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The Daily Gazette Company presents the parting Shots Podcast. Now here's your host, Daily Gazette Sports Editor Ken Shot. Thank you Scott Geezy, and welcome to the Parting Shots Podcast, available wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe today. Thanks for joining me. From the Parting Shots Podcast Studio in Schenectady, New York. We have another great show for you. It's a hockey themed edition of the podcast. We're going to wrap up the Union College women's hockey season with the head coach Tony Macy, a successful first year with the Garner Chargers. Don't let the records fool you. Even though they did not have winning records in overall or conference play, I would say this is one of the best seasons, in fact the best season this program has has ever had. So we'll talk to Tony about that and then Dan Rubin of USCHO.com who covers ECAC hockey will join me. We'll look back, preview the quarterfinal matchups in the ECAC Hockey tournament this weekend.
So the matchups in our Union at Dartmouth be at Union starting on Friday night at 7 o'clock followed by a Saturday 4 o'clock game and if necessary Sunday at 4. Quinnipiac goes brown, Harvard goes to Clarkson and Cordell and Colgate meet in Hamilton, New York. So that is your lineup for ECA Hockey action. Before we get into the podcast, I want to make a have a commentary on Monday's announcement that RPI head coach Dave Smith was fired after eight seasons, technically seven seasons. They count the 20, the 2020-21 season. Even though they didn't play, they count that as a season. Why? I don't know.
It's semantics, I guess. But yeah, you said it was going to happen. After a 51 or 52 loss to Harvard in last Friday's ECAC hockey Tour. In the first round game, it was 1:1 going into the second period and Harvard struck two quick goals early in the second and they added two more and just it was it. That was the end of RPI season. They still had 20 minutes to play play at third period. But there's something wrong with that program and Dave Smith can be blamed for it. Maybe he only won. He went 87, 152 and 19 in his time there. They just had one winning season. That was in 2019-20 when the Engineers went 7:15 and 2 overall and 13:8 and 1 East AC hockey play. And they were on a roll heading into the postseason where they won their Last four got a first round bye and. And we're going to play Harvard in the best of three quarterfinals. But then COVID 19 hit and then first Harvard and the Ivies pulled out of the post season and they were talking to bring, bringing Colgate in and before you know it, ECG hockey shut things down. There was no tournament in Lake Placid that year. And of course RPI took the 2020-21 season off like Union and the six Ivy League schools and they came out of it and they just really haven't come out of it.
I think a lot of blame goes with Dr. Shirley Jackson, who was president at the time, decided that the only people allowed to attend athletic events at RPI were the students and faculty and staff. So nobody outside of RPI was allowed to accept the media. Go figure that one out. So no outside fans were allowed at the building. That affected hockey because NHL scouts couldn't go into Houston field house to see players play. And that triggered a number of players entering the transfer portal and just everything just fell apart after that. I mean, they've had 20 lost seasons the last couple years. I mean there were, I think six of those seven years that they played had 20 losses. And I know a lot of the alums were upset with the way the program has been going and I know they see what the success that Ben Barr has had, former RPI player has had in Maine as a head coach. He was a candidate for the opening when Seth Aper was fired back in 2017.
And for some reason Dr. Jackson went with Dave Smith who had brought a Kadeshius program along which had losing records. But he got him to be respectful and he had some winning season. And I think that's what drew Dr. Jackson and Dr. Lee McElroy, who was athletic director at the time, to bring Dave in. And you look at it now, maybe they should have gone with Ben Barr. I mean, Ben's first season Maine wasn't great, but he's got, he's ranked fourth in the country right now. He's got the team contending for an NCAA title. So.
So you got to wonder what was going through the minds of Dr. Jackson, Dr. McElroy when they were doing the interviewing and ended up hiring Dave Smith. So now the process begins. Dr. Christy Bowers spoke with the media on Monday and she said in her opening statement that this was a hard decision. I never take these decisions lightly when it comes to making a change in leadership, but I think we need it to go in a different direction.
I fully was last year when RPI finished last place for the first time since the split of Hockey east and ECAC Hockey in 1984.
I thought last year Dave was on the hot seat because of finishing last. But then the Engineers upset fifth seed at Clarkson in that first round game and ended up losing the Quinnipiac in the best of three quarter finals. So I'm thinking he may have actually saved a job last year.
But Christy Bowers, who was just, you know, in her early stages of running the athletic department at RPI after coming from Boston University, said last year, I had only been here about four months at the time. So no, I wasn't looking at letting Dave go at that point. Just trying to get your feet underneath you understand what the landscape looks like, understand what the challenges are. We do have our challenges at rpi, but I think we've got a great, great leadership right now with President Martin Schmidt, who is also an RPI grad. So that helps with the program. So I think they understand what's needed. So the thing is they got to get this decision right. I know the alums want somebody who is a former player. I mean, you look at there's possibilities out there. Kirk McDonald's currently the head coach of the Wilkes Barre Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League. There's Andrew Lord, who's coaching in Halifax in the Quebec Junior League.
Brad Tapper has been mentioned he's coaching overseas. Former player there. He coached in Adirondack for a year. So you got to wonder me Eric Lang, who's American International, whose program's being dropped to Division 2 next season, I think he is very interested in the job.
You heard on the podcast on Wednesday and our Union Dartmouth preview that Reed Cashman, the head coach of Dartmouth, is promoting Jason Tapp for that RPI job. And of course Jason, the associate head coach. Dartmouth was the assistant later associate head coach at Union under Rick Bennett. So it's going to be interesting to see what happens at rpi. They have a long way to go. And one other thing that was mentioned during the video conferences with, with the media On Monday, their Dr. Bowers was talking about they're going to be refurbishing Houston Fieldhouse. And that led me to wondering. They refurbished the the rink. I think it was over 10 years ago at this point, maybe maybe longer. Maybe 15 years ago.
We're at the point now, why not? I think they made a mistake back then. I think that you look back now, they should have knocked the place down and built a new facility. I think with union building A new facility in Schenectady that's going to put RPI behind the eight ball. I mean, Houston Field house. I think I served its purpose. I don't know what they can do to improve the facility there.
It's about 70 years old, I would say.
So I just wonder at what point do you just, you know, keep spending money to refurbish a place that may not last another 10 years? I mean, you this the school built a nice football stadium for a Division 3 team, but would not does not even consider building a new facility for the Division 1 team. I mean, I understand there may be some scheduling issues and maybe they can play. If they do decide to ever knock down Houston FIAs, they can maybe temporarily call MVP and Rena home. Of course they got to deal with the Sienna basketball schedule, so that's a tough show. But this, like I said, Dr. Bowers has got to get this right.
If she doesn't, the RPI program is going to languish. But also, I have to stress to the fans of the team and the alums as well, you got to be patient. Whoever is hired, this is not an overnight fix.
The last three coaches that have been the head coach of RPI have been fired. So there comes a point where you need to just let the coach do his job and try to get this program back. They need your support.
Don't be negative the whole time. This is the point where whoever is hired, support that coach, help them and just know that they're trying to get the program back to where it was. Does it get back to where it was in the mid-80s national championship? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. So certainly the landscape of college hockey has changed with the transfer portal and the NLI name like this in image. So yeah, it's going to be an interesting job search for RPI and who they're going to pick. So we'll be on top of that as the process continues. So well. Coming up, we're going to talk Union College women's hockey. Wrapping up the season with first year head coach Tony Macy. You're listening to the Parting Shots podcast.
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[00:11:11] Speaker A: Hi, this is Union men's hockey alum Tyler Hines.
[00:11:14] Speaker C: You're listening to the Parting Shots podcast.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: With Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Shop.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Welcome back to the podcast. The Union women's hockey Team concluded their season on March 1st in really heartbreaking fashion. 32 loss to Cornell in game two of the Ecke quarterfinals game. That union was up late two to one was looking to force the third game in that series and Cornell scored an extra attacker goal and then got one with under 30 seconds left to win. Of course, Cornell ended up winning the ECAC tournament and they're playing in the NCAA tournament on Saturday. So. But looking at the season as a whole, 8 and 14 in conference play, 13, 23 and 1 overall, you know, records not under are not over 500. But I think what you saw this season was a team that was competitive all the time. That has hadn't been the case the last couple years. I mean you look back at the last couple seasons when they close out the season on losing streaks, including the 13 game losing streak last year.
So Tony Macy came in after Josh Giba left to join the New York Sirens of the Professional Women's Hockey League to become an assistant coach. Tony Macy came in during the summer and it's sort of a late coaching move, but he had a chance to evaluate and the program was like I said, was the most wins in conference play and most wins overall. They won their first ECAC hockey tournament game with a 2 nothing win at Brown in the first round game.
And things are looking promising for the Garner Chargers, obviously getting a new building starting next season. They're hosting the women's icebreaker. Wisconsin, the top ranked team in the country. And the favor to win the NCAA tournament will be coming in October. So a lot of excitement around this program and Tony Macy will get a chance to recruit his first class and he's been busy with that. He'll talk about that in my interview with him I did recently. So here's my conversation with Union men's hockey, sorry, Union women's hockey head coach Tony Macy.
Well, Tony, I mean it's been a week since the season ended.
How would you assess the way things went this year? I know it didn't end the way you wanted to, a tough loss in Game 2 to the Cornell, but how would you assess the season?
[00:13:45] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we made a lot of positive strides this year.
You know, had a lot of firsts when it comes to, you know, making sure that we're going in the right directions. A lot of firsts when it comes to wins, you know, first win at Lina, you know, taking Clarkson to overtime, the one time there, being in basically one goal games for about what it felt like 17 or 18 games there, you know, so you're becoming more competitive in every game, giving ourselves a chance. So, you know, I think assessing that and how we progress and how each player progressed throughout the course of the year, I think, you know, it was a good, positive year. I think we got a lot to, to be thankful for. You know, we've been losing some players that played some big roles for us this year, but I think we had a lot of players that stepped up into newer and or, you know, more important roles that did a good job for us this year and, you know, expect our freshmen to be able to come in and, and help, you know, keep pushing the needle in the right direction.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah, when you came in in mid July there, I mean, you didn't really have much time to get ready and you had to get to know the personnel. I mean, how looking back, was that a tough situation to come into?
[00:15:06] Speaker C: For sure. You know, and I knew that when I took the job.
You know, you come in and, you know, you're kind of handed the team that was there. You know, do you think you don't get to really go out and select kids for it. Right. So it was a matter of, okay, what do we have assess that and then what direction can we go with this group? What can they take? What can, you know, what can we push them on? What are things that, you know, they, they can grasp and really, you know, push to again be in every game and be competitive.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: When did you know that this team was going in the right direction?
[00:15:49] Speaker C: You know, early on, I think it was probably about, you know, right as we got into the ECAC play. I think that that was the big thing, you know, early in the season it was, all right, let's see what we have. Let's get everybody in, let's evaluate, let's see what works, what doesn't, you know, try different things, see what we can really, you know, take ownership of.
And so I'd say it was probably right after we finished out our, the first part of our non conference. Obviously we ended up playing St. Cloud middle of the season, but I'd say like right after that first party race, as soon as we got into the ECAC games there, I mean, yeah.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: You took over a team that really didn't know how to win. I mean, they, you know, they've closed. They closed out the previous two seasons on losing streaks, especially last season with the 13 game.
What was, what was the, what was your job to try to get them to buy in, Buy into you? Buy in what you helped do? Create a Clarkson.
[00:16:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I think the biggest thing was just looking at it as, hey, we're focusing in on one game. Like, we can't look at the past, we can't look at what's happened before. We can't look at what's going to happen in the future. We can only care about what's going on right now. And that was, you know, one of the big things coming in and something that we've done, I've done in the past as a coach as well, is you got to focus in on the day so you got to win each day. Right. So it's going to be, we win a practice, make sure you're having a good practice. You know, the players know, like, I hate wasting practices. So we made sure the compra practices were really highly competitive up pace, you know, at that game speed. So that by the time we got to games, we were ready for it.
So I think that was, you know, one of the biggest things was just not looking too far ahead, not looking at anything that's happened previously and just dialing in what we were doing at that time.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah. When did you sense that the confidence in this team was growing? Maybe during. I mean, I know you had the wins over rpi, he swept the season series, including the Mayor's Cup. I mean, could you see this team's confidence growing with each game? And especially, you know, you did close out of the five game losing streak. But as I wrote and I probably mentioned you, this felt different because you were in every game. It was four of the games were one goal games and it just, it seemed like that this team wasn't bothered by that because it obviously went into Brown and won down there.
[00:18:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that that was, again, that was part of it. That's part of our, you know, win each day type of mentality.
You know, I think it was probably again right around when we played, you know, Cornell, like early there, that Cornell Colgate, who we had a lead going on into the third again, both of them are now, you know, top five teams in the country.
And then we go into Clarkson, take them to overtime, you know, had a good, okay game against slu, ran out of gas I think because of the game before. But it was right around then that you're like, okay, they, they get it. They understand, you know, that they can play in those types of games, that they can compete in those types of games, that it's close like there. It's literally comes down to, you know, the things that we talk about, the details, the managing pucks, the playing hard Defensively. So it was right around then that you knew, like, okay, we're gonna keep working on that, keep pushing that and keep growing that every game.
And then it, you know, it was a matter of, okay, now, now we have to learn how to try to win those games. And we talked about it like we, that was one thing I said coming in. I go, we're not gonna be afraid to talk about stuff that happens because you only learn from it. Right. So for us, anytime we, you know, we had like the one at Colgate, hey, we had a lead going into the third against a team that, you know, nobody probably would have said we should have been in a game with and played well. And, you know, we learned from that and say, okay, well, let's, let's go into the next time we do this. Let's not back off. Let's make sure we're still playing our game, those types of things. So again, just, we really took a good over ownership of, you know, trying to make sure we gave ourselves a chance and, you know, playing with that confidence of like, no matter who we're playing, we're going to give ourselves a shot.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah. How much did the post. How much will that postseason experience, you know, winning at Brown and you know, even though you got swept at Cornell, I mean, how much of that experience is going to help this team next season?
[00:20:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's going to be huge because you got three classes now that have been through it.
You know, going into the season, their. Their experience was, you know, the. I think they played Yale the year before. Right, right.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:58] Speaker C: So going into a playoffs, one gamer, you lose the Yale. You know, I think it was like five, two or four, two, whatever.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah, five two. Yeah, five two.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: And you know, that was their experience. Right now we've got experience of, okay, this is how you prepare to win a playoff game. Here's how you prepare to try to win a series, because it's a lot different.
So I think that that's going to be massive because I also feel like we were playing playoff hockey for like about a month and everybody was. Was dialed into that and understands, okay, well, if we want to win these types of games, we want to win games down the stretch. This is the way you have to play all the time. And you know, once you, once you have that instilled in the majority of your group, which we'll have already, you know, I think that just puts you a step ahead for the next season. Now we have to go out and do it again. Yeah, it's not just going to happen. But definitely have that experience and have that, you know, those thoughts in our heads of, okay, here's what needs to be done.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Oh, you get a big test. You face Wisconsin in the icebreaker.
[00:22:04] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: That'll be fun.
[00:22:06] Speaker C: Oh yeah. We play in the next three years.
[00:22:08] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Next three years they had to go out there twice.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: So they're coming out to us for the icebreaker. Then we're going out there for one the following year and then they're gonna come back after that.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: Oh, wow, that's, that's great. I mean, I know they were here late 2000s and they lost. They played two games here in course of Wisconsin won both games. But yeah, that'll be fun. I mean that's, that's. I mean, how much are you looking for that? I mean it's now, it's, we're in March right now, but how much you looking forward to that? Icebreake I didn't have a chance to talk to you when it was announced.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it's going to be a great, a great thing for our community or our new rink, our players, the teams coming in. I think it'd be good to showcase, you know, Union College and what we're doing on the hockey side of things.
So I think it's gonna be great for, you know, the recruiting. It'll be great for our players to go through that as well. And then, you know, being able to play good teams like that's the other thing is, you know, we gotta win our first game and whoever wins that other side between Wisconsin and Vermont, you know, that's who we end up playing next. But, you know, not nothing against Vermont, but we're hoping for a, A Hall. Hall game.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:24] Speaker C: Right. So we got Court. Court on our bench and her sister on the other bench. So kind of the battle of the sisters there. But I think it's good, you know, when we up here. Clarkson, when I was at Clarkson, we played them in 2017, early in the season, and we were 2, 3 and 2 at the time. And to this day, our season doesn't change until we play them, you know, and it kind of gives you something to look at because they're a perennial, you know, top team in the country. So it gives you that, that look of, okay, here's something outside of what we normally see in the eca. Yeah, we got a lot of good teams, but this is somebody that is in the wcha, who's always in the Frozen Four, that type of thing. This is the level of play that is the standard now. So being able to see that, get on the ice with it, you know, that's, that's massive.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: As far as the senior class, I mean, you lose some pretty good players there. I mean, can you talk about your seniors?
[00:24:27] Speaker C: Yeah, like we had our seniors did a great job this year, you know, helped me out a ton when I came in and the staff coming in, getting adjusted and really helping push what we were, we were trying to get after, you know, know, Soph did a great job this year backstopping us. Gave us a shot in every game pretty much. Right. So, you know, she did an awesome job.
Marin, you know, played 29, 35 minutes a game, you know, played hard. Did as a leader on and off the ice, obviously with the Mandy Schwartz award as well.
So did a ton for us there. You know, Paige Greco jumps in from a, you know, perennial third, fourth liner into a first line player and you know, really has a good breakout year for herself, you know. And then you've got Maddie Suter who just gave you a consistent effort every day. Came up some with some goals for us as well.
Ashley Adams really did a great job for us as well. Just, you know, bringing a good work ethic, playing, being tough to play against. Did a lot of the little details that we talk about, you know, Emma Heber on the back end as well. You know, again, eights of minutes. May not be the tallest of stature, you know, but her fighting practices and her fight in the games, you know, definitely helped out a ton there.
Trying to make sure I get everybody here. Gotta go around the room in my head.
Is that everybody?
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Let me see if I get the roster up here in my studio here. Just a second.
[00:26:08] Speaker C: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20.
Oh, Maya Jones.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Yep, yep.
[00:26:29] Speaker C: So yeah, I was, I tried to do it sometimes in my head through the numbers there.
But again, Maya was, you know, a good depth player for us.
You know, we needed our depth at times quite a bit in order to make sure that we weren't being gassed out there with our top end players. So, you know, she definitely ate up a lot of good minutes for us, you know, played a good role, played hard in practice for us as well. So you know that that group definitely is, is a group that helped push the needle for sure. So, you know, they were good, a lot of good example people in that one for the others to kind of learn from this year and hopefully they can take it and run with it for next Year.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: Well, you have a pretty good class led by I think Carrie, Carrie Ann Engelbert, who had an outstanding first year season.
You expect, expect her to get even better next year.
[00:27:22] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean that's always the expectation. I think the big thing and this is something we had, we already had like a season end meeting this week with it.
You know, one of the big focuses for us has got to be, you know, we noticed in a lot of games, especially going into like Saturday games that we would, we die out. Right. Like our, our legs weren't as strong, so we got to do a ton when it comes to getting in the weight room with coach Dan and, and doing that. So that's going to be a real big focus on us. Helping us to make that next step is really dialing in the off ice stuff. Obviously with the new facility as well. Having a, a gym right there down the hall from our, our locker room at our access at any point during the day is also going to be huge. So you know, really trying to dial in that stuff because you know, between now and then there's not a ton of ice times that we're going to have and you know, those I've noticed in my years coaching when you get that stuff dialed in, it really makes a big difference on the ice.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Yeah. How much you can't, can't wait for the newer facility to open up.
[00:28:35] Speaker C: Oh yeah. We're in the, we're in the middle of designing everything right now. All the, all the fun stuff, the stuff on the walls and all those types of things. So this is actually like my third go at it based on all the places I've been so far. So have a good understanding and you know, this is the, the time where you get to put up the fun stuff and you know, make things pop real well and, and all that. So really excited to get in there, really excited for the group for next year and what they're going to be able to have. And you know, something that we've been working towards here for a long time. I know the alumni when they came back for the MVP game were really pumped about what was happening and you know, they, they even joked about what they had when they were at Union and like, holy cow, you guys are like treated awesome. This is amazing, those types of things. So I think it's gonna be a great space for that. It's also gonna be a great space to bring back alumni to kind of bring the buzz to the area to get people down into Schenectady there and you know Maybe garner some more fans. That's the big thing too is, you know, we want to make this more of a, even more of a community. Obviously you're a little bit a block away from campus. Right. So you're able to maybe get like some more people that we weren't always having to be able to get. I know we're going to start a kids club next year with the women's team where they'll be able to interact with our players throughout the course of the year.
Kind of be like a built in group that can come to the games.
[00:30:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I got. Jim McLaughlin recently took me on a tour and I was impressed with what's going on inside of me. I get to, I drive by it every day and see at least see the outside. I got inside it and it was, it's nice. I can't wait for it to open.
[00:30:33] Speaker C: Oh, it's going to be amazing. Yeah. And we'll actually have like a media room.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I saw that.
[00:30:39] Speaker C: Which will be good.
You know and, and just the, the facility in general is going to be awesome for us to you know, have everything there. Yeah, we kind of have it right now. But like we don't really have a lounge for the women's side.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:55] Speaker C: Just because of space in Mesa, there's just not enough room. Right. So having that, having the, the brand new hydro tubs, the athletic training space, the you know, hockey specific weight room, you know, and then just areas that we can do a lot of alumni events.
Being able to have the bars as well at the rink, I think will be a good draw for everybody.
[00:31:26] Speaker B: Wrap this up with recruiting. Do now to be able to recruit your first true class here. What's that? How's that going? How many do you anticipate? How many players do you anticipate bringing in?
[00:31:37] Speaker C: So right now we're at six.
So we've done, we've done quite a bit of recruiting this year. So we got six this year. I think we're at about, I think we're around five. Yeah, I think we're at five for the following year and then we're going to be at about. Already three for the year after.
So we're technically already into our third year out. Wow. Doing some things a little bit different than had been done in the past and what kind of. What we're looking at when it comes to building the program. So like all the kids that were. We're bringing in a lot of good, a lot of good players, a lot of good families, a lot of good Canadian Canadians, I think, is. Is what our Americans have been saying on our team. They're like, how many Americans you got coming in? That's a lot more Canadians than what's been here in the past.
So, you know, you'll see a little bit of shift in that. But again, still getting some Americans from, you know, different places. You know, we had a couple coming from Arizona next year that have played prep schools.
One from. Two from Quebec, and then a couple more from out west Canada, so.
So, yeah, I think it's definitely becoming a place that people want to come and. And try to build and take to the next step. So it's. It's been good on the recruiting side.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Well, Tony, appreciate a few minutes. Thank you for your being able to chat with us during the season, getting to know you, and I think the program is heading in the right direction here.
[00:33:16] Speaker C: Well, that's awesome. Now, thank you for all your help and all the coverage, and that's great. I do have to say, I heard something on the radio the other day.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:33:26] Speaker C: Eagles.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:33:28] Speaker C: They're finally a winning franchise. I had no idea.
They're two games over. Over.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: 500 for the franchise and two Super Bowls, baby.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: That's crazy.
[00:33:39] Speaker B: Well, we had. We had some down years back when. At least when I was growing up, we had some awful teams back in the 70s, so.
[00:33:45] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah. They were joking. They're like, yeah, from. From game one. They were never over.500.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's.
[00:33:53] Speaker C: They lost their first game, and then it was like, back and forth, back and forth. Yeah.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:56] Speaker C: I was like, oh, I'm gonna have to bring that one up to Ken.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: But I'm still basking in the glow of the super bowl championship, so.
[00:34:04] Speaker C: Yeah, well, shoot, they might do it again.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: I want to be. Hey, I'm ready for. I'm ready for repeat.
[00:34:09] Speaker C: Yeah, they got a good go at it right now.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Tony, appreciate it. Thanks again. We'll talk soon.
[00:34:15] Speaker C: Okay, Sounds good.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Thanks, Ken. Bye. Bye.
[00:34:17] Speaker C: Bye.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: We'll preview the quarterfinal round of the ECAC Men's Hockey Team Tournament with Dan Rubin of USCHO.com we'll offer his thoughts. Also on the Dave Smith firing. You're listening to the Parting Shots podcast.
[00:34:40] Speaker C: Hi, I'm Stan.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: And I'm Shen.
[00:34:43] Speaker C: And each week, we bring you the Stan and Shen Show. And each week, we talk about fun. Things are through our travels throughout the capital region, we touch on food, we touch on news, try to touch heavily on good news. And Shen's always available with hot takes.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you could follow along and listen to us every week on DailyGazette.com or on all major streaming platforms. We'd love to have you join us.
Hi, this is Daily Gazette sports writer Mike McAdam. You're listening to the Party Shots podcast with Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Shot.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Welcome back to the podcast. And we're on to the ECAC hockey tournament quarterfinals this weekend, best of three series. And to join me to break that down is Dan Rubin of usho.com Dan, how are things going?
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Hey, you know, I've actually have a weekend where I can maybe like relax and just sit, pull up the old quad box somehow if I could figure out how to work it with my teeth, TV and my monitors and just watch hockey. There's nothing worth work and just sit back and enjoy the games this week. And I'm actually really excited for it.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's good, that's good. But, but before we get into all the quarterfinal matchups, news broke on Monday that it was probably inevitable that Dave Smith was let go as the RPI head coach. And eight seasons, and I quote eight seasons because he only coached seven because of the mist of the COVID But he just not a good record. 620 lost seasons. And they, you know, look like they gave up gave up when they were down 51 to Harvard on Friday's first round game. The change was probably needed. Your thoughts on it?
[00:36:24] Speaker A: You know, I agree. I think the program needed a reboot. I don't think a lot of people were surprised that this happened at rpi.
I really thought Harvard was maybe not going to play well because it was at home. Like I thought rpi, you know, had played well enough to get out of those last two spots in ecac. But I think the, you know, having to go back and then watch a game and you'd see it here and there, it was like the, the team, those bottom three, bottom four teams just didn't have juice. Bottom three, I'll say because Princeton had plenty of juice left. And you start to ask yourself why. And now in some cases it's a matter of youth and in some cases it's a matter of never being able to get around the corner. But in RPI's case, I think you look at the way the team played the last couple of years and the change became inevitable under the basis of, look, Dave's a great guy, Dave's a good guy, a hell of a hockey coach, but it just wasn't working. And I don't know how much of it when they look at it, said, look, the program never came out of COVID properly and backslid after. They were in sixth and they were in fourth before, beforehand, or if it was, you know, what the. What the internal reasons were that they wanted to look at and say, look, we don't. We don't like the way the direction's going.
Very seldom do you have a program or an athletic department that makes a change based solely on wins and losses. They have to feel that this is not the coach that's going to pull them out of the funk. So the RPI needed to make the change, I think, and it's going to come at an advantageous time when there are going to be some coaches out there that I think are good names to at least take a good, hard, long look at. And maybe this is the thing that finally gets RPI going in the right direction.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Yeah, there's one coach in the conference you cover at Atlantic Hockey who's probably looking for a job since the program's going Division two, is Eric Lang at American International. He might be a good fit.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: Hey, I'll tell you, if there's a program, and I don't know if Langer's up for any positions right now where season just ended and there's so much uncertainty over the next couple of weeks, at least through the end of the year with. With rpi, but I'm sorry, with AIC in Atlantic Hockey America. But the one thing I will say is that he is a coach that if you can take a program that does not have the same resources or doesn't or doesn't operate under the same resources, he can make them nationally relevant. And for a program like rpi, if RPI chooses, you know, I don't know the level of investment at rpi. I don't know the full. The full finances of the athletic department over there. But if RPI says, you know, hey, we. This is a guy who can do it on X amount. They don't necessarily have to fund every inch of a program the way that they would, the way that a Boston College would or Quinnipiac would in order to get a winning product out of Eric Lang. He's got proven track record there. And we know that the school is dedicated to hockey. It's been around. It's got a national championship banner. So I don't. I don't. Or in some ecac, you know, champions in there. So I don't look at this as saying, like, hey, you know, oh, I hope he comes in and can save a program or Anything like that. You know, if RPI wants to look at a guy like him, that'd be a, that'd be a wise choice. But I know there's going to be a lot of suitors out there for, for, for Eric who gets to make his next choice off of, you know, what is it? The prettiest bell at the ball. Right. Everybody wants to have a dance.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: So let's, let's get into the quarterfinals and really not much to talk about in the first round. It was, it was chalk and really, I mean I think the most competitive game was when we expected in Princeton and Brown. Brown up one of that one, three, two almost went to overtime, but not quite. But.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: When that got to that last minute, I got a text message from my brother saying, oh no, here we go.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So let's talk about the series that I'll be covering. The Dartmouth number five seed. Visiting Union number four seed. A rematch of last year's quarterfinals that was won by Dartmouth in a sweep. Dartmouth has won five straight against Union. Took the season series this year from Union and Union did not look good in either game. They look awful in a 4 nothing setback at Mesa. And then the final road game of the season. They got off to a sluggish start and really never recovered. It was a 21 loss to Dartmouth.
This is going to be it for Messa Rink this weekend. So I mean I think there's a lot of motivation. We talked with the players on Tuesday and defenseman and team captain Colton Ferguson kept emphasizing we're motivated, you know, motivated for the end of the Messa Rink. The motivated to get to Lake Placid because he hasn't been to Lake Placid. This program hasn't been to Lake Placid since 2017.
What is it going to take for unions that get over the hump against Dartmouth?
[00:41:18] Speaker A: You know, it's funny is that even though Union's the better seed and has the home ice advantage, there are a lot of, a lot of numerical and statistical categories of which Dartmouth has an advantage. And when I was breaking down some of the numbers at least on, on shots that shot percentage goals, goals allowed on average. And the numbers, you realize you can't go on total numbers because Dartmouth plays six goals last six games less than Union over the course of a whole year. So total goals are always going to be less and but when you go on per game averages the penalty kill Dartmouth is really good in. Dartmouth is specifically good in conference play a little better than the numbers go all go up compared to Compared to the non conference schedule. The one thing about this is that Union is also very evenly matched. So even though I say Dartmouth is better statistically, it's, it's maybe a fraction of a hair here and there. Like it's not, it's not a lot even breaking down face off numbers like Dartmouth wins 52% of its face offs and Union wins like 48% of its face off. So however Dartmouth decides to dictate the pace is or can dictate the pace is going to be a big stage. But Union being at home, Union is. I didn't realize over the last 10 years, one is how good Union historically has been at Mesa. Like there's only been one year where it finished under.500 at home. And two is how bad Dartmouth played at Mesa until the last couple of years. Like you go back until Dartmouth picked up those wins and, and then, and whatnot over the last couple of years. And there were two, it was something like 113 and two in their last 16 games.
So before that. So this is going to be. I think being at home is the great level setter. The one thing that I think Union has going for it that Dartmouth maybe doesn't is the Dartmouth. While a better team defense just on the numbers, Union is better goaltending. And in a, in a three game series, goaltending can take you a long way.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean recashion split the goaltending duties this year at Dartmouth and you obviously know Cooper Black this year.
Do you think that's a fact you mentioned about? I mean to be able to have one goaltender that you can trust versus two that you can maybe trust, is that going to be. You think the difference?
[00:43:33] Speaker A: I think two in the regular season is a great asset. I think anytime you can, you can platoon your goalies a little bit during the season, it saves one of them. But you need to have a clear cut idea going into the playoffs who you want to be as your number one. And I've seen that across the board in Atlantic Hockey and eca even in Hockey east. Like even. Even in teams like Harvard who we'll get to in a little bit. Like you got to win one game, you got to be able to turn to one goalie. And if you have two of them and you've been platooning them the whole year, if you get to that third game and the goalie who you thought would play the third game didn't have a better outcome in the first two, can you like that brings in the level of uncertainty that a team with one goalie doesn't have and you also know that if a team like Union with with without having to platoon its back and gets to the fourth place spot you lose one of those first two games and you're going to your bread and butter in the third. And like I said goaltending tends to win these things over over full team result and that's something that I think you'll be able to point to over the course of all four matchups not just this one but I think this one's the one where it might be the big time difference and I think it's going to be a great series either way and I probably won overtime game more than this thing this baby's going Messa has not yet lost its last fight we'll put it that way.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Well thankfully two of the game game two is a 4 o'clock game and if necessary game three is that on Sunday would be 4 o'clock so we're in good shape if the game goes.
[00:45:00] Speaker C: Overtime unless again deadlines are your friend Ken.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: Well deadlines not in this day and age with early deadlines I'm just hoping if it gets it's about 8 o'clock then I start to worry so well we just mentioned the goaltending for Dartmouth. Emick Croto has played played both games against Union even got the shutout in the 4 nothing game here so he's a 1140 with a 2.11 goals against average Rome Clark 2.67 he was 58 and 2 so yeah and Kyle so that on Tuesday was named the to the third team all ECAC which which good for him he worked hard to get it and so I agree I think it could come down to goaltending and Kyle's play well you know forget the Colgate game and I think the players in front of him weren't playing well but there's been games where he has really stood on his head and helped Union win this game. He's had a very good year.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: I'm surprised he was the 13 goalie like I was putting together my teams and I'm pretty sure I didn't I either had him as a second or a third team goalie like like figuring out who those who those three were but I was pretty surprised that he was third. I thought I was going to be you know and I'm when I'm looking between him and Andrew Takis as my and Lawton Zachary and some of the goalies that are floating around that maybe don't have the, the, the top goals against average in the, in the league. Like I, I was pretty surprised that he was that quote low like he, he had, he had a pretty darn good year for Union and went out and stole.
Look, you get in a one or two goal game, your goalie had to do something to win you the game. And he's the type of goalie who did that. 18 wins doesn't come easy.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And particularly the game at Cornell where It was like 2131 and Cornell was firing shots and he kept making incredible saves and frustrating the Big Red. So yeah, I mean he's really, I think he's gotten better this year. He had some inconsistency last year, but yeah, he's, he's done a good. The one surprise I saw in that third team was John Prokoff who was the first team of last year going down to 13. So either the coaches thought he had an off year or there's better defenseman. I don't know.
[00:47:10] Speaker A: I mean I had him in the third team, but that's because then I have no problem admitting this. I, I thought he was maybe the third or fourth best defenseman. But then when you looked at it, you start going mono e mono like and you're trying to figure out individual numbers and that sort of thing. Like it boils down to like inches. I will say this has been one of the hardest years to figure out for me who I was going to put like first team, second team, third team with I think maybe two exceptions. Like Ayrton Martino was going to be a first team forward. Yeah, yeah. I mean that was, that was a given. But other than that, I think the only other easy question I had was Ben Charrette being the freshman goaltender on like an all rookie team because there were no freshman goalies.
[00:47:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:48] Speaker A: So by default easier all freshman goalie because he's the only one.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: Yep. So let's go on to the other next matchup. Quinnipiac, the top seed going against eighth seed Brown. You know, Brown played pretty well against Princeton and you know, you know, Ryan St. Louis, their team's lean scorer, figured in all the goals. He had two goals and an assistant at win over Princeton. But I mean do you give Brown a Fighting champ? Quinnipiac, we know their history in the ECAC hockey tournament. I mean they get, when they get the placid, they struggle for some reason. But you know, I think this is going to be a sweep. I think Brown's going to give Quinnipiac all it can handle.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: I Think so. And I'm not saying that as, as being a New England homer here, you know, with my background with Brown and that sort of thing, but when you look at how Brown gets to its championship series, when it gets to at least the semifinal, which by the way, the three times that Brown has made a semifinal, it's been in a completely different city. So it's been to Albany, Atlantic City and Lake Placid. But two of those have been by going in some capacity by going through Quinnipiac. They did it by winning the best two out of three in 2013 and in 2019 made the conference championship game. Or maybe I have this backwards by.
Actually it is backwards because in 2013, I think it was Brown had, as the seventh seed, had to beat RPI, the second seed team in the, in the postseason, and then go be top seeded Quinnipiac in the semifinal.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: In 2019, Brown had to go to Quinnipiac as the eight seed after beating Princeton at home. And they go to Quinnipiac and they sweep those and then they go to the semifinals. And, and I, in 2019, I'm trying to remember if that was the. I don't think that was the. No, that was the one where they lost in the semifinals. But in 2013, they made the conference championship game and that was because they went through Quinnipiac. So the bottom line is that of the teams that are left, Quinnipiac runs into problems when it plays teams. One that have a really good goaltender because Quinnipiac is a really good team defense style. So when you start playing a team with a really good goaltender, that negates everything you can do in the back that allows your forwards to, to, to play up to. The other problem with Quinnipiac against Brown is that Brown is not a deep team. But in the playoffs you shorten your bench. So the depth issues are negated by the fact that someone like Ryan St. Louis probably going to double shift every game and you're going to have a defenseman playing 30 minutes at some point for Brown. And the third problem, and this might be the one that I think kills Quinnipiac the most, is that Brown plays physical. Officials tend to put the whistles away and if they're not going to call some of the calls that they would make during the regular season, that is one way to just keep Quinnipiac off the, off the board. And I don't say that meaning Brown's going to play dirty or anything like that, but Brown historically is a physical team that likes to punch you in the mouth. If they're not calling that and they're not calling it tight, then that's a.
[00:50:57] Speaker B: Problem for Quinnipiac because Quinnipiac is one one of the best power players in the country. So would it be important for Brown to, you know, stay out of the penalty box?
[00:51:06] Speaker A: Especially about Brown's penalty kill, I don't think it's very good.
So even. Even if the numbers have improved the penalty, the penalty kill has just not been good. It looks problematic at times with the way they chase, and that's going to be a big factor for Quinnipiac. The other issue is that Quinnipiac does have multiple lines that can score. And so being at home when the, with the, with the last change allows you to really battle for some of those changes and stoppages and come out and have the right matchup and line it up and substitute properly with the last change that if you get an icing and an offensive zone face off, can really, can really kill a team too, if you're, you know, coming off of anything like that.
[00:51:49] Speaker B: To me, this was not a great Quinnipiac year, judging by what they've done over the past several years. Maybe this is a fifth straight regular season title. But this one, I think, was the toughest of them all because Clarks was on their heels until the, until the end. And it just seems like Quinnipiac maybe not enough talent this year as opposed to previous years.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: The. Well, I mean, they got younger. None of the play. And when I say younger, their team isn't necessarily by the years young, but the team itself has not played a lot together. And a lot of the guys who are on the roster aren't from that, that national championship team anymore. So beginning of the year when they were losing, I remember talking to Rand Pecknold for uscho and he said, look, we had to learn it all over again. Couldn't. Couldn't go out there and just say like, hey, guys, and lean on any experience. They had to teach this team how to play in certain situations. Quinnipiac hockey. And over the course of the year it got there, and I think Rand also did a really good job of adjusting his style and adjusting what he wanted to do without selling out the core axioms of what made Quinnipiac Quinnipiac. So eventually everything kind of evened out. But you're right. And the other side of it too for Quinnipiac is that normally we'd be looking at them right now around 30 wins, and even in a down year, they'd be a seven or an eight seed in the, in the national tournament, you know, grabbing a two seed in one of the regionals. And instead because of what's happened with UMass and Penn State, they're at 13 and they can't lose. So this is a very different perspective for Quinnipiac to have to play as the hunter and play a little desperate maybe than maybe what we're used to seeing too, which is, which is a new facet.
[00:53:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, let's move over to the Clarkson Harvard series. Clarkson, the 2 seed, J.F. houle, first year as a head coach, as alma mater, did a great job and to me he's probably going to win coach of the year for that. And of course number seven, Harvard coming in. I mean Clarkson, who knew they were going to do better with a new head coach. Casey Jones lost to RPI, the 12 seed in last year's first round game. And Casey went on to become the associated coach at Cornell, will become the head coach next year. JF Uhl comes in. And what was the difference in the Clarkson team this year?
[00:54:11] Speaker A: At the beginning of the year I had a conversation with him and, and he said in an interview and he said to me, you know, where we, we can't abandon what we were, we abandoned what made Clarkson good under Casey Jones. He's like, so even though I want to maybe play a certain style, you have to come in and understand that, that some of these guys are not. Have not used to playing that. So you can't just break everything up. And he did a really good job of adapting Clarkson to fresh looks without changing too much. So like you take your team and you're playing a little bit of the same way, but the language is a little different, literally in some cases because JF is French Canadian. So I'm sure maybe he'd be able to yell at the guys in two languages if they.
But the, the thing for me was just how like I mentioned Martino, right? 45 points and 20 goals and he's probably the best natural scorer right now in the league. He's not the best scorer or the highest score on the power play. You have some. Or you have someone like Ellis Rickwood who can score six of his nine goals on special team. You have Kaylin Taylor, who might be the league's best defenseman. I think he is. You have nine other players with five goals on the year. Like you're able to spread it out with top end talent.
Which means that again if you're shortening the bench or you're, you're looking to what Clarkson can do. It's a matter of a style that has worked to push Quinnipiac in year one. There are holes, there's no doubt about it. And I don't think that they're the best team in entering the playoffs, but they might be the best team to win its matchup.
[00:55:50] Speaker B: I mean Martino, you mentioned the 23 goals, eight of them game winner. So he's clutch.
[00:55:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And he really, he's probably the player who benefited the most from a new coach. He's just been lights out from start to finish and I have really enjoyed some of the highlights that I've seen from him because that's kind of a new take, new look.
[00:56:12] Speaker B: And if they had a Lady Bing trophy in the college hockey probably win it. Just eight penalty minutes on the year. So he's a smart player, stays out of the penalty box and does his job. And you look at his Clark's team, there's only two guys with 10 or more goals but they finished second. So there's something going on.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:56:29] Speaker B: And so you got to tip your hat to JFL. Meanwhile, Harvard look good. I mean they 4 goal second period against RPI put that game away and they protected the lead well. I mean do they have momentum going up the Potsdam?
[00:56:44] Speaker A: I think so. And I think the wind maybe indicated that Harvard was starting to peak. And to me that's funny because I thought they were going to lose. So you know, it shows you how one game, the performance in that game can kind of flip flop how you view a team. I thought the, the, the track meet style with RPI getting 70 combined shots was a, was a unique atmosphere at home for Harvard. And then they come out and they, and they win the game and they win the game in a way that if that had been a 21 game against RPI, that would have been, you know, 20 odd shots between each team would have been a very different attitude. But instead Harvard was flying and while RPI also flew, AKU Kaskambuo and Gold made his saves. They had it. They, they were just, they were just so much more crisp. And to me that's something that, that maybe they needed to because they were starting to peak. After the, after the six, nothing lost to Clarkson. Then they're. You don't want to go into the playoffs without a buy. Like you want to have the buy. You don't want to play the first round. But if you're going to play in the first round, getting through it the way that they did, probably a good.
[00:57:54] Speaker B: Thing Yeah, I mean the way they played that second period, getting two quick goals there, just over four minutes into the period, you could just see RPI sagging and then they potted two more and that was it. Basically five, one after two. The game was over at that point. So Harvard put RPI out of its misery and you know, played a great third period. I mean, I know RPI got a late goal there, but it didn't matter because that was a clinic Harvard put on against rpi.
[00:58:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And honestly, if you look at the roster too for Harvard and you look at where goals were coming from, I mean you're getting goals from Thompson and Severo and those are your leading scorers. Joe Miller gets a goal in there and when I look at Justin Salove, same idea. And when I look at Harvard, pound for pound against anybody, the top of the roster and the top of the goal scorer matches a bit of what Clarkson can do. Obviously again, numbers won't be there because the less games and you know, if you gave Harvard six more non conference games and none of them were the bean pot, maybe they, maybe they are a 17 win team at this point instead of 12 and 15. And maybe Casey Severo is a 20 goal scorer and maybe Mick Thompson's got 17 or 18 goals. But since that's not the case pound for pound, I like hybrid's top guys to be able to go head to head with Clarkson's top guys and maybe Clarkson's a hair ahead, but it's going to be fun to watch.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Now the big series in Central New York, rivalry between Cornell, number 6C, number 3C Colgate at Class of 1965 Arena. This might be one of those games where Cornell might have the home ice, quote unquote, home ice advantage because you know, we Colgate, nice rank, but they don't draw well and Cornell's, you know, travels well. So this could be one of those games where, you know, Cornell dominates at Cornell at Colgate's home rink.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: Isn't it funny how that works? I remember we used to call when you go to Star in the airplane hangar, it'd be like dead air.
[00:59:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:59:51] Speaker A: And it would just be, it would be completely dead. Like it captured the cold and everybody was just sitting on their hands and it was. But it was dead. And I. Classic 65 arena loses the dead air. I know, because of the construction, like just the way that it's not an old abandoned airplane hangar. But it is, it does have a lack of energy to it, which has been a knock against Colgate for a while and they're facing the one team that probably could pack the house with its own guys. So that's going to be.
I don't love the matchup for Colgate to begin with, but I also don't love the matchup for Cornell either. I mean, these teams, these two are probably the, the worst team you could hope for for the second round for both teams.
[01:00:36] Speaker B: Of course, Colgate may have, I mean, Cornell may have a motivating factor. They want to play. Give Mike Schaefer at least one more week and, you know, may defend their ECAC hockey tournament title.
I mean, this might be the series where I see definitely goes three games and I could see Cornell winning this series and going back to Lake Placid.
[01:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. The one thing that I said was this is the realest possible test for Cornell now because Cornell had not been right the whole year. And it comes out and scores four times in the third period of the win over Yale. But prior to that, the first two periods, Cornell had not looked good. They look bad. They look better than Yale, but they had not looked the part of a team that was ready to come out and, and play playoff hockey. Ian Shane had a little bit of a throwback in the second period, which helped. You know, his numbers were way down this year to begin with. And then in the third period, it was over. The offense just steamrolled through, through, through Yale and, and got through its way on home ice. So for me, you can't start slow against Colgate because Colgate, to me, if they can get through this round, becomes a legitimate dark horse within the league because they just seem to have the different pieces that go together, like I said, that match up well against some of the other teams. They have a really high offensive output that when you remove the non conference schedule, I think Colgate jumps over Quinnipiac in some ways. They score on roughly 13% of their shots. The defense scores a half goal, allows a half goal less per game than what Yale does, and you have a better goalie and Andrew Takis, who's been, who has seen more ice time than any other goalie this year in the league. And so when you combine that with the top of the chart, that is just as good as Cornell. We're going to find out if Cornell being the preseason favorite is really back at this point. What you hope for is that last week was the get right game and Cornell comes out firing in that first game and if that happens in the first half of that first period and they Come out all pistons go. When Cornell is at its best. They are the best team in the league hands down.
[01:02:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:02:46] Speaker A: Cornell not been right all year.
[01:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Mike Schaefer first season in 95, 96. They faced Colgate in that first round and crushed him the quarterfinals 8183 and ended up winning the first EC hockey title for Mike Schaefer there. So it makes a sort of comes full circle here. Of course the Cornell wants to make sure there's another at least another game next week. So what are your picks, Dan for this weekend?
[01:03:13] Speaker A: I'm going to leave the Cornell Colgate one on a coin flip until I finish this up. But you know, I don't see this going shock. I rarely do the one that I is going to kill me to pick them. But I think Dartmouth if it might be might be the team that's going to that I think might go back.
Like I said, it's going to kill me and probably not win me any fans out in the Capital District. I just don't think this is Brown's year to get through Quinnipiac. I think there's too much on the line for Quinnipiac. I think Clarkson is hands down better than Harvard and unless Cornell is the team that upends Colgate, that leaves Dartmouth as the only low seed coming out. So I'll just flip it. I'll take Union Cornell to go with, to go with Quinnipiac Clarkson.
[01:04:00] Speaker B: I'm probably right with you, Union. I think Union goes and goes in three. Clarkson and Quinnipiac sweep their series and I think Cornell ends up winning in three and we'll see those four teams in Lake Placid next week perhaps.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Hey, I'm feeling that that is a good, that'll be a good take and it might actually, it might actually help. Help pack the barn a bit with some of those teams going out there. I think that'd be a good fit.
[01:04:21] Speaker B: Yeah. And I haven't been to Lake Flasses since 2015 and that was actually for my son when he was playing youth hockey back in the day. He got to play on the famous late sheet there at Her Brooks Arena. So that was a lot of fun back then and be able to watch and watch the some of the ECAC games and relax, not have to worry about covering it. But yeah, looking forward to this weekend. It should be a lot of fun. Dan, enjoy your weekend and we'll talk next week. We'll preview the semifinals and championship round.
[01:04:45] Speaker A: Let's enjoy it. Let's sit back and enjoy the ride.
[01:04:48] Speaker B: All Right. Thanks, Dan. I appreciate it. That's Dan Rubin of USCHO.com I'll be back to wrap up the podcast and have the latest winner in the Daily Gazettes auto racing contest in just a moment.
[01:05:16] Speaker A: Timeout.
[01:05:17] Speaker B: All right? Remember, we're a team that plays together. Listen.
[01:05:22] Speaker A: The winning will take care of itself. We just have to get everyone involved in interscholastic sports. We celebrate what makes every one of us unique. And in the pursuit of a common.
[01:05:32] Speaker B: Goal, everyone in the huddle, in the.
[01:05:35] Speaker A: Bleachers and in the community comes together. This message presented by NISFA and the.
[01:05:42] Speaker B: New York State Athletes Athletic Administrators Association.
Hi, this is Mark Kestiser, the voice of the NBA on ESPN Radio and college football on ESPN Radio. I grew up in Gilderland. I'm a proud member of the 518 and I go back over 30 years with Ken Schott. And when I'm not listening to his Schottzky radio, I'm listening to the Parting Shots podcast with Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Schott. Here's Ken back to wrap up the podcast. The week four winner in the Daily Gazette auto racing contest was Mike Massatelli of Schenectady with 50 points. Mike wins a $50 gift card. Congratulations, Mike. The VIP winner was Jerry Peel of Frankenstein's with 50 points. I had 30 points. Taking a look at the VIP standings, Scott Lucier of CapitaLand GMC and Nick Platel of Grand Premier Tire are tied for first with 80 points. Jerry Peel is next with 70, Dwayne Leach has 60, I have 55. And Matt Margiotta of SG Roofing has 15 points. I'll announce the auto racing contest winner's name and that winner's name will appear in Saturday's Daily Gazette. To play, go to dailygazette.com and click on the auto racing contest banner.
Just because COVID 19 mandates are easing, that does not mean you should relax. Be vigilant. If you have not gotten vaccinated, received a booster shot, please do so. Do it for yourself, do it for your family, and do it for your friends. Vaccines do not cause autism.
Don't forget to download the Daily Gazette app and sign up for our E Edition so you never miss a headline. Subscribe today at www.dailygazette.com. we have a lot of great specials going on. When credibility matters, Trust the Daily Gazette.
That wraps up another edition of the Parting Shots podcast. I want to thank Tony Macy and Dan Rubin for being a part of the show. If you have questions or comments about the podcast. Email them to me at shot. That's s c h o t
[email protected] follow me on X threads and bluesky Lapshots.
The views expressed in the Parting Shots podcast are not necessarily those of the Daily Gazette Company. The Parting Shots podcast is a production of the Daily Gazette Company. I'm Daily Gazette Sports Editor Ken Shot. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time from the Parting Shots Podcast Studio in Schenectady, New York. Good day, good hockey.
