Yesterday I wrote “If you can’t get pumped up for this game, well then you just do not enjoy college hockey.”  Little did I know that it would be the UMass players, not the fans, that wouldn’t get up for such a high profile game.

This team has a lot of skill and has certainly surpassed the pre-season expectations of them, but they are lacking a mental toughness and in the end it could keep them from making this a truly special season.  Last night was just another sign that this team is missing something.  After a great start to the season the team plays #9 Quinnipiac on NESN only to give up three quick first period goals and they ended up dropping the game in overtime.  A month later with a chance for the program to win only its second in-season tournament ever the team loses to Bentley 4-1 in one of the bigger upsets of the year in all of college hockey.  A week later UMass gets embarrassed on national TV by a struggling BU squad and gives up 7 goals in the process.  They then give up another 7 the very next game against UNH.  Just a few weeks ago with ESPNU and Barry Melrose in the house and a chance to sweep the season series against Vermont the team sleepwalks through the game and loses 3-0.  Then we get to last night, a marquee matchup, again in front of TV and a sellout audience and the team doesn’t come to play.  It’s mind-boggling.  Whenever this team has had a challenge in front of them they’ve completely folded.  I don’t think any of the previous no-shows were as upsetting as last night however.

I’m not going to get into the details of the game because frankly the entire thing was a disaster.  Hopefully there was a lesson learned though, otherwise this entire season could become unravelled pretty quickly.  As it is the team has made life a lot tougher for themselves by now needing to go out and get even more points on the road after throwing away the last two games due to complete and total lack of effort.

Fear The Triangle Player of the Game – Brett Watson
As Toot said in his press conference if only UMass could’ve had 19 other players that played as hard as he did.

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Here’s the recap from the Collegian.

Here’s USCHO’s game story.

Dick Baker says at least it wasn’t as bad as the 14-1 loss in 1996.  No, but this certainly had the feel of a triangle-era game.

Here’s the recap from the Gazette.