Union's Hatch inked to AHL deal

The Lehigh Valley/Adirondack Phantoms continue to be an ongoing experiment in stocking a roster with a glut of college talent.

Per Ken Schott, the Philadelphia Flyers have signed forward Matt Hatch -- late of the national-champion Union Flying Dutchmen -- to an American Hockey League contract.

Hatch completed his senior season by recording a personal bests of 13 goals and 22 points in 42 contests. One of the players who engineered the program's swift rise to prominence under Rick Bennett, the 24-year-old native of upstate New York completed his college career with 35 goals and 39 assists over 147 appearances.

Hatch's most productive game of the NCAA tournament was a two-goal effort in Union's opener, a 5-2 decision over Hockey East's Vermont.

“I’m really very excited to get going and being a part of a world-class organization," Hatch stated to the Daily Gazette.

As of this moment, the nomadic spectres feature a staggering 14 players on the roster with decent experience at the American Division I level, including, of course, Hatch's former teammate and Flyers' draft choice, defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere. At the end of the past season, each Adirondack's four goaltenders (Yann Danis, Matt Weninger, Carsen Chubak and Tony Capobianco) arrived via the college route.

At 5-foot-11, 185 pounds, Hatch is nothing more than a line filler. He'll need a major leap forward in size, weight and skill set, plus a rash of injuries at Philadelphia, to have a shot at making the big club after a year or two.

Gostisbehere leaves Union, signs entry-level deal with Flyers

You could suppose it was inevitable, that once Shayne Gostisbehere achieved the goal of winning the national championship, there was nothing left for him to accomplish on ice at Union College.

And you'd be wrong. So was I.

"People would think I'm leaving because there's nothing left to prove, but it's not that at all. I sat down with my family after, and it came down to where my development would be to get better and go to the next level and now seemed like the right time," Gostisbehere said at his on-campus press conference.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Philadelphia Flyers announced the signing of the dynamic 20-year-old blueliner to an entry-level contract. He is expected to join the Adirondack Phantoms for the final weekend of the regular season on an ATO.

"It's definitely a dream come true. I always thought I had a chance, and it's definitely an honor, and I'd like to thank my parents and the entire coaching staff for where my game is today," Gostisbehere offered. "(I did it) just to keep my focus with my team and my teammates for my sake and mine. I knew there was going to be a lot of attention there, because the Frozen Four was in Philly, but my main focus was what I could do for Union College Hockey and I think we did a great job with that."

Understatement of the year, right there.  

Gostisbehere capped a memorable junior campaign with a goal, two assists and plus-7 rating as the No. 1 Dutchmen took down #2 Minnesota by a 7-4 count in Saturday's title game in Philadelphia. That effort solidified his selection as tourney MVP.

He accrued career-bests of nine goals, 25 assists and 34 points over 42 games for the small program from Schenectady, NY which stormed through the ECAC regular-season and playoff championships, then beat Providence, Boston College and the Golden Gophers. The native of Florida leaves the Capital District with 22 goals and 82 points over 119 collegiate appearances.

The signing comes less than a day since teammate and outgoing senior team captain Mat Bodie inked an ELC with the rival New York Rangers.

"It was tough; definitely some tears involved," was all Gostisbehere would say when pressed as to how tough the decision to leave had been.

Despite the hype from certain quarters, Gostisbehere, at 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds, needs time in the American Hockey League -- and one weekend just won't cut it.

The young man needs to work on his footing and his lower-body strength, and that's only going to come by going up against competition one level up from D-I. It should be expected that Gostisbehere begins next season in Lehigh Valley but should not be promoted, even through injury problems, until at least the start of the 2015-16 campaign.

Philadelphia went through this with James van Riemsdyk, pulling him into the NHL after a seven-game stint with the Phantoms once he left New Hampshire -- but the stakes were a bit higher then as JVR was the No. 2 overall pick in the 2007 draft, while Gostisbehere was a third-round choice in 2012.

My suspicions from earlier in the season that a selling point with Gostisbehere to move on so quickly was that Glens Falls is only 45 miles from his campus proved to be correct. It was pretty much a fait accompli that the organization would use that as an enticement no matter how far Union advanced in the NCAA tournament.

On Friday night, when the Phantoms welcome the Bridgeport Sound Tigers to the Glens Falls Civic Center, it will bring the curtain down on the club's tenure in the city and raise the curtain on Gostisbehere's professional career.

"It's really cool. All the guys are coming up. It's definitely cool that it's close to home. It's good to get my foot in the door there, meet some people, and have fun."

Check out the full presser below:

Union reigns supreme, and no one player did it alone

It's a no brainer.

The little program that could, then did, Union College, finished atop the final poll for the 2013-14 Division I college hockey season after winning the first national championship in program history on Saturday night.

Having finished the season with a school-record 12 consecutive victories which fueled a 17-game unbeaten string (16-0-1) to end the year, the Dutchmen justified the faith of their supporters, the rhetoric of its writers and those who eventually jumped on the bandwagon to praise, and opened thousands of eyes across the country.

They also backed up the faith that USCHO placed in them, as voters pushed the Schenectady, NY-based school to the top of the rankings after sweeping through the ECAC playoffs and gaining the third-overall #1 seed in the NCAA tournament. There's also no question that Union deserved to be the only school which garnered any first-place votes, considering the scorching it left on their competition down the stretch.

First among equals due to the Frozen Four's location in Philadelphia, Flyers prospect and rising senior Shayne Gostisbehere ended his junior campaign and stoked the fires of those who wish to see him jump to the pros with a one-goal, two-assist, plus-7 tour de force in Saturday's 7-4 triumph over #2 Minnesota -- the program which Union chased for much of the season as the Gophers spent the most time of all the top teams in the #1 spot. Sure, at times the 20-year-old native of Florida seemed a bit too juiced up while dictating play on the ice, but it was a performance that came at the right time, for the right reasons, and in front of the right people.

And so we brace ourselves for the inevitable crush and panic after the young man hinted that he might not be just ready yet to leave the confines of Messa Rink.

Check out highlights and breakdown at the place which brought you the exciting conclusion to the season.

At least in the Delaware Valley, it's almost impossible to relate that "Ghost" was not the prime mover in the Dutchmen's memorable season and playoff course. In the title game alone, seven different players scored and goaltender Colin Stevens, who once threatened to post back-to-back-to-back shutouts towards the end of the regular season, allowed four goals but in channeling Hall of Famer Grant Fuhr, made the saves when his team needed it the most.

Though it was played off as a duel between Gostisbehere and future Hobey Baker winner Johnny Gaudreau, Daniel Ciampini was the star of Thursday's early semifinal, as his first career hat trick proved just enough to deny BC in a 5-4 triumph. He added another marker during the Garnet Menace's late-first-period burst which turned a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead at intermission.

How about some words for head coach Rick Bennett? There was a stormy period at mid-season when the 46-year-old Providence College product came under fire for some unprofessional words and actions as Union and RPI engaged in a bench-clearing brawl on January 25 at the end of the annual Mayor's Cup contest. Bennett, who was shown on video pushing Engineers' counterpart Seth Appert, was hit with a two-game suspension by the school itself, and then given an additional two-game ban from the ECAC.

Since returning to the bench on February 14 against Ithaca, Union did not lose a game, finishing 13-0-1. That's real vindication.

He fashioned a team which finished second in the country in scoring (3.73 GPG entering Saturday's title contest) and fourth in defense (2.10 GAG until the same), while operating on a budget significantly less -- hundreds of thousands per year as opposed to million -- than either Boston College, Minnesota or North Dakota.

Union put up the most goals in one national final since Lake Superior State tacked on a nine-spot in a rout of Boston University in 1994, in a terminal contest which saw the most goals combined since Northern Michigan's 8-7 triple-OT triumph against BU three years earlier. The Dutchmen also bedeviled Adam Wilcox with 49 shots on goal and tied a season-high for goals in any game.

Outgoing senior captain Mat Bodie, also suspended for his role in inciting the fracas, put together the smoothest minus-3 performance many had seen, until his presence on the ice for the final two goals of the game made his supplemental stat line look a little better. He drove home the point of this year's team being the product of, and honoring those which came before:

"It's unbelievable the growth this program has taken over the past probably eight years," Bodie said. "I've only been here for four of them, but those championships for anyone that's ever had a hand in Union hockey because we wouldn't be here without all those players before us. We learned a lot from them, and they broke us into college hockey, and we're forever grateful for that."

Senior forward and leading scorer Daniel Carr notched at least one point in the final 11 games and 15 of the last 16. And then there's freshman defenseman Jeff Taylor, a player nobody talked about for any reason, coming up with an assist and ended up second to Gostisbehere with a plus-4.

The ECAC, left in the dust for most of the last 15 years by the ascension of Hockey East and the steady maginificence of the WCHA, can now claim back-to-back winners for the first time since Boston University did so in 1971-72. With five seniors and the expected departure of Gostisbehere no certainty, it appears Union will avoid to steep drop-off suffered by last year's finalists Yale and Quinnipiac.

I said it in our first online conversations, I relayed it to the man himself in person, but now it's time to say it publicly: Union beating BC was no upset. After two wins in consecutive Frozen Fours, the Dutchmen are in the Eagles' heads and it may be quite some time before that changes.

The dirty lowdown on the Frozen Four

You can call the 2014 Frozen Four in Philadelphia a qualified success. Fans from the Upper Midwest and Northeast flooded the stadium complex for most of the three days surrounding the end of the tournament, and Saturday's final drew 18,472 to the arena placed on the former site of JFK Stadium.

Attendance for all three contests clocked in at 36,503. That's not a promising number for a sport which is now, for better or worse, being wedged into major venues in large NHL markets.  That two-day total marks the lowest combined total paying customers since the 2000 Frozen Four was contested in the much-smaller and pre-extensively renovated Providence Civic Center (34,452).

It's also two consecutive years that the championship was not sold out, though it was close. Kudos to the Gophers and Fighting Sioux fans who streamed into Thursday's late semifinal and gave the Wells Fargo Center seats the look of a December Flyers-Rangers contest, because the Union-BC semi looked like an early-season Flyers-Hurricanes tilt.

Though it's an easy swipe to target a game beginning at the thick of rush hour in a major Northeastern U.S. city as being a hindrance to the situation, there's just not enough combined interest from the two smaller schools plus other unaffiliated college hockey fans both locally and from other parts of the country to push attendance to respectable levels.

It's also important to note that Philadelphia does not have much of a past history with Division I hockey and the nearest program in-state (Penn State) is 3 1/2 hours away, while the closest one geographically sits in South Central New Jersey (Princeton). Philly is also not a warm-weather destination city this time of year.

Would it make sense for the Frozen Four to return here? Sure, but maybe not for another 10-12 years, until PSU gains a larger foothold in the Big Ten and if, somehow, a willing benefactor or prescient administration steps up and turns one of the city's six major universities onto the idea of sporting (or in the case of Penn, resurrecting) a D-I team.

Personal Reflections

Though it required more bulldogging than anything I've had to do in my professional career in quite some time, it was a true pleasure to return to Frozen Four coverage.

A gap of 14 years is way too long, and if it was going to happen again, it would be here in my hometown. I'd like to thank Mark Bedics, NCAA media relations liaison, for seeing the intent in my demeanor and seriousness in my eyes when I tracked him down Thursday afternoon and insisted I snag a credential even after the process had been curtailed. It wasn't just a line, but a mantra: I'm not here to cause trouble, I'm here to cover college hockey.

Nothing was going to deter me from sharing in the coverage and celebration of a sport where I probably should be making my bones, and even taking up as little space as possible along one wall of what is usually the press commissary for Flyers games was damn good enough. With apologies to all the first-timers and my young writers, I'm well aware of what the ice looks like from the upper press level. No Instagram needed, thank you.

Back in 2000, it was a perfect opening to what I hoped would be a long career covering the game of hockey, when I was able to leverage my standing as a senior at Boston College into a prominent role on its student-led radio station and then a slot as alternating play-by-play and color man for the Eagles' semifinal win over St. Lawrence and finals loss to North Dakota. The sting of seeing a dream dashed back then was replaced in the present with a sense of calmness and belonging.

The pain of seeing former classmates and soon-to-be-professionals fall just short of their goal was supplanted by the mild disappointment that my alma mater couldn't at least do me the honor of making it past the semifinals. But that's OK, because in 2014, I'm still living off the four NCAA titles that occurred in the interim. And, to my chagrin, BC alums and fans can't escape that maxim of not being able to have it all: either Johnny Gaudreau was going to win the Hobey Baker or BC was going to win it all. We'd take the second one in a heartbeat.

It is difficult to envision a career path that doesn't progress on some kind of ladder. You start small and build up, and eventually the NHL is the goal for the lucky few who stick with the vagaries of the business.

That's not how my career has gone, and in the college hockey world, the ladder either doesn't exist or covering things like the Frozen Four is the last stop and the ultimate recognition that you're worthy. If I had taken things on a literal path, college hockey is a step down after being credentialed in the NHL for the last nine years. But when adjusted to encompass the entirely of the game of hockey in all of its environs, I've been pretty lucky to keep my eyes open and the fires stoked.

If not for the protracted lockout last season, I never would have been able to attend four different levels of the sport: D-I college, ECHL, AHL and NHL, within a few months. This year, as I step away from supplemental game coverage as a way to get my name out there, bracketing my career with a second stop at the Frozen Four is better than I could have hoped for.

Next year and in the ones that follow, I look forward to relaxing, to talking up each of the seven conferences and the players featured within, forsaking the pressure of having to prove anything in the realm of social media when it's been apparent for a decade and a half in the real world.

Unless someone decides to pay me a dump-truck full of money to relocate and continue writing for a living. Then, it's on like Donkey Kong. 

No. 1 stunner: Union advances to national final by taking out Boston College

Philadelphia, PA -- Shayne Gostisbehere gave legions of expectant Flyers fans what they've been told they wanted for the last two seasons.

Hyped as an answer to what ails the Philly blueline, Gostisbehere assisted twice, including the primary helper on the eventual game-winning goal from Daniel Ciampini as the Union Dutchmen continued their sweet ride into the NCAA championship with a 5-4 victory over the Boston College Eagles in the Thursday's early semifinal.

"It means a lot to do it here, but my focus is on my team right now," Gostisbehere, a senior not expected to spend his senior year in Schenectady, teased. "I was just happy I could contribute tonight and it shows just how our team works hard.

Ciampini added a late empty-net goal to complete his first career hat trick, Mat Bodie and Mike Vecchione also tallied and Colin Stevens stopped 34 shots including a last-ditch effort by Johnny Gaudreau.

"You had to respect the line (of Gaudreau, Hayes and Arnold). But at the same time, we had to push the pace. That's one thing we kept talking about, we had to keep going especially in the third period," Ciampini said of his top line's ability to control play in the later stages. 

The champions of the ECAC, Union (31-6-4) improved to 15-0-1 in the last 16 and will take on Minnesota, which topped North Dakota with less than a second remaining, in Saturday's final. It was a stunning turnaround from two years ago, when jitters late cost them a shot against eventual runner-up Ferris State.

"The biggest thing is the mindset. When I came here for my freshman year, there were goals set, but was thinking about a national championship. That bothered some guys," said Dutchmen captain Bodie.We took one step (two years ago). But we've won the ECAC the last couple years. It's just been growing each year.And here we are."

Gaudreau ended a stellar junior campaign with a goal and two assists, having scored at least one point in 34 of his last 35 games. Steve Santini, Ryan Fitzgerald and Patrick Brown also lit the lamp, but BC was eliminated from the tournament for the second consecutive season by the plucky program from upstate New York.

Thatcher Demko allowed four goals on 36 shots in defeat as Boston College finished the year with a 28-8-4 record. 

"I love how our team competed, how they battled, right down to the end in the final seconds of the hockey game. This particular senior class did a tremendous job for us, but my hat's off to Union," said BC head coach Jerry York, who will have to wait another year for a crack at a sixth national title. "They made some plays tonight. We had a chance to get things back going our way with the five-minute power play but didn't."

Union once again moved up by a goal, this time on the advantage, as a rocket shot from the right point by Gostisbehere was tipped in front by Ciampini just after the 6 1/2 minute mark of the third period.

Minutes later, Union's Matt Hatch was given a major and game misconduct for hitting Eagles forward Michael Sit from behind with 13:11 left in regulation, but the Dutchmen confounded a skitterish Eagles power play and successfully killed off the five-minute man disadvantage.

"When that happened, we were all talking on the bench about having to bear down. It was unfortunate. We didn't want him (Hatch) to go out that way," Bodie admitted. "We really didn't give them much, and we kept on working."

That work ethic threw the top-rated offense in the land into a tizzy, where it seemed they couldn't complete a pass or get shots through from distance.

"We knew what we had to do on the power play, but we still weren't able to get any shots through. We were out of sync there, everybody trying to do too much. I was at net-front and I couldn't tell where the puck was they had so many guys blocking the way," Arnold admitted.

It was all but over with 8:06 left in the contest. Kevin Sullivan stripped Santini in the BC zone and rolled in alone, and though Demko came up with the initial save on a backhander, Vecchione was the trailer and slammed the rebound into an open case for a 4-2 score.

Demko was called to the bench for an extra skater with 2:32 showing, and Fitzgerald managed to slip a shot home from the right post with 1:45 to go. Union then managed to negate an icing call when Ciampini was the lone player chasing the puck down the ice. He completed the trifecta on a shot into the empty net with 1:09 showing, and a brief review confirmed that the puck was not played with a high stick and that icing was not warranted. 

Brown surprised many by beating Stevens to the right pipe on a long wrister inside of five seconds to play, but it wasn't enough for the Hockey East regular-season champs to keep going.

"It's a memory I'll have forever..." said South Jersey native Gaudreau, trailing off and still visibly shaken, to have the dreams of a second national title dashed with two days to go. A potential Hobey Baker Award selection on Friday might quell his sorrow a bit.

BC made its presence known only 2:08 in, as its top line shredded the Union defense. Kevin Hayes appeared to be hemmed in near the blue line along the right-wing boards, but chipped ahead to Bill Arnold, who was 2-on-1 with Gaudreau. The initial shot was stopped, but Gaudreau followed up with his 36th goal of the season.


The Eagles also hit a crossbar and a post, but maintained that one-goal edge to intermission along with the better of the play despite an 11-9 shot deficit.

"I told them if they kept playing like that, they'd be walking home," quipped Union head coach Rick Bennett.

Bodie evened the game with 2:39 gone in the second period, and the Dutchmen endured several shifts of attacking pressure from BC, including a pair of failed odd-man breaks involving Gaudreau, before taking the lead.

From a right-circle faceoff win, Gostisbehere lofted a high wrister from the point which Demko mysteriously decided to try and snag out of mid-air. The puck instead laid flat at the left side of the crease for Ciampini, who made no mistake at 10:45.

Santini evened the score with 4:17 remaining in the second. A turnover inside the neutral zone by Sam Coatta wound up on the stick of Chris Calnan, who found the Devils' second-round pick for a laser-like wrister.

"The mindset we have is coming at it one shift at a time. They scored first, but that's hockey. We've done a great job of coming back and scoring once our team gives up a goal. We felt that if we got one, then we could get a few more," Ciampini said.

Notes: Ciampini's hat trick was the first in the Frozen Four semifinals since Nathan Gerbe of Boston College tallied three times in a 6-1 victory over North Dakota on April 10, 2008 ... Bodie finished a game-high plus-3, but Gostisbehere clocked in at minus-2 ... Stevens who allowed four goals in one game for the first time since February 15 at Colgate and for just the fourth time all season, was locked out of the five finalists for the inaugural Mike Richter Award, to be presented Friday to the nation's top goaltender ... Union's victory ensures that the ECAC can come away with back-to-back national crowns since Boston University did so in 1971 and '72 ... Gaudreau ended up with four goals and eight assists in three NCAA playoff tilts, while his 80 points were the most for a BC junior since David Emma had a school-record 81 in 1990-91.