College Hockey   CC Tigers and USAFA Falcons Hockey

The final Western Collegiate Hockey Association meetings this past weekend in Florida were a bittersweet occasion for Colorado College coach Scott Owens.

It served as the transition for the WCHA-founding Tigers as CC enters the new National Collegiate Hockey Conference it helped form last summer.

”It was not awkward but it was a little sad and a little more business-like (than usual),” Owen said. “The league was already meeting with the new members and the NCHC metearlier in the week.”

The transition affects the WCHA as well. Longtime commissioner Bruce McLeod, who has led the league for 20 years, said this coming season will ‘”probably” be his last, multiple sources have reported.

The NCHC met with all eight schools fully presented – athletic directors, coaches, faculty representatives – on hand for the first time and gave an update on the league office’s progress.

“You can’t believe all the things that need to be done to set up a new league,” Owens said.

The officiating program grabbed plenty of attention on a full slate. The deadline to apply to hockey operations head Joe Novak and supervisors of officials Don Adam to become a league official is May 15.  A system that would hold officials accountable and get them better training si expected.

“I think the fans will be pleased with the changes,” CC athletic director Ken Ralph said.

The league bylaws, postseason tournament and the 18-game TV package with CBS Sports Network also drew praise.

“I could not be more pleased with our first meetings in Naples,” NCHC Commissioner Jim Scherr said. “It was great to get everyone in the same place and on the same page as we prepare for our inaugural season. We have some tremendous individuals at each of our institutions that are highly motivated and very professional. We are just a couple of months from dropping the puck on opening weekend and I could not be more excited to get the season underway.”

The American Hockey Coaches Association annual meetings followed with talk of changing the NCAA regionals from neutral sites to the home arena of the regional top seed sites as last done in 1996. Tweaking the Pairwise rankings was discussed with no action made on either topic.

“About 35 to 40 percent of the Western coaches wanted to look at institutional sites but a lot like the neutrality,” Owens said. “We talked about other ways to help attendance, such as lowering ticket prices and student ticket discounts. I would like to see permanent western sites so fans can plan on attending in advance.”

No rule changes were proposed for the NCAA to consider.

Ticket package and individual game ticket sales surpassed the record set in 2007 already, Western Collegiate Hockey Association commissioner Bruce McLeod said during Tuesday morning’s media teleconference. Specific numbers were not announced.

“There’s a lot of great buzz about the tournament,” he said.  “I have already heard a lot about the secondary ticket sales (ticket scalping) and how those prices keep going up.”

It should be no surprise. No. 3 seed North Dakota usually has 8-9,000 fans come to St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center while Minnesota, Minnesota State and St. Cloud State have considerable fan bases all within a two-hour drive of the Twin Cities.

No doubt, most fans feel their team has a chance to win it. It was the tightest WCHA race ever with the top six places all within four points of each other.

“I know Mankato is abuzz,” McLeod said. “It will be a terrific tournament. I can’t wait for the puck to drop.”

The league will recognize former WCHA coaches, the league’s major award winners and NHL alumni during and before games. Five of the six teams will have pep bands traveling in adding to the atmosphere provided by a jammed concourse.

On other news …

Here is more on North Dakota’s 6-0 win Sunday over Michigan Tech.

Nebraska-Omaha junior defenseman Andrej Sustr is leaving early for the pros multiple outlets are reporting, including his roommate. Other future NCHC players who will attract attention are UNO junior Ryan Walters, a Hobey Baker hopeful, and Western Michigan defenseman Dan DeKeyser who will find out Sunday if the Broncos make the NCAAs.

Former Tiger Richard Bachman was sent down to the AHL’s Texas Stars.

Tickets remain available for all three games for the WCHA playoff series between Colorado College and Denver. Keep in mind most CC fans sit in sections 5, 6 and 7. There is no TV for the series but it is available on Pioneer Vision.

CC’s seniors leads Division I with 65 goals; the most for any senior class. Here is the breakdown: Rylan Schwartz (15 goals), William Rapuzzi (15), Mike Boivin (14), Scott Winkler (13), Andrew Hamburg (6) and Joe Marciano (2).

Here are preview notes for the six WCHA playoff series this weekend.

Click on the school’s name (bolded) to go to its article:

No. 7 seed Nebraska-Omaha at No. 6 Minnesota State

No. 8 Colorado College at No. 5 Denver. Here are Three Things to Watch about that series.

No. 9 Minnesota-Duluth  at No. 4 Wisconsin

No. 10 Michigan Tech at No. 3 North Dakota

No. 11 Bemidji State at No. 2 Minnesota, which also debuts its video series “Pride on Ice.”

No. 12 Alaska-Anchorage at No. 1 St. Cloud State.

Here is the TV/video stream availability for all six WCHA playoff series.

The All-WCHA honors will be coming out soon. Here are some sample ballots from bloggers on how they would have voted: Goon’s World, Western College Hockey Blog and Bucky’s 5th Quarter.

Air Force hosts Canisius in the Atlantic Hockey Association quarterfinals. Here are the Falcons’ preview notes, 3 Things to Watch and the Gazette preview.

The 2012-13 CCHA All-Conference Teams were announced Wednesday.

I bolded players from Miami and Western Michigan since those teams will be CC opponents in the NCHC next season.
First Team

Position        Name, Year, School      First   Totals

Forward Austin Czarnik, SO, Miami       8       46

Forward Anders Lee, JR, Notre Dame      7       44

Forward Riley Barber, FR, Miami 5       40

Defense Jacob Trouba, FR, Michigan      8       43

Defense Dan DeKeyser, JR, Western Michigan      6       36

Goaltender      Brady Hjelle, SR, Ohio State    6       39

Second Team

Position        Name, Year, School      First   Totals

Forward Tanner Fritz, SO, Ohio State    2       32

Forward Ryan Carpenter, SO, Bowling Green       1       22

Forward Andy Taranto, SR, Alaska        2       20

Defense Luke Witkowski, SR, Western Michigan    3       26

Defense Bobby Shea, SR, Bowling Green   2       25

Goaltender      Frank Slubowski, SO, Western Michigan   4       27

Vote Values: 1st place = 5, 2nd place = 3, 3rd place = 1

Honorable Mention (next six point totals, regardless of position with first team-votes in parentheses): Ryan Dzingel, SO, F, Ohio State, (2) 17; Domenic Monardo, SR, F, Lake Superior, (2) 16; Kyle Bonis, SR, F, Ferris State, (1) 16; Matthew Caito, FR, D, Miami, (1) 15; CJ Motte, SO, G, Ferris State, 14; Bryan Rust, JR, F, Notre Dame, 11.

Others receiving votes:

Forwards – T.J. Tynan, JR, Notre Dame, (1) 8; Chase Balisy, JR, Western Michigan, 8; Cody Kunyk, JR, Alaska, (1) 6; Matt Thurber, SR, Northern Michigan, 4; Dane Walters, SR, Western Michigan, 4; Cristoval Nieves, FR, Michigan, 1; Reed Seckel, SO, Northern Michigan, 1; Garrett Thompson, JR, Ferris State, 1.

Defensemen – Robbie Russo, SO, Notre Dame, (1) 9; Mac Bennett, JR, Michigan, (1) 8;  Colton Parayko, FR, Alaska, 8; Jason Binkley, SO, Ferris State, 6; Simon Denis, SO, Ferris State, 6; Craig Dalrymple, FR, Ohio State, 4; Steven Spinell, SR, Miami, 4; Trevor Campbell, SO, Alaska, 3; Scott Macaulay, SR, Northern Michigan, 3; Curtis Gedig, JR, Ohio State, 1; CJ Ludwig, JR, Northern Michigan, 1.

Goaltenders – Andrew Hammond, SR, Bowling Green, 8; Jared Coreau, JR, Northern Michigan, 6.

With Friday’s 5-3 win over Michigan Tech, St. Cloud State was the first WCHA team to clinch home ice in the playoffs.

This is the second straight season the Huskies earned home playoff ice.  The Huskies’ first round opponent will be determined by the results of the remaining regular season contests.

Here is the game recap from the St. Cloud Times.

No. 16 Wisconsin picked up a big bounce-back win at No. 13 Nebraska-Omaha.

Here are all the links you’ll ever need on North Dakota’s home win over Bemidji State.

No. 10 Denver’s penalty kill was impressive in its 2-0 road win over No. 2 Minnesota.

Attendance was poor for Minnesota-Duluth’s 4-2 home win over Alabama-Huntsville.

Alaska-Fairbanks scored in overtime to deflate the Alaska-Anchorage seniors’ hopes of winning the Governors Cup for the first time.

Here is the full game story on CC’s 4-1 home win over No. 9 Minnesota State. Air Force also picked up a big league win but did not clinch second place just yet.

Keep in mind that Saturday is CC’s Senior Night with a pregame ceremony planned honoring the seven seniors. Fans are asked to arrive 10-15 minutes early. Tickets remain available.

It promises to be a crazy final night for the CCHA’s last  regular season:  Miami, Western Michigan and Notre Dame are all still vying for the regular-season title, while Bowling Green, Michigan, Lake Superior and Northern Michigan are still in contention to host a first-round playoff series.

Former Tiger Jaden Schwartz, pictured, took advantage of playing St. Louis’ top line by recording a goal and assist for his first multi-point NHL game.

Here are the updated WCHA standings:

Anyone hoping to see their Tigers live for what will likely prove to be the last time this season may want to consider buying tickets to this weekend’s home games.

About 750 tickets are available for Friday’s 7:37 p.m. contest against Minnesota State-Mankato and 1,000 tickets are available for Saturday’s game, which is Senior Appreciation Night.

Tickets start at $9.

For Tickets:  World Arena Box Office (10 a.m. to 9 p.m. game days), CCTigers.com or call 719.576.2626.

The preview notes from St. Cloud State and Colorado College are available by clicking the school name. Here is my preview focusing on the freshman class and a blog post about the contributions of the sophomores.

Here is the St. Cloud Times preview focusing on former SCSU assistant and current Tigers mentor Eric Rud.

CC senior defenseman Mike Boivin weighs in the underclassmen and talks about the SCSU offense he will try to contain this weekend in this video.

Tickets remain available for the series. About 750 seats remain for Friday with 400 left for Saturday as of Thursday afternoon. The $5 kids tickets are available at World Arena box office only from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday & Saturday.

Here is the Air Force at RIT preview focusing on Pine Creek High School graduate Kyle De Laurell.

This preview for the North Dakota at seventh-place Denver series focuses on the importance of nonconference games.  Friday’s game is on NBC Sports Network; Saturday’s contest is on ROOT Sports. DU will try to take the vocal UND fans out of the game. Both programs are churning out NHL-ready players. UND fans are still struggling to see a Zajac in a Denver uniform.

Minnesota and Minnesota-Duluth renew their 60-year-old rivalry for the first time in almost two seasons this weekend. UM captain Zach Budish leads the Gophers. The rivals will next play a nonconference series Nov. 22-23, 2013. UMD is tied for eighth with CC so this series bears watching by Tiger fans.

The Pairwise rankings bear watching as this College Hockey News analysis shows.

The nonconference tournament involving the Minnesota schools next season needs a good name ala  The Beanpot in Boston. This columnist thinks Hotdish might be the ticket.

Sixth-place Wisconsin, seven points ahead of Colorado College, has struggled down the stretch in recent years. The problem this year could be a struggling power play. UW is expecting its ticket revenue to drop considerably after joining the Big 10.

The final Division I team without a win, Sacred Heart, broke through on Tuesday nigh with, a convincing 7-3 decision against Holy Cross. Five regular-season games remain before they will face the fifth-seeded team in the Atlantic Hockey tournament.

“The playoffs are a second chance, a second season,” head coach C.J. Marottolo told USCHO.com prior to the win. “Down the stretch we’re looking to gain some momentum and upset someone in the playoffs.”

The Penn State women’s hockey team, which includes junior captain Taylor Gross of Colorado Springs, was featured by the Big Ten Network in this video.

Tickets remain available for this weekend’s CC home series against Western Collegiate Hockey Association leader St. Cloud State.

Big crowds are expected for this second-to-last homestand against the future National Collegiate Hockey Conference foe with 900 left for Friday and 700 for Saturday as of Tuesday afternoon.

The $5 kids’ tickets are available at the World Arena box office only. The hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Thu5rsday and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. game days.

Regular tickets may be purchased at CCTigers.com or by call 719.576.2626.