Good morning!
Montague’s Brock Hines is back from Northern Ireland where the UMass, Vermont, Quinnipiac and St. Lawrence hockey teams met over Thanksgiving for the two-day Friendship Four tournament in Belfast. “I thought it was a worthwhile trip,” said Hines, who’s in his 24th year as the UMass hockey analyst with play-by-play voice Donnie Moorhouse.
Over 5,000 jammed into the SSE Arena both nights to see the collegiate brand of U.S. hockey. “Legitimate numbers,” confirmed Hines. “The place was 80-90 percent full for every game. There was a lot of interaction with the local schools and they came and rooted for the teams that visited them. The ice was a billboard of colorful ads, so many you could barely see the little white spots of ice.”
The rink is home to Ireland’s only pro hockey team, the Belfast Knights of the Elite Ice Hockey League.
When it was over the UVM Catamounts were hoisting the Belpot Trophy with wins over UMass and Quinnipiac. Before they embarked on the 3,000-mile trip, UVM coach Kevin Sneddon made his players take a course in Irish history. That may have helped, but more likely it was the freshman talent that has Sneddon’s team moving up in the national polls.
According to Trip Advisor, the most popular tourist spot in Belfast is a 160-year-old jail called “The Crum,” where children were jailed for stealing clothing and food in the 19th century and a murderer named Robert McGladden was the last prisoner to be hung in 1961.
The week-long trip began with a six-hour flight from Bradley to Dublin. The team bussed two hours north to Belfast while Hines and his wife Laurie stayed behind to tour the Fair City and spent the night at the Grand Canal Hotel.
“The one thing that struck me is how nice the people were,” said Hines. “We got lost and a woman walked up and said, ‘Can I help you guys?’ She wasn’t looking for tourist money. She gave us directions and the names of three good places to eat. She went out of her way to be nice. Even in the arena they’d stopped and ask ‘Whattya need?’”
UMass (3-7-2, 1-5-1) is struggling but Hines thinks first-year coach Greg Carvel and his top assistant Ben Barr can pull the hockey program out of its quarter-century slumber. “Carvel honestly gets it. If you look at the national letters of intent you’ll see the reviews are very positive. Barr is a dynamic recruiter. The USHL is where he seems to be getting his players. Time will tell but I think these guys know how to build a program.”
It’s a banner day for college football, beginning at noon on ABC when 19th-ranked Navy (9-2) hosts Temple (9-3) for the American Athletic Conference championship at 34,000-seat Memorial Stadium in Annapolis.
The Owls have won six straight games but are 3-point underdogs against a Midshipmen team that has the longest active home winning streak (16) in the FBS and boasts a graduating class that’s won 37 games — more than any senior class in school history.
The Midshipmen swept through November with four straight wins, including their first in six tries against Notre Dame, 28-27. Navy’s patented triple option running attack enabled the Midshipmen to keep the ball for 14 plays over the final 7 minutes, 28 seconds. “I had my eyes closed, I was praying,” coach Ken Niumatalolo told USA Today of his team’s two fourth-down conversions on the final drive.
Senior punter Alex Barta was called to duty just twice all month. Against SMU, he was the only player of the 74 who dressed but didn’t get into the 75-31 win. “Maybe you can squeeze that in with the 300 tidbits in your column,” joked my friend Dave Beutenmuller of North Palm Beach.
Beutenmuller’s son, Peter, played linebacker at Navy and graduated in 2003. The proud father is a Navy fan for life. The Midshipmen have won three straight bowl games and could land in the Cotton Bowl if they beat the Owls. That’s good news for Beutenmuller, whose girlfriend lives near Dallas.
Today’s other key matchups include No. 10 Oklahoma St. at No. 9 Oklahoma at 12:30 (FOX), No. 1 Alabama versus No. 15 Florida at 4 p.m (CBS), No. 3 Clemson vs. No. 23 Va. Tech at 8 p.m. (ABC) and No. 6 Wisconsin vs. No. 8 Penn State at 8 p.m. (FOX).
Local fans can get a look at the new and improved NMH hockey team next week when the Hoggers face off at Deerfield Academy. The makeover includes postgraduate student Tora Liu of Chicago, who graduated last year from Phillips Academy in Andover and senior forward Bob McKeon, a 5-foot-9, 183-pound sparkplug who played the 2015 season with Dallas of the North American Prospects Hockey League.
Another newcomer, senior forward Patrick Lundy of North Reading, tallied 18 points in 36 games for Austin Prep and the Valley Jr. Warriors of Haverhill, and senior defenseman Ryan Mulhearn of Warwick, R.I., played last season for the Boston Bandits of the Eastern Junior Elite Prospects League.
There are others and the cream has yet to rise to the top, but NMH is committed to becoming an elite prep school hockey program. First-year coach Kevin Czepiel of Holyoke captained the 2012-13 UMass hockey team and NMH assistant coach Brandon Hew was a four-year blueliner at Amherst College.
The problem of playing in NMH’s antiquated rink was easily solved: the Hoggers will play 24 of their 34 games on the road.
NMH beat the Hoosac (N.Y.) School, 5-0, in the season opener on Nov. 18. Friday night they played at the Westminster (Conn.) School and this afternoon they’re at the Moses Brown School in Providence.
The puck drops in Deerfield on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.
The UMass football season ended 5,000 miles from Amherst at 2:47 a.m. on Sunday in Honolulu. On Monday, I sat down with pen and yellow legal pad to take notes on the season’s last train wreck.
In case you weren’t up (and neither was I) the Minutemen (2-10) had fought back from a 14-point deficit to tie Hawaii (5-7) with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns. Shortly thereafter, Rainbow Warriors quarterback Dru Brown tossed a 56-yard touchdown pass to Keelan Ewaliko with 1:31 left to give Hawaii a 46-40 victory before 22,739 fans at Aloha Stadium.
Thus former AD John McCutcheon’s five-year plan in the FBS ended with 10 wins and 50 losses, and coach Mark Whipple is 8-28 after promising to “bring home the jewelry” at his first press conference.
The 2016 team stats were staggeringly pitiful. The secondary picked off four passes in 12 games (opponents made 15 interceptions); quarterbacks Ross Comis and Andrew Ford were sacked 45 times, the second most in the FBS. They hit the turf so often they could endorse lawn products.
Of the 128 teams in the FBS, the Minutemen finished tied with Wyoming for 107th in points allowed per game (35.5). They were 101st in team defense and were outscored 237-121 in the second half.
Jeff Sagarin rated them below UNH in his compilation of FBC (D-1) and FCS (1-AA) teams, but could be worse. Boston College beat Wake Forest and finished 6-6. That qualified them for the Quick Lane Bowl on Dec. 26.
The Eagles might luck out and play elsewhere, but imagine Christmas in Detroit. How exciting is that?
Squibbers: Here’s the deal — Coach Chris Lapointe and his staff took a hapless Turners Falls football team and transformed it into a championship-caliber program. They didn’t do it for the money, they did it because they’re proud of their alma mater. And so it’s sad, this “controversy” about the school’s nickname. Who cares? It’s Franklin County’s version of Deflategate, just a lot of hot air. … The UMass basketball team is 5-1 and could be undefeated if it hadn’t folded its tent a bit early at Ole Miss. A win today against 58th-ranked Central Florida would move them from 100th in USA Today’s rankings toward becoming a Top 50 team. Tip-off is 1 p.m. at the Mullins Center. … Craig Janney was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Philadelphia on Wednesday. An Enfield native, Janney said on SXM that his PG year at Deerfield Academy helped him transition to D-I hockey at Boston College before turning pro. According to hockey-reference.com Janney had 33 goals and 37 assists in 17 games for the Big Green. … The NFL is doing away with those 9:30 a.m. kickoffs from London. Too bad, I’ll miss thinking I was on the West Coast. … Thanks to whoever dropped off an old Hinsdale Greyhound Park calendar. Drop by again some time, I was out for a jog on the former NMH campus in Northfield. … According to sportingcharts.com, NFL kickers have missed 96 extra-point tries since 2015. If PATs must be snapped from the 15-yard line, shouldn’t all field goals from within that distance? No more easy three-pointers after a drive stalls at the goal line. … Former Tonight Show host Jay Leno said he once dreamed of a career in sports, “but I had to give it up. I was only 6 feet so I couldn’t play basketball. I’m only 190 pounds so I couldn’t play football. And I have 20/20 vision, so I couldn’t be a referee.”
Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for four decades in the Pioneer Valley.