PC Hockey Team Had Promising Season, Before NCAA Bid Evaporated in March - McMahon

PC Hockey Team Had Promising Season, Before NCAA Bid Evaporated in March - McMahon

The success of the Providence College men’s basketball team since 1961 has turned PC and the Providence area into a basketball town.  But there has been another Friar winter sports team, the PC hockey team, one that largely plays under the local sports radar screen, that has been more successful than their basketball brothers.

 

The Friars’ hockey teams have appeared in 15 NCAA tournaments since 1961.  The PC sextet won all the pucks in the 2014-15 season, when they won the NCAA national championship, beating Boston University at the Boston Garden in a thrilling 4-3 win. Since then, the Friar skaters have appeared in three more NCAA tournaments, including the Final Four in 2017-18.

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While PC missed the last three NCAA hockey tournaments, they looked primed as late as February 29th of this year to be a sure selection for this year’s tournament.  The NCAA selects 16 of the 64 Division 1 hockey teams for the NCAA tournament.  Six of the teams are the winners of the six Division 1 hockey conferences and the other ten teams are at-large bids based on rankings.  For most of the hockey season, PC was ranked 9th or 10th, and as of February 25th, they were ranked 11/12 in various polls.

 

The Friars’ skates fell off in March.  PC didn’t win any of its last 4 games in March, all in the Hockey East conference—a 2-1 loss to lowly Merrimack; a 4-2 loss to Boston University, the #2 ranked team in the country; a 3-3 tie with Northeastern; and a 3-1 loss, in a do-or-die game, to UMass in the Hockey East quarterfinals.  So, for the 4th straight year, despite a solid promising team, the Friars missed out on an NCAA bid.

 

Under Coach Nate Leaman, the Friars have been consistently good or great, and this year was no exception up until March 1. The Friars this year own victories against four of the top ten teams in the country—Michigan, Denver, Maine, and the #1 team in the country Boston College.  Their sophomore goalie, Philip Svedeback, while not the top goalie in Hockey East, is a draft pick of the Boston Bruins, and had a respectable goals-against average this year of 2.32 stopping 90% of shots he faced.  The Friars had almost 400 more shots on goal than their opponents! And finally, they boast 8 players on their roster who are NHL draft picks.

 

So, what went wrong?  The Friars controlled most games in terms of shots on goal, but lost a bunch of those games when they outshot their opponents.  For example, on March 1, they had 46 shots on goal against Merrimack, who had only 14 shots, but PC lost 2-1. There were no big-time natural scorers on this PC team.  Only one player, Chase Yoder, had more than 10 goals, and he had 11 total goals.  The leading point scorer was Nick Poisson who had a meager 24 total points on 9 goals and 15 assists.  As a team, PC only averaged 2.86 goals/game, ranking 34th out of 64 Division 1 teams.  Even in power play situations, PC could only score 17% of the time.

 

The other reality for this year’s PC hockey team is that they play in the Hockey East conference, the toughest and strongest hockey conference in the country. Four of the sixteen NCAA teams this year are Hockey East teams—BC, BU, Maine, and UMass.  PC started the season 8-1-2. Once PC finished playing the non-conference teams on its schedule this year, PC faced tough games every night in Hockey East.  The team finished 18-13-4.

 

Can PC turn its fortunes around next year and make the NCAA?  The team is losing two of its best scorers in Yoder and Poisson and several other seniors and grad students.  Junior and solid player Riley Duran just opted out of his senior year and has signed with the Boston Bruins.  But the Friars retained goalie Svedeback for two more years and had several promising freshmen who contributed this year.

 

It will be a challenge for Coach Leaman unless he can get more firepower from freshman recruits or transfers from the hockey transfer portal.  BC and BU have the best scorers and goalies in the league and most of them are returning next year.  Maine, for several years a dormant program, returned to glory this year selling out all of its games at the ancient 4,500 seat Alfond Arena after January 1st.

 

Despite featuring a solid team and narrowly losing an NCAA bid, the PC hockey team faces another ongoing challenge for next year and the years going forward, attracting fans.  PC‘s Schneider Arena only seats 3,030 fans, one of the smallest arenas in Hockey East.  The Friars only sold out Schneider once this year, which was an exciting 4-3 win over Denver.

 

College hockey throughout the US increased attendance, especially in Hockey East.  PC’s regular season attendance, however, remains paltry. In 2022-23, PC only averaged 2,491 fans/game.  The 2023-24 home attendance remained stagnant at 2,506 fans/ game. PC has a big-time Division 1 college hockey program, but its fan support, even among students, is more like that of a Division 2 program. The PC Athletics Department needs to step up its game for the hockey program and help Coach Leaman and next year’s hockey squad with more innovative promotion and marketing.