Oct. 17, 2012
Notre Dame, Ind. –
– The Teams: #13/#13 Minnesota Duluth (1-1-0) at #10/#9 Notre Dame (2-0-0)
– The Games: Thursday, Oct. 18 – Compton Family Ice Arena (5,022) – 7:35 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19 – Compton Family Ice Arena (5,022 – 7:35 p.m.
– Broadcast Information: Radio: Notre Dame hockey can be heard live on Real Country 99.9 FM in South Bend. Darin Pritchett, the voice of the Irish, will call the action.
– Internet: Audio/Video: Notre Dame’s games will be streamed live on the Notre Dame website at UND.com. This service is free of charge. Statistics: Follow Gametracker on the Notre Dame website at UND.com. Livestats can be found at ccha.com or collegehockeyinc.com. Twitter: Follow Irish hockey on Twitter at ND_hockey.
HOME OPENER: The University of Notre Dame hockey team will open the 2012-13 home schedule with a Thursday-Friday series against the Minnesota Duluth Bulldogs at the Compton Family Ice Arena. The two teams square off at 7:35 p.m. both nights, Oct. 18-19. The #10/#9 Irish opened the season last weekend by winning the Ice Breaker Tournament, getting wins versus Maine (1-0) and Nebraska-Omaha (3-2). The #13/#13 Bulldogs opened at home last weekend and split a pair of games with Ohio State, winning the opener, 6-2, before dropping the second game, 3-2. Last season, Minnesota Duluth was 25-10-6 overall and finished second in the WCHA with a 16-7-5 league record. The Bulldogs advanced to the NCAA Quarterfinals, losing to eventual champion, Boston College. Notre Dame is coming off a 19-18-3 season in 2011-12 and was 12-13-3-0 in the CCHA, good for an eighth-place tie with Ohio State. The Irish fell to Michigan, two games to none, in the second round of the CCHA playoffs.
IRISH VERSUS BULLDOGS: The two teams have met 35 times in the all-time series with Notre Dame holding a 19-12-4 overall record against Minnesota Duluth. The two schools were both members of the Western College Hockey Association from 1971-81. At home (the Joyce Center previously), the Irish are 6-6-2 all-time against UMD. In Duluth, the Irish are 12-4-2 and on neutral ice, the Bulldogs have a 2-1 edge. The teams last met on Oct. 7-8 in Duluth, Minn., at AMSOIL Arena with UMD taking a 4-3 win in the opening game while the Irish won the second game, 5-3. In 2010-11, the Irish and Bulldogs met in the Frozen Four in Minneapolis, Minn., in the semifinals with Duluth taking a 4-3 win on the way to the Bulldogs’ first national championship.
GOALTENDER OF THE WEEK: Junior goaltender Steven Summerhays (Anchorage, Alaska) has been selected as the CCHA goaltender of the week for his play during the week ending Oct. 14. Summerhays stopped 50-of-52 shots in games against Maine and Nebraska-Omaha in helping the Irish to the Ice Breaker Tournament title. An all-tournament selection in goal, Summerhays made 22 saves in a 1-0 win over the Black Bears on Oct. 12. In the title game, the junior stopped 28-of-30 shots as Notre Dame downed Nebraska-Omaha, 3-2. He also was named College Hockey Insider.com’s national player of the week.
ON DECK FOR THE IRISH: Following the two-game series with Minnesota Duluth, Notre Dame will take to the road next week to open the CCHA schedule at Northern Michigan. The Irish will face the Wildcats at the Berry Events Center, in Marquette, Mich., in a pair of 7:35 p.m. games on Oct. 26-27.
EN FUEGO: Steven Summerhays’ 1-0 shutout against Maine in Friday’s opener of the Ice Breaker Tournament was his third career shutout. All three of those shutouts have come in his last seven starts, dating back to Feb. 24 of last season. Since that game, Summerhays is 5-2-0 with a 1.22 goals-against average, a .969 save percentage and three shutouts. He now has shutouts versus Michigan State (2-0, Feb. 24), Ohio State, 2-0 on March 2 in the first round of the CCHA playoffs) and versus Maine (1-0 on Oct. 13) in the 2012-13 season opener. His two losses in that span were a 2-1 double-overtime loss at Michigan and a 3-1 loss at Michigan in the second round of the CCHA playoffs.
NEVER BEFORE: Steven Summerhays’ 1-0 shutout win over the University of Maine marks the first time that the Irish have ever recorded a shutout in the opening game of a season. Notre Dame has never been shutout in the first game of the year.
NICE START: Notre Dame’s 2-0 start marks the first time that the Irish have won the first two games of a season since 1998-99. That team started the year with a 6-0-0 record. In 2002-03, the Irish were 3-0-1 after four games, but started the year with a 1-0-1 record in the first weekend.
FOR OPENERS: Notre Dame enters its 2012-13 home opener with an all-time record of 25-18-1 in home openers. All 44 of those games were played at the Joyce Center. This is the first home opener to be played at the Compton Family Ice Arena. With Notre Dame’s win versus Maine last Friday, the Irish are now 22-21-2 all-time in season openers.
CHAMPIONS: Notre Dame won its first-ever Ice Breaker Tournament last weekend (Oct. 12-13) at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo. The Irish opened the tournament with a 1-0 win over the University of Maine with T.J. Tynan (Jr., Orland Park, Ill.) getting the only goal and Steven Summerhays stopping all 22 shots he faced. In the championship game on Saturday, Summerhays stopped 28-of-30 shots while Peter Schneider (So., Vienna, Austria), Anders Lee (Jr., Edina, Minn.) and Thomas DiPauli (Fr., Woodridge, Ill.) scored for the Irish in the 3-2 win over the Mavericks. Four Notre Dame players were selected to the all-tournament team led by Summerhays in goal and Tynan at forward. They were joined by defenseman Stephen Johns (Wampum, Pa.) and forward Bryan Rust (Novi, Mich.). Tynan was named the tournament’s most valuable player. The Irish have appeared in three Ice Breakers, finishing third in 1999 and second in 2010.
IN-SEASON TOURNAMENTS: Notre Dame has now played in 35 in-season tournaments in the 45-year history of the program. The Irish have now finished first a total of nine times. They have seven second-place finishes; finished third eight times and fourth on 11 different occasions.
CALL HIM THE CAPTAIN: Junior center Anders Lee has been selected as the lone captain of the 2012-13 Notre Dame hockey team. The talented forward served as an alternate captain during the 2011-12 season. As a sophomore, he led the Irish with 17 goals and added 17 assists to finish second in scoring with 34 points. In his first two seasons at Notre Dame, Lee has played in 86 career games with 42 goals and 38 assists for 80 points.
BY THE CLASSES: The Notre Dame roster has four seniors, 12 juniors, four sophomores and five freshmen on the roster this season. The Irish return 18 monogram winners from last season and have seven of their top 10 scorers back in 2012-13.
NEW HOME: Notre Dame moved into its new home – The Compton Family Ice Arena – on October 18, 2011 and played the first game there on October 21, 2011, defeating Rensselaer, 5-2, in front of a sell-out crowd of 5,022. Anders Lee scored the first goal at 9:21 of the first period and finished with a hat trick in the game.The Irish won their first five games at the Compton and finished the year with a 12-7-0 record, including a 2-0 mark in the first round of the CCHA playoffs. In 19 games, Notre Dame played in front of 11 sellout crowds, drawing 91,793 fans through the turnstiles for an average of 4,793 per game.
FAST STARTS: Sophomore Peter Schneider and freshman Thomas DiPauli got their seasons off to fast starts in the two games at the Ice Breaker Tournament. Schneider had a goal and an assist in Notre Dame’s 3-2 win over Nebraska-Omaha on Oct. 13. He scored the first goal of the game and then helped set up Anders Lee’s first -period goal that put the Irish ahead to stay at 2-1. DiPauli, who played both games of the weekend at left wing, was in the right spot in the second period when he banged the rebound of a T.J. Tynan shot past goaltender Anthony Stolarz for his firs career goal and first career game winner.
POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES: Notre Dame’s opening weeked at the Ice Breaker Tournament saw Irish special teams excel in one aspect while struggling a bit in another. For the weekend, Notre Dame was 8-for-8 in killing penalties as the Irish were 4-for-4 versus Miami and 4-for-4 against Nebraska-Omaha. On the other hand, they were 0-for-7 on the power play. Notre Dame was 0-for-5 in the game against Miami and 0-for-2 versus the UNO Mavericks.
TYNAN TIME: Junior center T.J. Tynan returns to the Irish lineup to defend his 2011-12 CCHA co-scoring title. Tynan tied for the scoring championship with Michigan State’s Torey Krug as each player had 29 points in 28 conference games in `11-’12. The Irish scoring machine had nine goals and 20 assists on the year to become the first Notre Dame player to win or share a CCHA scoring title. He is just the second Irish player to ever win a conference scoring title, following Eddie Bumbacco `74, who won the 1972-73 WCHA scoring championship with 31 goals and 34 assists for 65 points in 28 games. Tynan led Notre Dame in scoring for the second consecutive year, notching 13 goals with 28 assists for 41 points in 39 games in 2011-12.
WINNERS: Four members of Notre Dame’s freshman class arrived on campus fresh off championship seasons in 2011-12. Thomas DiPauli joins the Irish after helping the `11-’12 USA Under-18 Team to a gold medal at the Under-18 World Championships last April. Sam Herr (Hinsdale, Ill.) was a member of the Green Bay Gamblers team that won the USHL’s Clark Cup championship with Herr being named the most valuable player of the tournament. Steven Fogarty (Edina, Minn.) and Mario Lucia (Plymouth, Minn.) played with the Penticton Vees of the BCHL and helped their team to a record-setting season. The Vees won the BCHL Interior Division regular-season title while establishing a junior hockey record with 42 consecutive wins. They then won the Fred Doyle Cup as the BCHL playoff champions and added an RBC Cup title to their resumes, winning the Canadian junior title.
NOTRE DAME AND THE NTDP: Notre Dame and the USA National Under-18 Team met on Oct. 7, marking the fifth time that the Irish have faced them since the program began. Notre Dame and the U.S. National Developmental Program have had a strong relationship over the years. There are currently seven former USA Under-18 members on the Irish roster – senior Sam Calabrese, juniors Stephen Johns and Bryan Rust, sophomores Robbie Russo and Austin Wuthrich and freshmen Thomas DiPauli and Andy Ryan. Since the NTDP began in 1997, 31 players have gone on to play at Notre Dame. Another connection is head coach Jeff Jackson who served as the national coach and the senior director of the program from its beginning in 1996 through 2000.
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: With the addition of freshman Mario Lucia to the Notre Dame roster in 2012-13, the Irish now have three sons who have followed in their father’s footsteps to play hockey at Notre Dame. Mario, follows his father, Don Lucia `81, who was a defenseman for the Irish from 1977-81. He is the head hockey coach at Minnesota. Current teammate, Kevin Nugent (Sr., New Canaan, Conn.) followed his dad – Kevin Nugent, Sr., `78 who played at Notre Dame from 1974-78 and was a teammate of Lucia’s for one season. The third father-son duo is goaltender Rory Walsh `06 who played for the Irish from 2002-06. He was the first to follow his dad – Brian Walsh `77, who played for the Irish from 1973-77 and was a teammate of Nugent’s for three seasons (1974-77).
BETWEEN THE PIPES: Junior goaltender Steven Summerhays got both starts in the season-opening Ice Breaker Tournament and got his season off to a fast start. The Anchorage, Alaska native is 2-0-0 with a 1.00 goals-against average and a .962 save percentage with one shutout. For his career, he is now 17-12-1 with a 2.52 goals-against average, a .901 save percentage with three career shutouts. Senior Mike Johnson (Verona, Wis.) was 9-10-3 in 2011-12 with a 2.69 goals-against average and an .883 save percentage. He has been the top goaltender in each of his first three seasons, playing in 91 games with 85 starts. He is 39-33-12 for his career with a 2.63 goals against, a .901 save percentage and a pair of shutouts.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE: Freshman right wing Thomas DiPauli (Woodridge, Ill. via Caldaro, Italy) is the fourth Notre Dame player who was born in Europe. Born in Caldaro, Italy, he moved to the United States when he was 13 years old to further his hockey career. A product of the USA National Team Developmental Program, he played last year for the USA Under-18 Team. He joins sophomore forward Peter Schneider (Vienna, Austria) who is in his second season with the Irish. As a freshman last season, Schneider played in 23 games with two goals and four assists for six points. He played his junior hockey with one season (2009-10) in the United States Hockey League (USHL) for the Indiana Ice. With the Ice, he had 30 goals and 24 assists for 54 points in 55 games. DiPauli and Schneider join Swedish natives Calle Ridderwall `11 and Robin Bergman as the four Europeans to play at Notre Dame. Ridderwall spent four years with the Irish (2007-11) while Bergmann played part of the 2007-08 campaign.
HOCKEY CITY CLASSIC: The Notre Dame hockey team will play its first-ever outdoor game during the program’s Division I era on Sunday, Feb. 17 when the Irish take part in the Hockey City Classic at Chicago’s historic Soldier Field. They will face CCHA-rival, Miami in the first game of the doubleheader while Minnesota will battle Wisconsin in the second game. The two games will be preceded by two weeks of winter festivities, including two days of free public skating, high school hockey events, youth and adult hockey events, private ice rentals and more. The Hockey City Classic is being organized by the Chicago-based sports and entertainment marketing agency Intersport, in partnership with Soldier Field and the Chicago Park District. Notre Dame hockey is no stranger to the city of Chicago as the Irish have played hockey in the Windy City on and off since the 1966-67 campaign when the Notre Dame club team played in the first-ever college hockey tournament at Chicago Stadium. Since then, the Irish have played more than 40 games in and around Chicago, playing at Lake Forest (1969-70 and from 1985-91), at Chicago Stadium (1971 and 1972), at the University of Illinois-Chicago (1979-82 and 1988-96 as CCHA rivals), at Allstate Arena (2003 and 2005) and most-recently, at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, Ill., where Notre Dame hosted the Shillelagh Tournament from 2009-11. The 2012-13 Notre Dame hockey roster features six players with ties to the Chicago area: The group includes senior Sam Calabrese, juniors Kevin Lind (Homer Glen) and T.J. Tynan, sophomore Robbie Russo (Westmont) and freshmen Thomas DiPauli and Sam Herr. The Irish have had 25 hockey monogram winners from the Chicago area in the program’s history. Current Notre Dame defenseman Stephen Johns (Wampum, Pa.) was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks in the second round, 60th overall in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft and the Hawks have drafted five Notre Dame players since 1971.