Time to see how the recruits did over the weekend.

Shane Walsh was held off the scoreboard in both his games, a win and a loss for the Tri-City Storm.

John Parker registered an assist as the Muskegon Lumberjacks picked up their first ever home win.

Kevin Boyle had his best game of the young BCHL season as he allowed just one goal on 34 shots for the Westside Warriors.

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Saturday’s game will be broadcast on Cox.

Dick Baker has a quick blurb about the success on faceoffs.

He also talks about an incident that occurred in the student line before the game that led to the students being cut off.  I usually refrain from talking about student behavior at games because I don’t think there’s much I can do about it and if I mentioned it every time it bothered me I would be writing about it incessantly.  However, let me get to a couple points.  First, on the issue of problems with students in line rushing the doors, if students are going to act that way start giving out tickets beforehand during the week.  Once the limit is reached, no more tickets and only ticketed students show up in line.  Pretty much how they did it back in the 90’s with basketball.  In fact it brings back some good memories of waking up early on Wednesdays, waiting outside the Cage in the snow and cold, grabbing breakfast in the little grill in Whitmore, heading back up to the dorm, and proceeding to sleep through my next two classes.  Overall, I think the student line issue would be solved by such a simple solution.

What worries me more was what happened inside.  It wasn’t the incredibly unclever, “F’ BU!” and such chants which have become commonplace.  I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that our students will continue to be incapable of coming up with creative chants like the good hockey schools until a group of students step up try to lead from within the group.  What pissed me off was not once, but twice students chose to throw stuff onto the ice.  That in itself is bad enough.  If you don’t respect your UMass team enough that you’ll disrupt their game then do us all a favor and stay back in your dorm.  But the really frustrating thing was one incident which occurred right in front of me.  Other students around the assclown who threw the bottle immediately started booing him and a good number of them even pointed him out to anyone who was paying attention, which is comendable.  Sure enough, a guy in the bright yellow jacket at the top of the section was looking right at the aftermath and could’ve easily gone down and done something, anything, since the offender was identified.  But didn’t.  Until the university, the private company that operates the Mullins Center, and those in charge of security finally act to punish people who disrupt the game, I fear these type of issues will continue to escalate.

I love seeing student crowds like the other night, as does the team and the coaches.  Toot, Jack Parker, and Jeff Teglia all mentioned the student crowd in the post game press conference  The energy they bring is finally giving the Mullins Center a home ice advantage that was missing for too long in the program’s history.  But without the Mullins staff doing the very basics of their job it is detrimental to the UMass hockey experience; for the players, fans, and the other students who are mature enough not to disrupt the game they just stood in line for so long to watch.

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The AHL website has a story on all the UMass connections with the Worcester Sharks.  No mentions of James Marcou’s skills with a grocery bag.