Men’s hockey picked to finish fifth in the 2013-14 Atlantic Hockey Association Preseason poll
ROCHESTER, NY – The RIT men’s hockey team was picked to finish fifth in the 2013-14 Atlantic Hockey Association preseason poll, as voted on by the conference’s coaches, and announced at the conference’s annual media day held via teleconference on Tuesday, Sept. 17. This is Atlantic Hockey’s 11th season of competition.
Last season’s regular season champion and tournament runner-up, Niagara, is the top pick in the preseason poll, with three first place votes and 102 total points. Just 23 points separates the projected first through sixth place teams.
Mercyhurst and Air Force were picked to tie for second by the coaches, both with 98 points. Mercyhurst garnered four first place votes, while the Falcons, winners of five of the last seven AHA Championships, tallied two first place votes. Canisius, the 2013 AHA Tournament Champion, is picked to finish fourth, with three first place votes and 92 points. RIT is selected to place fifth with 81 points. Last season, RIT finished 15-18-5 overall and advanced to the AHA Quarterfinals for the sixth straight season before falling to top-seed Niagara in two tough one-goal contests. Connecticut, in its final season as an AHA member, rounds out the top six with 79 points. The Huskies will join Hockey East for the 2014-15 season.
RIT returns 19 players from last season’s squad, including 2013 leading scorer and current team captain Matt Garbowsky (St. George, Ontario/Powell River Kings). Garbowsky finished the season with 21 points over his final 13 games. The core of RIT’s offense, which averaged 3.21 goals per game, ninth in Division I, returns. Also up front, seniors Ben Lynch (Blaine, MN/Lincoln Stars), Mike Colavecchia (Maple, Ontario/Lindsay Muskies), Adam Mitchell(Crofton, MD/Baystate Breakers), and junior Brad McGowan (Langley, British Columbia/Surrey Eagles) will be looked upon to lead the way offensively. On defense, senior Greg Noyes (Lucan, Ontario/Salmon Arm Silverbacks) was among the national scoring leaders from the blue line. He leads a defensive unit that gained valuable experience a season ago. In net, junior Jordan Ruby(Tavistock, Ontario/Wellington Dukes) started RIT’s final 14 games last season and will be expected to begin 2013-14 as the starter.
“Our league standings have become really tight over the past few seasons, and as the voting indicates, this year should be no different” said RIT Head Coach Wayne Wilson, the 2010 Spencer Penrose Award winner as Division I Coach of the Year. “It is key to stay healthy and play our best in March. We want to earn home ice advantage for the AHA playoffs, and most importantly, win our conference championship, and get back to the NCAA Tournament.”
The bottom half of the standings sees Robert Morris in seventh with 66 points, Holy Cross in eighth with 59 points, Bentley in ninth with 53 points and Army tenth with 28 points. American International was picked 11th with 22 points and rounding out the 2013-14 preseason poll is Sacred Heart in 12th with 16 points.
RIT is in the Western pod and will play Mercyhurst, Air Force, Robert Morris, Niagara, and Canisius three times apiece this season. The Tigers will play two games each against Eastern pod teams Sacred Heart, Holy Cross, Army, Bentley, Connecticut, and Sacred Heart.
The 2013 Atlantic Hockey Tournament will feature the same format for the third straight season. This year the top four teams receive a bye into the Quarterfinal round with seeds 5-8 hosting seeds 9-12 in a best two-out-of-three weekend series starting Friday, March 7. The First Round winners will then be re-seeded and travel to the top four seeds for a best-two-out-of-three Quarterfinal series, which will begin on Friday, March 14. The four winners will then travel to the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester, N.Y. 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 21. The two semifinal winners will then face-off in the Championship game on Saturday, March 22 with the NCAA automatic berth on the line.
RIT opens the season with an exhibition contest against the University of Ottawa of Canada onSaturday, Oct. 5 at 5:05 p.m. The Tigers open the regular season with a home game at Ritter Arena against Colgate University on Thursday, Oct. 10 to kick off Brick City Homecoming and Family Weekend. Two nights later, on Saturday, Oct. 12, the Tigers host perennial power the University of Michigan at Blue Cross Arena at 7:05 p.m. The Tigers have drawn a sellout crowd of 10,556 fans at Blue Cross Arena in each of the last three years and are nearing that number in ticket sales well in advance.
This is the second lowest that RIT has been projected to finish since being selected to finish eighth in its inaugural AHA season, 2006-07. 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 tied for fourth. RIT won the regular season title the first three seasons they were not picked to finish first.
RIT has won four of the last seven AHA regular season titles and made three straight trips to the AHA 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 twelve members: Air Force Academy, American International College, Army, Bentley University, Canisius College, University of Connecticut, College of the Holy Cross, Mercyhurst University, Niagara University, Robert Morris University, Rochester Institute of Technology ,and Sacred Heart University.
2013-14 Atlantic Hockey Association Preseason Coaches Poll
1. Niagara (3) – 102
2. Mercyhurst (4) – 98
2. Air Force (2) – 98
4. Canisius (3) – 92
5. RIT – 81
6. Connecticut – 79
7. Robert Morris – 66
8. Holy Cross – 59
9. Bentley – 53
10. Army – 28
11. American International – 22
12. Sacred Heart – 16
(First Place votes)
