Here, finally, is the second installment of my hockey banquet report. This one focuses on the senior speeches.
Greg Burgdoerfer went first, and did the requisite thanking of everyone and anyone associated with the program, which enabled his classmates to all start their speeches with “I want to thank all the people Greg mentioned too.” Saves time for everyone!
For his personal speech, Greg thanked the coaches for never giving up on him, right down to the last shift of the last game when Coach Appert offered him a bit of constructive advice when he returned to the bench. He thanked his teammates, of course, and said he had grown a lot and learned a lot from being part of this team. He thanked his parents and younger brother John, and then focussed in detail on his twin brother Erik, saying hearing from Erik about his experience at RPI was one of the main reasons Greg came himself. He added that getting to play with Erik for the ECHL Bakersfield Condors at the end of this season was “a dream come true.”
Nick Bailen wasn’t able to be at the banquet because he was still with the AHL Rochester Americans and had a game that night. C.J. Lee was deputized to read Nick’s speech for him and Nick had much to say about how welcome he felt after he transferred to RPI and what a huge part of his life RPI hockey and his teammates have become, how much he learned, and how much better a player and person he is for his experience here.
Marty O’Grady was next and for a shy guy he found plenty to say and earned a few laughs along the way. He spent an unfortunate amount of time benched with injuries in his career, which led him to thank the trainers and medical personnel for all the help they gave him “even though it wasn’t a personal choice.” He thanked the coaches as well, noting that at times they seemed like your best friends and at times your worst enemies, but that he learned a great deal along the way. And when he got to his parents he paused and said, “I hope I can do this” before telling his parents that they have given him everything and made him who he is today.
Bryce Merriam wins the Most Emotional award for this year and he didn’t even have to get to his family before he lost it. He was trying to talk about Ben Mayo, the young man who became an honorary Engineer several years ago while battling cancer. With tears dripping down his face, Bryce said that Ben is “an inspiration, a teammate and most of all a friend” and made it clear that he and his teammates have received just as much from Ben’s connection to the team as Ben has.
Bryce got a laugh when he said he had no idea why his parents let him play hockey, and really no idea why they let him be a goalie, but that he wouldn’t be standing there without their support. He also talked at length about the team (his was the second-longest speech, just short of C.J.’s) and said that no matter how bad things got, they worked, and if that didn’t help, they just worked harder. He said he wouldn’t be the goalie he is without the guidance of Coach Appert. And he said he is “proud to be an Engineer and thankful that I will be for the rest of my life.”
C.J. Lee was the closer and his speech was eloquent and comprehensive. He thanked many people and talked at length about his family. He said everyone knows his father and what a great guy he is (very true!) but that most people don’t know that his mother is the rock who holds his family together. He said “I can’t see myself standing here without her help.”
Then C.J.talked about RPI hockey in general. He said, “Being part of RPI hockey meant so much more to me than just an opportunity to play hockey. It was an opportunity to build lifelong relationships with so many people, to have 26 brothers, to go to battle with those brothers every weekend, and to be a part of a team and a program that’s so much bigger than yourself.”
Wonderful sentiments that were echoed in the speeches of his classmates, and that made us all proud once again to be RPI hockey fans.
The annual RPI Hockey Awards Banquet took place Friday night. It was, as usual, a very moving evening as we said goodbye to five seniors who have left their marks on the program and all of us fans. There were lots of laughs and a few tears, and a lot of awards given out.
Here’s a list of the awards and recipients:
Most Outstanding Freshman (presented by RPI VP Claude Rounds) – Jason Kasdorf. No surprise there, since Jason was a huge part of RPI’s turnaround that began the night he returned from an injury to start a run of 11 wins in the last 13 regular-season games. Unfortunately, Jason wasn’t at the banquet because he was back home in Manitoba enjoying a Wedding Social with his bride-to-be, Stacie. (It was new to me too, but I’m told it’s a Canadian thing.)
Community Service Award (presented by RPI VP John Kolb) – Marty O’Grady. This one surprised me, not because Marty isn’t deserving, but just because he’s so darn quiet and self-effacing that I had no idea just how much community service he does – a LOT, as it turns out!
Top Scholar Athlete (presented, as always, by the hockey team’s academic advisor, Bob Conway) – Nick Bailen. An impressive 3.90 GPA will do that for you, even at RPI! Nick wasn’t able to attend the banquet either, since he’s still playing with the AHL Rochester Americans and had a game against the Toronto Marlies that night. (Nick didn’t have any points, but Jerry D’Amigo did.)
Most Improved Player (presented by assistant coach Nolan Graham) – three-way tie among Travis Fulton, Matt Neal and Luke Curadi. Coach Appert said this was a team-voted award (maybe others were too – that wasn’t clear to me). I think they had a ton of good choices for this one and I’m surprised that Greg Burgdoerfer and maybe even Jacob Laliberte weren’t in there too. I’m not sure whether Travis Fulton, a freshman of course, really improved over the season or just finally got a chance to show what he could do late in the season, but either way he was a very pleasant surprise.
Best Defensive Player (presented by assistant coach Bryan Vines) – Curtis Leonard. Not too surprising, since I’ve been impressed with Curtis’s steady and solid play all year, but I thought Nick Bailen was probably a shoo-in. Then again, Nick is about the most OFFENSIVE defenseman I’ve seen in a long time. Once Curtis got this, though, it was clear to us who the MVP was going to be.
Most Inspirational Player (from now on to be known as the Ben Mayo Most Inspirational Player Award, and presented by Ben Mayo) – C.J. Lee. This is Ben Mayo’s third year of being an official honorary team member and his importance to the team appears to have grown rather than diminished. Ben was battling cancer when he first came to the team and his courage and perseverance was an inspiration to all of them. When he presented the award this year he was nearly as tall as C.J., and sporting a full head of hair and a much deeper voice than I remember – great to see! He talked about how C.J.’s leadership and leave-it-all-on-the-ice attitude inspired his teammates and buoyed them up when times were tough. There’s no question that C.J. has made an excellent captain this year.
Most Valuable Player (presented by RPI AD Jim Knowlton) – Nick Bailen. Nick was chosen as most valuable player on a team that thrived on many, many players stepping up and giving their all game after game, and day after day in practice. Any of several guys could have won and deserved this award, so for Nick to get it is a real testament to his importance to the team. Well deserved!
That’s it for now – a second installment with highlights from the senior speeches will follow soon.
Okay, I guess I’m over it enough to write. Not enough to put it behind me and give it a “que sera, sera,” but enough to write. I guess.
I mean, come on. There is no reason RPI should have lost that series to Brown. NO reason. No reasonable reason, anyway. (Then again, is there any such thing as an unreasonable reason?) Number two team vs. number seven team? Team that won nine of their last ten regular season games vs. team that won two of their last six? Team that is RPI vs. team that is, well, you know… Brown? I mean, come on.
Wait. I said I’m over it. Deep breath. Forget it. Put it behind us.
Easier said than done. It’s hard for all us RPI fans to put this one behind us because we’ve been waiting so long … so DARN long … for a season like this was shaping up to be. It’s been 10 years since RPI’s last top four finish and 20 years since their last second place finish. We all thought we were THERE – there being the ECAC tournament of course. Guess I shouldn’t have made those Atlantic City hotel reservations a week earlier – maybe that was a jinx.
Stop. I SAID I’m over it. Gotta drop it already.
There are some things to point to that might shed a little light on what happened. The bye week may have hurt the Engineers rather than helping them, since they were on such a hot streak. RPI was on spring break that week too, which means no classes, no homework, dining halls closed and just a total break in all their routines. They may well have got out of their rhythm at a bad time. But guess what? Good teams – top four teams – typically get a bye week in the ECAC playoffs. And spring break comes at this same time every year for RPI – in between the first and second playoff weeks. If they can’t figure out how to sustain their momentum over that week, we can kiss our playoff hopes goodbye permanently.
There were also a lot of freshmen and sophomores among the key players on this year’s team, most notably freshman goalie Jason Kasdorf. Maybe they just weren’t expecting the level of intensity, the all-or-nothing mentality that permeates the playoffs. The good side of that is that next year they’ll all be wiser and more experienced. Of course, there will be a new crop of freshmen, and even next year’s sophomores won’t have had a lot of playoff experience because … well, you know … they didn’t get to PLAY in a lot of this year’s playoffs!
Okay, maybe I’m not all that over it yet. I guess I had to get this out of my system. Give me a couple of days and the next post I write will talk about all the good things that happened this season – and there really were lots of them. I just had to rant a little first. And you all know I’m frustrated and disappointed FOR the Engineers, not with them.
I think I speak for a lot of RPI fans when I say I’m pretty happy with our matchup for this weekend’s ECAC Quarterfinal series. Brown has had a good season, but if the Engineers continue to play the way they have recently they should handle the Bears easily.
After Cornell upset Princeton and eliminated them in two games last weekend, our possible opponents came down to the Big Red and Brown, with the decision to be made by who won the Dartmouth-Harvard series in its third game on Sunday. My family was following that game closely and rooting hard for Dartmouth, who of course eventually prevailed, because we were not enthused about playing a series with Cornell.
Let me state for the record that our concerns were not based on lack of faith in RPI or a belief that Cornell is the better team – far from it! Yes, Cornell got hot late in the season and has been on something of a roll, but c’mon, no team has been on a roll like the Engineers have lately! No, our concerns were not based on the relative quality of the teams. Rather, there are two factors that bother me about playing a best-of-three series with Cornell at RPI. One is that their coach, Mike Schafer, has a track record of being able to manipulate the referees over the course of a series if things aren’t going well for the Big Red. This is just my take on it, based on a longer story than I’m going to tell here, but RPI fans who remember the ECAC Quarterfinal series at Cornell in 2009, after RPI eliminated Dartmouth on the road, will know what I’m talking about.
The other factor is Cornell’s fans. I have to give them this much credit – they show up in droves at road games and make a lot of noise for their team. They are also, again in my opinion, obnoxious and have a huge and unwarranted sense of entitlement. But I digress – the bigger problem is that their team is the Big Red, or “Red” for short. Coincidentally (or maybe not – maybe this was Ned Harkness’s doing) the RPI Engineers are also nicknamed “Red.” This is a big part of our identity – when we cheer “Let’s go, Red!”, we aren’t just naming them by uniform color (though some opposing fans seem to think that’s the case and respond with “Let’s go, blue!” or “Let’s go, white!” when we’re playing them). “Red” is another name for the Engineers, the way the Yale Bulldogs are also the Elis, or the Montreal Canadiens are also the Habs. And yet, when Cornell is in the house, RPI fans at Houston Field House are confused and afraid to cheer for the “Red”, which leaves us pretty much nothing at all to cheer. This is why, I assume, Cornell is never allowed to be our opponent for the Big Red Freakout, even if it means putting the Freakout in a totally wrong place on the schedule.
So having Cornell for our opponent would have put us in serious danger of losing some of the momentum that a loud, cheering fan base can give a team, especially in important games. Brown, on the other hand, despite having one of their best seasons in a long time, will bring no fans at all to Houston Field House apart from some player parents. I can say this with confidence because Brown, in fact, brings no fans to their own rink, or so few that it seems like none. An example – although Meehan Auditorium holds nearly 2,500, the attendance for last weekend’s playoff games, in which Brown defeated Clarkson 3-0 and 4-3, was 674 on Friday and 860 on Saturday. And no, if you were wondering, the Brown students were not on spring break. That’s pretty sad – sad enough to make me feel bad for their players. Not bad enough to keep me from hoping that RPI makes short work of them this weekend, though.
Brown finished our season for us in 2010 – at Houston Field House no less – and I am very much planning on the Engineers returning the favor this year. In two games, please – there’s no reason for a team as hot as RPI has been to give the Bears any opportunity to upset them. See you all at the Field House for an exciting weekend, and the last home games of the season. Let’s go, Red!
First second-place ECAC finish in 20 years, that is. RPI’s victory over Clarkson last Friday gave them their highest finish in the regular season since Buddy Powers’ team finished second back in 1993!
Earlier in the season we had a poll here on rpihockey.net asking what place you thought RPI would finish in this year. Keep in mind that this poll ran during the first half of the schedule, when the Engineers ran their league record up (or down, perhaps) to 1-6-3. The results of the poll were as follows:
Top four – I’m a believer!
- 15 votes or 8%
Middle four – they’ll get turned around soon
- 65 votes or 36%
Bottom four – the handwriting’s on the wall
- 80 votes or 44%
I don’t know what to think
- 21 votes or 12%
I bring this up again to give props to those true believers who actually thought at that point that the Engineers could rise all the way from 11th or 12th place to a top-four finish with little more than half the season left. I’ll admit I wasn’t one of them. I voted for a middle-four finish and, to be honest, thought that still meant that I had a lot of faith in the boys. I don’t feel too bad, though, considering that 92% of the fans that voted here also didn’t think they could make that top four. And then look what our Engineers did – not only top four, but second place!
I have to mention one other true believer here. After that first really good league weekend that the boys put in, when they beat Colgate and Cornell for their first weekend sweep of the season (the first of FIVE!), I was talking with Mark Miller and mentioned that a middle-eight finish seemed possible now. He smiled and said that actually he was pretty sure they could still make second place. After he walked away, I said to my family, “Now that’s believing in yourselves!” I thought it was great that he was confident, but second place still seemed quite a stretch. Little did I know how the rest of the season would go – 11 wins in RPI’s last 12 league games!
So here’s a salute to true believers – to the 15 RPI fans who believed a top-four finish was possible while the team was in the bottom two, and to Mark Miller and his teammates, who knew what it would take and believed they could deliver – and did! Let’s go, Red!
A few posts back, I put in my two-cents worth on every RPI fan’s favorite topic lately – what changed? What happened to cause the dramatic turnaround from a tenth-place ECAC finish last year to our current standing in second place, and even more dramatically, from a 1-6-3 start in league play to a 9-1-0 finish with two games remaining?
It’s a hot topic with no easy, definitive answer. The players and coaches attribute it to hard work and buying in to the system, according to an article in today’s Troy Record. But that can’t be the whole story unless you want to believe that this is the first time in Seth Appert’s tenure that he’s actually got the guys to really work hard and believe.
As I suggested before, having Jason Kasdorf between the pipes is surely a big part of it, as is having huge contributions from the freshmen and sophomores. And the leadership and work ethic of the upperclassmen, especially captain C.J. Lee and senior defenseman Nick Bailen, certainly can’t be discounted.
I’ve been thinking lately about another likely piece of the puzzle, though. Coach Appert has more than once recently mentioned what a big impact Assistant Coach Nolan Graham has had on the power play and the offense generally. I’ll admit I have a soft spot for Coach Graham because he’s one of our own. Nolan was a freshman at RPI in 1999-2000, the first year my family followed RPI hockey. We were listening on the radio when Nolan scored the winning goal against Colgate in the ECAC semifinals and we were so excited that we jumped in the car the next day and drove up to Lake Placid for the championship game and our first RPI road trip. We watched and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of his RPI career and always loved his scrappy style that belied his small 5’9″ stature. It was a running family joke that whenever there was a scrum in front of the net, when they peeled everyone off the pileup afterward, Nolan was always the guy at the bottom who started it all.
So I got thinking. I remembered that when Nolan came on board at RPI two seasons ago, rumor had it that there was concern from some of the upperclassmen on the team over whether he really knew his stuff. This puzzled me at the time, given his coaching track record, but in retrospect I see it as evidence that he was doing things much differently from what the boys had become used to. Given the lack of success the power play had up until then, I can only see that as a good thing!
After he graduated from RPI, Nolan played minor league pro hockey for a few years and then began his coaching career in the British Columbia Hockey League, where he had played his junior hockey. As evidence of his coaching ability, I offer the following statistics:
- In his first three years of coaching, Nolan Graham was an assistant coach for the Nanaimo Clippers of the BCHL. The Clippers finished first in the league two of those years (and ninth in the other). They finished 10th in the first two years after Nolan left them.
- In his fourth year of coaching, Nolan was selected head coach of the Alberni Valley Bulldogs. The Bulldogs had finished 14th, 15th, and 14th out of 16 teams in their three previous seasons. In Nolan’s first and only year as head coach, they finished 3rd in the league and first in their division.
- Nolan left Alberni after just one year to come to RPI and Alberni did a quick slide back to 11th and 12th place in the following two years.
These stats look pretty impressive to me. Granted, there wasn’t a turnaround anywhere near that rapid in Nolan’s first two years at RPI, but since he was working with players who were very fond of their previous coach and perhaps somewhat resistant to change, a two-year time period that saw older players graduate and many new guys come on board might be a realistic timeframe to really see results. It sounds reasonable to me anyway.
So there you have my best guess at RPI’s secret weapon. I’m not discounting anybody’s contributions, and certainly not Jason Kasdorf’s in particular – it would be hard to overestimate his importance. I’m just suggesting that there may be another factor in play here too. And if I’m right, it’s great news for RPI because Nolan won’t be graduating and leaving (at least I hope not!) and we can expect players to get on board with his methods all the more as time – and RPI’s success! – rolls on. Let’s go, Coach Graham, and let’s go, Red!
Here we are on the verge of yet another big, big weekend – this one, according to today’s Times Union, “the biggest regular-season weekend in the Seth Appert era of RPI hockey.” Isn’t it fun to be an RPI fan these days? Exciting games, big wins and even bigger hopes. And expectations – if we’re honest, it’s been a while since we walked into the rink before a game, home or away, expecting our team to win. But that’s what we’re all feeling and thinking lately. What fun!
A quick follow-up on last weekend’s games before I go any further: The Cornell game wasn’t as chippy as I feared. Greg Burgdoerfer did get booed every time he took the ice, and booed even louder every time he touched the puck, but things never got out of hand. There was one somewhat big hit on him early in the game – nothing extreme, but it drew a big cheer from the Cornell fans and maybe everyone got it out of their systems then. I do think, though, that the whole situation may have given the Big Red some motivation and led to them playing their best game in a while (according to what their fans were yelling).
The Engineers came out tentative in both games last weekend, in my opinion, and quickly dug themselves a hole. In both cases they came back strong later in the game, but it wasn’t enough at Cornell. It was just barely enough at Colgate, where they fought back from a 2-0 deficit and managed to eke out a win with 10 seconds left on the clock in overtime. It was a thrilling finish, but I wouldn’t have minded something a little less nerve-wracking. Hopefully they’ve learned a lesson from the weekend and will be ready to bring it from the first puck-drop this weekend.
Everybody in the ECAC, except arguably Quinnipiac and Harvard, has something to play for this weekend. Everybody wants to be in the top four for a first-round bye, or the middle four for home ice in the playoffs, and everyone except those two teams can still change which four they’re in. RPI is in the top four right now, and needs one win to guarantee that they stay there. But Clarkson, who the Engineers play first on the weekend, is in seventh place and fighting to stay in that middle four, while St. Lawrence, our Senior Night opponent, is just one point behind us and looking for that first-round bye just like we are. No one is going to roll over, so the Engineers had better take a cue from last weekend and come out with everything they’ve got right from the start. If they do that, I’m confident that these Engineers will sew up the top four tomorrow night and be able to celebrate Senior Night on Saturday with the pressure off. Let’s go, Red!
A few more thoughts to take us into this big, big road weekend.
I’m bracing for a rough and maybe nasty game at Cornell. That’s the Big Red’s style anyway, if you ask me, and they’ll certainly have it in for RPI this time around. For the easy and obvious reasons – they’re in 11th-place, aren’t used to it and don’t like it one bit, and RPI already beat them in Troy which I’m sure didn’t sit well.
But there’s also likely to be an extra edge to their play against RPI because when the two teams met in Troy, Greg Burgdoerfer ran into one of their players, Cole Bardreau, near the boards and the guy was injured. He finished the game, but later an MRI showed a fractured neck and Bardreau is out for the season. I saw the hit, and I didn’t think it looked malicious or violent or even particularly careless. If anything, Bardreau seemed to turn away when he saw Greg coming. Greg got a 5-minute major and a game misconduct, but nothing more – no subsequent suspension. I hate to see anyone get injured, and it’s very fortunate that Bardreau wasn’t hurt worse, but I don’t see it as a case where Greg did anything particularly wrong.
Nonetheless, I expect repercussions in this weekend’s game. I’m not saying the Cornell players would hold a grudge but … actually, I am. I think the Cornell players are holding a grudge big time, and will likely be looking for payback on Greg and the Engineers. If you doubt me, read this quote from Big Red player John McCarron in the Cornell Daily Sun:
“Growing up, you were always taught [that] when somebody gets wronged on your team you’ve got to take care of it, so I think our team knew that. I was there on the ice. I stepped in for [Bardreau]. Unfortunately it’s college hockey — you’re not allowed to fight really, but that kid knows what’s coming for him.”
It doesn’t help that Cornell fans – and surely Coach Schafer – remember Greg’s twin brother Erik from a couple of years back and didn’t like his play either. Erik was twice given two-game suspensions for hits on Cornell players. The name “Burgdoerfer” on the back of an RPI jersey is not going to be a popular one at Lynah Rink. I just hope we get through the game without anyone – on either team – getting really hurt.
I do want and expect a win, though. Does it sound like sour grapes if I say I’m REALLY looking forward to spoiling Cornell’s senior weekend (Saturday is their senior night)? I don’t care. I’m tired of Cornell’s sense of entitlement – they don’t even usually plan their senior night for a regular season game, since they KNOW they’ll be home for playoffs. Their fans and even some of their rink staff are obnoxious in the extreme, making snide comments like “Wouldn’t want to be you guys tonight” or “You’ll NEVER have a team that’s worth HALF of what our boys are!” Sheesh. The first comment was made by an usher as we were on our way in to Lynah Rink before a game (which RPI won, incidentally). The second comment was made to me by an angry fan – a middle-aged lady, not a student – when RPI had the sheer audacity to beat her boys a few years back. It doesn’t take much to turn the Lynah faithful into the Whine-ah faithful. So sue me if I’m thrilled that they’re in 11th place for a change. I hope they finish the season right there!
Cornell and Colgate won’t be pushovers this weekend – are they ever? RPI has had, quite frankly, awful luck at Starr Rink in the past few years, going 2-9-1 (though last year was one of the two wins). They’ve actually done a little better at Lynah, though Cornell is usually a stronger team than Colgate. Nonetheless, I’m confident that RPI can take both games this year, especially since they already swept Cornell and Colgate in Troy. Since our weekend opponents are tied for tenth and eleventh place, with 13 points apiece, I’m looking forward to putting a major dent in their hopes of rising to eighth place and getting home ice for the playoffs! Let’s go, Red!
I’m making an unfortunate habit of waiting until the next games are almost upon us to comment on the past weekend’s games but, hey, at least I’m commenting!
It’s hard to describe how exciting it is for faithful RPI fans to experience this skyrocketing turnaround for the Engineers. We’ve been waiting a long time for this! I won’t say that there haven’t been some good times and exciting moments over the past few years, but this is something different. Let’s face it – second place in the ECAC with only four games to go after winning eight straight league games? We haven’t seen anything like this in at least ten years! Sure, everyone was excited in 2011 when RPI finished tied for fourth, but with the tie-breaker they were actually fifth and didn’t get a first-round bye. Yeah, they went to the NCAA tournament, which was exciting and something to be proud of, but they were also eliminated by 12th-place Colgate in the first round of ECAC playoffs and didn’t make it to their own league’s tournament. So it was a seesaw of mixed emotions that ended that season.
This feels different. This feels like a team peaking at the right time, starting to really believe in themselves and making their fans believe too. This feels like a team that knows what they’re doing, what they’re after, and how to get it. It would take a major swan dive now for the Engineers NOT to get a first-round bye!
There’s lots to be proud and excited about. RPI now has the longest winning streak of any team in the country with six straight! Jason Kasdorf was ECAC Rookie of the Week again and has some of the nation’s best stats – a 1.52 GAA for third in the country and a .942 saves percentage which ties him for fourth. And – hurrah! – the Times Union is finally giving RPI more attention than Union again, with color pictures and the front page of the sports section! Just like old times, and like it should be. Let’s go, Red!
I wish I had more time to write lately. Here’s RPI, doing so well and playing some of the best hockey they have in years, and I’ve barely mentioned it. And I still don’t have time to go on at the lengths I’d like to. Maybe next week, when I’m on break from work, but for now it’ll just have to be a fly-by.
So how ’bout them Engineers, huh? From 12th place all the way to a tie for third in just a few weeks. Six straight ECAC wins. And outscoring their opponents 21-8 over those games! (I haven’t forgotten the non-conference Union loss sandwiched in there, but even that one was a close game that could have gone either way.)
That last stat – outscoring their opponents 21-8 – is really an eye-opener, given RPI’s earlier struggles to score. By contrast, over their first four league games this season, all losses, they were outscored by a cumulative 19 to 5. What a turnaround!
The big question is why – what changed? There was an article in the Albany Times Union today (Friday) attempting to answer just that. They gave five reasons, which can be summarized briefly as Jason Kasdorf, the sophomores, winning more at home, improving their goal differential greatly, and Nick Bailen. I’m going to discount the third and fourth reasons as simply evidence of the change – yes, they’re winning more at home and scoring more goals, but the question still is why.
My family and I have discussed this often lately and had come to the same general conclusions offered in the TU. One of us suggested that the freshman class, being the obvious “what’s different” about the team, was the reason. While I agreed that the freshmen – especially Milos Bubela, Mark Miller and of course Jason Kasdorf – have made an impact, I also realized that the sophomores, especially Jacob Laliberte and Ryan Haggerty, are making huge contributions offensively. Someone else pointed out that players like Nick Bailen and Greg Burgdoerfer have upped their games this season, both offensively and defensively. And of course winning breeds confidence, which breeds improved play and more winning.
So here we are, with six games left in the season and the RPI faithful are more hopeful than we have been in many a year. Brown will definitely not be a pushover tonight, and Yale is number two in the league after all, and probably feels like they owe us after our big win in New Haven, but if the boys play like they have for the last few weeks, they should certainly be able to keep their winning ways going. I’m excited – let’s go, Red!
Let’s go, Red!