Men's ice hockey hops the pond to jump-start losing season

Going into winter break, the men's hockey team has one goal in mind — to pick up some wins. Regardless of last night's loss, the message remains the same.

At 1-13-0 overall (1-9-0 Eastern College Athletic Conference), the Tigers find themselves in a very difficult position going into the break. The hockey team is accustomed to success, but this season is just not matching up.

"We're just not playing up to our potential," senior captain George Parros said. "We have a pretty young squad, and while they have been contributing, we're not playing smart hockey."

This is the worst start of the season since Len Quesnelle '88 took over in the 2000-2001 season. While the Tigers lost several players to May's graduation, they made up for it with incoming talent. But, as Parros puts it, the team is just not playing smart.

Following last night's action, the team departs for an overseas adventure in the United Kingdom. There, the Tigers will match up against some of the Isle's best. They will face off against the Nottingham Panthers, the Basingstoke Bisons, the Guildford Flames, and the Cardiff Devils.

While there, Princeton will meet former Tiger hockey player John Hepburn '72, who now owns the Guildford team. But from the position that the young team finds itself in now, this trip is more of a learning experience.

"Right now, we're being outshot," Parros said. "We're getting maybe five shots a period on goal, and that is not good enough.

"That is something the coaching staff has really emphasized in practice."

Learning will be the key to the Tigers' success in the upcoming second half of the season. With 12 of the 18 players either freshmen or sophomores, the team has the talent to be a successful squad — as long as it can work out a few kinks and continue to improve on what it already does well.

"In the last few games, we have been playing the body better than before," Parros said.

He also made a startling observation, one that a fan in the stands may not agree with.

"Our goaltending has been good," he said, though he noted that the score did not reflect the quality of the defense.

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Quesnelle has gone to a system of rotating each of his three goalies per game. Last season's goalie, Dave Stathos '02, provided the anchor for the defense. This season, however, no one goalie has stood out as the obvious choice for starter, something that could help to balance and motivate the defense to stop more shots getting through.

Parros attributed the problems the team has been experiencing to simply not getting enough shots off and having way too many shots taken on Princeton's goal.

Following the London trip and the winter holiday, the team travels to Troy, N.Y., to return to ECAC play in the Rensselaer Holiday Tournament on Dec. 28. This four-team tournament places Princeton against Wayne State in the first game. Depending on that game's outcome, the Tigers will then face-off against either Merrimack or RPI in what will be the championship or consolation round.

Princeton has yet to face either Wayne State or Merrimack but have had success against the Engineers already this season. On Nov. 16, Rensselaer came down to face the Tigers in Princeton's only win of the season.

So far, the team's scoring has been spread out. Leading the team is senior forward Chris Owen, whose six goals have been instrumental in keeping the team in a position even to push for wins.

With an unsuccessful start to the season, the Tigers are facing an even greater problem than any of the mechanical problems the squad is trying to now deal with. A young squad, somewhat inexperienced on the college level, and a piss-poor record are a dangerous combination for a team's morale.

"We really need to keep a good attitude," Parros said. "Right now, it's easy to get down on ourselves because we're not playing our best."

Parros highlights the importance of the positive attitude on any team. An old sports adage says that a team that wins is the team that believes it can. But with 13 losses under their belt already, it could be easy for the Tigers to lose the belief that each time they step out on to the ice, they can win. And that, more than being outshot, playing good defense, or stopping power plays, is more important to a team in the middle of a 35-game season.