Men's club hockey hitting ice with new look

The members of the men's club ice hockey team have learned a thing or two about having big shoes to fill. After advancing to the regional tournament last season, the Tigers are still adjusting to the departure of the Class of 2006.

"This season has gotten off to a bit of a slow start as we are trying to recover from the loss of a large senior class — who we have replaced with a talented, but small, freshman class," said senior club president Colin Anderson about his team's play so far in the current season.

The team plays in the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Hockey Association (MACHA), which is part of the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA). It competes in the Southeast region of ACHA's Division-II level. The ACHA is the organization that oversees the club and semi-varsity hockey teams in the United States.

There are four regions and about 40 teams per region who compete in the national tournament at the end of each year. A committee of coaches determines the top 10 teams in each region that will qualify for the final tournament. The top two teams are automatically placed into the national tournament draw while the other eight battle it out in a regional playoff. The top two teams in the playoff also move on to the national tournament. The Tigers made the regional tournament in the 2005-06 season but failed to qualify for the national tournament.

The MACHA league also has an end-of-year tournament. Last year, the Tigers made it to the championship game where they fell to Wagner College, whom they had beaten in the 2004-05 season to win the MACHA league title.

Leading the club along with Anderson is junior captain Alain Chicoine, who is a senior defenseman for the team. The two assistant captains are senior forward Joe Ulerich and sophomore forward Austin Chow. The head coach is Steve Macy.

The roster currently contains 21 players. This includes nine seniors, four juniors, four sophomores and four freshman. The team is quite experienced and the many upperclassmen hope to instill some of their knowledge of the game into the younger players.

This season has not gone as smoothly as some might have hoped.

"We have suffered several season-ending injuries early in the year or late last year," Anderson said.

Despite the injuries, the team still has an overall record of 5-5-2 and a league record of 4-3-2. Three of its losses, however, have been to teams ranked in the top five of their respective region. Princeton is currently ranked No. 9 in the southeast region.

The team got off to a hot start with a 5-1-1 record with big wins over Western Connecticut State, Temple, Penn (in overtime) and Lafayette. As its current record indicates, it has been on a 0-4-1 skid due to "some unorganized and undisciplined play," as Chow described it.

"We're looking to turn it around this weekend and get back on track to qualify for the ACHA tournament and still look to win the MACHA championship," Chow said. "The highlight so far has probably been the big overtime win over Penn during their homecoming weekend."

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

The team practices on ice about two times a week and usually plays about two games per week.

"It makes it a little more difficult to prepare for our games with such limited practice, but that's what we have to work with and we try to make the best of it," Chow said.

There are 10 league games remaining from this weekend through the second week of February.

"The schedule only gets more difficult from here but we are looking to dedicate ourselves to some solid team play and work hard in practice to have a successful second half of the season and roll into the post season with a lot of momentum," Chow said.

Princeton's next game is a rematch against Lafayette at home on Friday.

Anderson appears confident about his team's chances in this part of the season and in search of a playoff spot.

"We are preparing to make a charge in the second half of the season so that we can be in a solid position come playoff time," he said.