Atlantic Hockey

Welcome back to the Atlantic Hockey America Show.

I'm your host, Mike Pusangerra.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

It, it's going about your business every single day to a standard that our leadership group has done a good job of, of setting and, uh, trying to be the best version of ourselves every day.

And if we do that, we'll put ourselves in position, um, to get to where we wanna get to as a group.

But there's no question this league is hard, Atlantic Hockey.

Every game is, is tough.

You can't be average in this league and expect to win.

I have them 21 and Us- Augustana 22, so I guess I have them higher up than I thought.

But, uh, I do think that the way I have my formula set up right now, it's, it's punishing Atlantic Hockey teams and CCHA teams and, and some of the mid- to low-tier ECAC teams a little too much.

Uh, you look at last year, like Bentley was the top team in the AHA, and I don't have the top team in the AHA this year being anywhere close to where Bentley was in the NPI last year.

So I, I think there's some adjustments there that I have to make within the formula.

Um, so I, I probably could use, um, I probably could maybe boost them a little bit more.

I, I gotta look at that and figure out if there's a better way to account for strength of schedule and not, not punish the top teams in...

I, I mean, look, the CCHA and Atlantic Hockey have kind of the last couple years been the two worst leagues in non-conference play.

That's why they're getting dinged a little bit more.

We'll bump everyone up this week.

So we'll start with Big Ten and we'll finish with Atlantic Hockey.

Just a small format change.

So Big Ten, Wisconsin opened with a sweep of Robert Morris.

He has been around.

Congratulations to head coach John Hogan and the folks at Maryville on Division I victory number one.

Let's finish up in Atlantic Hockey.

RIT and Niagara played a conference series already.

It's one bad to show.

Well, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's only fair to, to put some of that weight on the CCHA since there are some people out there who think that every program that starts in the lower 48 should automatically become part of Atlantic Hockey.

But we'll leave it right there.

[laughs] It's, uh, as, uh, we're about out of time for this episode.

This is gonna be a, once again, all these leagues, there's always a battle, and this is one of those leagues.

The Atlantic Hockey, ECAC, CCHA, the, it's always so tight and the parity's so, so right there, and I think you're gonna continue to see that here.

But Dartmouth for me is, it's just got a lot of weapons.

You make a good point about RPI.

They've gots, they got some players.

And now it's, uh, it'll be time to see where this kind of takes us this year.

We're gonna take a break, and when we return, we'll look at Hockey East and Atlantic Hockey, plus our picks for the Frozen Four in Washington, DC on USCHO Opening Faceoff.

[upbeat music]

Welcome back to the Atlantic Hockey America Show.

My name is Mike Puzingera.

The new men's hockey season is finally here.

It- this is gonna be another great season of hockey and, you know, we're, we're getting to that time of the year, and it's so exciting when you get in this, you know, start to the season, right? Everyone's got all these expectations for their group.

Every coach says it.

It's a very exciting time of year, but, you know, what are you most looking forward to i- in this upcoming season for Atlantic Hockey America?

Yeah.

Um, I think it- it's funny.

So, but we do want to give you an overview of what to expect in the conferences this year.

We'll start alphabetically as we always do in Atlantic hockey.

We're Sacred Heart.

Despite graduating, their top four scorers were number one in that league's coaches poll.

They also returned goaltender Ajit Gundara, who was named the preseason player of the year.

Sacred Heart, Number one in the Atlantic hockey coaches poll.

Yeah, some big time transfers Sacred Heart picked up this offseason, and I think that's they're going to play a huge role.

My, my rankings, uh, I've got Bentley there.