Teams that have surprised you?

[betteronice]

Which teams have you seen at nationals that has surprised you good or bad?

[alex]

I was rooting for them, but I was surprised how far UCI got. I definitely didn't predict them getting to the final four.

[hockeyguy96]

Ucf???!??????

[str8iq]

UCF got lucky bottom line

[TourFLA98]

UCF got really lucky.

[MBurke]

UCF got really lucky.

Cmon, give them a little credit. They beat Towson and Michigan State back-to-back.

[MrPapageorgio17]

Can anybody tell me how UCF got lucky. I wasnt at nationals and I am just curious.

[simon10]

towson beat them 8-2 in the round robin. Mich state beat them 10-2 in the round robin. In the sweet 16 they come back to beat towson 7-3 and then go on to beat mich state 5-4 in the elite 8. In the towson game there was 14 penalties called most of which were on towson. That means that there were 28 out the 36 minutes special teams which is unheard of. Yeah they capitalized on there chances but they should have never beaten either of those teams.

[MrPapageorgio17]

what about the msu game?

[MrPapageorgio17]

towson beat them 8-2 in the round robin. Mich state beat them 10-2 in the round robin. In the sweet 16 they come back to beat towson 7-3 and then go on to beat mich state 5-4 in the elite 8. In the towson game there was 14 penalties called most of which were on towson. That means that there were 28 out the 36 minutes special teams which is unheard of. Yeah they capitalized on there chances but they should have never beaten either of those teams.


the penalties were 9 on UCF and 4 on towson. I dont understand your reasoning for them winning now. Im not trying to start something but i am just trying to figure out how they get beat bad and come back to do the opposite of what happened in the previous game

[CSteamer]

The score was 7-3, not exactly a close game. Also, how do u say they got lucky. They may have just played bad in the first two games. They won when it counted in the playoffs. But I didnt see the games, im just wondering why everyone says they got lucky.

[JLambertUMSL]

UCF was a #6 seed -- just like SLU in DII last year.

[str8iq]

msu beat them 10-2 in the round robin and in the elite 8 msu hit 8 posts and outshot them by 22 shots...their goalie played outta his mind

[InlineMBA]

Teams that surprised me:

UC Irvine - WOW Quickly became fan favorites, and they earned it. I was a little disappointed to see C. Middleton pretty much only "cherry picking". I realize that with only 5 guys they were trying to spread out the floor. But, from what I saw - Middleton was one dimensional, but what a one dimension!
Florida - Skill, Size - Sleeper Team Award
University of Central Florida - 180 degree turnaround after pool play. Lulled teams to sleep in pool play, then played like the D'Young Gunz in playoffs.
Ohio State Disappointment, I thought they would do more, but from what I understand 2 of their top players didn't make the trip.
EMU - Deskins: sniper with good hands, lacks speed. The team earned and became the team everyone was rooting against. Disgrace to the NCRHA.

I'm sure folks will disagree with me, but that's what this board is all about - OPINIONS.

Steve Inge - ROXBURY 8

[InlineMBA]

Error - Duplicate Post

[osu_buckeyes]

Teams that surprised me:

UC Irvine - WOW Quickly became fan favorites, and they earned it. I was a little disappointed to see C. Middleton pretty much only "cherry picking". I realize that with only 5 guys they were trying to spread out the floor. But, from what I saw - Middleton was one dimensional, but what a one dimension!
Florida - Skill, Size - Sleeper Team Award
University of Central Florida - 180 degree turnaround after pool play. Lulled teams to sleep in pool play, then played like the D'Young Gunz in playoffs.
Ohio State Disappointment, I thought they would do more, but from what I understand 2 of their top players didn't make the trip.
EMU - Deskins: sniper with good hands, lacks speed. The team earned and became the team everyone was rooting against. Disgrace to the NCRHA.

I'm sure folks will disagree with me, but that's what this board is all about - OPINIONS.

Steve Inge - ROXBURY 8

Middleton definitely had one hell of a shot. Pretty much single handedly beat us with 4 goals and 2 assists. I wish they could have pulled off the upset over Lindenwood but oh well.

We were definitely hurting without our full lineup. We ended up having only 6 A players and 1 B player at nationals and it showed. Still we only lost to UCI by 1 goals and Rhode Island by 2. I think if we hadn't had to play Lindenwood in the round of 16 we could have made it a little further but who knows. Next year should be good though as we are only losing 2 players (one of which wasn't here this week) and picking up some strong newcomers.

[rollerhockey8]

I agree that UCF didnt have the skill to get as far as they did but had a lot of luck.

Also, I think that NEUMANN needs to man up and grow a pair and step up to DIVISION 1

[burrows00]

I think that UCI played awesome and proved to a lot of people who doubted that a 5 player team could definitely compete with the "deep" teams from the east

i agree that Neumann should step up to D1 and try to challenge themselves more

[showtime89]

I asked in another post but didn't get an answer. What's the difference/breakdown between DI and DII?
When I played in '99 it was Only DI(4 year schools) and DIII(2 year schools).
It seemed like from the previous post that a team can choose their division.

[CaneDogg]

UCF deserves its credit. Don't bash a team that won a couple huge games when it mattered the most. They went 8-8-4 on the regular season which is not impressive especially in the secrhl but went into regionals and killed every team they played. They are the type of team that wins when they need to and that they did in Regionals and Nationals. Good job UCF!!

[NCRHA]

Division II is reserved for schools with enrollment under 18,000 students. Any team can move up should they desire. There is also an exception that teams can appeal to move down from Division I.

UMSL moved up from DII to DI this year and went to the Championship Game. Stony Brook did as well.

[socalhockey]

Division II is reserved for schools with enrollment under 18,000 students. Any team can move up should they desire. There is also an exception that teams can appeal to move down from Division I.

UMSL moved up from DII to DI this year and went to the Championship Game. Stony Brook did as well.

As did Long Beach State out of the West!

[BackOffHaterz8]

Tell me why everyone hates on ucf?? you dont accidently beat quality teams like Towson and especially Michigan State.....

[BackOffHaterz8]

I agree that UCF didnt have the skill to get as far as they did but had a lot of luck.

Also, I think that NEUMANN needs to man up and grow a pair and step up to DIVISION 1

UCF had two penalty shots called against them in the elite 8 game against michigan state which one of which would have tied the game and they are the lucky ones?

[Ben Lambert]

Irvine. I would've bet the bank that SBU would take them. I am glad that they went so far. And as for Middleton, the scouting report on him was correct: Is slighttly above average in every category except that he can bury... wow he can score.

Florida was better than UCF. After playing each team, I can say that or a fact.

[JLambertUMSL]

Long Beach pushed us to the brink. We were losing with less than 3:00 left, until PJ tied the game, then gave us the lead (and added an empty-netter for his second "natural hat trick" of the tournament). We were down 5-3 entering the third. It was a very difficult game. They are an excellent team. Burrows is as good a player as anyone we faced.

Hollingshead: I give you lots of credit for having the guts to tug on Superman's cape...you know what I'm talking about...wish I'd seen it. And obviously, lots of respect for being such a great player. One of the very best in college roller hockey.

UCF: sources say they were talking all kinds of smack about us on Saturday night...after all we did was stand there and patiently wait for them to finish celebrating their win over MSU, then genuinely congratulate each of them when they finally left the floor. So I hope sources are wrong. It always amazes me how much ridiculous unprovoked off-the-rink trash talk there is in general. If I weren't essentially deaf in one ear, I'd probably be downright appalled. (I did hear Stony Brook players chanting "UMSL, UMSL, UMSL, YOU SUCK!" at our B team in the hotel on Saturday night.) :o

EMU: well....no comment.

[topshelf]

[QUOTE=JLambertUMSL;48018]Long Beach pushed us to the brink. We were losing with less than 3:00 left, until PJ tied the game, then gave us the lead (and added an empty-netter for his second "natural hat trick" of the tournament). We were down 5-3 entering the third. It was a very difficult game. They are an excellent team. Burrows is as good a player as anyone we faced.

the rumor is that Long Beach is adding 3 platinum players next year, and if that is the case they will be alot better next year. Burrows is only a Sophomore!

[WCU #17]

UCF is a good team, a bit inconsistent, but they have some super skilled players. As for the trash talk on saturday night during the UMSL-UF game, I can attest to hearing the UCF team in the stands threatening to bury Tallo on the first shift . . worked out well for them.

[osu_buckeyes]

Hollingshead: I give you lots of credit for having the guts to tug on Superman's cape...you know what I'm talking about...wish I'd seen it. And obviously, lots of respect for being such a great player. One of the very best in college roller hockey.


Thanks James, I really appreciate it. There should be videos of it up soon along with the entire Lindenwood game and our games against UCI and Missouri Columbia too. I will probably start a new thread once they are ready and maybe we can get a little archive together with any other videos that were done during the tournament.

And kudos to you guys for pushing LU in the finals (at least a lot further than anyone did) and having an all around awesome tournament.

[simon10]

other then burrows long beach is not that good. When towson played them he was the only kid on the rink that actually did anything. The second burrows called for the puck his teammates immideatly gave it up to him. He has a good shot and is real quick but the team is not that solid as a whole...Not really sure how umsl got into a hole against them but I give them credit for climbing out of it. And as for central florida. No one special on the team all players pretty decent. They scored alot of their goals on outside shots and lucky goals. They talked Alot of trash as well

[JLambertUMSL]

other then burrows long beach is not that good. When towson played them he was the only kid on the rink that actually did anything. The second burrows called for the puck his teammates immideatly gave it up to him. He has a good shot and is real quick but the team is not that solid as a whole...Not really sure how umsl got into a hole against them but I give them credit for climbing out of it. And as for central florida. No one special on the team all players pretty decent. They scored alot of their goals on outside shots and lucky goals. They talked Alot of trash as well

They can keep talking. I think the scoreboard talks a lot louder.

#9 on Central Florida has amazing hands...I thought he was something special when I saw him against MSU.

Lots of people have talked about how they're going to "bury" Tallo. People try to lay him out all the time. That's par for the course when you're the best player in the country at age 18 (and have a fanatical idiot like James Lambert plastering your highlights all over Youtube). The problem is that it's hardly even possible. Not only is he one of the quickest players around, he's also one of the strongest. Chances are, if you try to lay him out, you'll wish you'd resisted the temptation within about half a second.

[JLambertUMSL]

Thanks James, I really appreciate it. There should be videos of it up soon along with the entire Lindenwood game and our games against UCI and Missouri Columbia too. I will probably start a new thread once they are ready and maybe we can get a little archive together with any other videos that were done during the tournament.

That would be amazing. The quality on YouTube sucks, but at least it's something. (Unless you know of a better place to put it.)

Whenever I could get volunteers from our B team (easier said than done), I got two angles of our games. (So this year's videos are going to be bigger and better than ever.)

We really should try to get together all the footage we can, since there are no DVDs this year (which is a shame).


And kudos to you guys for pushing LU in the finals (at least a lot further than anyone did) and having an all around awesome tournament.

Thanks. We worked hard as hell.

[osu_buckeyes]

Yea, youtube will be done for sure. I will have the original high quality footage as well and could probably host it somewhere. Handling the bandwidth for a bunch of people downloading it might be iffy though. I will see what I can do.

Not sure if there are any legal ramification of this but depending on how many videos we can get together I could potentially compress them all and put them on DVDs and send them out to people if anyone wanted them. The production values would probably not be all that great, but at least it would be something.

[csdahlberg]

Handling the bandwidth for a bunch of people downloading it might be iffy though. I will see what I can do.

I have some extra bandwidth on my webserver, but that still is a finite resource and could run out quick depending on how big the videos end up being.

How about bittorrent? I'd be willing to leave my computer uploading for a long time. I'll be happy to create the torrent, too, if I get the files.

[William Bourque]

I know this is only me talking about my own team, but i think that i had to publicly say that what the Shippensburg team that went to nationals far exceeded what anyone expected from us considering what we were missing. Congratulations to those guys who went out there and stepped it up so that the team could post a 2-3 record.

For those of you who weren't aware i would like to say that Shippensburg was missing 62% of its offensive production from the regular season as well as 80% of the defensive core for the national tournament.

I would also like to thank ULL for their kind words after watching us lose 5-0 in our first game against Cal Poly Pomona. I would also like to say that i hope Tampa continues to work hard so they can maybe have a rematch with us in more favorable conditions next time. It was fun sharing Olive Garden with you guys that night, it lead to some good laughs.

[JLambertUMSL]

I have some extra bandwidth on my webserver, but that still is a finite resource and could run out quick depending on how big the videos end up being.

How about bittorrent? I'd be willing to leave my computer uploading for a long time. I'll be happy to create the torrent, too, if I get the files.

That would be sweet...I'll offer up any of our games.

[JLambertUMSL]

I know this is only me talking about my own team, but i think that i had to publicly say that what the Shippensburg team that went to nationals far exceeded what anyone expected from us considering what we were missing. Congratulations to those guys who went out there and stepped it up so that the team could post a 2-3 record.

For those of you who weren't aware i would like to say that Shippensburg was missing 62% of its offensive production from the regular season as well as 80% of the defensive core for the national tournament.



Nothing wrong with talking about your own team. It's good insight for everyone else.

[RustyPipes27]

UCF outplayed us, and as a result, they won.

[RichardGraham]

Hey Bill,

Didn't Shippensburg also come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a game 7-3 or something like that? I caught a bit of that game at the CSC, I think. That was a pretty good comeback!

[William Bourque]

Hey Bill,

Didn't Shippensburg also come back from a 3-0 deficit to win a game 7-3 or something like that? I caught a bit of that game at the CSC, I think. That was a pretty good comeback!

In fact they did.

The score was 2-0 after the first period against Southern Illinois. We made some changes after the first period and moved Jeff Kulp up from defense and put together some solid lines. Bryan Lowe, recorded four goals in the game, even though the box score says 3. They went out and scored 6 straight goals before winning 7-3.

[osu_buckeyes]

That would be sweet...I'll offer up any of our games.

Yea, bittorrent might be the best option. My computer is on all the time anyways so I wouldn't mind seeding the files for people. I still haven't got the footage yet, but I think if we compress the games (using Divx probably) we could get the file size down to a reasonable point and still have good quality. I am thinking somewhere around 200-500 MB per game, but I really have no idea, it might end up being more than that.

[dnglhcky10]

They can keep talking. I think the scoreboard talks a lot louder.

#9 on Central Florida has amazing hands...I thought he was something special when I saw him against MSU.

Lots of people have talked about how they're going to "bury" Tallo. People try to lay him out all the time. That's par for the course when you're the best player in the country at age 18 (and have a fanatical idiot like James Lambert plastering your highlights all over Youtube). The problem is that it's hardly even possible. Not only is he one of the quickest players around, he's also one of the strongest. Chances are, if you try to lay him out, you'll wish you'd resisted the temptation within about half a second.

Tallo is a great player, but honestly the best 18yr old in the nation is Blake Johnson. Tallo, Blake, and Mac are the top 3 89's. Blake will run right through both of them if he needed to

[dnglhcky10]

UCF got really lucky.

UCF didnt get lucky. They picked up three solid freshman this year and another guy who hadnt played in a while who got his skates back under him. When they lost to MSU the game was unreal with penatlies. Not just UCF, but both teams were called left and right. Their goalie also had a horrible game and let in the first 4 shots. Try coming back from 4-0, 5 minutes in. The next game against towson, they stepped up and played as they did in regionals; and the second game against MSU was just a great game all around. Both teams played great. They are going to go just as far next year when they pick up another two solid players and return the other 6.

[dnglhcky10]

UMSL is a great team. They waxed UCF like they should have. The game probably could have been a little closer, but UCF just seemed happy being in the final 4 and didnt seem to care

[rh9]

Don't know why you use the word "they" when talking about UCF.....I'm willing to bet you play for them

[dnglhcky10]

i actually dont but thanks....i just watched their controversial games

[JLambertUMSL]

UCF didnt get lucky. They picked up three solid freshman this year and another guy who hadnt played in a while who got his skates back under him. When they lost to MSU the game was unreal with penatlies. Not just UCF, but both teams were called left and right. Their goalie also had a horrible game and let in the first 4 shots. Try coming back from 4-0, 5 minutes in. The next game against towson, they stepped up and played as they did in regionals; and the second game against MSU was just a great game all around. Both teams played great. They are going to go just as far next year when they pick up another two solid players and return the other 6.

Michigan State's Tony Ascenzo got thrown out of the first MSU-UCF game on one of the weakest major butt-ending calls I've ever seen. The ref supposedly said it was a "deadly butt-end." That was hilarious. It wasn't a butt-end at all....and Ascenzo is NOT that kind of player.

[Ben Lambert]

i actually dont but thanks....i just watched their controversial games

You seem to know oh so much about them.

http://www.inlinehockeycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=48459#post48459

[wednthavddr]

He might play for BCC or did. But who cares. He gave Blake Johnson some love which was definitely deserved. Nobody talked about him and look at how he played.
UCF battled and all you here is that they got lucky. They beat two very good teams and it is over now. Congrats for reppin the SOUTHEAST!

[Ben Lambert]

Everyone is so worried about "reppin" their region. Imagine what would happen if people would "rep" the whole NCRHA or "rep" the whole sport.

edit: The southeast is a strong as f conference. They are also pretty classy guys. Even though the UCF guy was pushy as hell in the seeding meeting :D. Southeast is a great conference. They do deserve a lot of credit.

Long Beach were also a humble, classy team. Nicest group of guys that we played against the entire tournament. Just wanted to throw that out there...

[JLambertUMSL]

I'd like to give props to Penn State's B team. That's also a great bunch of guys who play hard and clean.

[cdolan]

I'll give props to to Blake. He was the best player we played in D3. I never saw oakland or yokubison play but I did see the stats from the finals and it seems that Blake basically took over.