The mirthful mysteries of Dartmouth Hockey Twitter

 

 

It was Selection Sunday for men’s hockey; hardly a holiday in Hanover for 38 years and counting.

The local Division I program had seen the curtain drop on a 16-17-2 run through the 2017-18 regular season and ECAC tournament one week prior. That meant an automatic disqualification from the NCAA bracket, which Dartmouth last reached in 1980.

Yet when the faithful fans of realistic regional hopefuls took to social media, the Dartmouth Hockey Twitter account joined. Its associated program’s fate, unlike every other prominent partygoer’s, was certain from the start. Nonetheless, its expressed attitude evoked memories of the black knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

With each regional that failed to find a slot for the Big Green, its knight had a limb lopped off. By 12:13 p.m. (9:13 a.m. Twitter Time), the unwaveringly determined warrior was reduced to an immobile stump.

That was when @Dartmouth_MIH tweeted, “When do they announce the wild card team that the judges bring back like they do on @AGT?” The account followed that with a hopeful reference to the nonexistent hockey NIT.

So at least they were polite enough not to publicly threaten to bite anyone’s legs off. Meanwhile, the man behind the handle was privately communicating good-natured Frozen Four dreams to his College Hockey, Inc. counterpart.

The man in question is the program’s sports information contact, Pat Salvas, who agreed to doff the Dartmouth Hockey Twitter mask and reveal his secret identity to Pucks and Recreation.

“It started as a joke,” Salvas told Pucks and Rec.” “I texted Nate Ewell right after the conference tournaments were over and said something to the effect of ‘So when are we announcing that I’m taking over the College Hockey, Inc. Twitter for the Frozen Four?’

“From there, we went back and forth and talked about the tone and the expectations of how I would run it if they agreed to it. It was really finalized when we were both in St. Paul for the games. I met up with him in one of the media workrooms, we talked about some minor details, I showed him some of my ideas and whatnot, and we were good to go.”

For three-and-a-half glorious hours, from 4:15 p.m. to 7:54 p.m. Central, Salvas went national. Under the @collegehockey handle, he brought the inimitable @Dartmouth_MIH flavor to the first Frozen Four semifinal.

How inimitable? Upon posting NHL ’94-inspired graphics and early-elementary artwork of the starting lineups under the @collegehockey name, Salvas drew accusations of plagiarism. The Dartmouth defenders, though, were quick to catch their error upon reading the takeover announcement they had previously missed.

Prior knowledge was crucial for those following the 49 tweets on Minnesota-Duluth’s 2-1 squeaker past Ohio State. After all, four of the messages alluded to UMD’s triumph at the Ledyard Bank Classic this past winter.

In case anyone still doesn’t get that reference, the Ledyard Bank Classic has been Dartmouth’s on-campus holiday tournament for the majority of the last 40 seasons. With the win on April 5, UMD became the first program to win the Classic and reach an NCAA final in the same season. The Bulldogs would upgrade that milestone by topping Notre Dame in the championship two nights later.

When his shift was over, the Big Green ventriloquist thanked Ewell’s brand “for putting your reputation on the line!” It is the same privilege Salvas has savored and mastered in the name of a storied Ivy League ice program. Although he also credits the Los Angeles Kings for a timely coincidence of social-media daring and on-ice success.

Dartmouth Hockey Twitter debuted in the summer of 2011, almost five-and-a-half years after the network launched. By Salvas’ recollection, the @Dartmouth_MIH handle hovered around 600 followers during its rookie season.

The niche group implicitly came for information, but got an innocuous helping of hard-to-find entertainment on the side.

“It’s just my personality,” Salvas said. “I’m serious when I need to be. But other than that, I’m a 33-year old man who watches The Simpsons nightly.

“Funny resonates more with people than serious, direct and bland. I just saw at the beginning of ‘sports Twitter’ that everyone was so boring. Just giving the information as upfront as possible. I wanted to add a little life and color.

“I had a professor in college, the great Bill Schweizer, who told me that sports were the toy department of life. I don’t think anything from college resonated with me more than that. That’s the phrase I always come back to when I’m working. Whether it’s in my office or tweeting from Appleton Arena at St. Lawrence with a six-hour bus ride in a snowstorm back to Hanover ahead of me later...I’m having fun.”

The Big Green’s 2011-12 season ended in an ECAC quarterfinal defeat, just as it did this past year. But a month later, the first chapter L.A.’s Cinderella story in the NHL playoffs infused more credence to the snarky side of the sports Twitterverse.

Many puck pen-pushers took note of the Kings’ account’s message to every Canadian province east of British Columbia. Upon watching its represented squadron snuff the top-seeded Canucks in the first round, it told the anti-Vancouver throngs, “You’re welcome.”

Per Salvas, “the account started getting noticed for the tone” after that.

Almost exactly six years to the day, @Dartmouth_MIH boasts 7,388 followers. That was the count as of this past Wednesday afternoon, up by at least 44 from the week prior.

Yes, a full month into spring (such as it is), Salvas is still snowballing his organization’s attention. It comes largely from loosening up and voicing an acknowledgment that there is more to life than hockey.

The team’s Twitter bio proudly proclaims that “Our top-two tweets are about dogs and not hockey.” Its current pinned tweet testifies to that effect. On other days that would otherwise be lamented as “slow news days,” the account may strike up a Simpsons thread.

And of course, there are periodic, opportunistic references to Joe Sakic.

Wait, Joe Sakic? The same Joe Sakic who grew up in British Columbia and squandered his NCAA eligibility by joining the major-junior Western League at age 16? Whose teenage and twentysomething offspring could theoretically, but will not likely pursue U.S. college hockey?

Salvas can explain. Born in the mid-’80s, he rooted for the Quebec Nordiques early in his upbringing. He maintained his allegiance to the personnel even after they moved and morphed into the Colorado Avalanche in 1995.

Since assuming his post at Dartmouth, he has combined his appreciation for the two-time Stanley Cup-winning captain with an homage to Talladega Nights.

“The scene in Ricky Bobby where he leaves tickets for his dad every race, only to see his dad sell them, always made me laugh,” said Salvas. “This year, I started making (Sakic) a name placard for the press box and putting it next to my seat with a different fact or note each game and then tweeting it out and tagging the @Avalanche.”

Hardly one to go unduly offside, Salvas later contemplated lobbying to extend Sakic’s invitations to ECAC barns besides Thompson Arena. At least three league rivals have happily played along.

“I started including him on my email lists to other schools’ SIDs for our travel party/press box seating needs,” he said. “Usually I’d list all our real staff members and then put him at the end with some note like, ‘I don’t know if he’ll be making it to the game this weekend, but just in case can you leave him a spot?’

“RPI left him a press pass. Union left him a spot for both he and his wife in the seats next to me in their press box. And St. Lawrence told me that, if he showed up, he could stand outside the press box since there was no room.”

Whenever there is any room for creativity, Salvas will seize it. Like a well-trained playmaker, he habitually and deftly capitalizes on combinations of time and space. He is ready whether those openings manifest themselves expectedly or not, by force or by happenstance.

And like a flashy, flair-laden forward, he will occasionally draw a little irritation from the other team. A late-season visit to Harvard in 2013-14 exemplified that fact.

Due to illness, Salvas was nearly a scratch from the Bright-Landry Hockey Center press box that night. But he gutted it out, gorging on cough drops all the way, and watched a maintenance malfunction unfold.

“Harvard’s Zamboni died after our pre-game warmups,” he recalled. As a result, the 7 p.m. faceoff would not happen until 8:36.

“The Zamboni got stuck on the ice, so they dumped the snow and had a couple of players come out to push it. I couldn’t believe my eyes watching future Hobey Baker winner Jimmy Vesey and some of these other young guys out there in full uniform pushing it toward the door to get it off the ice.

“Some people would’ve tweeted out that we were in a delay and just waited it out. I did not. I went in on them. Live tweeting everything that was happening, posting pics of Tim Allen from Home Improvement and Bob the Builder. I was honestly just trying to fill the time and ignore the fact that my throat was on fire."

With his choice of distraction, Salvas sparked his own blaze online. The odds-and-ends turn of events alone would have been enough to turn the heads of mainstream news outlets. Case in point, everyone from the New England Sports Network to TSN was catching wind of the updates.

When The Sporting News jumped in, the colorful Big Green handle had usurped the story. A short post by Sean Gentile ran under the headline, “Harvard Zamboni breaks down; Dartmouth Twitter takes control.”

Gentile went on to highlight six of Salvas’ posts. Among the playful jabs at the host party was “Having the Zamboni break down and drop snow in the area of the net we have to defend twice? Bold strategy, Harvard.” Another: “Great. It’s off the ice. I hate to be that guy, though, but you missed a spot.” (The accompanying image confirmed as much.)

According to the time stamps, at least two more tweets on the topic came after the belated opening faceoff. And after a Harvard representative approached with a simple cease-and-desist request.

“I didn’t, because I was power tripping,” Salvas said. “But I was at least polite in saying no. Credit my parents for my politeness.”

But in due time, just like the ice-level personnel, the Dartmouth Hockey Twitter account got back to the serious fun at hand. It never fails to do so when it must, because Salvas is learned enough to sustain that equilibrium. As long as he has his way, no one will go astray toward detrimental distraction nor cantankerous competitiveness.

“I just want people to love hockey as much as I do,” he said. “Or at least half as much as I do. It’s such a great game, and the people who make it up on every level are incredible. If the way you get more eyes on the game is by cracking a few jokes and not taking yourself so seriously, then it’s a good thing.”

And there is your method to the mirthfulness. The humor is still a means to an end of hooking people on hockey. That, and maybe also breaking up the stuffy stereotypes of the Ivy League.

“If I’m just cracking jokes for the sake of cracking jokes, I should be standing in front of a brick wall asking ‘what’s the deal with airline peanuts?’” Salvas said.

“People want to know about the team, the young men who play and the games against our ECAC Hockey and Ivy League rivals. Keeping it light is the tone of it, but the core message still is about the hockey team it represents.

“I also gotta believe that Joe Sakic likes to laugh.”

Courtney Pensavalle hits high notes with her vocal leadership

Photo courtesy of Courtney Pensavalle

 

Clean Bandit never knew it would be the secondhand setup player behind Yale women’s hockey player Courtney Pensavalle’s best off-ice scoring play to date. Ditto Pentatonix with their role as the party feeding her the proverbial puck.

But there she was last spring, awaiting her cues to step up and take her shot. It was her moment in the event of the year for the Unorthojocks, a conglomeration of Bulldog student-athletes with a penchant for a cappella singing.

Football player Kamsi Nwangwu, stationed at the far left of the semicircle, was the de facto player-coach on this number. With his fists stirring in conductor mode, he elicited the Pentatonix-inspired “La, la, la, da, dum” refrain from his 13 other teammates. Once that started, Pensavalle strode casually to the microphone up front.

A split-second of silence, and then…

We’re a thousand miles from comfort, we have traveled land and sea

But as long as you are with me, there’s no place I’d rather be

The second line all but summed up the scenario at hand. Given that the season of ice was behind her, this was the next-best pastime for Pensavalle.

“We have kept it on our setlist for a while,” she told Pucks and Recreation in reference to the Pentatonix arrangement of Clean Bandit’s lyrics. “So it’s kind of been my song for a few years,”

Although now, as a senior, she has a little more time and a brimming desire to top that. With one more big spring concert — the Unorthojam, they call it — she is exploring new selections for her solo.

Even if there is something else she would rather do for her swan song (pun intended), she would never relinquish this as her extracurricular curtain call. Her six fellow seniors in the skating sorority may have acquiescently dropped to strict student status for their final two-plus months. But Pensavalle is an Unorthojock indeed.

“However corny this may sound, there’s a magical quality to what singing with a group of people can bring to your life,” she said. “I am a big believer in the therapeutic and stress-relieving peace that music provides in difficult times. Music makes you take a step back and view the world with a different perspective.”

Incidentally, that kind of creative thinking fueled the founding of Pensavalle’s “other” Yale team. She had come by way of Noble of Greenough in Massachusetts. And like most Ivy League candidates, she had marinated a rounded resume with academic, athletic and artistic accomplishments.

Besides representing a Nobles team in each athletic season, she played external hockey for Assabet Valley and Team Pittsburgh. As an underclassman, she channeled her singing fervor in the school’s chamber choir.

She overlapped that with the Greensleeves a cappella group her sophomore year, rising to the club’s co-presidency as a senior. That same year, she played the part of Ethel in a production of The Pirates of Penzance.

But given her repeat breakaways to USA Hockey’s national tournaments and select camps, Pennsavalle’s primary pursuit seemed clear-cut when college ran her portfolio through its transitional cheese grater. There was no way for her to duplicate her double extracurricular existence at this level.

Fortunately, she had enough like-minded contemporaries with the same conundrum and same not-all-or-nothing flexibility. While no Bulldog athletes could enroll part-time in the established, rigidly regimented musical groups, a looser alternative awaited its conception. 

 

That came in Pensavalle’s freshman year via then-junior fencer Meghan Murphy. Preliminary buzz of a new a cappella group run by and for Yale student-athletes circulated throughout the 2014-15 academic year. By the time the Bulldogs reconvened after the summer, the Unorthojocks were born, albeit humbly.

“We barely got enough people to join my sophomore year because it definitely wasn’t ‘cool’ or popular the first year,” Pensavalle confessed. “We had a steep learning curve that year too because we all came from different musical backgrounds and levels of skill.”

But every dogged expansion team has its day in the inaugural campaign. For the Unorthojocks, one of those early breakthroughs fell on a late Saturday afternoon, Feb. 13, 2016.

Continuing a tradition in the women’s hockey program, Pensavalle was pulling double duty as the team vocalist. In her words, then-assistant coach Jessica Koizumi had “heard that I sang and coerced me into singing both the Canadian and American national anthems my first game.”

She passed her public audition at that scrimmage with McGill University, and the role stuck for the multi-talented, middle-tier forward. While her teammates faced the flag behind their cage, she would stride to center-ice isolation and belt behind their backs.

It can be an unusually lonely job in what many consider the granddaddy of team games. But for her 25th Star-Spangled shift, in the 2015-16 home finale, Pensavalle had the company of her off-ice teammates. At their performance’s conclusion, she gave the non-skating jocks a taste of her sport’s timeless post-goal fist-bump line.

She has her limits with the crossovers, though. Most notably, she made it through her Ingalls Rink tenure without substituting for the stereo as locker-room entertainment.

“My teammates joke in situations when our speakers run out of battery, but I always refuse,” she laughed. Although, “I have performed songs with my guitar from time to time for team bonding activities or banquets.”

Any extra polishing of the pipes, assuming she is willing and ready, is a plus for any Unorthojock. The club typically musters two rehearsals per week, which is where one of Pensavalle’s prep-school takeaways kicks in.

She credits Mike Turner, the director of music at Nobles, with instilling “a lot of basic music theory that I utilize in the group today. He understood that, while he couldn’t expect all of his students to pursue music seriously, he could implement learning into our rehearsals in a creative and effective way to heighten the efficiency of the time we spent together.”

She added, “I was always amazed at how he was able to foster that passion in others.”

As it relates to the Unorthojocks, that efficiency has elevated to the point where its established equivalents have taken notice. Earlier this year, Pensavalle’s posse collaborated with Out of the Blue (OOTB) — a more formal, well-traveled a cappella group of Yalies — for one night.

Established in 1986, OOTB takes multiple national and international tours each year, and has seen action at Madison Square Garden. It has performed for overseas diplomats, Nobel Laureates and Supreme Court Justices.

And as of 2017-18, it welcomes the upstart Unorthojocks as an occasional guest group.

“It was a great experience, and a great first opportunity to penetrate Yale’s a cappella scene,” said Pensavalle.

With the third annual Unorthojam coming next month, the jocks will have sole possession of the spotlight back. One of their goals is to eclipse last year’s attendance of at least 700.

Afterwards, Pensavalle will round out her undergraduate credits, then pursue a master’s degree in education. Though she majored in sociology, she is open to working on an after-school music program when she is placed in Teach For America.

“I love kids, and will be eternally grateful for the role that various teachers have played in my life thus far,” she said.

There is still no telling where that determination to give back will take Pensavalle geographically. Regardless, especially if it entails any music-oriented pedagogy, you might say there are few arrangements she would rather be in.

She even looks forward to her first look from the sidelines at the Unorthojocks’ development.

“I’m excited to see what the future brings for the group in the years ahead,” she said.

Life After Hockey: Shannon Desrosiers rearing, rooting, running, resting and repeating

Former Clarkson co-coach Shannon Desrosiers translates ample energy to top-shelf results on the marathon track and support for her family and community.

(Photo courtesy of Shannon Desrosiers)

Shannon Desrosiers could not linger for too many victory laps and photo ops. The day had brought a special sports memory, but there were other commitments in other towns, states and countries to get to before she reunited with a bed.

Saturday, April 22, all but defied Desrosiers’ almanac. A practical microcosm of her life since leaving her co-coaching post at Clarkson University, the day stole June 21’s material as the longest of her 2017.

The day packed a party for which nearly every element to enrich her existence came over in varied time slots. There was her family, her alma mater and her adulthood community early on. Then there was her competitive streak and her love of running.

In the aftermath of her first-place finish in the women’s division of St. Lawrence County’s inaugural Maple Run, her native Canada dropped in. That cleared a path for her love of hockey to enter the itinerary.

“Not very often you can run a half-marathon, hustle home to shower and drive to Montreal to get on a plane for the coaches convention in Naples,” Desrosiers said with a smile in an interview with Pucks and Recreation.

The Maple Run — orchestrated by former Clarkson cross country and Nordic skiing coach Amanda Stopa Goldstein — began two-and-a-half hours after sunrise at 8:30 a.m. Held in the county seat of Canton, the race took Desrosiers, along with a host of fellow Clarkson and St. Lawrence connections, through SLU’s campus trail.

“A very challenging course,” the 18-year veteran resident of Upstate New York’s North Country stressed.

Desrosiers was done before 10:30, clocking in at one hour, 20 minutes and 55 seconds. “It was one of my best times,” she said, “and I am happy to have an event like this in the North Country.”

But just as happy to embark on a business trip before the afterglow could taper off. Upon accepting her medal and maple-heavy prize package, Desrosiers darted home to shower, then made the two-hour trek across the border to Montreal.

From there, it was another five-plus hours of flying to Florida for the subsequent week’s annual American Hockey Coaches Association convention.

Yes, three years after she relinquished her half of the Golden Knights coaching duties with her husband, Matt, Desrosiers’ counsel is still coveted by Clarkson and the college hockey community. She cannot help but oblige as much as her current lifestyle will permit.

“I miss a lot about coaching,” she admits. “The dedication of the players, the effort at practices, the competition of the games.

“But for right now, I am really happy that our kids and I can be some of the team’s biggest fans.”

Tradeoffs and trophies

Five weeks before the Maple Run, Desrosiers took a break from training to watch her former pupils secure their all-time best single-season record (32-4-5) and their own crowning glory in Missouri.

Three years earlier, Matt and Shannon Desrosiers had guided Clarkson to its first NCAA title in Hamden, Conn. Then-two-year-old daughter Brynn was on hand for the clincher and celebration, while son Brody was three months away from birth.

Now with the five-year-old Brynn and two-going-on-three Brody by her side, Shannon had a reverse angle for the encore championship. All three were in the green-and-gold sector of St. Charles’ Family Arena for wins over Minnesota and Wisconsin.

“It was just as awesome, but in a different way,” Desrosiers said. “Obviously, the first was special because it was the first, and also because it is amazing to share and work towards something like that with your spouse.

“But it is also really fulfilling to know that the hard work Matt puts in now — the days away recruiting, the things he misses with our kids, the late nights doing video — are all worth it.”

While travel is a necessary evil of the occupation, the Desrosiers kids never miss the glamorous products of Matt’s work. When applicable, webcasts for the Clarkson road games are a staple on the weekend schedule back home. And Shannon, being Shannon, often multitasks by hopping on her treadmill while watching the action.

Days featuring a matinee away game tend to entail a movie night for the three back in Potsdam. That is unless the Clarkson men are at home, in which case a family outing to Cheel Arena is on tap. Those nights are complete with the pregame buffet in the beloved Barben room perched above the rink.

Otherwise, the three are dining with friends or getting out to a youth hockey commitment. Shannon volunteers with the Potsdam Minor Hockey Association, and Brynn and Brody are already taking fundamental lessons.

“Both are loving the game and really taking off,” she marveled.

That regimen, along with a varied spread of offseason activity, speaks to the parents’ propensities reaching the offspring without fail. The only aspects to change between the two generations are the country, time zone and nearest mountain range.

Speedy Saints, knowledgeable Knights

For the first half of her life so far, Desrosiers (nee Smith) built her endurance against the elements of Fernie, B.C., near the Alberta border in the thick of the Canadian Rockies. Fernie sits at an elevation more than seven times that of Potsdam and nearly nine times that of Canton. A short distance from the U.S. border in Montana, it has been dubbed a “Crown of the Continent” by the National Geographic Society for its numerous and rigorous recreation options.

On top of that, the town of barely 5,000 has produced seven NHL players in the last half-century. One of them, 1999 Hobey Baker Award winner Jason Krog, had an upbringing there that overlapped with Smith’s.

For the locals, the definitive winter sport was the natural thing to do when the summer attractions were out of season. The rest of the time, those other sites could make for a wholesome staycation.

“Hockey was always No. 1, but I always loved running,” Desrosiers said. “I did middle-distance events in track in high school, as running long distances wasn’t conducive for hockey training, but I loved any type of running, biking, tennis, water sports, being outside. Anything active, really. We are also at a way higher elevation, so that helped. I also loved to ski and snowboard.”

As a forward for her hometown Fernie Bladerunners, Shannon Smith caught the attention of then-St. Lawrence coach Ron Waske in the 1999 recruiting cycle. Her arrival in Canton coincided with that of Paul Flanagan, who supplanted Waske and promptly delivered the Saints’ first winning season in six years.

With Smith as a consistent top-sixer, SLU rose to a perennial 20-win range and reached the first NCAA women’s hockey championship game in 2001. She co-captained the team to a 22-9-4 finish as a senior.

Meanwhile, amidst Smith’s freshman year, a two-way junior defenseman from Fort Erie, Ont., named Matt Desrosiers was helping the men’s team to a 2000 ECAC playoff title and Frozen Four appearance. The Skating Saints repeated as ECAC champs and nabbed their third straight national tournament bid in Desrosiers’ senior year.

Upon her own graduation two years later, Smith stayed in the shade of the Adirondacks and moved up the street to rival Clarkson. She promptly began her coaching career as an assistant under Rick Seeley for the women’s program’s inception in 2003-04.

Following a five-year minor-league playing career, Matt Desrosiers joined Seeley’s cabinet in the same capacity in 2006. A year later, Smith took the Desrosiers surname, and within another year, both had taken Seeley’s job at the helm.

The Desrosiers duo made instant headlines for being the first coaching couple in U.S. women’s college hockey. (Maine’s Sara and Richard Reichenbach have since matched the distinction.) But they also kept busy chasing goals in their other chief athletic passion.

In the summer following their first year as co-head coaches, Shannon placed No. 118 in a field of 2,247 at Lake Placid’s 2009 Ironman triathlon. That, followed by an impressive showing at Ironman Canada in her native province, earned her a ticket to Hawaii for the 2010 World Ironman Championship.

In 2012, within three months of bearing Brynn, she was back in the Canadian Rockies for the centennial Calgary Stampede, where she logged a 1:26:31 time in the half-marathon. The illustrious Boston Marathon and other out-of-state events have made their way to her transcript as well.

In between, she and Matt had brought Clarkson to its first NCAA tournament in 2010. A temporary recession in the win column gave way to a program-best 28-win campaign in 2012-13. The Golden Knights followed that with a repeat at-large tournament bid, then used it to break their own year-old record with their 29th, 30th and 31st wins on the year.

The 31st, a 5-4 upset that disrupted a dynasty from Minnesota, brought the first NCAA championship for any non-WCHA team. It was also Shannon’s last game, as she intended to turn the bulk of her focus to raising Brynn and the forthcoming Brody.

Besides her informal frequenting of Cheel Arena with the kids, Shannon continues to serve Clarkson as a stewardship liaison in donor relations. Meanwhile, under Matt’s continued guidance, the Golden Knights have not looked back, becoming a steady presence in the exclusive eight-team bracket. No other program in the Eastern Time Zone managed to throw another sledge at the championship barrier before they took their second swing this past spring.

With their 3-0 shutout of the Badgers on March 19, they eclipsed their previous best with 32 wins on the year. Two days later, with the trophy on campus and the family back home, the Vernal Equinox heralded a turn of the page and a reversal in rooting roles.

Winter of contentment, glorious summer

Besides raising funds for local athletic programs, the minds behind the Maple Run tout the race as a way “to celebrate the end of Winter.” But Shannon Desrosiers’ April 22 day-ending getaway to a puck-focused gathering properly signaled that, in a way, winter is never truly over. For the rest of the year, her household hosts a cousin of the kinetic instincts that come in handy against biting cold.

“It’s a different hectic,” she explained. “Matt has way more time with our family which is fun.  We are still busy running around to sports and camps and enjoying summer. We live on the lake, so our kids love swimming, boating and tubing. They also still love to get on the ice whenever they can, so having access to that is awesome.”

As for her competitive running, the fall and winter tune-up did not culminate in the Maple Run any more than a NASCAR driver’s offseason builds solely toward Daytona. After Shannon spent the 2017 Frozen Four by Brynn and Brody’s side, the parents’ positions switched for the local race.

But a month later, Matt took his opportunity to make the Buffalo half-marathon more like the 2014 Frozen Four and its eight preceding hockey seasons. The two were co-competing again, though the outcome, at least in terms of the leaderboard, was more like that of the 2010 and 2013 tournaments.

Shannon placed second in her division at Buffalo, logging the same 1:20 time as she had in the less crowded Canton field. “My goal was to break 1:20, which I did,” she said. “I think I was about 10 seconds shy, which in running is significant.”

Meanwhile, Matt took one hour and 25 minutes to finish his Buffalo run. You could forgive the implicit rust. He was just coming off his first NCAA hockey championship campaign as a solo head coach, then a healthy scratch for the first half-marathon ever held in his adulthood home county.

“It is nice to have him as a training partner in the offseason,” Shannon said, “and it is still something we can do together.”

Though their athletic itch is all but insatiable, the Desrosiers have savored their summers with stints in cruise control. Last year, they marked their 10th wedding anniversary in Europe, and the company of their connections in the county never loses its appeal.

As one compromise in her split from formal coaching, Shannon savors a little more of the latter than Matt year-round. But just like the occasional half-marathon, the window of warmer weather is open to both halves of the Clarkson dynasty’s founding tandem.

“I love having people over, especially in the summer,” she says. “Matt likes to play guitar when he can, and we both like great food and a good glass of wine.”

The 2017 offseason will cut off a tad earlier than normal for the Desrosiers household. In a minor drawback to the rewards of success, Matt has been named an assistant coach for Canada’s 18-and-under national development team. The select squad will have a nine-day training camp in early August, then shuffle to Lake Placid for the annual three-game set against its American counterpart later in the month.

That will subsequently segue into the start of the 2017-18 college season. But just as NFL training camps pique a puckhead’s anticipation of what will soon follow, the starting line of Clarkson’s intended road to a repeat means the next exit is for Shannon and her long trek of preparation to defend her Maple Run medal.

“Next race, I want to break 1:19,” she said. “My goal is to just keep getting faster.”

For Cornell’s Beau Starrett, hockey is a family affair

(Photo courtesy of Cornell Athletics)

 

Fans of NHL players can easily point out that some superstars were just born to play hockey. In other cases, family history can be a harbinger of success, or at least an indicator of potential.

For Cornell Big Red sophomore forward Beau Starrett, it is a mixture of both.

Starrett has ties across all of college hockey in his immediate family. As the youngest of four brothers, he benefited from growing up in a household where a trip to a rink was routine.

“Having three brothers play hockey is pretty rare,” Starrett admitted in an interview with Pucks and Recreation.  “It was always something big in our family, whether it was hockey clinics or games. It was always good to have brothers to look up to and push me to do better.”

Starrett’s siblings can write quite an interesting hockey story. His oldest brother, Pete, played at Harvard from 2008 to 2012, while Troy, the second-oldest, was a captain at Babson College’s Division III program. Shane Starrett is currently a sophomore goaltender playing for the Air Force Academy.

“It is funny, because we always have a little friendly competition between each other to help us perform,” laughed Beau. “We almost have a full line of hockey players with two forwards, a defenseman and a goalie.”

Beyond the friendly competition, Starrett had multiple family members he could model his game after.

“Growing up, I remember attending my older brothers’ games,” said Starrett. “I remember going to Harvard-versus-Cornell and feeling the electric atmosphere during that game. I knew that Cornell had a great program and it has been a good journey getting to this point.”

 

Starrett, who battled back from two long-term injuries in as many seasons in 2014-15 and 2015-16: “I just remember who and what motivates me to do better.” (Photo courtesy of Cornell Athletics)

 

Finding his own way

That journey has not always been easy. You could say that being the youngest sibling in a hockey family imposes immense pressure to perform, but Beau has had to face many challenges in his playing career, the most significant of which have been injuries.

One ailment limited him to just seven games in his final season with the South Shore Kings of the USPHL. Another one early last season only allowed him to play 15 games for Cornell.

“I view the injuries as a speed bump,” said Starrett. “They have motivated me to do whatever it takes to overcome challenges.”

Starrett’s desire to push past these injuries and focus on hockey has helped enable the Cornell team to get off to a quick start this season. With a goal in this past Friday’s victory over Miami, Starrett helped the Big Red push a winning streak to four games.

Starrett credits his hockey family for his ability to supersede any future challenges that come his way.

“I just remember who and what motivates me to do better,” said Starrett, who hopes to play for the Chicago Blackhawks after they selected him in the 2014 NHL Draft. He knows that he could be presented with a possibility that could be even rarer than having three older hockey-playing brothers who play hockey, and that is a playing career in the professional ranks.

“Peter works as a financial consultant and Troy works in wealth management,” said Starrett about his brothers’ success outside the rink. “However, I would like to keep playing for as long as possible. It is tough to get away from the hockey world.”

 

- John Morton

Olympian Brianne Jenner keeping competitive torch at Cornell

Inject a quiz whiz with Brianne Jenner’s compete level, and the go-getter could sop up six figures on Jeopardy!, then crave conquest in a tri-county trivia tournament. Give Jenner’s fire to a fisherwoman, and she can catch an urban legend before pursuing the same salmon supper she has caught for the past three neighborhood cookouts.

That is the extent of Jenner’s insatiability. Coming off a gold medal in her first Olympic endeavor with Team Canada, the belated Cornell women’s hockey senior is fixated on unfinished business in the NCAA realm.

“Last year was a big year,” she offered in a phone interview with Along the Boards this week. “It was an accomplishment of my dream in many ways. But a month after that was over, I was excited to get back to Cornell.

“Athletes are competitive people, and always focused on the next challenge.”

Scale and scope of press coverage aside, no challenge is too grand or too minor, too stale or too novel for Jenner.

The Oakville, Ont., native is barely 11 months removed from cutting into Team USA’s 2-0 lead with 3:26 to spare in regulation, sparking Canada’s comeback in the Sochi Games title tilt. Marie-Philip Poulin, herself a belated senior at Boston University this year, proceeded to force overtime and score the sudden-death decider for the 3-2 victory.

With that, Jenner punctuated her arrival on the international platform by pitching in to preserve her country’s Olympic dynasty with a fourth consecutive gold medal.

Fast-forward to the present. With less than a full month to spare in the regular season, she is helping the Big Red dig out of an initial pothole as they defend another ECAC Hockey crown.

Dating back to 2009-10, the year before Jenner arrived, Cornell has been to five straight conference title tilts. It has won four of those, with the exception of 2012, when a 30-5-0 overall finish more than warranted at at-large bid to the exclusive, eight-team NCAA tournament.

But after starting this season at 3-6-0, the Big Red will need a near-perfect finish down the stretch to avoid an unfamiliar reliance on the automatic bid that comes with the league playoff pennant.

In a way, Jenner’s momentary deletion from Cornell’s roster may now be yielding pivotal benefits on that front.

Had she whiffed on a spot for Canada’s pre-Olympic centralization tour, the Big Red would likely be looking at a two-member senior class in 2014-15. In addition, they may have had a maximum allotment of 16 skaters instead of 17 — still one fewer than the conventional game-day quorum.

Instead, she is allying with Emily Fulton and Jillian Saulnier to pilot the offense and impart the intangibles to five juniors and nine underclass skaters. She and Saulnier most recently tallied four points apiece to steamroll Union, 8-2, Friday afternoon, improving the Big Red to 8-1-3 since Thanksgiving.

“We’re a much younger team now, so it took us a while to understand what kind of hockey we needed to play,” Jenner said of the preceding slump.

She added, “It has been a challenge this year. We had a really tough schedule early on. Obviously, that’s not any excuse, but it kind of forced us to face some adversity and reflect on our game. We’ve been working really hard and we’re really confident in the team we’ve become.

“We have all the bits and pieces here, and it’s going to be up to us.”

Now 11-7-3 overall, and with eight regular-season games still to come, Cornell cannot afford to stop kicking ice chips over its acrid autumn. As of Friday evening, its sits at No. 10 on the PairWise leaderboard.

At the start of this weekend’s action, four other ECAC tenants alone — Quinnipiac, Harvard, Clarkson and St. Lawrence — were ahead of the Big Red in the national qualifier projection. Yet they are still higher than any to-be-determined College Hockey America program that has its name on an automatic bid.

A clean sweep through the homestretch could fortify the Big Red’s position. Although, beyond a Feb. 6 visit to Quinnipiac and a Feb. 13 home date with Harvard, there are not many opportunities to bulk up on big-game loot.

Regardless, whether it is Canada or Cornell, the pride factor is all the same for Jenner, who has also won gold at the 2010 Four Nations Cup and 2012 World Championship.

“I think there is some parallel. We’ve built a really sound program here,” she said of the Big Red. “This year, we are a bit more of an underdog, but we’re okay with that as well.”

A veteran of two Frozen Fours, but no national championship games, Jenner has no time to worry about her team’s billing. Just like the discrepancies in prestige between tournaments, that cannot alter her appetite for a fulfilling finish to a given campaign.

For her senior season in Ithaca, that entails a timely surge en route to an ECAC championship three-peat, followed by the program’s last unchecked breakthrough. This year’s Frozen Four happens to be at Minnesota’s Ridder Arena, where Cornell lost a 3-2 triple-overtime marathon to Minnesota-Duluth in the 2010 title game, its last game before Jenner enrolled.

“It’s hard to compare to the Olympics, because that’s something everyone works toward their whole life,” she admits. “But a lot of really elite hockey players strive for an NCAA championship, and I’m capable of that.”

 

This article originally appeared on Along the Boards

Clarkson’s Shannon MacAulay leading champs through challenges

The reality of offseason overhaul reached a cracking point by the final buzzer Oct. 18 at Cheel Arena. The Clarkson University women’s hockey team had just endured a two-game sweep via the visiting Boston University, dropping to 3-3-0 on the year.

Up to that point, the menace’s insistent knocking had gone unanswered, and was even muffled at times. The defending national champions had claimed a respectable split with local rival St. Lawrence and blanked Providence for a full 120 minutes.

In turn, they were kicking ice chips over the fact that they had lost four of their top five scorers, one key defender, minute-munching goaltender Erica Howe and one of their co-coaches. Ditto their season-long limit of 16 skaters, even with perfect health up and down the depth chart.

But through their first encounter with a fellow 2014 NCAA tournament participant, they brooked a little more damage to the door. Reality raided, impelling junior captain Shannon MacAulay to evoke her beyond-her-years intangibles for the first time.

“After BU, it was just a bit of a wakeup call for us and a learning curve,” MacAulay told Along the Boards via e-mail. “We knew we had to be better, and it wasn’t going to be easy.

“We definitely have come together more as a team since that weekend, and have had more energy all around. We worked hard to get better in practice, and have since realized how good we can be if we are all bringing that work ethic.”

The scoreboard does not object. The Golden Knights have since redressed their room by reeling off five consecutive victories. They have run up a 25-3 scoring differential in that span, never allowing more than one goal in a single venture.

The turnaround began six nights after the 5-2 falter before BU. None other than MacAulay broke the ice 21 seconds into regulation, added two assists as part of a four-goal first period, then completed her playmaker hat trick to finalize a 9-0 drubbing of Syracuse.

She proceeded to charge up another three-assist outing, a three-goal performance, a goal-assist variety pack and a power-play equalizer in a come-from-behind, 2-1 triumph over Yale.

With 14 points, MacAulay has had a hand in 56 percent of the scoring in Clarkson’s last five games. Her cumulative 9-9-18 scoring log through 11 games overall ties her for second in the nation with Minnesota’s Hannah Brandt.

“It was definitely with the help of my teammates,” she insisted. “Like I said, I think our team has come together quite a bit, and because of that, it has allowed me to be successful.

“For me now, it’s just a matter of focusing on continuing to play this way and keeping my game simple.”

Exactly the exemplary representation the Knights were keen on tapping into as far back as last March.

Advanced preparation

Clarkson crumbled a geographic barrier at the 2014 Frozen Four, becoming the first program other than Minnesota, Minnesota-Duluth or Wisconsin to win a national title in the sport’s 14-history under NCAA auspices.

Based on the 2013-14 Golden Knights’ makeup, there was all but a now-or-never feel to the run.

Four prolific producers in Jamie Lee Rattray, Brittany Styner, Carly Mercer and Vanessa Gagnon all took their last hurrah with the 5-4 title victory over the two-time champion Gophers. So, too, did a solid depth striker in Shelby Nisbet, along with Howe in net and Vanessa Plante on defense.

On top of that, co-coach Shannon Desrosiers stepped down for maternity leave after six seasons of split duties with husband Matt.

Too much forethought was a nonexistent notion in the search to replenish that leadership. In the afterglow of the championship, six months before reconvening, Matt Desrosiers queried his returnees on captaincy candidates for 2014-15.

“Shannon’s name repeatedly came up in conversations with her teammates as someone the players felt would be a strong leader and captain,” he recalled in a message to ATB.

The Knights would return four seniors and four juniors this autumn, including a world-class two-way talent in Erin Ambrose. But with the dense smattering of seniors the year prior, none had donned a letter of leadership in their collegiate careers.

Translation: Anything was possible, and MacAulay accepted that.

“I knew, coming into this year, that I had a good chance at taking on a leadership role,” she said. “I had prepared myself for that.

“It was still obviously a pleasant surprise getting the “C,” and I am honored to have received this as a junior.”

That honor came with an obligation to accelerate her output and foster an infectious attack habit. Of the two juniors and one senior on Clarkson’s offensive corps, MacAulay was the career production leader with 40 points in 77 games at the start of this season.

With only three full forward lines, a viable title defense will inevitably require every returnee’s maturity to translate to Gagnon-, Mercer- and Styner-esque numbers.

Roughly one-third of the way through the 34-game regular season, MacAulay is already two points away from swelling her career total by 50 percent. Her two linemates since the start of the current five-game winning streak, sophomores Genevieve Bannon and Cayley Mercer, have matching 7-9-16 transcripts for second on the team.

Other than senior Christine Lambert, the rest of the offense has yet to break double digits under the 2014-15 point heading. But Lambert, who had centered MacAulay’s line until after the BU series, has a precedent for leading by example on her new unit.

The Knights have replenished their success by spreading their seasoning, which starts at the top of the line chart.

“(MacAulay) has the respect of the players and coaching staff, as she brings a good effort every day and sets a good example for everyone to follow,” said Desrosiers. “She has shown the ability to communicate well with both her teammates and the coaching staff, which is a very important quality to have as a captain.

“Her teammates respect her and look to her for help and guidance, which is exactly what you want from your captain.”

Embracing the target

Unlike Desrosiers, MacAulay tends to speak to her leadership qualities through a plural narration. When she is not imparting inspiration or mediating advice, she serves as a prototypical voice box for Clarkson’s collective cause.

Sporting the “defending champions” label compounds the trial of maxing out the talent on a permanently short bench. But MacAulay wants to oversee an operation that sports the collective confidence of surplus skaters and the thirst of a program bereft of banners.

“We are a team that makes it tough for other teams to play against,” she said. “We need to make sure we’re playing this way no matter who it is we play in our league. Every game will be a battle, and to stay on top in our league, you have to come out ready to give a good battle.”

For every Knight eyeing MacAulay’s example, there promises to be a formidable adversary eyeing the same statement the Terriers issued in the mid-October nonconference set.

No fewer than four other ECAC programs have a contender’s composition. Not unlike the three-time Hockey East champions, they want to usurp the task of keeping the NCAA trophy on their side of the Great Lakes.

Come March 8, there will only be eight openings for that privilege across the nation.

If everything lives up to preseason logic, Cornell, Harvard, Quinnipiac and St. Lawrence will all vie for the ECAC title and/or an at-large national tournament bid. They will combine to confront Clarkson seven more times on the remaining league schedule.

“Facing some top teams like Harvard will be huge games for us,” MacAulay allowed. “We will need to want those two points more than they do.”

The Crimson, this year’s preseason coaches’ favorite, will bookend rest of the slate by visiting Potsdam this Friday and hosting the regular-season finale Feb. 21.

In the former game, they will try to hatch the “L” column goose-egg in the Knights’ 3-0-0 ECAC record. By the latter meeting, the difference between dependence on the automatic bid that comes with the conference crown and an at-large cushion could be at stake.

But in one more testament to MacAulay’s captaincy credentials, she zeroed back in on Clarkson’s control panel.

“Overall, we have handled the first month very well, considering we had quite a bit of work to do in the preseason to prepare,” she said. “We’re in a pretty decent spot right now in the standings, and we’re hoping we can just get better every weekend.”

This article originally appeared on Along the Boards