The River Hawks will be at the Whittemore Arena on Friday night, for the first and only time in the 1999/2000 season. The UNH Wildcats will return the favor the next night, travelling to the Tsongas Arena, the site of their 2-1 victory on Ocbober 30. The Wildcats are 10-2-1 (5-0-1 and in first place in Hockey East) this year. UNH has stumbled at times this year, being shutout by RPI at home, and losing badly at Yale 5-1. They have also had to play a lot of close games, but they have come out on top of all of those, winning five games by a 2-1 margin. They come into the weekend having a 7 game unbeaten streak (6-0-1), and are a very good 6-1-1 at home. The UNH offense comes into the game having scored six goals in defeating #2 North Dakota. They are led by super sophomore Darren Haydar (8-6-14) and senior Mike Souza (4-9-13). Senior Jason Shipulski (3-5-8) and junior Corey-Joe Ficek (3-3-6) have played well for UNH. A couple of freshmen forwards to keep an eye on for UNH are Lanny Gare (2-7-9) and Jim Abbott (4-4-8). The UNH power play is actually stumbling, only succeeding at a 12% clip. The Wildcats haven't yet made up for the loss of Jason Krog and a couple of other key contributors on the man advantage. Shipulski, Souza and Haydar each have scored twice on the power play. On defense, UNH allows just 2.69 goals per game, mainly due to the outstanding goaltending of junior Ty Conklin. Conklin has played in the majority of the games for UNH, and has compiled a 9-1-1 record with a 2.38 GAA (fourth best in Hockey East), with a 91.4% save rate. The blueliners in front of him have played well for UNH, starting with juniors Sean Austin, Eric Lind and senior Dan Enders. Freshman Garrett Stafford has played very well for UNH, as has classmate Kevin Truelson. UNH kills penalties at a very good 88.5% clip, and has twice scored short handed goals, both by sophomore forward David Busch.

The UMass Lowell River Hawks finally broke out of their scoring slump ... at least for one weekend. A team that went into last weekend with no players with more than 6 points, now finds 7 above that mark. The Hawks improved to 4-8-1 (1-5-1 in Hockey East with their back to back wins in the Inaugural City of Lights Tournament. Senior Chris Bell had a great night in the 13-1 dismantling of MAAC representative UConn. Bell put up a 2-4-6 line during the game, and now leads the team with 11 points (4 goals, 7 assists). Junior Jeff Boulanger (3-8-11) is second on the team in scoring, followed by a trio of freshmen that are already making names for themselves in Hockey East. Forward Ed McGrane and defensemen Ron Hainsey and Josh Reed each have put up 2-6-8 lines so far this year, and have played in every game. Senior John Campbell is still looking for his breakout game, with a 2-5-7 line and sophomore Yorick Treille is hoping he had his last weekend, putting up four goals while winning the MVP Trophy for the Tournament. The Lowell power play continues to be stuck in the mud, as the success rate is now a miserable 9.0%, worst of all the teams in Hockey East. They have only scored 7 power play goals on the year, and have actually allowed 4 short handed ones. Defensively, the Hawks aren't doing too badly. Lowell has allowed only 2.92 goals per game, which is respectable for a team that has already played 7 games against Top 10 teams. Reed and Hainsey have done a great job this year, while senior Kevin Bertram has been inconsistent. Sophomores Josh Allison and Chris Gustafson are also playing well for the Hawks. In net, Cam McCormick has made his case for the starters job, with a 3-5 record, and a 2.56 GAA. His GAA places him 7th among Hockey East goaltenders. Lowell's penalty kill rate has been slowly rising since the debacle at Michigan, and has now climbed to 79.5%.

The Hawks desperately need to do something this weekend. There's a chance that UNH will come out over confident after beating North Dakota, but that's doubtful. The Hawks have the odds on their side in that they have now lost 16 straight games to ranked teams. Can that continue? Most likely, it will on Friday night, as UNH wins 3-2, but Lowell returns the favor by the same score on Saturday night, earning the split. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it! Go HAWKS! Back to Archives