Huskies hire Jim Madigan to lead hockey team

 Northeastern has hired former player and assistant coach Jim Madigad to take over as head coach. Madigan was working as a scout for the Pittsburgh Penguins. In all his former years at NU Perhaps Madigan's greatest acomplishment is he brought three Beanpots to NU (twice as a player, once as a coach). Here are my thoughts one the hire. I think Madigan brings a wealth of hockey knowledge to the table. Obviously he has expirence from college and the NHL. Here are the two problems. Number one is his team is going to be terrible next year. They lose thier whole first line and their best young  player in Brodie Reid. NU does have a strong goaltender in Rawlings but he has never played well in a big game. Heres my other problem. Can this guy recruit ? Yes he is a former assistant coach but that was in 1992. Things have changed. Now you have so many good hockey teams in the league. Back then it was BU and Maine. Now its BC, BU, Maine, UNH and Merrimack. NU has lost a couple of recruits because of Cronin. Are the recruits happy with Madigan and willing to return ? who knows. My final thought is NU is going to need to give this guy some time or else nothing is going to work.

Report- Brandon Shea to go pro

According to sources, Brandon Shea will not play college hockey. Instead Shea will go to the Moncton Wildcats in the Canadian hockey league.

O'Connell officially hired as new assistant coach at Harvard.

Albie O'Connell (A former BU player) was officially named the new assistant hockey coach at Harvard today. This leads me with a few thoughts. Number one is what is really happening to Northeastern. They are not only losing recruits by the day, but are also losing coaches. NU has a long tradition of hanging tough in Hockey East but this year without Cronin and O'Connell, I just don't see the Huskies as a real contender. Keep in mind they also lost their whole first line and Brodie Reed to the NHL. My second thought is could Harvard be on the uprise ? I think this is going to be the last year before the breakout year for the Crimson. Im very sad that the Eagles will probably not get a chance at the Crimson this year because Harvard has the Terriers in the Beanpot and do not see the Eagles in the regular season. Who knows it could be another Harvard vs Boston College Beanpot !!!

Former Lowell coach MacDonald to replace Gendron at UMass

Former UMass Lowell head coach Blaise MacDonald will be heading west to Amherst to fill in the open assistant coaching job that was left open thanks to Red Gendron leaving the Minutemen.

Official- Gendron going to Yale

It's now official. Red Gendron will be leaving Umass for Yale as an assistant coach under long time friend Keith Allian.

What will the Fighting Irish do ?

With all of this conference shifting, one major program is being left out. BC's secondary rival the Irish of Notre Dame.  So What is Notre Dame hockey going to do ? They have a couple options. Their first option is they could join the newly formed National Colligate Hockey Conference with Denver, North Dakota, Minnesota Duluth, Nebraska Omaha, Colorado College and Miami. People may suddenly think why wouldn't they join this league ? it has the best teams.  Some would argue, including myself. I have always believed Hockey East is the toughest and best league in college hockey year in and year out. If you take the top four teams in Hockey East vs these teams in this new league, Hockey East could win. The question is Year in and year out whose better BC, BU, UNH, and Maine or Denver, North Dakota, Colorado College, and Miami. Notre Dame's biggest issue will be travel. No matter what league they decided to join, they will have to travel a lot. Im just saying if I were the Irish I would join Hockey East because every game in Hockey East is such a fun and grueling battle. Teams in that conference like Miami and Denver are not really rivals yet, so those games wouldn't be as intense as a game in Hockey East that features two of the top teams. From a Boston College hockey standpoint I would LOVE to see the Irish join Hockey East. I think the BC Notre Dame rivalry would sky rocket and Notre Dame could become BC's new secondary archival. A BC Notre Dame hockey game in Chestnut Hill would feature a packed house, and it would be the same at any other venue in Hockey East.

BC invited to join super conference ? wait what ?

 According to a report Boston College and archival Boston University were offered to join the newly formed "super conference" with North Dakota, Denver, Colorado College, Minnesota Duluth, and maybe Miami and Notre Dame. BC declined the invitation and so did the Terriers.

Can the Warriors keep it up ?

OK, I have had enough with Merrimack Hockey. As a fan of Hockey East it is great to see them competing with "the big four" of Hockey East but lets be honest, there has been a whole lot of talk about them and they haven't done a lot. Yes they made the NCAA tournament for the first time in a while but they lost the Hockey East Championship to a team they have beat already twice in the year, and they lost in the first round of the NCAA's. I think Mark Dennnehy is a great coach, probably in the top three or four in Hockey East, but I think that they really are a one year wonder. Great teams are teams that consistently win big games. Merrimack did not win a lot of big games. Yes, they beat BC at home twice when the Eagles were highly ranked, they beat highly ranked UNH a couple times, and they swept Maine in the playoffs. Honestly as a BC hockey fan, it's great you could beat us in two games that really don't matter, but when its all on the line on the big stage, we beat you. This year I am very interested to see if Merrimack can keep up there effort IN BIG GAMES. Who knows maybe the Warriors will prove me and a whole lot of people wrong by having a great season next year.