Hard work always pays off, and it’s evident in the case of the men’s hockey team, which is finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The Engineers, who haven’t posted a winning season since 2003–04, are coming off one of their worst records in school history. Anyone who watched the team’s last five games of the season, however, probably wouldn’t have believed that. The dawn is coming.
After disappointing fans with losses to sub-par teams such as Bentley University at the beginning of the season, advancing—let alone winning quarterfinal games—in the ECAC playoffs was almost entirely out of the question. Yet somehow the Engineers pulled it off, knocking favorite Dartmouth College out with a stunning sweep in the opening round before eventually falling due to an unlucky bounce of the puck to ECAC semifinalist Cornell University after drawing the series out to the full three games.
As for that 10-27-2 record, let’s actually stop to think about it: The ECAC was unusually strong this year (sending three—almost four—teams to the NCAA tournament), and RPI just couldn’t get a break with its schedule this year, facing off against a slew of nationally-ranked teams. Fourteen of 17 games against nationally-ranked opponents—Boston University (No. 1), Yale University (No. 5), Northeastern University (No. 6), Cornell (No. 9), Princeton University (No. 10), the University of Vermont (No. 11), the University of New Hampshire (No. 12), Miami University (No. 13), and St. Lawrence University (No. 15)—resulted in an Engineers’ loss. Not to mention that some of the other teams (Dartmouth, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, etc.) that were once at the top of the polls and also dealt losses to Rensselaer have fallen off since the conclusion of the regular season. Can you really expect a team that is constantly worn down by the top teams in the country to pump out spectacular performances on a regular basis? No, that’s entirely unreasonable. That being said, don’t look down on our hockey team for having a particularly difficult year.
Box scores don’t tell the whole story either. Only reporters and two RPI fans (including myself) were sitting in the press box at Magness Arena in Denver, Colo., when reporters covering the BU Terriers started freaking out—literally—over the fact that RPI held the nation’s top team to a 3-2 lead at the end of two periods. Those frantic phone calls were hilarious. As mentioned earlier, the Engineers’ only fault in that game was simply being worn down by a better team. It led to three goals against in the third period, and the eventual loss.
Confidence can go a long way, and the Engineers were full of it heading out to Hanover, N.H., at the start of Spring Break. The result? Two wins against one of the stronger teams in the league. It adds up and carries over, too, leading to a victory against Cornell at Lynah Rink—one of the most hostile environments for a visiting hockey team to compete in.
While speaking with Head Coach Seth Appert at the women’s hockey team’s ECAC final match against Dartmouth the Sunday following the men’s team’s own series against the Big Green, he was confident in the Engineers’ success on the road. Having been dealt a crushing 4-1 loss at the end of the regular season from the Big Red, Appert was determined to have revenge in the upcoming quarterfinal match. Appert is one of the most influential and inspiring people I have ever met, and I can easily see how his excitement spread to the rest of the team, which defeated Cornell in game one and nearly sent game three to overtime.
That being said, it is easy to see how Appert was able to win over some of the top recruits to become Engineers in the fall. Brandon Pirri—one of the best players in the Ontario Junior Hockey League—along with Jerry D’Amigo, C.J Lee, and Marty O’Grady are a small sampling of the recruits committed to coming to Troy next semester. Pirri, a sure-fire NHL draft pick this year and a highly-sought recruit who has tallied 115 points in 58 games this season for the Streetsville Derbys and the Gergetown Raiders, will be able to provide the Engineers with some desperately needed offense. RPI hockey fans can look forward to a continuation of the Engineers’ playoff run in the upcoming season.
