Tag: Ohio State Hockey

Only one former Ohio State hockey player has ever won a Stanley Cup

Surprisingly, only one former Ohio State hockey player has ever hoisted the Stanley Cup. Let us introduce you.

It might be the best trophy in all of sports, the Stanley Cup. The trophy was commissioned in 1892 and is a shining masterpiece of all trophies. Win an NHL championship, and every player from the team gets his name engraved on the cup and even gets to spend time with the cup however each desires.

Not everyone is a hockey fan of course, especially in the football-crazed state of Ohio, but with an NHL team now calling Columbus home, there has been a lot of cross-over between Buckeye football fans and Blue Jackets’ fans. That has lent itself to following OSU hockey a little more as well.

However, for all the success the Buckeye hockey program has had as of late including a Frozen Four appearance in 2018, the other major contact sport has not seen as much success as what we have see on the gridiron.

And with the Stanley Cup Finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadians now getting ready to take center stage next week, we’re here to give you a little history lesson on the one and only former Ohio State player to ever win a Stanley Cup.

For those of you who are die-hard fans, you will know the name Jamie Macoun. For others, let us introduce you to the Candian native.

Macoun played for Ohio State from 1980 to 1983 and eventually dropped out of school after missing a class and being ruled ineligible to play in the NCAA, instead signing a contract with the Calgary Flames. He was an all-rookie defenseman for the 1983-84 season, He played a few years and even had to rehab through a career-threatening car accident before he won his first Stanley Cup with the Flames in the 1988-1989 season.

Macoun spent six years in Toronto when he was traded there in a blockbuster deal in 1992, then was traded to Detroit late in 1998 where he helped the Red Wings to a Stanley Cup with some depth on defense. And that, Buckeye friends, would be the only two Stanley Cups a former Ohio State hockey player has lifted above his head. Ever.

There are no former Buckeyes on either Tampa Bay or Montreal so that trend will continue. But, at least the head coach of the Lightning is named Jon Cooper, so there’s your rooting interest. Michigan is not involved in the contest, so karma should not be a thing to be concerned about if you are a Lighting fan.

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Twelve total members of Ohio State men’s and women’s hockey teams named AHCA All-American Scholars

Twelve members of the Ohio State men’s and women’s hockey teams have been named AHCA All-American Scholars.

We are all about the academic news over the last couple of days — and frankly — I’m not sure Ohio State gets enough credit for the focus and emphasis it puts on student-athletes performing in the classroom.

Tuesday, the university announced that eight women and four men from the Buckeye hockey program were honored as Krampade American Hockey Coaches Association All-American Scholars.

To qualify this year, student-athletes must have attained at least a 3.75 grade-point average for fall semester and participated in 40 percent of their school’s games, with a waiver granted to the 40 percent participation requirement because of injury or for back-up goaltenders according to the release.

Form the women, Senior Jincy Dunne (sports coaching master’s) and sophomore Sara Saekkinen (sport industry) are now two-time selections, while senior Maddie Babnik (finance), juniors Lisa Bruno (sport industry) and Tatum Skaggs (special education) and sophomores Madison Bizal(sport industry), Andrea Braendli (criminology and criminal justice/psychology) and Gabby Rosenthal (speech and hearing science) all earned a spot on the list for the first time. All but Babnik earned B1G Distinguished Scholar and Academic All-Big Ten accolades and all eight were Ohio State Scholar-Athletes.

And for the men, Junior Austin Pooley (finance) earned the honor for the second time, joined by sophomore Quinn Preston (health sciences) and freshmen CJ Regula (management and industry exploration) and Ryan Snowden(management and industry exploration). Pooley and Preston were also Big Ten Distinguished Scholars and on the Academic All-Big Ten team this year, while all four earned Ohio State Scholar-Athlete honors. The four selections led all Big Ten programs.

Congrats to all twelve of these student-athletes for their outstanding work in the classroom.

 

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Ohio State men’s hockey drops final game of season series to Penn State

The Ohio State men’s hockey team dropped a key matchup against Big Ten leading Penn State on Saturday.

The Ohio State men’s hockey team lost a key battle against Penn State Saturday night. It’s in the middle of a key stretch of games that will determine who wins the Big Ten, and possibly which league teams get an invite to the NCAA Tournament.

Friday night was a good beginning to that stretch with a tie, and extra Big Ten point via a shootout win, but there was a step back Saturday night in a tough 6-3 loss in the last regular-season game of the series with the Nittany Lions.

Penn State started the scoring first with a power-play goal with 12:37 left in the 1st period. It took that 1-0 lead to the first break. The Nittany Lions would separate in the 2nd period with three goals to just one Ohio State power-play goal by Carson Meyer. The score after two periods had the Buckeyes in a 4-1 hole it simply could not climb out of.

OSU did try to reel things back in with two unanswered tallies in the 3rd period on goals by Ronnie Hein and Ryan O’Connell to cut the deficit to 4-3, but Penn State would get two empty-netters to provide the final scores of the game.

With the loss, the Buckeyes drop into a tie for second place in the Big Ten with a 9-8-3 Big Ten record. Penn State takes over sole possession of first place in the league with the win.

After being off for a week, OSU has another key two-game series against Michigan State the following weekend, the team it is tied with in the conference.

Ohio State men’s hockey drops second game of series against Minnesota, gets swept

The Ohio State men’s hockey team got swept in Minneapolis by dropping the second game of the series against Minnesota Saturday night.

This weekend is nothing close to what the Ohio State men’s hockey team had in mind. It left for the Twin Cities in first place in the Big Ten, but lost two games in convincing fashion and now sit in 3rd place behind Penn State and Michigan State who both battled to overtime Saturday night.

The contest tonight was an ugly one and it got started early. After a bad turnover in its own zone, Ohio State gave up a quick goal just five minutes in to go down 1-0. It stayed that way through twenty minutes of play, but then the Gophers scored two more goals in the second period, heavily outshooting the Buckeyes to take a 3-0 lead into the second break.

With the way this one was going, a three-goal lead seemed insurmountable. OSU got one back though when Caron Meyer scored on the Power Play to cut the lead to 3-1. But that would be it. The Gophers added one more on a power play for good measure, and the final score read 4-1.

Minnesota had a decided advantage in shots early on, but Ohio State tried to push back with a little momentum. Still, the Gophers had ten more shots on goal (33-23) and made good on scoring chances.

With the loss, Ohio State falls to 15-8-3 overall, and 8-6-2 in the conference. It’s a hard road from here on out with the next series’ against Michigan on the road, Penn State at home, and Michigan State away. Yeah, that’s a cruel schedule, but it does allow for a great opportunity to do damage head-on with teams above it.

 

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Ohio State men’s hockey drops second game of weekend to Wisconsin

The Ohio State men’s hockey team lost the second game of a two-game weekend series to split with Wisconsin.

The Ohio State men’s hockey team has been on a roll as of late, going 8-1-1 in its last ten games coming into Sunday night against Wisconsin. It also took the first contest against the Badgers on Friday night and were hoping for the weekend sweep Saturday.

It was not meant to be.

It started off good enough. The Badgers scored first just after a power play at 13:28 of the first before Ohio State answered back. Ronnie Hein scored a power-play goal with 2:22 left in the period to knot it up at one apiece headed to the first break.

But Wisconsin turned up the heat in the second period, scoring four goals to just one by the Buckeyes to lead 5-2 after two periods of play. The badgers got four-straight goals at 17:01, 15:37, 5:19, and 3:30 of the period — the last of which on the power-play. Sam McCormick scored his first goal of the year to provide Ohio State with its only goal of the period, but the damage was done.

The third period got a little chippy and both teams had some scoring chances, but the score held with no goals and the Buckeyes fell by way of the same 5-2 score.

With the loss, Ohio State drops to 14-6-2 overall, and 7-4-1-0 in the Big Ten. The Bucks are next in action with a two-game set against Notre Dame at home next weekend.

Ohio Sate goaltender Tommy Napier named HCA National Goaltender of the Month

Ohio State men’s hockey goaltender Tommy Napier has been named the HCA National Goaltender of the Month for December.

Ohio State men’s hockey goaltender Tommy Napier has been named National Goaltender of the Month for December for the Hockey Commissioner’s Association. The news was made available via a release from the university Thursday.

Napier went 4-0-1 during the month and enjoyed a goals-against-average of .97 and save percentage of .970. For the entire year, the OSU netminder has a 1.86 goals-against average and .933 save percentage. He has a record of 11-5-2 in a total of 19 games the Buckeyes have played this season.

It’s not just this year either that Napier has been a wall in the net. He has a career goals-against average of 1.80 and a career save percentage of .936. He is the reigning Big Ten goalie of the year.

Ohio State is next in action this weekend with two games on the road against Wisconsin. The Buckeyes are currently tied with Michigan State in the Big Ten, just behind Penn State.

Ohio State men’s hockey downs Army in OT

The Ohio State men’s hockey team continued its winning ways by taking down Army in an overtime thriller in Vegas.

While some football and basketball shenanigans have been going on, very quietly the Ohio State men’s hockey team has been putting together a pretty good season. The team was 12-5-2 heading into a contest vs. Army in the Fortress Invitational in Las Vegas Saturday night, and hold a national No. 6/7 ranking.

So yeah, there’s more than football and basketball going on folks and it might be time to take notice.

The Buckeyes kept it going again last night in a thriller too. They fell behind early to Army in the first period, but then evened things up when Tanner Laczynski lit the lamp on a shorthanded goal in the second period. From there, it was a defensive struggle that went to overtime.

From there, just 1:17 in, senior Carson Meyer got one past the Black Knights goalie to win in dramatic fashion.

The win improves the Buckeyes’ record to 13-5-2. They are next in action against Wisconsin on the road Friday at 9:00 PM.

Ohio State currently has four of its athletic teams in the top 10 rankings nationally

Ohio State has a large and highly successful athletic department. It’s flexing its muscle with four teams currently ranked in the top ten.

It’s good to be great at one sport, especially when that sport brings in revenue to support some of the other non-traditional money generating ones. It’s even better to have an athletic program that can compete at a high level across multiple sports.

And that’s just what we’ve seen from Ohio State over the years. It is historically good in football and basketball, but it’s one of the best all-around athletic departments out there for its ability to be a national player in multiple sports.

That takes us to today. As it stands right now, the Buckeyes are a top ten squad in four different sports. You of course know about football where they are currently ranked as the College Football Playoff Committee’s No. 2 team.. You also likely know that the men’s basketball team has just entered the top ten in both the Associated Press and USA TODAY Polls.

However, that’s not all. The wrestling team checks in at No. 6, and the women’s hockey team is off to a great start and currently ranked No. 7. See the graphic below shared by the official Twitter feed of the Ohio State Buckeyes and feel free to beat your chest a little and rub it in to other programs not so fortunate.

Wouldn’t it be great if this trend continued and Ohio State ends up competing for some pretty special things nationally in all four?

Hockey Sweeps No. 8 Ohio State/Earn Big Ten’s Third-Star of Week

For the second week in a row the Irish found a player earning the Big Ten’s Third Star of the Week as senior net-minder Cale Morris did so.  Morris earned two wins over the weekend, bringing his career total to 50, the fifth most in Notre Dame hockey history.

Notre Dame hockey improved to 7-0-1 over the weekend after sweeping previously No. 8 Ohio State as  Jake Pivonka and Cam Burke scored third period goals on Saturday to complete the sweep.

As a result the Irish moved to No. 3 in the USA Hockey/USA Today poll this week, trailing just No. 1 Denver and No. 2 Minnesota State in the rankings.

The Irish now sit alone atop the Big Ten standings with 10 conference points on the year.  Penn State (9) and Minnesota (7) sit directly behind.

For the second week in a row the Irish found a player earning the Big Ten’s Third Star of the Week as senior net-minder Cale Morris did so.  Morris earned two wins over the weekend, bringing his career total to 50, the fifth most in Notre Dame hockey history.

Jordan Pearce (2005-09) leads the way all-time with 59.

The award is the twelfth time Morris has been named one of the Big Ten’s Three Stars of the Week as he’s been named top-star six times, and second and third-star both three times now.

Senior forward Patrick Khodorenko of Michigan State top away this week’s first-star honors while freshman forward Alex Turcotte of Wisconsin took home the second-star.

Morris and the Irish will travel to Madison to take on Turcotte and the Badgers for a two-game series this weekend.   Both games starting at 8 pm ET on Saturday and Sunday with the Badgers still looking for their first conference win.