Halfway Through the Season

With half the D-1 hockey season gone I've finally made up my mind to post a Blog. I'll make updates as regularly as possible.

This season began with high hopes (in my mind at least). During the summer, UAA quickly hired new Head Coach Dave Shyiak after former Head Coach John Hill decided to go back to being an assistant coach. All signs pointed to an improved season but at this point a disappointing record of 5-12-1 is the reality.

After a nice 6-3 win over RPI in the season opening Nye Frontier tournament, UAA lost to Vermont 2-0 in a tight defensive game. After a split with bitter rival UAF the Seawolves began their WCHA league schedule and went 0-6-1 in its first 7 games including a couple of embarrassing loses to Minnesota and MSU-Mankato. In some of the losses UAA played well. Beginning with Minnesota-Duluth UAA began a three series trend of losing on Friday and winning on Saturday. The final home series of 05 just concluded and UAA did manage to end the Friday/Saturday trend by losing twice to Colorado College.

The team is capable of playing well and has shown they can play well in about half of their games so far. Its a fairly young team with a new coach and many improvements are apparent. The penalty kill is much improved. Defensively the team is beginning to find an identity that should serve them well in the second half of the season. Offensively the team is having a struggle of immense proportions. After opening with 6 goals in their first game they've managed to average only 1.6 goals per game and were shutout 3 times. It's difficult to identify the reasons for this offensive horror show. There are talented and hardworking players (a combination that should be more fruitful) throughout the lineup. I'll try to provide some player profiles through the rest of the season.

Its been difficult and frustrating as a fan but looking with an optimistic eye allows me to still hope for better.