New coach, new season, new hope for m. hockey

In a season marked by a newly refurbished rink, a fresh coaching staff, and six impressive freshmen, men's hockey will try to add one more relatively new concept to the list: winning a majority of its games, a feat which has eluded the Tigers for the past six seasons.

Princeton looks to new head coach Guy Gadowsky for help promoting its cause. Gadowsky joins the Princeton community after five years in the head coaching position at Alaska-Fairbanks, where he a tallied a career record of 68-89-22.

The record is somewhat deceptive, however, considering that Gadowsky inherited a struggling Alaska-Fairbanks program and was able to turn it around. The Nanooks improved their Central Collegiate Hockey Association home record from 4-22-2 in Gadowsky's first season to 14-13-1 in his final year. This ability to turn a team around should be promising for Tiger fans, who hope to see the same result here in Baker Rink.

Gadowsky has enlisted the help of friend and Philadelphia Flyers' head coach Ken Hitchcock to assist the team in its turnaround efforts. Hitchcock, who made his collegiate coaching debut last week, can afford to spend a few afternoons each week in Princeton because of the continuing NHL lockout.

Rounding out the newly assembled staff are Jason Lammers and Andre Faust '92. Faust is a former Flyer himself and second on the all-time Princeton scoring list.

What has remained largely unchanged, however, is the Tigers' team itself. Nineteen of the 25 starters from last season are returning. Eleven of those will be on offense, including last year's leading scorers, sophomore forward Grant Goeckner-Zoeller and junior forward Patrick Neundorfer. Last year, Goeckner-Zoeller was the first freshman to lead Princeton in scoring since the 1977-78 season.

Admittedly, the Tigers have struggled offensively in recent years and were outscored by their opponents nearly two to one last year. Gadowsky hopes to reverse this trend by implementing a high scoring, wide-open offensive scheme.

While goal scoring tops the list of Princeton's concerns this season, six of the eight Tiger defensemen are returners. This defense, led by junior Seamus Young, last season allowed 18 fewer goals than it had the previous year.

Young, Princeton's top blueline player, has the fourth-highest career-point total on the team. He will receive help from sophomores Daryl Marcoux, B.J. Mackasey and Max Cousins, who played a combined 74 games last season for the Tigers.

This season also brings a new crackdown from the officials on penalties, which should lead to more power-play opportunities. Consequently, the team has focused on its power-play scoring and killing ability.

"Coach [Gadowsky] has really been emphasizing power-play coverage," Marcoux said.

But as hockey fans know, the anchor of any defense is the goalie. Junior Eric Leroux and sophomore B.J. Sklapsky will vie for the top spot. Leroux made 38 saves in his season debut against Alabama-Huntsville, while Sklapsky relieved freshman Jeff Mansfield the previous night against St. Cloud State.

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The Tigers will undoubtedly have their work cut out for them, with 22 games in the competitive Eastern College Athletic Conference. Seven non-conference games complete their schedule.