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Co-Players of the Week:  Chris Connolly and Bobby Butler

Defensive Player of the Week:  Mike Spillane

Rookie of the Week:  David Boehm, UMass (haven’t shot yet)

The following players were honored for their play last week:

Co-Hockey East Players of the Week were Brian Gibbons and Nick Schaus:

Defensive Player of the Week: Mike Spillane

Rookie of the Week: Chris Rawlings

Jim Steinman wrote (and Meatloaf sang) that Two out of Three Ain’t Bad.  Personally, I’m greedy and I wanted three wins on Saturday, but will just have to deal.

Day started out tough with the BC women losing to the Vermont Catamounts 5-1 after defeating them the night before. Hopefully no one there was attending their first women’s hockey game as it was not a good one. It’s all BC fan Grant Salzano’s fault – for some reason he felt it necessary to blather on and on about Vermont not having scored a goal in Hockey East play. As soon as he paused to catch his breath – Vermont put in their first goal and they didn’t stop, scoring 6 – one on BC’s behalf.

The next game to start before the women’s game was over was the #1 Alabama Crimson Tide vs. Louisiana State University. To punish me for choosing two hockey games over watching SEC (the only conference that matters) football on tv, the score went back and forth a few times, but Alabama, of course, won the game with a final score of 24-15. Roll Tide!

The Boston College men took on Northeastern University for the second half of the Conte Forum doubleheader resulting in the same score 5-1 just in BC’s favor this time thanks in large part to Brian Gibbons’ play at both ends of the ice. Unfortunately, Northeastern lost another player, Randy Guzior, to injury during the first period, after losing several Friday night in their win over BU. Hopefully it isn’t as bad as they think.

Normally I wouldn’t be that interested in the fortunes of a major midget team in Burnaby, British Columbia, but I’m now a fan of the Northwest Giants who have added Kaleigh Fratkin at D. Fratkin,17, is a member of Canada’s U18 Women’s team and according to Burnaby Now, she is the first female to play in the full-contact AAA major midget league in BC (not sure who/how many may have done so elsewhere).  The coach told the Burnaby Now – “…”I decided to take her. She’s an exceptionally good hockey player. I evaluated her as a hockey player and not as a female,” said Giants head coach Jon Calvano. “She was given the green light to try out and my job as coach is to pick the best team, and she was one of the best defencemen to come to camp.” …”

Good luck with the Giants, not so much with Canada ;-).

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Joey Gasparini has re-joined the University of Vermont Catamounts as Assistant Coach – official announcement

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Adam Proteau’s Hockey News blog today highlights Juraj Mikus and Juraj Mikus :-).  They were actually both members of Team Slovakia at the 2007 World Juniors although I only seem to have shot the Los Angeles Kings/Manchester Monarchs Mikus:

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Proteau’s piece also mentioned the expansion of the Toronto Maple Leaf’s scouting team and checking the announcement – that expansion includes Dave Starman.  My feelings re: the Toronto Maple Leafs make me hesitant to consider this a good thing, but I’ll say good luck to Dave – may he recommend great talent and may the GM ignore :-).

In honor of my first chance to watch NHL hockey on tv this year (old tv went kaput on the weekend; replacement delivered today), a random player from each of the teams on NHL Network tonight:

Okay, choosing Brad Marchand is not that random – despite my feelings regarding Team Canada, he’s one of those kids that makes you feel their joy in playing hockey (probably helps that he won most, if not all, the games I covered at the 2007 WJC in Sweden & 2008 WJC in the Czech Republic) and as part of that has an expressive face and reacts to play so is fun to watch and/or shoot:
 

Viktor Stålberg went pro after his junior year with the University of Vermont Catamounts who made it to the Frozen Four last year (Stålberg was a Hobey Baker Award finalist).