I don't usually comment but i have to on the comments below.  The two I am
targeting is blaming Coach Sneddon and the 5 forwards on the power play.  I
would not blame coach Sneddon for ANYTHING.  For those of us who remember
what it was like when we first went D1, I will take this over back then any
time.  It took a long time to start to get players to respect Union when
they came to visit.  Our goaltender was a Freshman, and whether we can
label his errors as "Freshman mistakes" or not, who can tell, but
considering that we were in position to finish as high as 4th, I will give
coach Sneddon nothing but credit.

Regarding the 5 forwards.  If you watched the Pittsburgh Penguins the last
few years (before the trading of Kovalev and when Straka was healthy), they
did the same thing.  Nothing scared opponents more than to see the 5
forwards on the ice against only 4 players.  Union's power play struggled
this year, as was never more evident than watching Fri's game on YES.
Something had to be done to get goals.  It was something Union tried.
Maybe it should not have been done, but I will take "going for it" anytime
over not "going for it."

Just my thoughts.




                      Andy Weise
                      <[log in to unmask]>          To:       [log in to unmask]
                      Sent by:                       cc:       [log in to unmask]
                      owner-unionhockey@scote        Subject:  Re: [unionhockey] Saturday night in Schenectady
                      r.union.edu


                      03/10/2003 06:35 PM






At 09:53 AM 3/10/2003 -0500, Kelly Hubicki wrote:
>Almost as hard for me were the chants of "overrated" coming from the RPI
>section.  As I reminded one fan on the way out the door, if it weren't for

>the new ECAC playoff rules, RPI would not have even been in the playoffs.

The "overrated" chants didn't surprise me. You see that all the time when a
lower-seeded team upsets the higher seed. But yes, as a Union fan, it hurt
coming from Troy.

I agree, though - RPI should be thanking their lucky stars that they even
made
the playoffs. I am still a bit surprised as to how miserable a season they
had
and they probably shouldn't have been in the playoffs the way their season
went. You can't argue against the rules, though. Union's 2001-2002 team was
just as good (if not better) than this year's RPI team and they ended up
home
for the playoffs.

>I found Mayotte's quotes in the Sunday paper interesting - not sure that I

>agree that he made the right decision, but then I don't play hockey.

I don't know if he made the right decision, but he had to make it right
away.
 From the accounts I read, he actually beat the RPI player to the puck in
both
instances, but just didn't get it past him. All Mayotte really had to do
was get
the puck out of the zone - just more bad luck for Union.

In my opinion, Union probably could have avoided either position in the
first
place. During the last several games in the season, I noticed that Kevin
Sneddon
has been starting 5 forwards on the power play unit. Joel Beal had been
playing
the point position for most of the year, but we started seeing the
Goodjohn-Seney-
Neron line start the PP with Beal and (forward) Nathan Gillies playing the
point
positions. When RPI started the play up ice towards their tying & winning
goals,
Gillies & Beal were caught deep in the RPI zone and couldn't catch up to
the play.
I can't help but think that if at least one defenseman was on the ice, then

maybe
Mayotte wouldn't have had to play the puck.

Does anyone else do this? I can understand the need for offense on the
power
play and that Sneddon would trust two of his best players to remember
they're
playing defense, but I'm not sold on the idea yet. I'm also not a hockey
coach, so
I'll bet there's another good reason.

-Andy

-
This is the Union Hockey Mailing List on tardis.union.edu.
Contact [log in to unmask] for more information.