Final 1993-94 Union Hockey Statistics
Record: 10-9-3 ECAC, 15-11-4 overall
SCORING:
GP G A PTS PIM PPG SHG WG +/-
Chris Ford 29 20 14 35 28 9 0 3 +5
Troy Stevens 30 6 28 34 24 1 0 0 +6
Jeff Jiampetti 29 16 13 29 32 4 0 2 +6
Chris Albert 30 11 18 29 48 2 0 2 +9
Russ Monteith 30 10 17 27 24 4 0 1 0
Reid Simonton 30 4 20 24 76 3 0 0 +10
Cory Holbrough 29 10 12 22 40 2 0 1 +10
John Sicinski 30 10 10 20 12 1 0 2 -2
Scott Boyd 28 6 9 15 40 2 0 2 +5
Jay Prentice 30 3 12 15 4 0 0 1 +1
Andrew Will 29 2 10 12 34 1 0 0 0
Chad Thompson 28 5 6 11 48 1 0 1 -3
Dean Goulet 26 2 9 11 23 0 0 0 -3
Bill Moody 27 4 4 8 14 2 0 0 -3
Patrick O'Flaherty 19 3 3 6 22 0 0 0 +3
Shane Holunga 23 1 5 6 16 0 0 0 +2
Ryan Donovan 21 2 3 5 14 2 0 0 -5
Chris Hancock 22 0 3 3 45 0 0 0 -5
Greg Buchanan 14 1 1 2 20 0 0 0 -6
Luigi Villa 12 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 --
Mike Gallant 22 0 1 1 2 0 0 0 --
Jamie Antoine 11 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 -5
Craig Reckin 20 0 0 0 8 0 0 0 -4
Seabrook Satterlund 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
BENCH 30 -- -- -- 4 - - - --
GOALTENDING:
GP Mins GA SO W-L-T GAA
Mike Gallant 22 1231 78 0 10-9-2 3.80
Luigi Villa 12 596 39 0 5-2-2 3.93
Well, as a lot of people have been saying lately, this year's Union
hockey team exceeded everyone's expectations. After going a combined
6-43-1 over their first 2 Division I seasons, this year's team came up
with a 15-11-4 record, including 10-9-3 and 6th place in the ECAC, and
a 12-11-4 record against Division I opponents.
This was the year that the term "Union goal" started to mean a perfect
pass from Troy Stevens out to Chris Ford who one-timed it past the
goalie instead of a pile up in the crease with someone hacking at it
and poking it past the goalie. This was the year that people started
coming to Achilles expecting a win over some of the lower teams in the
league. And this was the year of Union's first ECAC playoff
appearance.
This year's roster was full of freshmen. 14 different freshmen played
in games for the Dutchmen this year, and most games saw 8 or 9
freshmen dressed. So many freshmen meant there was no room for some
of the upperclassmen we all expected to see, like Jayson Flowers,
Chris Sears, and Brad Kukko. These freshmen came through too, with
the two top scorers coming from the freshman class. Chris Ford led
the team with 20 goals and 35 points. He also led the team in power
play goals (9) and game-winning goals (3). Linemate and classmate
Troy Stevens was second in points (34) and led the team in assists
(28).
Jeff Jiampetti was the only senior on the team this year. He finished
the season with 16 goals and 29 points, career highs in each. It was
his best scoring season since 1990-91, Union's last in Division III.
His career totals over 4 seasons were 33 goals and 67 points. Jeff
had a hat trick in Union's final regular season game against Cornell,
and scored the Dutchmen's last goal of the season in the last game of
the playoff series against RPI.
Goaltending played a big part in Union's success. Junior goalies Mike
Gallant and Luigi Villa had played well in their first 2 seasons, but
didn't get much help, either on offense or on defense. Gallant had a
record 0-19-0 over his first 2 seasons, and Villa was 6-22-1. Villa
came into the season as the likely #1 goalie, but when he struggled,
Gallant took over for a good chunk of the season. Gallant went on to
win 10 games and Villa 5. By the end of the season, the two were both
playing very well and back in a rotation.
The Dutchmen's good record is even more impressive when you remember
that this is the team that couldn't figure out how to hold a 3rd
period lead in the first half of the season. After winning their
first 2 games against McGill and Army, the Dutchmen headed up to
St. Lawrence and Clarkson. They played 2 great games up there, but
lost both games. The Dutchmen had a 6-4 lead in the 3rd and were tied
7-7 in the last minute with Clarkson before losing 8-7.
After the break for exams, the Dutchmen jumped out to a lead on
UMass-Lowell of Hockey East but settled for a tie. After losing 2-0
at home to Harvard, Union blew another 3rd period lead only to lose to
Brown in overtime. A week later, the Dutchmen lost a late lead and
had to settle for a tie with Princeton.
Over Christmas break, the Dutchmen got themseleves back on track by
winning the Concordia Invitational up in Montreal. The success
continued when Union resumed its league schedule when they took a 6-2
win over Cornell at Lynah Rink. The Dutchmen are 2-1 at Lynah and 4-2
overall against the Big Red since joining the ECAC.
The middle of January brought the first-ever home and home series
against RPI. After a blowout by RPI at Achilles, the Dutchmen battled
hard but lost a 5-3 decision up in Troy. That good performance in the
second RPI game seemed to be a key turning point in the season. The
Dutchmen won their next 2 games over Yale and Dartmouth. Somewhere in
here is where the top 2 scoring lines (Ford-Stevens-Monteith and
Albert-Jiampetti-Holbrough) started to click.
Vermont dominated Union and shut them out 4-0 but then the fun began.
The Dutchmen took Clarkson to overtime and came within inches of
getting the game-winner in overtime before the Knights came back to
win it. They would not lose again until the playoffs. Union came
back with a win over St. Lawrence the next night. A hard-fought tie
with Vermont kept things going. Four straight wins over Dartmouth,
Princeton, Yale, and a big upset of Brown on the road (thank you Mike
Gallant) put Union into the playoffs for the first time. But things
would get even better - a tie with league-champion Harvard and a sweep
of Colgate and Cornell gave Union a bye in the preliminary round of
the playoffs and set up a series against RPI in the ECAC
Quarterfinals.
The Dutchmen jumped out to a 4-1 lead in game 1 of the RPI series and
held on to win 4-3. This was Union's first win over the Engineers
since 1988 and the first as a Division I program. This was enough of
a wake-up call for the strong RPI team, which came back to take the
next 2 and advance to the semis.
Coach Bruce Delventhal said back in October that the team's goal was
to make the playoffs. No one was thinking about a first-round bye in
the playoffs, let alone a win in the first playoff game against RPI.
This team put on a good show for the fans at Achilles and as far as
I'm concerned, that's what it's all about. The crowds steadily
increased and became more vocal as the season went on. The "U" during
the National Anthem, the "ahhhhhh... see ya!" cheer and other things
really have caught on. Now if we could only get a pep band back
together, we'd have a real Division I hockey arena here. You can
definitely look for bigger crowds and more sellouts next season.
Expectations will be much higher, and we'll see how these guys react
to being actual favorites every once in a while. With only one player
graduating, Union will have an experienced team ready to battle for
playoff position in the ECAC next season. It should be a lot of fun.
All of my game summaries and assorted other information is also now
available on the World Wide Web. My Union Hockey home page is under
the URL "http://tardis.union.edu/~terescoj/hockey/hockey.html", and
can give you information about the last 4 years of Dutchmen hockey.
--
Jim Teresco, Department of Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
[log in to unmask] (alternates: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask])
Home: (518)347-0967, School: (518)276-4849, Sage 1112
Union College C.S. Department Graduate Assistant (retired), Union '92, '93
Owner/GM, Amsterdam Ice-9 - Senior Owner in Bitnet Fantasy League Baseball
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