Union Travels to #19 Princeton and Quinnipiac

Ok I got to make this quick since I'm leaving for Boston in a few minutes.

The Dutchmen head south this weekend to take on two hot teams. Princeton has only lost once in their past 11 games, while Quinnipiac is unbeaten in their last five. Every ECAC game has become more important as the season goes on and each of these game are equally important. The Dutchmen might have to win every ECAC game for the rest of the season if they have any hope in catching Yale and fending off the likes of Princeton, RPI, and Dartmouth.

Players To Watch
Andrew Calof (Princeton): the freshman leads the team with 18 assists.
Taylor Fedun (Princeton): the senior defenseman leads all Tiger defensemen with six goals and 10 assists.
Kevin Lohry (Princeton): leads team with nine goals.
Connor and Kellen Jones (Quinnipiac): the freshman twin brothers have both accumulated 16 points so far this season. Connor has seven goals, while Kellen has 11 assists.
Jeremy Langlois (Quinnipiac): leads team with 13 goals and 18 points.
Adam Presizniuk (Union): let's see if he keeps up his scoring touch after a break out performance last weekend.
Shawn Stuart (Union): he wore the red jersey (because of a shoulder injury) in Wednesday's practice.
Mike Ingoldsby is already out indefinitely and the Dutchmen don't have any solid replacements if Stuart were to go down.

I predict that both Capital Region teams keep it rolling and seep the Tigers and Bobcats.

I also want to point out that the Quinnipiac arena is the nicest in the ECAC, so I recommend on checking it out.

For more on the weekend check out:
Union Athletics.com
Go Princeton Tigers.com
Quinnipiac Bobcats.com

ALSO IF YOU ARE STAYING IN SCHENECTADY THIS WEEKEND GO CHECK OUT THE WOMEN'S HOCKEY TEAM!!!!! THIS WEEKEND IS "PINK IN THE RINK."
More info...

Here's a video of Quinnipiac promoting the games this weekend:


And here's what happened the last time Union and Quinnipiac played each other:

Good Luck On Your Finals!

Classes for the Fall term ended yesterday afternoon, so all the Union students are now diligently studying for the finals which begin on Wednesday.

A special good luck goes out to our Dutchmen who just came off an exhausting weekend. But, I doubt they need the extra good luck as 12 current Union players made the ECAC All-Academic team last season:

Jean-Sebastian Bergeron, Stephane Boileau, Andrew Buote, Luke Cain, Nolan Julseth-White, Brock Matheson, Justin Pallos, Taylor Reid, John Simpson, Wayne Simpson, Shawn Stuart and Jeremy Welsh.

I'm pretty confident that "The Professor" will have no problems with his finals considering he was a finalist forthe ECAC Hockey Student-Athlete of the Year award, was given the Thomas Vanarden Dukehard award for the highest GPA on the men's ice hockey team, and was named Union College's junior student-athlete of the year last season.

The Dutchmen will return to the ice in two weekends to play at Brown and Yale

16 Dutchmen named to ECAC All-Academic Team

The ECAC announced today that 181 student-athletes have been named to the ECAC All-Academic team. 16 of the 181 players are from Union. These Dutchmen are: freshman Jean Sebastian Bergeron, junior Stephane Boileau, junior Andrew Buote, sophomore (technically a junior since he red-shirted) Luke Cain, senior Jeff Christiansen, sophomore Nolan Julseth-White, senior Jon Lareau, junior captain Brock Matheson, junior Justin Pallos, sophomore Taylor Reid, senior Jason Shaffer, junior John Simpson, freshman Wayne Simpson, freshman Shawn Stuart, senior captain Mike Wakita, and freshman Jeremy Welsh.

Over half of these guys are Economics majors, which is pretty impressive to me. I took Economics 101 freshman year... and let's just say it wasn't my best class.

To be eligible for the All-Academic team one must obtain a 3.0 GPA.

Congratulations to the 16 Dutchmen and the other 165 ECAC players. The ECAC is by far the most challenging league academically in college hockey. Each team in the ECAC had at least 13 All-Academic selections, except for Clarkson who only had four (weird?).

For more check out ECAC Hockey.com and Union Athletics.com.

Union stages epic comeback against Dartmouth

Going down four goals on the road 7:20 into a game is not the way you want to start out, but scoring five unanswered goals... that's character, and last night's game proves that this team has a ton of character. This is the type of game that the Dutchmen will look back on in the playoffs, and say that they can do anything. Granted they were playing an 11th placed team, but a four goal deficit at any level of hockey, no matter who you are playing, is a difficult one to make up.

The really great thing about last night's victory is how the freshmen skaters stepped up when their team needed them. Each Jeremy Welsh, Shawn Stuart, and Kyle Bodie scored a goal, and Wayne Simpson had two assists. It's also important that Union's big players showed up when they need them. The Mario-Wally-Prez line connected for a huge power-play goal in the second period, and Prez and Mike Schreiber picked up assists in the third period. You also can't forget Andrew Buote, who picked up two assists on the night. He is one of the hardest working players on the ice for the Dutchmen every game. And last, but definitely not least, Luke Cain scored the game-tying goal late in the third as he tipped a shot past the Dartmouth goaltender. He has scored a goal in five of Union's last six weekends. Cain is another hard-working player, and it was nice to see him make a huge impact in his return to Thomspon Arena after his horrific injury two years ago. The offense has been clicking lately as they have scored 20 goals in the past three games.

Keith Kinkaid had a very rough night last night, but luckily Corey Milan was able to come in and hold down the fort. Maybe Keith is suffering from some fatigue, so don't be surprised to see Milan in the net tonight against Harvard.

The Dutchmen need to take advantage of the Cornell- Yale matchup tonight as one of these teams has to lose, or they can tie so neither team could pick up two points. There is a very good chance that after tonight there will no longer be a three way tie for first place.

For more on last night's game check out Union Athletics.com, Dartmouth Sports.com, Daily Gazette.com, Times Union.com, and Ken Schott's Blog.