Beyond the Scoresheet

Game of the Year tonight!

The early candidate for regular-season Game of the Year in New Jersey takes place tonight when unbeaten No. 2 Don Bosco Prep (13-0) takes aim at top-ranked four-time defending private state champion Delbarton (8-1) at the Ice Vault.

It’s a little bit unusual to have the state’s top two teams meet only once during the regular season, but with Don Bosco Prep left in the National Division of the Gordon Conference and Delbarton in the American Division, Sunday’s matchup is their lone head-to-head meeting, which makes it even bigger.

We almost got to Sunday with both teams unbeaten, but Delbarton dropped its first game of the year during the week, falling 2-0 to Connecticut prep power Hotchkiss. The Green Wave still have a 32-game unbeaten streak (31-0-1) against New Jersey teams, dating back to the 2010 Gordon Cup semifinals. Going farther back, Delbarton is 64-1-1 against New Jersey teams since losing to CBA in January 2009, with both losses coming in the postseason against St. Augustine Prep. Over the last four-plus seasons, Delbarton’s in-state record is a remarkable 91-4-2. However, despite huge shot advantages in the last two games, the Green Wave were held to two goals against Morristown-Beard and were shut out against Hotchkiss, so they will need to find their scoring touch.

They will have to do so against one of the state’s top goalies, sophomore Jarred Liscio, who has been a big part of Don Bosco’s torrid start. The Ironmen survived two scares of their own this week, rallying late to beat St. Peter’s Prep 3-2 on a last-minute goal and then holding off Bishop Eustace 1-0 despite missing a few players. Despite the gaudy record, St. Peter’s Prep and Bergen Catholic (6-1 W) are the two highest-ranked teams Don Bosco has played this year, so Sunday’s game will be a different challenge altogether.

I’m excited to make the drive up from Philadephia to Wayne for this one, and I hear just about every hockey reporter in the northern part of the state and, more importantly, a ton of college hockey coaches will be cramming into the Ice Vault, so I advise arriving early for the 6:15 p.m. face-off. It is the very definition of a must-see game.

Going abroad, back in a week

After escaping the northeastern travel nightmares last week and finding time to write a report for Hockey Night in Boston that will appear by January 13, I’m skipping town once more.

This time I’m leaving the country for a week’s vacation, not taking my computer, and will return next Sunday, January 9. Please continue to email any and all scores to jty [at] njhockey.org. I cannot get scores or maintain the site without the help of a lot of dedicated fans, parents, and coaches, so I want to thank them once again and ask for your help over the next two weeks.

Safe driving and happy hockey-watching! Talk to you next week.

2009-10 season preview

Welcome in to another season of NJ high school hockey. As always, I’ll be keeping information up-to-date as much as possible at www.njhockey.org and providing my own thoughts and information on this blog as time permits.

To start the season, here’s my preseason top 10 as published in Hockey Night in Boston. Be sure to look for the newspaper at your local rinks.

PRESEASON STATE TOP 10 (last year’s record in parentheses)
1. Delbarton (27-2-1)
2. Bergen Catholic (14-8-1)
3. CBA (22-5-2)
4. Seton Hall Prep (10-10-3)
5. Bishop Eustace (22-6)
6. Don Bosco Prep (10-11-3)
7. Morristown-Beard (22-4-1)
8. St. Augustine Prep (3-19-2)
9. Gloucester Catholic (21-2-1)
10. Ramsey (25-1-2)

SCOUTING REPORT (after the jump)
Continue reading 2009-10 season preview…

09-10 coverage underway

Hey y’all … Things have been and still will be very busy for me at work here in Houston, but I do intend to maintain the information on NJHockey.org this year (I make no promises for the blog) and have started by posting schedules I have seen and the alignment I have detected at the moment on the division-by-division schedule & results document.

Obviously, almost the entire state was affected by realignment. The Gordon will split into National and American conferences. I have not heard how the playoff structure will work, but certainly the American appears to be the ‘A’ league and the National ‘B.’ I don’t know if playoff qualification will reflect that.

Elsewhere, almost all of the teams from Passaic, Hudson, and Bergen counties joined together in the Tri-County Hockey League, split into Passaic and Hudson-Bergen divisions. They made the unfortunate decision to mandate crossover games, which means a whopping NINETEEN league games for those teams, including such mismatches as Fair Lawn and St. Joseph Montvale against Hudson Catholic TWICE. Ouch. I believe there will be two cup tournaments here, not one.

Some of the remaining northern teams (Glen Rock, Paramus Catholic, Tenafly) pulled out of the NJIHL and joined the remnants of the NBIAL in what I’m tentatively calling NBIAL A and NBIAL B - no confirmation on that yet from coaches or administrators. I’ll admit I haven’t had time to reach out to very many yet. Somehow Hackettstown seems to be without a home, so I’m unaware of the situation there. Good to see River Dell back in league play. No idea what the NBIAL will do for a postseason tournament.

The NJIHL is left with some horribly mismatched divisions (Montclair-West Orange, St. Joseph Metuchen-Edison, anybody?) that are a reasonable fit geographically. I guess. And we’ll have two St. Josephs in the same division again! Always exciting.

The Skyland Conference, which I think has ceased to exist in other sports, pulled its teams (except Bernards) into a hockey league, finally pulling Pingry out of the MCSSIHL after more than 20 years. No longer will the Big Blue dream of two county championships in one season. That league ought to be very competitive and have plenty of room for non-conference scheduling.

There were minor adjustments in Morris County (new program Morris Catholic replaces Pingry, four-division set-up) and the CVC (WWPN to the Colonial, Princeton and Robbinsville to the Valley, Hightstown to the Patriot). Union County remained the same.

The Shore appears to have remained the same, which is odd since Howell obviously deserves to move up and there could be as many as three new programs (Colts Neck [now confirmed as staying JV], Jackson Liberty, Ocean Township), although I have not been able to confirm any of those.

Finally, on the independent front, I have no idea of the status (varsity and/or league) for Colonia, East Side, Hackettstown, JFK Memorial [possibly staying JV], Monroe, and Woodbridge [confirmed as varsity, independent]. Maybe they can form their own independent league.

As always, you can keep me posted at jty [at] njhockey.org.

Snow day!

Apparently it snowed a bit up there. I wouldn’t know anything about that, but I have heard that pretty much everything has been postponed.

Mennen Cup semifinals - Saturday, 4:15 (MK-MB) and 9:00 (Pin-Ran). Mennen Cup finals will be Monday at 7 p.m.

Shore Conference finals - Monday at 6:15 (Shore B / Dowd) and 8:30 (Shore A / Handchen)

NBIAL final & third place - Tuesday at 7 (Final) and 9 (Third Place)

There’s also a hot rumor going around that today’s NJIHL games at South Mountain have been moved to Monday.

Thanks to Nancy Hughes, Brian Wilkinson, Roger Jones and others for keeping me in the loop.

Shore seeds

The Shore Conference does things its own way, and I think it worked out pretty well in this case. I have the criteria for seeding in the Shore A and Shore B tournaments … lo and behold, the Shore counted all 17 or 19 league games. Unbelievable. After the number kept getting downgraded all year, from all Shore games to all Shore A or Shore B games to division games only, they ended up using the whole lot.

According to tournament director Brian Wilkinson, the criteria were:

1. Shore Conference record (all games)
2. head to head
3. common opponents (they’re all common opponents, so I’m not sure how this would work)

Shore A
1. St. John Vianney 15-0-2 (32 pts)
2. Red Bank Catholic 14-1-2 (30 pts)
3. Monsignor Donovan 14-2-1 (29 pts)
4. Brick Memorial 10-5-2 (22 pts)
5. Brick Township 10-5-2 (22 pts)
6. Wall 8-7-2 (18 pts)
————————–
7. Middletown North 8-8-1 (17 pts)
8. Toms River East 7-10-1 (15 pts)
9. Toms River North 5-12-0 (10 pts)
10. Middletown South 1-15-1 (3 pts)

Shore B
1. Rumson-Fair Haven 12-5-2 (26 pts)
2. Toms River South 10-8-1 (21 pts)
3. Manasquan 9-8-2 (20 pts)
4. Red Bank Regional 8-8-3 (19 pts)
—————————–
5. Jackson Memorial 7-9-3 (17 pts)
6. Point Pleasant 6-12-1 (13 pts)
7. Southern Regional 4-15-0 (8 pts)
8. St. Rose 0-19-0 (0 pts)

The most interesting note is that Rumson-Fair Haven would have finished third in Shore B North if only division games were counted but won Shore B handily (five points) when using the overall method. It is important to note that the schedule was not balanced - A teams played two games against division opponents, while all crossover games were aligned geographically. The Bricks, therefore, had a slight advantage over Middletown North and Wall by having to face less private schools, and Shore A south teams probably had a slight advantage as well.

The criteria also meant that Wall got in ahead of Middletown North by a single point, while North was one point ahead in the division-only standings. I think the Lions might be pretty peeved by that. Next year, this criteria should be publicized and codified in November, if not earlier, so teams know what they’re dealing with.
Still haven’t heard word on names for the cups.

tragedy

http://www.northjersey.com/news/aroundnj/Wayne_teen_struck_and_killed_crossing_Route_23.html

RIP.