Month: April 2018

David Quinn named head coach of Team USA for 2019 World Junior Championship

In the midst of the rumors linking BU head coach David Quinn to the vacant coaching position of Matt’s New York Rangers, Quinn has been named the head coach of Team USA for the 2019 IIHF World Junior Championship which will begin Dec. 26.

University of Minnesota’s Bob Motzko coached the team the past two seasons and brought home a gold medal in 2017 and bronze earlier this year.

Quinn is no stranger to coaching this tournament. He was an assistant coach in 2007 (bronze), 2012 and 2016 (bronze).

He played on the 1986 team that won USA’s first-ever medal which was bronze. Quinn previously served as an assistant coach for the 2005 U.S. National Junior Team. He was an assistant two silver medal-winning U.S. Women’s National Teams (1999, 2000) and the U.S. Under-18 Men’s National Team in 2003.

He will be joined Minnesota State head coach Mike Hastings, Dartmouth assistant coach David Lassonde and Ohio State assistant coach Steve Miller.

 

Best of 2017-2018 seaon: Writers’ favorite articles

We are finally dropping the puck on “The best of 2017-2018 men’s hockey season” lists. First up are the writers favorite articles. Matt, Nikki and Liam all wrote a lot so picking our favorite was not easy. But these are the ones that we each writer stood out the most.

If you haven’t checked the out, we encourage you do so.

Nikki’s favorite article is her article onsophomore defensemen Chad Krys and Dante Fabbro.

 

Liam’s favorite article is his on freshman defenseman Kasper Kotkansalo.

 

Matt felt that his favorite article was his on junior forward and assistant captain Bobo Carpenter.

 

The article that the writers felt was the most interesting was Matt’s article on how college hockey changed over the years.

However, the article that stood out the most to all three of them was senior defenseman and captain Brandon Hickey’s “Letter to BU.”

We ask you, which article did you enjoy reading the most?

 

Men’s hockey announces captains for 2018-2019 season

Sunday at the End-of-the-Year Banquet, BU head coach David Quinn named the captains and the assistant captains for the upcoming season.

Junior forward Bobo Carpenter and sophomore defenseman Dante Fabbro with both wear the “C” next season as co-captains.

Carpenter spent this past season as one of three assistant captains and led the team in goals and scoring with 20 and 35 respectively. He was named to the Hockey East Second Team and a member of the All New England Team.

Fabbro finished second amongst defensemen with 29 points and first in goals with nine. He joined Carpenter on the Hockey East Second Team and the All New England Team.

The leadership will be rounded out with two assistant captains in sophomore defenseman Chad Krys and sophomore goaltender Jake Oettinger.

Krys finished his sophomore campaign with 27 points while Oettinger rebounded from a rough start to the season and from 2.10 goals against average and a .925 save percentage. Both players were named to the All Hockey East Tournament Team with Oettinger taking home Tournament MVP honors.

BU will host Acadia University for an exhibition game Oct. 6 and then open their season the following weekend in Mankato for a two-game series against Minnesota State.

The rest of the schedule will be released soon but the rest of the non-conference slate will be against Quinnipiac University, Dartmouth College, two games against Arizona State University. They will also play in the Friendship Four in November in Ireland.

The first round of the Friendship Four will be against the University of Connecutict, and will be a league game

As for the blog, both Liam and Matt will be returning for the Fall semester. Within a few weeks they will announce the newest men’s hockey beat writer.

From the FreeP: Hickey’s letter to BU

Senior defenseman and captain Brandon Hickey wrote a letter to BU, in which he reflects on his four years at Boston University, you can check it out here.

As someone who has talked with Hickey a number of times, Matt can tell you that he is a very nice guy and that Matt was moved watching Hickey’s post-game press conference after the loss to the University of Michigan.

 

From the FreeP: End of season recap

Well, as we all know it was a tale of two seasons for the Boston University men’s hockey team. Read Matt’s season recap here. One thing to note is that Quinn did not comment on who are “flight risks”, that information can be found in the recap.

For those who have asked about why Matt excluded Joel Farabee on the list of players who are coming in next season, that is because to our knowledge (and on his elite prospects page), it says that he is expected to arrive during the 2019-2020 season.

Earlier this semester, the FreeP brought on a columnist named Matt Dresens (he is not the Matt who runs this blog), you can read his thoughts on the season here.

We will be starting on “Top 10” lists later on this week.