way to the Phrozen Phour along with eventual national champion Trinity. As we noted yesterday, the Amherst senior class looks to avenge the 2016 NESCAC title loss to Trinity and avoid being the first Jack Arena senior class since 2008 to not win a NESCAC title.

Should be a fun and exciting, but low scoring affair. It will also be interesting to see how the tired legs from the OTs less than 24 hours ago will affect the play. Keep an eye out for Mark Messier if you are at the game, not sure his connection to any of the programs but he was on site yesterday.  Enjoy!


In honor of the title game rematch from three seasons ago, we're going with the 2016 track from Kings of Leon - Waste a Moment

NESCAC Semifinal Preview #2 4:30 PM

#4 Hamilton at #1 Trinity 4:30 PM (team stats are conference games from regular season)

Hamilton (13-9-3; 10-5-3)

Offense - 2.94 G/GM (4th)

Defense - 2.89 G/GM (8th)

PIM - 8.2 GM (9th)

Power Play - 21.3% (1st)

Penalty Kill -  86.2%  (4th)

Special Teams Net - +4 (4th)

Trinity (16-3-5; 12-2-4 NESCAC)

Offense - 3.11 G/GM (1st) 

Defense - 1.67 G/GM (2nd) 

PIM - 10.7/GM (1st)

Power Play - 20.3% (1st)

Penalty Kill - 87.5% (3rd)

Special Teams Net - +4 (4th) 

The Lowdown: The Boots-Ewing Theory
The Ringer and Grantland founder (and insufferable New England Sports Fan) Bill Simmons (aka "The Sports Guy") popularized a phenomenon known as "The Ewing Theory" which basically boils down to teams inexplicably doing better once they lose their best player a la the New York Knicks in 1999 after losing Patrick Ewing to injury. If the Hamilton Continentals can upset Trinity and take a NESCAC title on the Bantams ice this weekend, we may have a DIII example of this silly theory in action.

The Continentals have been to one NESCAC title game, against these very same Bantams in 2017, when the host Conts lost 3-2 in OT on home ice. The losing goaltender in that game was Evan Buitenhuis, who would go on to win DIII Player of the Year honors and is perhaps the best netminder in the NESCAC since fellow Hamilton netminder and NHL alum Guy Hebert laced them up in the late 80s. Despite having Boots, the Continentals only advanced out of the NESCAC quarterfinals once in his fours seasons in Clinton, NY.

On the other end, Trinity has had so much success recently - national title in 2015, national runner up in 2017, three straight NESCAC finals appearances, three 100 club scorers in the previous two seasons, etc. and so on - that their success is not so intimately tied to one player.

Hamilton coach Rob Haberbusch and his squad will look to prove that the program was more than just one player. Key to that success will be senior Jason Brochu, who was recently named to the All-NESCAC Second Team after a two goal game in the 4-3 OT win over Williams in the quarterfinals, including the tally in the extra frame that sent the Conts to Hartford. He was joined on the Second Team by Bentley transfer, but still freshman, Nick Rutigliano, a smooth passing blueliner.

Trinity has plenty of All-NESCAC players of their own, including a fellow first year NESCACer in Lucas Michaud, Rookie of the Year and the only pure freshman to make on the All-NESCAC teams. In the back, sophomore Michael Grande made the First Team All-NESCAC team, not to mention his partner junior Liam Feeney, who didn't make an All-NESCAC team but was named as Concannon Award Semifinalist for the best American born player in DIII New England hockey. Then ther's players like St. Lawrence transfer Taggart Corriveau, who only has 14 points on the season but six of those (4-2-6) are in the last four games.

That's also not to mention Second Team All-NESCAC goalie Teddy Loughborough for the Bants, who has been hot down the stretch with a .967 save percentage in his last seven starts. While the Conts replacement for Boots, Anthony Tirrabassi, has been more up and down this season, he did havea  50 save effort the last time these two met in Hartford, a 2-2 tie in November, and followed that up with a 43 save performance against the Bants in Clinton for  a 3-3 tie.

While Trinity hasn't lost since January 4th to Williams, the NCAA Pairwise Rankings this week (#9 for Trinity) makes it clear that they'll have to win today and tomorrow to get into the tournament. Hamilton will also have to win the NESCAC tournament to get in as they don't have the resume of the 2017 Buitenhuis led team that got an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. But Buitenhuis, like Ewing with the NBA finals, never won a NESCAC title.

Pre-Game Tweet/Gram

And finally, for those with no rooting interest except for a great game, including the original @NESCAC hockey blog @NESCACicehockey and his counterpart @hockeyinthecac, here are the game stats and game notes for Semifinal No. 2 pic.twitter.com/zwVIB7Ngws

— Jake Donnelly (@JacobDonnelly31) March 2, 2019

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Game Day!! The boys are at Trinity to take on the Bantams in the NESCAC semi-finals. 4:30pm in Hartford- tune in via NSN Sports website link in bio. #BackOurBlue

A post shared by Hamilton College Men's Hockey (@hamiltoncollegemenshockey) on Mar 2, 2019 at 7:53am PST

I don't think either the Bantams or the Continentals should have any problem getting up for a NESCAC playoff game with their seasons on the line.

NESCAC Semifinal #1 preview 3/2/2019

#3 Amherst vs #2 Wesleyan  Hosted by Trinity  1 PM

Amherst (14-6-4; 10-4-4 NESCAC) 

Offense - 3.06G/GM (3rd)

Defense - 2.00 G/GM (3rd)

PIM - 8.8/GM (6th)

Power Play - 18.1% (5th)

Penalty Kill- 91.2% (1st)

Special Teams Net - +8 (2nd)

Wesleyan (16-7-5; 13-3-2 NESCAC)

Offense - 3.11G/Gm (1st)

Defense - 2.28 G/Gm (1st)

PIM- 8.6 /GM (7th)

Power Play - 20.3% (3rd) 

Penalty Kill - 90.5% (2nd)

Special Teams Net -  + 10 (1st)

The Lowdown: 

Last August, Ross Douthat - who gave a speech at Amherst in 2016 that I watched the webcast for along with tens, of...tens of other people - wrote an op-ed structured around a W.H. Auden poem calling for more humanities studies at elite institutions like Amherst at which humanities majors have dropped significantly in recent years. 

Douthat may be right that history serves as "repository of wisdom and example" but you can't turn to history as an example much in this matchup. For starters, that's because these two have met just once in the NESCAC playoffs, February of 2007 when the then fifth seed Lord Jeffs  downed the host fourth seed Wesleyan (the Cards highest regular season finish before this season) 2-0 in the quarterfinal. Amherst denied Wesleyan senior Will Bennet a chance at the history books with the blanking by keeping him out of the 100 point club (Bennett ended his career with 99 points). 

Overall, the history books heavily tilt to Amherst with a 72-21-9 advantage all time. More recently, however, the Cards hold a 2-1-4 advantage in the last seven, including a 1-1 tie this season down the road from Trinity in Middletown and a 1-0 win at Amherst thanks to a 47 save shutout from newly minted NESCAC Player of the Year Tim Sestak.  With regards to the most recent history regardless of opponent, Wesleyan was on a three game losing streak before last weekend's win while Amherst hasn't lost since that 1-0 blanking by the Cardinals in late January. It doesn't take a scientist or statistician to realize there is too much noise in any of these trends to draw any kind of conclusions. 

Amherst makes its first trip to the semifinals since 2016 when they lost the finals to host Trinity. Since then, the Cardinals have made their first two trips to the NESCAC semifinals but have yet to make it to the finals, losing 5-4 to Hamilton in 2017 and 5-1 to Colby last season at Trinity.
The Cardinals leading scorer, First Team All-NESCACer Walker Harris, had not scored in his first two playoff runs in the Cac, but the junior - a class that has made the semis every season on campus and has three of the Cards top four scorers in Harris, Spencer Fox and Tyler Wyatt - lit the lamp in the 4-1 victory over Middlebury in the quarterfinals and now sits at 75 career points, well situated to join the history books with a strong finish to this season and a solid senior campaign.

Last weekend, Second Team All-NESCAC blueliner Chad Malinowski helped deliver the Cardinals first ever home NESCAC MIH playoff win while his brethren from the lacrosse team prepped to begin their national title defense run with an intersquad scrimmage mere hundreds of yards away. He'll hope to delay the start of his lax season even further this weekend along with seven other Cards looking to be the first Wesleyan senior class to deliver a NESCAC championship.

For Amherst, their elder statesmen look to avoid being the first Amherst senior class since 2008 to graduate without a NESCAC title in their four years (the athletes formerly known as Jeffs won in 2009, 2012 and 2015). Led by All-NESCAC first team blueliner Phil Johansson, who had an assist in their last semifinal game back in 2016 (a 4-2 win over Middlebury), the senior class also includes John Festa, who only has nine goals in his collegiate career, but two of them came in that win over the Panthers, his only two goals of his freshman campaign. Festa also had an assist last weekend when the athletes now known as Mammoths avenged last season's quarterfinal blowout to Colby with a 5-1 trouncing of the Mules. Junior and First Team All-NESCACer Joey Lupo also scored a short handed tally in the quarterfinals victory.

Sestak is a lock in net for Wesleyan while Amherst is a bit more of a mystery. Jack Arena has gone with an international platoon in net, featuring sophomore Canuck Mike Cullen (1.75 GAA and .924 save percentage in 13  games) and junior Giancarlo Ventre (2.24 GAA and .923 save percentage in 12 games) from upstate New York. While they had been rotating NESCAC games, Ventre got the nod for the Mammoths in the final two regular season games, while Cullen started in the NESCAC quarters and had to make only 16 saves behind a typically disciplined Arena led defense. A pure rotation would call for Ventre, but who knows, maybe Arena has a leadership council that helps decide goalies like Terry Meagher did back in 2013. 

Come 1 PM, what the NESCAC history books say, or what the majors of  any of the players are,  or even their GAA, PIM, GPA or SAT scores are (don't release them or else!) won't matter as it will all be decided on ice, exactly the way it should be.


Pre-Game Tweet/Gram 
Note: Jake Donnelly was apologetic when it was pointed out by both by us and @NESCACicehockey (the word press blog guy) that his blog well pre-dates us, historically speaking. 

And finally, for the greatest fans in the world, the fans of @NESCAC hockey in general (including the man, the myth, the legend @hockeyinthecac, and his attempted usurper @NESCACicehockey<--seriously, who are you?), here are the game stats/storylines for SF No. 1 tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/fBFUls957L

— Jake Donnelly (@JacobDonnelly31) March 1, 2019

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GAMEDAY | @wesleyan_hockey takes on Amherst in a @nescacathletics Semifinal contest at 1:00 p.m. today on the campus of Trinity College #GoWes #RollCards

A post shared by Wesleyan Athletics (@wesleyan_athletics) on Mar 2, 2019 at 6:31am PST

As long as we are speaking history, let's go with a catchy tune from the Moth and the Flame "Ozymandias" named after the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem about the crumbled statue of Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II (Ozymandias is the greek name) dealing with the arrogance of mankind and the temporal nature of achievement. Happy Saturday y'all!