New York State of Mind

One of my few major gripes about having gotten my own place about a year ago was that I had to give up the ability to watch CSTV (and most college hockey in general) at home. You see, my apartment building is serviced by Cablevision, which has stubbornly refused to add either CSTV or ESPNU to its programming options. Of course, the company man in me cared as much about ESPNU getting on Cablevision as Perry Cox cares about Hugh Jackman (Note: Scrubs is to me what The Office is to Chris over at Western College Hockey, although I also like The Office too, thanks in large part to the presence of my contemporary at Dartmouth, Mindy Kaling).

Of course, I currently have no company to be a "company man" for, and don't particularly like the fact that my options for televised college hockey are so limited. However, I did take the time to watch Clarkson play Union this evening, as SNY, home network of my beloved New York Mets, picks up Time Warner Cable's hockey broadcasts, which tend to involve the NY-based ECAC Hockey teams.

Of course, it's nice to see former RPI head coach Dan Fridgen on color commentary. Fridge, like just about every other coach I had the pleasure of working with (with one or two exceptions) is a great guy, and funny, too. When I covered ECAC Hockey media day for CSTV as well as CSTV.com a couple of years ago, in Fridge's last season, one of the questions I was given by the production folks was, "What TV character most resembles you?" Not many of the coaches thought much of the question, but Fridge delivered a very memorable answer. "You have three choices," he said, "Moe, Larry or Curly."

Well, if Fridgen and the rest of the Time Warner crew hadn't been there, it would have been Alex Dell and his officiating crew who looked like "stooges." With the game tied at three in the last minute, Clarkson appeared to score the go-ahead goal, but video replay showed that the puck slid under the cage as it was lifted up off its moorings. Since ECAC Hockey only has video replays for televised games, Union would have been screwed out of a point had this game not been on TV. As it was, the game went to overtime, where David Leggio made a great save in the waning seconds for the Golden Knights to preserve the tie.

With all the big breakout team stories this season - Northeastern, UMass-Lowell, Minnesota Duluth, Bowling Green, Providence, etc., it seems like the Dutchmen's season has been overlooked, along with Princeton's (although I'll do my share to remedy the situation with the Tigers tomorrow). At 13-11-6, the Dutchmen are within striking distance of the program's D-I wins record. To hit it, however, they'll have to win an ECAC Hockey playoff series, which they have never done. And as much as I like Nate Leaman (not to mention Union SID Hilary Haynes), I have this vision of the Dutchmen finishing fifth in the conference, drawing Dartmouth in the first round, and getting knocked out by a brilliant goaltending performance from Mike Devine (which is certainly possible...just ask UNH).

I do think there are bigger and better things ahead for Leaman, but it'd be nice to see him get that playoff series win he wants so badly. It is getting kind of ridiculous at this point.

On the professional front, I listened to the Melrose Line while I was at the gym last night, and Barry and Joy Russo discused the possiblity of the Rangers trading Jaromir Jagr. Melrose dismissed the possibility that a change of scenery would cure Jagr's ills, commenting that it didn't exactly happen when he came to New York.

Uh...Mullet-man...has it occured to you that Jagr could be like Joe Thornton, a supremely talented player who just plain wasn't cut out to be a captain? The Bruins put the C on him, and wound up having to trade him to San Jose, where he's been just fine, thank you.

Jagr is not a leader. He just isn't. It annoys me to no end that he wears the C for the Rangers, as he is, at best, the fourth-most qualified captain on the team behind Brendan Shanahan, Chris Drury, and Scott Gomez.

I have a theory about captains: you should not be the captain of a hockey team unless you play on the penalty kill. Why? Because the penalty killers are the hardest workers team, and if you're not one of the hardest workers on the team, you are in no position to lead.

Still, the Rangers are my team, and I'm going to see them on Sunday night. I bought tickets through Craig's List this evening while watching the Union-Clarkson game, on account of Tanner Glass (the gentleman on my left in that picture at the top of the screen) playing for the Panthers. I dared him back in November to fight Sean Avery (right before Tanner got sent down to Rochester for a while), and I'm waiting to see if he takes me up on it.

In this evening's NHL action featuring Dartmouth alumni, St. Louis fell to Anaheim, 2-1, in overtime. Stemper assisted on the lone Blues goal, scored by Erik Johnson. Meanwhile, Colorado beat Phoenix, 3-2, in a shootout. David Jones played 8:22 in the win, posting one shot on goal and taking a high-sticking penalty. He also got a turn in a 12-round shootout, but couldn't beat Mikael Tellqvist.

That will do it for the evening. Tomorrow, I head to Old Nassau.