Hockey East puck bag

The Northeastern Huskies have just reaffirmed their unofficial identity as the Massachusetts Institute of Goaltending by reeling in freshly graduated Brown University stopper Nicole Stock to their coaching staff.

According to simple-spoken NU personnel, the hiring is merely designed to numerically supplement a bench trinity that will be lacking Team USA assistant Dave Flint all season. But one cannot help but think this is also an act of obsession. Flint, after all, is himself a former goalie and happened to come along last year at a time when Chanda Gunn –an accomplished crease custodian for both the Huskies and Americans earlier this decade- was departing from her assistant role on the staff.

All this on top of the program’s contemporary tandem –junior Leah Sulyma and sophomore Florence Schelling- having each capped their respective rookie seasons with a claim to the team MVP Award. And we’re to infer they still need more expert tutelage?

Guess that’s just the nature of netminding. And you can’t really fault them, for no one can fortify the mesh too firmly.

Stock’s invitation to the Hub, by the way, elongates a recent regional overflow in newly tapped sidekick skippers. You also have Kirsti Anderson settling into the offices of Connecticut, Dave Stockdale in Maine, Erin Normore transitioning right out of her playing days at Providence, and both Grant Kimball and Jeff Cooper hop on in Vermont.

Elsewhere, albeit with Boston College and New Hampshire still yet to lay out their 2009-2010 team rosters, it appears as though rookie Nicole Anderson of Providence College will stand as the league’s lone six-footer.

Speaking of roster-related factoids, while Jenn Wakefield of UNH is technically out of the picture for the year while she vies for an Olympic passport, she along with Connecticut senior defender Cristin Allen and Providence freshman forward Jessie Vella constitute three current Hockey Easterners hailing from Pickering, Ontario. That also happens to be the hometown of New York Rangers’ mosquito Sean Avery, so perhaps the three have already met up amidst summer training and stirred up incentive to each help redress the city’s on-ice reputation?

It has come to this author’s attention that all Division I women’s hockey teams will have their 2009-2010 campaigns capsule on the all-encompassing Wikipedia. For the most part right now, it’s all simple stuff: rosters, schedules, and paraphrases of recent team press releases. But still, Wikipedia already keeps a record of everything else, does it not? Fans of this game ought to be saying “It’s about time.”

Just a little less than one week –five days, in fact- remaining until the Fenway Park ticket office will let its doors bust down for the UNH-NU clash.

As it happens, another Fenway-related thought could easily be on crossover WHEA-Red Sox minds right about now. After all, there is ongoing talk of the Sox trying to reintegrate starting pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, whose subpar season is being attributed to his participation in the World Baseball Classic in March. Meanwhile, at Chestnut Hill, the BC faithful will be missing the input of goaltender Molly Schaus, who has already pitched in on Team USA’s startling triumph at the Hockey Canada Cup. But when one thinks about it, it is likely for the better that she stays in one sweater and on one task all year.

Presumably, as everyone reconvenes, welcomes their new personnel, and breaks in their new skates, there is some degree of talk about endeavoring to “build on” something from last season. An informal study by this author calculated just how much each Hockey East team has to build on its previous offensive output.

Subtracting the bushel of goals collected by non-returnees, and dividing the difference by the team total, it is apparent that –maybe not so surprisingly- Vermont and Maine have the most to work with while BC and UNH have the least. The Catamounts and Black Bears, respectively, are “returning” 54 out of 57 (94.7%) and 59 out of 67 goals (88.1%). For the Wildcats and Eagles, it’s 58 out of 117 (49.6%) and 56 out of 107 (52.3%).

Then again, a year ago, New Hampshire’s percentage in that regard would have only been 55.1 (87 out of 158) while both Maine and Vermont were hovering around the 90-mark. So, not to burst anyone’s bubble, but just a gentle reminder that potential differs vastly from fruition.

Well, enough of that. There is a fresh, universal sheet out there at this time. Go ahead and anticipate, all of you.