Next Saturday will mark the end of the college hockey season as the Frozen Four in Columbus, Ohio will conclude with the national title game pitting the winners of Thursday’s semi-final games.
For one of those four teams (Denver, Colorado College, Minnesota and North Dakota) it’ll mark the end to a successful championship season, but for teams like BG it’ll mark the start to another. A time where all 58 teams are undefeated again and full of hopes to be one of those four teams to compete for the ultimate prize a year from now.
Could one of the teams be BG?
Well after having a successful 16-16-4 season which saw them finish fifth in the league standings it could be a possibility. But the league is always tough with top teams like Michigan continuing to bring in the top players while only graduating a handful along with teams like Ohio State and Nebraska-Omaha who are loaded with developing talent.
However, BG did have its best season in over a decade posting a CCHA record of 13-12-3 and hosting a first-round playoff series for the first time in 10 seasons.
However, their season ended abruptly three weeks ago when the Nanooks of Alaska-Fairbanks pulled off a surprising first round sweep with a pair of 6-3 wins. That sweep gave BG their fifth straight loss to end the season after a loss at Michigan State and dropping two in a home-and-home against Michigan.
“I don’t like the fact that we ended the year with those five straight losses,” head coach Scott Paluch said of the season following the series. “Those were tough teams to play and you want to have success in those games.”
“A lot of positive progress was made though and what we did over the course of the regular season was a big step forward,” he added. “We had a lot of guys pick up their games from a year ago and just took another notch forward in our overall work ethic — it’s a staple that has really become big for us.”
That team work ethic was talked about throughout the season as most coaches who played against the Falcons called them one of the hardest working teams. “Bowling Green is the hardest working team we’ve seen all year,” UAF head coach Tavis MacMillan said after his team lost to BG 6-1 on Jan. 8. “I couldn’t tell who was who out there, they all look like a bunch of little robots flying around the ice. They got four quality lines that just come after you.”
BG will return all but six players next season off a team that was loaded top to bottom with strong youth. Nine of the top 10 scorers will return including the team’s leading scorer freshman Jonathan Matsumoto (18 goals).
He led a freshman class that included Alex Foster, Michael Hodgson and Derek Whitmore, whom were among the team’s leading scorers.
“The freshmen were a huge reason we did so well,” senior tri-captain Jordan Sigalet said. “When you bring in a bunch of freshmen you never know if they’re going to step in right away and play and they made an impact right away.”
Those freshmen stepped in right away and contributed points as BG started the year with a road sweep of Union. A team the Falcons had taken only one point from last season.
They gave BG more scoring as the Falcons averaged 3.2 goals a game this season and were 20 percent on power-play.
“Last year we were winning games by a goal every time we’d win games,” Sigalet said. “Now this year we were scoring five or six goals in a few different games and it just gave the whole team more confidence that we could score goals.”
Sigalet will be the biggest loss for the Falcons as he had a 2.89 goals against average and .915 save percentage playing in 32 games of the 36 games. He finished his career as the school’s all-time save percentage leader and ranks second for goals against average.
His backup Jon Horrell should be the main goalie and was strong in the few appearances he made on the season. His goal-against-average was 4.49 with a .870 save percentage, but two of his appearances were games against Michigan, who finished the year as the league’s top scoring team.
His top appearance came in the team’s 5-5 tie at Ferris when he came in and shut-down the Bulldogs in third while the Falcons came back from a three goal deficit. Horrell will be joined by highly-touted recruit Jimmy Spratt, who is also expected to see plenty of playing time as he’s one of the nation’s top goalie recruits.
“Jon Horrell proved this year that he can play,” Sigalet said. “He’s a great goalie and then they’ll bring in Jimmy Spratt, who I’ve heard great things about. It should be exciting for them and I think they’ll do some good things.”
Along with Spratt, the Falcons will welcome in forwards Todd McIlrath, Brandon Svendsen and James Perkin. Then add defensemen Kevin Schmidt and Russ Sinkewich to round out another great recruiting class, which should rank high on the final lists once again.
They hope this will be enough to help them reach that goal of a CCHA championship and get them to Joe Louis Arena. Their season will begin in October with their annual Falcon Face-off and will include a home game with national power Boston College as part of their early non-league schedule.
