Men's Hockey stumbles through winter break

While much of the student body was home relaxing for their winter break, the men’s hockey team would take to the ice three times during that time span. Competing both at home and on the road, they would fall in all their games to the Quinnipiac Bobcats and the Holy Cross Crusaders.

The Tigers (4-12 overall, 3-7 Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference), despite seeing success early in December, have stumbled as of late, with their losses during the holiday break bringing their losing streak up to 4. They will hope to right the ship as they head deeper into January, when they will begin the ECAC play portion of their schedule.

The Tigers would not play their first game over break until the 29^th, where they hosted the Bobcats (17-1-3, 8-0-2), who’ve proven to be a tough opponent for all this season. They currently stand at 2^ndin the NCAA rankings, and hold a commanding 1^stplace lead in the ECAC standings.

The Tigers would struggle mightily in their first game of the double-header against Quinnipiac. The Bobcats would strike first and hard in the matchup by finding the back of the net five times in just the first period alone. This in itself proved to be too great a hole for the Tigers to surmount, as they ultimately finished with a 6-0 loss.

The following game, however, it would be the Tigers that took the early advantage. On Quinnipiac’s home rink, they came out in the first period and took a 3-1 advantage, off of goals from junior forward Ryan Siiro, freshman forward Max Veronneau and from a power play goal from freshman defender Josh Teves.

The Bobcats, however, would counter back, and would put in three goals of their own in the second period, with the Tigers unable to muster any of their own. Despite their red-hot start, the men of Princeton were unable to come back in the third from the one goal deficit, and ended the season series 0-2, albeit to one of the nation’s premier squads.

Against Holy Cross, the Tigers again found themselves with a deficit, as Holy Cross scored 5 minutes into the first, then 2 into the second, to take a commanding lead early on. Back to back goals, however, from junior forward Ben Foster and senior forward Mike Ambrosia brought the game level. While the teams would exchange scores to end the third, Holy Cross would break Princeton hearts by putting it in with under a minute to go, thus leaving the Tigers with a 4-3 loss.

Looking forward, the Tigers will host ECAC foes Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Union College at home this Thursday andFriday. From there, just one more non-conference game remains before they play only fellow ECAC teams until the postseason.