There Can Be Only One

Atlantic Hockey champions Air Force and RIT both look to defend

Oct. 7, 2007


By Elliot Olshansky

CSTV.com

 



 ELLIOT OLSHANSKY

Elliot is CSTV.com's hockey editor and runs his Rink Rat hockey blog on CSTV.com.
E-mail here!

Atlantic Hockey held its championship at Rochester's Blue Cross Arena for the first time this past March, just a stone's throw from the campus of the conference's regular-season champion, Rochester Institute of Technology. However, all the Tigers could do was buy tickets and sit in the stands.

 

That particular predicament is rare, but not unheard of, in college sports, as a fair number of regular season champions have been known to bow out early in their conference tournaments. The rub here, however, is that the Tigers didn't have that chance.

 


 

 

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Tigers' championship last season was that the 2006-07 campaign was not only the Tigers' first as a member of Atlantic Hockey, but just the second for RIT as a Division I program. However, the team's meteoric rise was halted precisely because it had happened so quickly, since NCAA reclassification rules prohibited the Tigers from participating in the NCAA tournament. Ineligible for the automatic bid that comes with winning the Atlantic Hockey tournament, the Tigers were reduced to spectators as Air Force, Army, Connecticut and Sacred Heart battled for the championship at Blue Cross Arena.

 

"Most of the guys came to watch," Tigers head coach Wayne Wilson said. "That was a hard thing. You're sitting in the stands [saying], `Oh, we could beat them,' or just envisioning, `Geez, if we could win this, we could go to the NCAAs.' For our seniors, it was really tough."

 

Meanwhile, Atlantic Hockey's other newcomer, Air Force, was fully eligible for the championship, and took full advantage, beating Sacred Heart in the semifinals and Army in the championship game to capture the Atlantic Hockey title and move on to the NCAA tournament. One week later, at the NCAA West Regional in Denver, the Falcons put a mighty scare into Minnesota, holding a 3-1 lead in the third period before the mighty Gophers pulled out the comeback win. A few days after the loss, junior forward Eric Ehn was named one of the three "Hat Trick" finalists for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award, the first finalist from a service academy and the first player from Atlantic Hockey to make the "Hat Trick."

 

It was a remarkable year for both the Tigers and the Falcons, with each team exceeding expectations and bringing home the best championship it could get. Now, though, with the Tigers fully eligible for Division I competition, both RIT and Air Force are out for the same goal in 2007-08, and only one champion will truly be standing once the dust settles in March.

 

One might expect the Tigers to be particularly hyped up for the start of the season, given how much more is available to them this year than last, or perhaps a bit angry at the way they weren't allowed to go on last season. According to Wilson, however, it's a season like any other in terms of his players' approach.

 

"Just going Division I [in 2005-06], the excitement of all those challenges was great," Wilson said. "That was pretty neat. The negative side of that was that there was no possibility for any championship in anything that year. Last year, with the regular season finally on the line, we were excited to be able to accomplish that goal. Now, we've got new goals, but the excitement level any time at this year is very high."

 

Just as abundant as excitement at this time of year, however, are questions, and both the Falcons and Tigers are facing questions as to how their teams will respond to the loss of a key player from last season's championship run.

 

For the Falcons, the most notable graduation loss is left wing Andrew Ramsey. Ramsey played on Ehn's line, and was the beneficiary of a number of Ehn's assists en route to one of the nation's highest point totals last season.

 

However, with a team that he considers deeper at forward than last season's Atlantic Hockey champions, Falcons head coach Frank Serratore isn't anticipating a big problem finding a new linemate for his Hobey Baker finalist.

 

"There's no doubt, they had special chemistry on that line," Serratore said. "Ramsey was a big part of that, but so was Mike Phillipich, and Mike Phillipich is coming back. Mike was the MVP of the Atlantic Hockey tournament, and we need to find that other puzzle piece on the left wing again, but it's a nice problem to have, because we've got two-thirds of a good line coming back. When Eric's gone, that's going to be a much more difficult task, to replace him than to replace somebody to play with him."

 

In truth, Serratore is more concerned about what will happen at the other end of the ice.

 

"I think we're going to be deeper at forward," Serratore said. "I think we're going to be stronger in goal. The question mark will be on defense. We don't have [Billy] Devoney and [Brian] Gineo, but we've got some real good players back. The question mark is going to be having guys from last year or freshmen being able to step up and proficiently fill the 5-6 spot on D."

 

The Tigers, meanwhile, got a surprising introduction to one of the pitfalls of being a successful Division I hockey team this spring when sophomore Steve Pinizzotto signed with the Washington Capitals. The Tigers still retain eight of their top nine scorers, but the significance of a player's departure without his degree is greater at a school like RIT, whose president, Dr. William Distler, has been very critical of Division I athletics in the past.

 

"I'm disappointed because of the fact that he's leaving the program without his degree," Wilson said. "The only time I'd be disappointed in a player leaving is if he leaves without a degree."

 

Still, the Tigers continue to do all the right things to make sure that the team is in good academic standing.

 

"They're very careful to make sure that the hockey side will never be more prevalent than the academic side," Wilson said. "I report to our athletic director and the president as far as our progress in the classroom. Our grades are very visible to the upper echelon in our school, and I don't have a problem with that. They do have to remember that they're here for school first, and we want them to be very successful on the ice, but not at the expense of academics."

 

Both the Tigers and Falcons are expected to be very successful on the ice this season, picked first and second, respectively, in the Atlantic Hockey coaches' poll, but both coaches are wary of what lies ahead.

 

"I think we have the opportunity to do it," Wilson said of winning the league, "but we just have too many talented teams. You look at our league record, it looks great, 20-7-1, but you look, and we lost to UConn and Bentley and Canisius, there wasn't a team we didn't lose to. If we don't put our best foot forward - we lost to everyone - now, all of a sudden, we could lose a second game and go from first to last pretty quickly."

 

In addition, whatever advantage the two newcomers had last season in terms of a lack of familiarity is gone, which is a concern for Serratore.

 

"With how we finished last year, we're not going to sneak up on anybody," Serratore said. "For that matter, Army's in the same boat. Army and Air Force, maybe we snuck up on a few people, but that's not going to be the case this year."

 

Certainly, it won't be much of a surprise if the Falcons and Tigers wind up meeting in March at Blue Cross Arena.

 

And then, the question of the true Atlantic Hockey champion could be settled, once and for all.

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