Hockey Heats Up
Rebuilt men's hockey program resurrecting N.U.
hopes.
By Paul Perillo
A street sign above Bruce Crowder's desk in his office
reads: "Coach Crowder Way."
While the site officially sits on St. Botolph Street, make no mistake,
Matthews Arena is Bruce Crowder Way. It's been just two years since Crowder
left UMassLowell to resurrect Northeastern's struggling hockey program,
and so far the results have been overwhelmingly positive. After suffering
through an 8-25-3 season in their first campaign, Crowder's troops became
a team to be reckoned with last year, finishing in fourth place in the
conference, earning home ice in the playoffs, and winding up with a 21-15-3
record.
While the Huskies were the surprise team of Hockey East last year, they
won't have the luxury of sneaking up on people this season. Compounding
Crowder's chores will be the loss of two key underclassmen.
Goaltender Marc Robitaille, who earned First Team all-Hockey East and
all-America status as a sophomore, opted to leave Huntington Avenue to
sign a lucrative pro contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Robitaille
played all but forty-two minutes between the pipes for the Huskies and
was credited with all of N.U.'s wins last year.
Fellow sophomore Aaron Toews, perhaps the team's best defenseman, went
down with a neck injury in January. It was subsequently discovered that
he had a genetic condition that makes him vulnerable to major spinal injuries,
thus ending his on-ice career.
But Crowder remains upbeat: "That's actually one of the nice things
about college hockey-the natural turnover in personnel from one year to
the next, unlike the NHL, where the team basically remains the same every
year.
"Replacing Marc will obviously be very difficult. But when he came
here two years ago, he was probably one of the last goalies in North America
to earn a scholarship. We have two guys coming in, along with one returning,
who we feel can do the job."
The returner is sophomore Dan Calore, who has exactly twenty-eight minutes
of experience to fall back on. The newcomers are Jason Braun and Scott
Sutton. Both played in the U.S. Junior Hockey League and saw plenty of
action with their respective teams.
Whoever emerges as the number-one man, Crowder hopes to alleviate some
of the pressure on goal with a deep defensive corps. David Dupont, who
along with forward Brent Thomas represents the Huskies' senior class, was
second in scoring among defensemen. He will join a
talented trio of sophomores to compose N.U.'s strongest blue-line unit
in years. Arik Engbrecht, John Peterman, and Mike Jozefowicz all stepped
in and excelled as freshmen a year ago.
"They got a lot of quality experience last year and with the amount
of playing time they received, it's like they're halfway through their
sophomore years already," Crowder says. "What we hope is not
to force our goalies to have to make the kinds of stops that Robitaille
was forced to make as a freshman."
While keeping the puck out of the net wasn't a problem last season,
finding the opponent's net was. The Huskies scored just 125 goals in thirty-nine
games, an average of 3.2 per game. Junior Todd Barclay was the only Husky
player to reach the 20-goal plateau.
Junior cocaptains Billy Newson (the team's leading scorer last year
with 36 points) and Roger Holeczy (third with 29) join Barclay as the team's
offensive leaders.
Crowder's offensive trump card could lie in a group of blossoming sophomores
who each showed flashes of brilliance during their rookie seasons. Brian
Cummings, Graig Mischler, Sean MacDonald, Bob Haglund, and Matt Keating
all had their moments in 199798. Crowder believes this could be a
breakout season for many of them.
"We struggled offensively at times last year, but I feel we have
the potential to be a high-powered team," says Crowder. "We have
five or six players who are waiting to become offensive forces in Hockey
East."
The Huskies also added good-looking firepower in freshmen Ryan Zoller,
Willie Levesque, Leon Hayward, and Chris Lynch. On defense, Jim Fahey,
Rich Spiller, and Joe Mancuso arrive with the credentials to be Hockey
East stalwarts.
"We approached the freshmen from a simple standpoint," explains
Crowder. "We asked them, 'Do you want to be a builder or a maintainer?'
If you go somewhere like BU or BC that has had all-Americans and Hobey
Baker candidates, you can be a maintainer. If you come here, you can be
a part of building a special tradition and be the first to do these special
things. As a builder you can become someone the alumni would embrace and
never forget."
Field Hockey Flying
The Northeastern field hockey team is accustomed to
winning. During coach Cheryl Murtagh's eleven seasons, her teams have won
more than seventy percent of their games and made the NCAA tournament nine
times, with three Final Four appearances.
This season figured to be more of the same. The Huskies were ranked
seventh nationally in the preseason poll and were odds-on favorites to
capture their fifth straight America East conference championship.
But something funny happened on the way to another league title. Northeastern
lost 5 of its first 6 games, including a home loss to New Hampshire that
snapped a conference winning streak of 13 games (and 32 of their last 33).
Gone was the preseason ranking. Gone was the league invincibility. Gone
was some of the swagger that comes with the annual success Northeastern
has enjoyed. Not gone, however, are the Huskies' postseason plans.
"Scheduling tough out-of-conference competition is something we've
always tried to do," says Murtagh, who has compiled a record of 156-61-10
at N.U. "We may have bitten off a little more than we could chew this
year, but I'm not overly concerned with the results. I'm much more concerned
with our performance, and for the most part we played those teams pretty
well. As long as we keep working hard, the wins will come."
Murtagh's scheduling philosophy was especially evident early in the
season. In their first eleven games, the Huskies played nine opponents
that were either ranked or had spent time in the top twenty during the
season. Northeastern survived, posting a 5-6 record as the team moved toward
the meat of the conference slate in mid-October.
After defeating archrival Boston College, 2-0, in late September, the
Huskies hosted number-one-ranked Old Dominion at Parsons Field. The Lady
Monarchs had dismantled Northeastern, 5-0, during the 1997 season and with
N.U. struggling, another blowout seemed in order.
But the Huskies responded by shutting out the defending national champions,
1-0. Krisanne Duchemin scored the game's lone goal late in the first half
and the stellar goaltending of redshirt freshman Kathleen Madaus provided
the margin of victory.
"What we tried to do was approach it one game at a time to get
back on the winning track," says Murtagh of her team's slow start.
"One of the things that we saw was the improvement of some of our
opponents. Teams like Michigan and Syracuse are getting much better . .
. that's great for field hockey, but it makes it much tougher for Northeastern.
If we continue to improve, we'll be back there for the NCAA tournament."
Murtagh credits her fine corps of seniors with the Huskies' dramatic
turnaround. Karrie Danilecki, Andrea Devoe, Holly Holmberg, Tori Calio,
and leading scorer Hilary McHugh have all experienced the successes of
past N.U. teams.
"They've been verbal about knowing what it takes to play here.
Despite some of the struggles they've had, they're all competitors,"
Murtagh says. "We're progressing through each game. Playing this type
of competition helps in the long run, but you occasionally have years like
this. You maintain your confidence level and go from there."
After a slow start, Northeastern appears ready to make another title
run. Solid conference wins over Drexel (6-0) and Hofstra (3-0) provided
a springboard into the season's second half. If past performance is any
indication, the Huskies can make plans for the opening of the NCAA tournament
later this month.
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