Videos From The Nate Leaman - Rick Bennett Press Conference

Here are two videos from today's press conference where Rick Bennett was named the new head coach and Nate Leaman announced he is leaving Union for Providence.

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's Lineup Changes Tonight; ECACHWBA Awards

According to Ken Schott, freshman Keith Kinkaid will be starting in net tonight for the Dutchmen. Kinkaid has started in both games against the Saints this year. Also, senior captain Mike Wakita will be out of the lineup because of a lower body injury he suffered last Sunday against Quinnipiac. Freshman Ryan Forgaard will take his place, meaning Union will have three freshman defensemen in tonight's starting lineup. The Dutchmen will definitely miss Wakita's presence and hard hits on the ice tonight. Hopefully someone like Nolan Julseth-White can step up and take that role.

Also, the inaugural ECAC Hockey Writers and Broadcasters Association awards were announced today. They are unofficial awards and I was even lucky enough to have a vote in the awards. And the winners are...

Player of the Year: Chase Polacek, RPI
Rookie of the Year: Brandon Pirri, RPI
Goalie of the Year: Ben Scrivens, Cornell
Coach of the Year: Nate Leaman, Union
Defensive Forward of the Year: Travis Vermeulen, SLU
Defensive Defenseman of the Year: Justin Krueger, Cornell

First Team: Polacek, Mario Valery-Trabucco (Union), Broc Little (Yale), Mike Schreiber (Union), Tom Dignard (Yale), Scrivens
Second Team: Sean Backman (Yale), Austin Smith (Colgate), Blake Gallagher (Cornell), Krueger, Brendon Nash (Cornell), Allen York (RPI)
All-Rookie Team: Pirri, Jerry D'Amigo (RPI), Louis Leblanc (Harvard), Nick D'Agostino (Cornell), George Hughes (SLU), Keith Kinkaid (Union)

Coburn to miss time with injury

According to Ken Schott, freshman defenseman Greg Coburn got hurt in today's practice and will miss a significant amount of time (possibly the rest of the regular season and playoffs). He suffered a lower-body injury after being tangled up with senior forward Jason Shaffer in today's practice. This is a huge blow for the Dutchmen as Coburn has been a very solid defenseman this season and has also helped on the offensive side of the puck. Coburn has tallied two goals and 14 assists this season. His 14 assists and 16 points is second most for Union defenseman this season (Mike Schreiber has eight goals, 18 assists, and 26 points). Defensemen like sophomore Nolan Julseth-White and freshman Ryan Forgaard will now have to step up and produce every game.

UPDATE: Ken Schott reports that Coburn has not torn anything in his hip and has just dislocated it. He will be out for the remainder of the regular season, and could return for the playoffs.

Also, RPI goaltender Allen York is doubtful for this weekend.

Union takes on U.S. Under-18 team on Friday in charity exhibition game

This game is an exhibition game meaning it will not count towards the standings and will have no effect on the team's unbeaten streak or on Coach Leaman's 100th win. It should be a friendly match for a good cause (Toys for Tots). For more information on the even click here.

According to the team roster there is only one player committed to a ECAC school. This is Andy Iles a goaltender from Ithaca, New York who is committed to his home town team, Cornell. He is listed as 5' 8" so I'm guessing he relies on his quickness. All of the other players on the roster are committed to nine different schools: Cornell, Michigan, Boston University, Minnesota-Duluth, North Dakota, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Boston College, and Denver. This should be a great showcase for future NCAA stars. For more info on the US U-18 Team check out their website here.

Hopefully Coach Leaman will play some guys who haven't played much or at all this season, and I expect that he will. We have still yet to see freshmen defenseman Jean-Sebastian Bergeron and redshirt freshman defenseman Carl Ekstrom in Dutchmen uniforms. I have still heard no word if Ekstrom has overcome his hip injury. It should be interesting to see what this Swede is made of. We also haven't seen sophomore defenseman Taylor Reid this season after he played four games last season.

I assume Keith Kinkaid will sit while junior Corey Milan and senior Rich Sillery will get some time in net. Sillery hasn't seen any playing time this season and only played twice (one start) last season. This should also give Leaman a chance to rest his stars before the UConn Tournament and feature players that haven't seen much ice this year like forwards Justin Pallos, Luke Cain, Jason Shaffer, and defenseman Nolan Julseth-White. These are all very effective players and I expect them to be impressive against the U-18 team. Personally, I am a huge fan of Jason Shaffer as he is one of the fastest guys on the team and flies all over the ice when he plays. All in all, this should be a fun game for a good cause.