Next Season's Schedule

Full 08-09 Schedule here

Opinion: CC tweaks schedule so finish doesn’t lead to ending
DAVID RAMSEY THE GAZETTE

Scott Owens wanted sizzle in the Colorado College-University of Denver rivalry.

When Owens returned to his alma mater to coach the hockey team in 1999, the arena-shaking fire had been drained from the CC-DU. Owens masterfully stoked the flames.

For five of the past six years, CC and DU ended the regular season with a homeand-home, rock-’em, sock-’em weekend bash that featured packed houses and wicked hitting.

The CC-DU rivalry is at full blaze, full of intensity and great hockey. Owens, no doubt, grabbed what he wanted.

He grabbed a little too much, as it turns out.

The Tigers have lost three straight NCAA Tournament games, which inspired Owens to take a fresh look at the DU series.

Next season, the Tigers and Pioneers again will meet four times, but the schools will stretch out the regular-season finale. CC and DU will play Oct. 31-Nov. 1 before splitting the final series between Feb. 13 and March 7, Owens said.

It’s a minor tweak to the schedule, but Owens hopes the change will deliver big results.

He wonders if placing two emotionally packed games at the end of the season drained his team in the postseason.

“I don’t think it’s a copout,” Owens said. “I don’t think it’s anything like that. We’re just trying to do something that will strengthen us in the postseason.”

The rivalry will return to two home-and-home weekends in 2009-2010 because of scheduling restraints, Owens said, but will feature the stretched-out version again in 2010-11.

It’s strange to say this, but the season-ending duel with DU was too overwhelming, too packed with thrills and history. It was just too much.

How could the Tigers top all this furious fun?

The answer is the problem. Owens has failed to revive his team after the matches with DU.

“There was an automatic, built-in letdown,” Owens said. “It’s just natural. It’s because the buildings were sold out and the excitement and the passion and the trying to one-up your archrival.”

This season, CC stomped DU in the final weekend. On March 8, the Tigers celebrated along with their fans, and they had plenty to celebrate.

The Tigers had won the MacNaughton Cup, symbol of supremacy in the Western Athletic Hockey Association, and the Gold Pan, symbol of college hockey supremacy in the state of Colorado.

At the time, no one could see disaster lurking in the near distance. Even as the Tigers celebrated their reign over a small hockey universe, they faced devastation in the battle for a larger, more important universe.

Three weeks after the Tigers’ hockey party, they were finished. They lost, on home ice, to Michigan State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

“There’s been so much at stake,” Owens said of the DU series. “It’s been very taxing mentally and physically as we head into the playoffs.”

Next season, he hopes, the taxes will be a little more reasonable.

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CC Athletics
Already looking ahead and moving forward after a highly successful 2007-08 campaign, Colorado College has announced another exciting hockey schedule for next season.

Highlights on the 2008-09 slate include 21 regular-season home games at the World Arena with two exhibitions, five non-conference outings and two dates apiece against Western Collegiate Hockey Association rivals Michigan Tech, Denver, North Dakota, Minnesota, Minnesota Duluth, Minnesota State and St. Cloud State.

Fans interested in season tickets should call 719-389-6324 or log on to CCTigers.com. Prices start at $274.50, with any first-round WCHA playoff games at home included in the deal. Renewal notices for existing season-ticket holders will be mailed out this week.

Tiger Hockey, the top winter collegiate sporting attraction in the state of Colorado, ranked fourth nationwide in total attendance during the 2007-08 campaign. The average attendance at CC home games officially was 6,932 as the team retained possession of the Gold Pan, claimed its third league championship since 2003, hosted a first-round WCHA playoff series as well as the NCAA West Regional, produced three All-Americans and finished with a winning record (28-12-1) for the 15th time in the last 16 years. Again, sellouts were common. Only Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota, which play in much larger facilities, drew more spectators than Colorado College’s impressive season total of more than 157,000.

Returning as flagship station for the CC Tiger Radio Network in 2008-09 will be 103.9 FM The Eagle, with live broadcasts of all games, home and away.

In addition to 14 league games, the ‘08-09 home slate features two against the University of Alabama-Huntsville (College Hockey America) and Sacred Heart University (Atlantic Hockey Association), as well as a single contest vs. Colgate University (ECAC). The Tigers, whose lineup will feature a number of outstanding players such as returning All-Americans Richard Bachman and Chad Rau, also play host to the University of Alberta and the United States Under-18 Team in a pair of exhibition outings.

They meet archrival DU for the first time over Halloween Weekend, playing at Magness Arena on Friday, Oct. 31, then coming home for a rematch at the World Arena on Saturday, Nov. 1. The second go-round is split up, as the teams meet again in Colorado Springs on Friday, Feb. 13, before wrapping up the regular season in Denver on Saturday, March 7. Also featured on CC’s road schedule are a two-game non-conference series at Clarkson University in October and an appearance at Air Force in late November, along with weekend trips to league opponents Minnesota State, Alaska Anchorage, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Michigan Tech for Winter Carnival.