Review of the Lightning Classic from CC Athletics

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Tigers fall to UMass in overtime
Sitting on a two-goal lead after 20 minutes of play, Colorado College made things hard on itself in Sunday’s championship game of the Lightning College Hockey Classic. This time, there was no happy ending. Matt Burto scored for the University of Massachusetts at 1:55 of overtime, giving the Minutemen a 5-4 victory and tournament title at the St. Pete Times Forum. CC wasted not only its early advantage, but also a pair of dramatic tallies by junior center Chad Rau that rallied his team from one-goal deficits. But UMass prevailed, winning on its 44th shot on goal of the contest when senior left wing Burto picked up a loose puck in front of the net and buried it past netminder Drew O’Connell, who had no chance. Rau’s first red lighter, a shorthanded effort, came just 19 seconds after Massachusetts scored the third of three consecutive goals in the second period to grab a 3-2 edge. His second tied the game at 4-4 midway through the final frame. O’Connell finished with a career-high 39 saves. Rau, along with Jimmy Kilpatrick and Nate Prosser, were named to the all-tournament team.

Schultz

CC stages furious rally to stun Engineers
The rabbit jumped out of yet another hat on Saturday, turning Colorado College’s debut in the state of Florida into a very memorable one. Freshman right wing Stephen Schultz (who played for the Lincoln Stars last season) scored on a deflection with 7.6 seconds left in regulation, lifting the shorthanded Tigers to a 3-2 come-from-behind victory over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the opening round of the Lightning College Hockey Classic in Tampa. CC shoots for a fifth regular-season tournament title in its last six tries on Sunday, meeting the University of Massachusetts in the championship game at the St. Pete Times Forum. UMass defeated host Notre Dame, 4-3, in Saturday’s other first-round match-up. Senior winger Jimmy Kilpatrick made Schultz’ heroics possible, striking twice earlier in the third period to wipe out a 2-0 deficit. Kilpatrick’s first red lighter, set up by Andreas Vlassopoulos, cut RPI’s lead in half at 2:47 of the frame. His second, off a nice set-up by Erik Walsky, pulled the Tigers even with just 3:39 remaining. Schultz’ game winner came during CC’s fourth power play of the contest, after defenseman Brian Connelly took a shot from along the right boards. Defenseman Nate Prosser also assisted on both of the last two goals, while freshman netminder Richard Bachman finished with 16 saves in the triumph.

Tigers DUmp Pioneers

The Tigers scoring explosion continued Friday night with a 5-1 stomping of DU at the World Arena. The Tigers were a step ahead all night and took advantage of every opportunity to frustrate and bury their I25 rivals. Chad Rau led the way with 3 goals and Bachman was again stellar in net with 28 saves and lots of help from his teammates. At one point in the second period, the puck was headed for the net and with no more than one inch to spare, it was batted away in mid-air by a CC defender. The game could have been much worse for DU. In the third period, after CC scored goal number 5, Denver lost their class. Fights ensued and the penalty boxes were loaded (at one point DU had 4 in at one time). After the smoke had cleared and the wrestling matches were through, CC came out with a rare 4 on 3 power play. Minutes later, a DU player lost his composure and blasted a Tiger from behind in front of the CC bench and received a 5 minute penalty. CC held the puck in the DU zone almost the entire 5 on 3 portion of that penalty and registered 7 shots on goal with each and every one causing the World Arena crowd to jump to its feet. By this time, "DU SUCKS" was ringing constantly across the arena as the Pioneers desperately tried to get any puck away from a Tiger. No luck as the Tigers played like they had glue on their sticks and skated around and through the men in red. CC looked great all night, especially since they were up against the number 3 team in the nation who was also on a roll. Let's hope the change of venue tomorrow night doesn't change a thing!
USCHO Box Score

Sign of the night: "you can't spell DUmb without DU" held up by a young girl

Sightings of the night:

• Janet Testwuide walked by me twice on the way to the press box sporting her split CC/DU jersey, pretty sweet uni

• I also spotted a Lincoln Stars hat and sweatshirt a few rows in front of me. Of course, that is where current Tiger Steve Schultz played last season (among numerous other WCHA players) and also the team I was watching through college the past 4 years.

• With the DU box overflowing, the fans around the box took to jeering the players. In a rare sighting, the players yelled back. As the play continued, I could see the DU players in the sin-bin looking toward the fans (obviously yelling), the fans would look over and yell back. At one point the entire section stood up and cheered. Wish I could have heard that exchange!

A look into some future WCHA faces

Saturday night I got the opportunity to check out the Lincoln Stars take on Sioux Falls in the 3rd game of their USHL playoff series. There were numerous players on the ice who we will be seeing in the WCHA shortly. Currently on the Stars roster are; Jason Gregoire who is listed as a 2007 recruit and will play for DU and Steve Shultz who will be joining CC in the future.
Sioux Falls also had numerous players: Nick Dineen, who will be playing for CC, Alex Kangas-a goalie who will be playing for Minnesota. There may have been more but it's hard to find an accurate and up-to-date recruiting site, thanks for the comments updating my lack-of-USHL knowledge. Also, they had a very amusing intermission show with a human slingshot and one small girl that got launched hit super hard and bounced off; fortunately I had my camera with me so take a look!

Wednesday update

Hey I just wanted to say thanks to all who have written comments and posted links, I'm glad I can finally get this thing going and we can make a difference. My goal this week is to write a bit about the games coming up this weekend, hopefully I can get some time tomorrow afternoon. It's pretty exciting to see that people are actually reading this and I hope you all can start giving me input and we can start a local "grassroots" style campaign to help out CC. (nothing like the Boston/cartoon network fiasco though, haha). I was not aware of the season ticket total so that is good to know, but I'm not sure it's good or bad . It's good because the Arena holds 7532 so 6000 is pretty darn close but it's bad because, well, there were not anywhere close to 6000 at the two games I went to (the ND fans were louder than us!!...and notice the purple in the darkness). Maybe an online ticket exchange would make things easier for people to get their tickets used and not have the hassle of trying to sell them out front before the games. Also, I am really, really interested in the podcast/vodcast idea for the games, especially now that I see at least one other commenting fan is away from the Springs. Anyone with connections let me know, I would love to be able to watch this weekend's games at St. Cloud (I had a professor that was from there).
On a random note, here in Lincoln they have a team called the Stars which plays in the USHL. I never really knew much about it or the team but it's a big deal here. Turns out they are younger players (16-20 years old) who then get recruited out of these teams for college. I have always known that hockey has some "non traditional" means of development but I confess I never knew about a local team full of hs kids. Anyway, the cool thing about this was that two of the players are slated to play for CC and one for DU (yea boo but "it's" our conference...). I read the article in the paper and saw it mentioned the powerhouse teams with CC right in the mix!