ROCHESTER, NY – The RIT men’s hockey team was picked to finish second in the 2015-16 Atlantic Hockey Conference preseason poll, as voted on by the conference’s coaches, and announced at the conference’s annual media day held via teleconference on Wednesday, Sept. 23. This is Atlantic Hockey’s 13th season of competition.
The Tigers, 2015 Atlantic Hockey Champions, received four first place votes and 91 total points. RIT finished the 2014-15 regular season tied for third in the league standings, and as the No. 3 seed, breezed through Air Force, Canisius, and Mercyhurst to claim its second league title. RIT would knock off No. 1 Minnesota State in the NCAA Midwest Regional Semifinal before falling to Nebraska-Omaha, one game shy of the Frozen Four.
Last season’s regular season champion and tournament semifinalist, Robert Morris, is the top pick in the preseason poll, with seven first place votes and 97 total points. Bentley is third with 72 points.
Canisius was picked to finish fourth by the coaches, with 64 points. Sacred Heart is next with 56 points in fifth, while Holy Cross is sixth, right behind with 55 points, while Air Force checks in with 47 points.
RIT returns 19 players from last season’s squad, including all eight defensemen. In all, 10 forwards, eight defensemen and junior goaltender Mike Rotolo (Rochester, NY/Cedar Rapids Roughriders) are back to defend their league title. In addition, seven highly touted newcomers join the squad for the 2015-16 season, giving RIT excellent depth offensively and defensively.
“It is nice to be picked at the top of the polls, but our focus will be to get better every day and week so that we are playing our best hockey at the end of the year and we finish at the top of the standings,” said RIT head coach Wayne Wilson.
The bottom four of the standings sees Mercyhurst in eighth with 46 points, Niagara ninth with 38 points and Army tenth with 90 points. Rounding out the 2015-16 preseason poll is American International in 11th with 10 points.
With 11 teams in the conference, RIT will play an unbalanced schedule. The Tigers play American International, Bentley, Mercyhurst, and Niagara, four times apiece this season. RIT will play two games each against Air Force, Army, Canisius, Holy Cross, Robert Morris, and Sacred Heart
The 2015 Atlantic Hockey Tournament will feature the same format for the fourth straight season. The top five teams receive a bye into the quarterfinal round with seeds 6-8 hosting seeds 9-11 in a best two-out-of-three weekend series starting Friday, March 4. The first round winners will then be re-seeded and travel to the top-three seeds, as the fifth seed will travel to the fourth seed for a best-two-out-of-three quarterfinal series, which will begin on Friday, March 11. The four winners will then travel to the Blue Cross Arena in downtown Rochester with the highest remaining seed facing the lowest remaining seed in the first semifinal, with the other two remaining seeds facing off in the second semifinal on Friday, March 18. The two semifinal winners will then face-off in the Championship game on Saturday, March 19 with the NCAA automatic berth on the line.
RIT opens its second season at the 4,300-seat Gene Polisseni Center with an exhibition contest against Ontario Institute of Technology on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 7:05 p.m. The Tigers open the regular season on the road at St. Lawrence on Friday, Oct. 9 and Clarkson on Saturday, Oct. 10. On Saturday, Oct. 17, RIT hosts Bowling Green at Blue Cross Arena as part of Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend. The Tigers have drawn a sellout crowd of 10,556 fans at Blue Cross Arena in each of the last five years. On Oct. 24, the Tigers play their home opener at the Gene Polisseni Center against Colgate.
“We will need to play well every game in order to do well in the standings, which is no different than in past years,” said Wilson. “Our non conference games will again make us a better team for league play.”
RIT was chosen first in 2007-08, 2010-11, and 2011-12, and third in both 2008-09, and 2009-10. Last year, RIT was picked to finish seventh and placed third. RIT won the regular season title the first three seasons they were not picked to finish first. It is the first time RIT has been picked to place second.
RIT has won four Atlantic Hockey regular season titles and made three straight trips to the AHC Championship game from 2010-12. In 2010, RIT won its first AHA postseason title, parlaying that success into an historic run to the NCAA Tournament, where they advanced to the Frozen Four.
The Atlantic Hockey Association arose on June 30, 2003, to found a new Division I men’s ice hockey conference. The league is comprised of eleven members: Air Force Academy, American International College, Army, Bentley University, Canisius College, College of the Holy Cross, Mercyhurst University, Niagara University, Robert Morris University, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Sacred Heart University.
2015-16 Atlantic Hockey Association Preseason Coaches Poll
1. Robert Morris (7) – 97 points
2. RIT (4) – 91 points
3. Bentley – 72 points
4. Canisius – 64 points
5. Sacred Heart – 56 points
6. Holy Cross – 55 points
7. Air Force – 47 points
8. Mercyhurst – 46 points
9. Niagara – 38 points
10. Army West Point – 29 points
11. American International – 10 points
(First Place votes)
