A good time was had by all at today’s Pond Club golf tournament, especially me since I didn’t have to embarrass myself by showing how horrid my golf game is.  But there were many who showed up to show off their skills and support UMass hockey, including a good number of former players.  In addition to Pond Club guys like Steve Sullivan and Mike Merchant, other players in attendance included Tommy Pöck, Jon Quick, Peter Trovato, Cory Quirk, Jordan Virtue, Kevin Jarman, Matt Anderson, Alex Berry, Brett Watson, Mike Kostka, Chris Capraro, Topher Bevis, Keith O’Connell, Brett Watson and I’m sure a few more that I missed.  It was great to see everyone get together to support the program and enjoy themselves.

There wasn’t too much news that came out of the day.  The major bit of information I got was that unfortunately the rumored game at Madison Square Garden is not happening.  Putting a few pieces of the puzzle together it appears that it would’ve been a double header with Northeastern taking on Niagara and UMass playing Army.  Northeastern and Niagara will instead by playing each other in Hartford while the Black Knights will be visiting Amherst in early November.  That makes the non-conference schedule set with the two games at Minnesota to kick off the season, two at Wisconsin to end the calendar year, and home games against Yale, Quinnipiac, and Army.  UMass will also be taking on University of New Brunswick in an exhibition again before heading to the Twin Cities.  With other teams releasing schedules, I’ll do my best to put together a mockup based on the information available soon.

One other thing that I wanted to pass along was that former defenseman Dusty Demianiuk is currently battling and beating cancer in his hip.  I heard this a little while back but at the time it wasn’t public, but coach Cahoon mentioned it to the attendees at the post-golf barbecue.  If there’s a fighter who can overcome the odds, it’s Dusty.  After all he was able to make the journey from an underwhelming one dimensional type player when he first came to UMass to being one of the best defensive players by his senior year to beating out some great players to win the Be A Bruin contest a few years back.  I’m sure he’ll be in the thoughts of the UMass hockey community as he comes out on top once again in this fight.

I got some great feedback on Fear The Triangle today at the golf outing.  I admit I was a little surprised at just how widely read this thing is, but I just wanted to thank everyone for the nice words and as always thanks for reading.

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The Boston Herald is reporting that the TD Garden will be hosting the 2014 Frozen Four.

College Hockey News has the story on the mind boggling proposal to eliminate the ability to ice during a penalty kill.  At first I was shocked that the NCAA was so bull-headed to try to push this potential rule change through despite the fact that nearly every coach is against it.  But then I remembered that that’s pretty much how the NCAA works and there’s usually little rhyme or reason to why they do things (other than to put more money in their pockets of course).  I hate this idea of this change.  First off, why make such a dramatic change to a tradition rule that’s been a part of all levels of hockey for as long as memory serves?  The next person I hear complaining about icing during a penalty will be the first.  It’s part of the game!  So what in the world does this accomplish?  Are they trying to increase scoring and therefore make the game more “exciting?”  The game is fine as is.  This extremist rule change isn’t needed for the game today.  Secondly, this just seems dangerous.  Having guys stuck on ice during a kill with little chance to change could lead to injury.  How in the world do they think it’s constructive to just shove this down the throat of the college hockey community?  Oh wait, the NCAA, right…