I'm writing this blog on my parent's old dinosaur of a computer. It doesn't have internet spellcheck and I have nicknamed it "Hal" because this thing literally has a mind of its own. If you got that reference, plus 5 points to you. Sadly, I won't be in Boston to watch UNH beat Merrimack tonight, but I will have it up on NESN and I'll probably be drunk and loud enough to be heard all the way down at the Garden... or at least loud enough for my neighbors to think we're being robbed. (And if Scott Hanson is reffing we just might be! Zing!) If my mom thought I was freaking out when Morehead State beat Louisville yesterday (which I had on my bracket thank you very much) she ain't seen nothing yet! I'm there in spirit boys!
Let's start this end-of-spring-break-weekend off right with a win over Merrimack. The game isn't at that high school sized Lawler "Arena" and we aren't playing Hockey East's favorite son BC so it should be reffed fairly. On that matter, I'm pleasently surprised to see that UNH was the LEAST penalized team in Hockey East play this year. For how much I despise Scott Hanson and his axis of evil buddy Chris Federico, UNH plays a clean game. As for the Hockey East awards that have been announced recently, Paul Thompson was named player of the year, which came as a mild surprise. I really thought Cam Atkinson may have surpassed Thompson with his late season surge. It was a two man race and they both deserved recognition. That being said, Congrats Paul, it's been a heck of a season and a joy watching you play for four years! I actually saw him play back when he was at Pinkerton Academy. I think he scored a few goals on my high school's team... (Thompson is also a Hobey Baker top ten finalist! The fan poll reopened today, keep voting!) *Update: You now have to create an account to vote for the Hobey Baker. Suck on that Maple Leaf fan/Matt Frattin cheaters!* Thompson and Blake Kessel were both named to Hockey East's First Team while Matt Digirolamo was hosed off the second team by BU's Kieran Millan. Hey Millan, enjoy your award while watching DiGi play tonight... and in the NCAAs. Like I said on twitter last night, I'll take DiGi over Millan any day of the week and twice on game day, since you know, UNH is still playing...
However, I think the biggest shock of the awards was BC's Jerry York being named Coach of the Year over Merrimack's Mark Dennehy. Out of all the awards Dennehy was the biggest shoe-in and Hockey East got it wrong. Plain and simple. What he has done with that team is unbelievable and he and his players deserve respect, win or lose tonight. York had a returning National Championship team, preseason ranked number 1, returning it's starting goalie and the top goal scorer in the country from last year in Atkinson and his team UNDERachieved this year. Not to take anything away from BC, they finished first in the best conference in division 1 hockey, but they were expected too. Dennehy led Merrimack to their first ever top 20 appearence and they are currently number 7 in the nation. This is a heck of a coaching job. Fuck BC. Rant over. Wildcatblood.
Stay classy, not UMassy.
We've got Hansen tonight, unless if someone can stage a roadblock at the Boston city limits.
ReplyDeleteu made a pretty good argument in your post why york should be the coach of the year...
ReplyDeletekeeping that team motivated to win games couldn't have been an easy thing to do
Congrats to Merrimack for the win tonight, they were the team that clearly deserved it more, UNH didn't even show up it felt like. To the Merrimack assholes who continued to come over to the UNH student section and direct racist and homophobic comments at individual UNH fans multiple times throughout the game, as well as following the UNH band on the way on and continuing with the immaturity, grow the fuck up. We may have lost, but at least we lost with class, if only you could win the same way.
ReplyDeleteAnd I know this applies to less than a percent of the turnout of Merrimack fans, but for the world we live in today, that was just an embarrassment.
I'm a Merrimack alum who was at the game. I was in the club seats so I didn't see any rudeness but I'll take your word for how some of the rest of Merrimack's fans acted. I guess in their defense (not that you can really defend racism etc) they're really not used to actually being in big games, let alone winning them. I mean, having a such big chip on your shoulder like a lot of Merrimack's fans do makes you more likely to be a jerk. Hopefully they'll lose the whole chip-on-shoulder and start acting like adults now.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, there might be a rematch on Sunday night so there's still a chance for UNH to get revenge this year.