UML 2004/2005 Post Mortem

UML 2004/2005 Post Mortem

Interview with Coach Blaise MacDonald

April 14, 2005

Part I

A highly disappointing ending? Are fans of the University of Massachusetts – Lowell hockey team allowed to consider a 20 win season a disappointment? Is it just a step in the right direction or is it a failure for a team that was publicly quoted as expecting to play in the NCAA Tournament? The same team that couldn’t even make the Semi-Finals of their own league’s tournament, was expected to be sitting on Selection day, watching to see their seeding? A team that for their third straight time in the playoffs went two and out. A segment of River Hawk fans really wonders if the 2004/2005 season, which included losing just three players (defensemen Jerramie Domish and Erik Johansson along with forward Niklas Storm), and added the Hockey East Rookie of the Year in Peter Vetri, a failure for the River Hawk program? And what is to be expected for the following season when everyone returns, except for two departing seniors (third string goalie Chris Davidson and blue liner Peter Tormey)?

After a playoff sweep at Maine by the Black Bears, which concluded an 0 for 5 season against UMaine for Lowell (20-12-4, 11-12-3 Hockey East), River Hawks coach Blaise MacDonald himself was disappointed in the season. “From a personal standpoint, I was very, very bitter when the season ended, much like everyone on the team,” said MacDonald. He continued on saying that the feeling held by the coaching staff and the players was that they were too good of a team to have their season finished that early. MacDonald mentioned that a good coaching staff “never gets too high (sweep of BC) and never get too low when the season ends.” The coach’s feeling is that they are to find a middle ground and use that as a building point.

He had nothing but positives to say about the Black Bears (who did go on to make the NCAA Tournament), acknowledging that they had the best goalie in the country in junior Jimmy Howard, and that their confidence is much higher for the home games. He did say though that losing all five games to Maine “almost defies the law of averages,” but that the Hawks never really got off to a good lead in any of the games and in the games they did take a one-goal lead, those were pretty quickly wiped away by Maine. The first game of the season between the two teams (and the only game at the Tsongas Arena) was a 5-4 loss for Lowell. The River Hawks took the lead four times in the game, and each time Maine would tie up the game. It was also freshman Peter Vetri’s first start of the season, and according to MacDonald “the team was still trying to find themselves, still trying to find goaltending and it was a game that we just couldn’t hold onto the lead.” The coach, who remembers details of games like they took place yesterday, then went on to recite items from each of the four losses up at Maine, but the common factor in each of those games was that Lowell “just couldn’t get a lead [beyond one goal], and you have to get a lead up at Orono.” MacDonald felt that the team had the same problem against some of the better teams in that they just didn’t get “enough traffic in front of their cage, couldn’t get enough second and third opportunities, and our defensive corp as a unit struggled containing teams.” A quick look at the stats proves that, as Lowell gave up an average of 4.0 goals per game versus the top four teams (BC, BU, UNH and Maine) compared to a paltry 1.83 goals per game against last season’s bottom four (NU, PC, UMass and Merrimack). While a discrepancy should be expected just by looking at the talent level differences between those sets of teams, for Lowell to move up and really make a name for themselves, this is one stat that has to change next year.

The issue of the defensive problems came up a few times during the sit down session. While Lowell does have a young defensive corp compared to most of the Hockey East teams, they seemed to get pushed around a lot, and it has been mentioned often that the blueliners got manhandled in front of their own net, especially up at Maine. MacDonald noted that while freshmen can come in being in great shape, that doesn’t translate to being ready to play in Hockey East. The coaching staff didn’t give the team a lot of time off after the season ended before they were back in the weight room, and that’s just part of the work that the defensemen have had to endure. “We’ve identified our number one priority is to develop our defensemen,” said MacDonald. NCAA regulations allow coaches to work with players in four man groups. This can take place for no more than two hours per week till the end of the school year. The UML coaching staff has been spending at least 30 minutes of that time working on defense. “We’ve been videotaping guys, we’ve got individual tape of each guy and going over it with them,” said MacDonald. He went on to say that the staff has to do a better job of coaching the defensemen, and “equipping them to be more successful and demanding more out of them as well. If our defense can take another jump, look out,” concluded MacDonald.

Another issue that the coaching staff will be working on is an introspective look at themselves. MacDonald said there are a few things the staff will all have to look at and work on to help the team succeed more next year. The first thing that is stated is of course working with the defense, which they have already begun. Another item that was done was to sit down with every player individually and let the players do a self analysis as well as figuring out what the players believe they can do better as well as what they believe the staff can do better. After that MacDonald set up an anonymous coaching assessment asking each of the players to answer various questions. MacDonald said some of the questions were “How do you like things on game day? How are the pregame meetings? How’s the communication with the assistant coaches and the head coach?” It was a comprehensive questionnaire that was received well by the players, and the coaching staff got a lot of good feedback as the players felt a bit safer with the anonymous aspect of the questionnaire. MacDonald admitted that “there’s no such thing as the perfect coach,” and that the answers from the players will help the staff get better as whole. “Each year is different and you have to find the right buttons to push at the critical time. Communication is the key, [the players] need to be able to talk to us and we need to be able to talk to them,” said MacDonald. “One of my many weaknesses is that I’m a real hard driving coach, and sometimes I need to back of, and that’s where Chris and Kenny do a real good job of helping me back of,” said MacDonald, referring to Chris MacKenzie and Ken Rausch, two assistants on his staff. It was obvious that MacDonald and his staff had already started working on all of these items and the feeling that exudes from all of them is one of wanting to get better and give the players the best possible shot of winning.

One positive that can be taken out of the 2004/2005 season is the experience and poise that was gained by beating some of the better teams in the conference. While Lowell only went 3-7-2 in the regular season against the top four teams in the conference, the Hawks were able to play some magnificent games against those teams. A 7-0 home win over UNH was an eye-opener, and a weekend sweep of #1 BC was a shock to Hockey East fans. Strangely though, this wasn’t a big deal for the team itself. The team wasn’t impressed with itself after those wins according to the coach, who went on to say that such games were what the players expected of themselves and the team. The pain of the weekend sweep by Maine might linger even more in the players’ minds. “It was such an empty feeling after the Maine series,” said MacDonald, “and it shows me that that pain is going to drive them to a higher level of attention to detail and expectation in the future.” After looking at tapes, MacDonald truly believes that his team is capable of beating any team out there, but that the margin of error that a program like Lowell works with is much smaller than that of a BC. The feeling is that the experience that the players can take out of this year, both good and bad, should be something that will push them during the off-season to work harder, to want to win more, and to prove that Lowell can be a major player in college hockey.

To get to the next level though, even if it’s just a small step like making the Hockey East semis, the team will have to do something none of it’s current players have experienced. Winning a Hockey East playoff game. It is amazing to realize that not one player on the team has won a playoff game in Hockey East, as the team has gone two losses and out each of the last three years (@ UNH, @ UMass and @ Maine). MacDonald is not worried about that fact at all though, but admitted “we have to prove we can win in the playoffs, next year is another opportunity to do that.” As any sports fan knows, it is very difficult in any sport to do well in the playoffs if you’ve never experienced it, and having never experienced a win, having never experienced a trip to the FleetCenter is a scary proposition for this program. If this upcoming senior class doesn’t make the Hockey East semis this year, it will have the ignominious feat of being the first class in the history of UML DI hockey to never play at the Boston Garden/FleetCenter.

Another positive that can be taken from this past year is that Lowell had their best season at the Tsongas Arena and only their third winning season at home since the Arena opened on January 27, 1998. The 11-5-1 record this year at home included some great moments, highlighted by the two wins over UNH and BC that were mentioned earlier. The number one attribute to success at home, according to MacDonald is crowd. While Lowell only had 2,863 per game this year, it’s no surprise to see that they averaged more than double that number for those two wins. Surprisingly, even to Lowell fans, the majority of the 5,980 people that the two games averaged were Lowell fans, and it was definitely noticeable more in the BC game. MacDonald said that his team knows it’s important to play well at home, “We’ve worked hard at that, and this year playing at home, we felt like we could just beat any team.” The hope held by the school and the hockey program is that with the expectations for next year, even more fans will show up at the Lowell games. If that was to happen, and the team plays like it did this year at home, attendance should rise drastically at the Tsongas next year, providing a true home-ice advantage for the River Hawks.

The lifeblood of any college program of course is recruiting. For next year, the River Hawks have verbal commitments from goalies Nevin Hamilton (Boston Jr. Bruins, EJHL) and Vinnie Monaco (Jr. Huskies, EJHL), along with forwards Mike Pottaco (St. Michael’s, OPJHL) and Nick Monroe (Jr. Huskies, EJHL). All four kids will be walk-ons, and so they haven’t had to sign Letter’s of Intent (LOIs). Due to that, Coach MacDonald and his staff aren’t permitted to talk about them by the NCAA. One person that MacDonald can comment on is junior transfer J.R. Bria (Colgate). Bria, according to MacDonald, “will absolutely be in the top four or five [defenseman]. He possesses one of the hardest slap shots I’ve ever seen.” MacDonald went on to say that while Bria obviously is not in game shape, “he could be a major component to us getting to that national stage.” One piece of good news that was picked up is that both forward Brian Bova and defenseman Bobby McCabe, who had each suffered season ending injuries early in their careers, both are sophomores eligibility wise, meaning they each have two years remaining in their Lowell hockey careers.

With Lowell about to lose 11 kids to graduation after the upcoming season, the River Hawks are trying to get ahead of the curve on the 2006/2007 recruiting class, and already have five commitments from that group. Forwards Kory Falite (Boston Jr. Bruins, EJHL), Ben Holmstrom (Sioux Falls, USHL), Jonathan Maniff (Tilton Academy) and Mark Roebotham (Jr. Warriors, EJHL) along with defenseman Nick Schaus (Omaha Lancers, USHL) have already given verbal commitments, but once again, due to NCAA rules, MacDonald can’t talk about them till at the earliest, this November during the early signing period. MacDonald did say that recruiting was going well for 2006, and that he’s noted one huge change from when he first took over at Lowell. “It’s a lot different from when I first got here, where we were trying to create interest,” said MacDonald. About the 06/07 recruiting class, MacDonald said, “I really like how it’s shaping up, a good blend of the type of player that will excel here.” He noted that it’s important for the incoming recruits to “continue the legacy and the direction of the kids we’ve brought in to this point.”