photo from Gazette.com
















I think Frank Schwab taking over the Tigers coverage at the Gazette was the best thing ever to happen. I hated the previous writer's style and topics and I thought she was pretty amateurish. Frank's latest article was from a full week ago and I completely forgot about it until Missy J posted the link for me on my facebook page (oh and a big thanks to all the Tigers who confirmed my friend requests this week, pretty cool to be friends with all the guys on the team and I may harrass you guys more for some interviews after the season is over).

If anyone ever tells you that hard work doesn't pay off, just have them give Berni Horowitz a call. The guy was just chillin' and playing on the club team at CC (I didn't realize that had both club and D1) and now he is on the Tigers roster as the #3 goalie and getting worked over in practice. It gives Bachman a break and also seems to have given the Tigers a little energy and fun in practice-something that could pay off bigtime this weekend. Check out the article below.

One other fun thing that Missy also pointed out to me which is the video of Jack Hillen's first NHL goal and it's a beaut!
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Club team goalie gets dream chance with Tigers
FRANK SCHWAB THE GAZETTE

Bernie Horowitz isn't in Colorado College's media guide or listed as a player on the team's Web site. And he won't be dressed and on the bench Saturday when the Tigers play at Denver.

All Horowitz gets is to live the dream of every recreational athlete who wants the chance to compete at a higher level.

When backup goaltender Drew O'Connell suffered a season-ending shoulder injury, CC needed a third goalie for practice. That's how Horowitz went from playing on the school's club team to practicing every week with the nation's No. 15 team.

"Wonderful, amazing," Horowitz said. "My highest aspiration was to play open hockey against these guys just once, to see how I matched up against them."

O'Connell hurt his shoulder Jan. 16. For a while, the Tigers were hopeful he could return, but O'Connell never recovered and recently had surgery.

Finding another goalie isn't easy. There aren't free agents like in the pros, and CC is a small campus.

While the Tigers were worried about finding a new goaltender, Horowitz was enjoying himself on the club team. He wasn't going to challenge Richard Bachman for supremacy at CC, not with his 4-8-1 record and 4.94 goals-against average, according to the club team's site. But the former New York City high school starter never dreamed of playing with the guys on scholarship.

"When I came to this school, I saw I could play with the club team five times a week, and that was great," he said. "The D-I team was never part of the equation."

Horowitz, a junior, knew some of the Tigers players. He was friends with former CC goalie Chris Kawano as a freshman and a neighbor to some Tigers players last year in the dorms. During the summer after his freshman year, he even practiced against some of them, which fulfilled a dream.

CC's coaches asked Charlie Litch, a part-time video editor for the varsity team last year, about club team goalies. Litch, who is handling administrative duties for the club team, recommended Horowitz.

"We just asked around," coach Scott Owens said. "It takes some of the practice workload off Richard, and you're able to run a full hour-and-15-minute practice with three goaltenders without having to worry about burning out your two goaltenders. From that standpoint, we needed it."

Horowitz was given what amounted to a two-week tryout, then was added to the roster.

Horowitz has taken it in stride. He laughs along when teammates mercilessly tease him during an interview, and he jokes about getting "red light burns" after he practiced despite being under the weather this week. He admits if anything in his game is off, he'll "get killed." Yet, for the most part, he doesn't think he has embarrassed himself.

And the practices are a blast, for himself and even the coaches.

"He's a good kid," Owens said. "He's been a fun addition. He's pretty jacked about it."

There's one question he constantly receives from friends and family back home: Is he ever going to get in a game? If another goaltender goes down, he's all that's left to be the backup. Even though he has far surpassed any college hockey dreams he had, he daydreams about the possibility of playing in a game.

"Of course I have," Horowitz said. "I think I'd have a heart attack before I made it into the net."

It's rough watching our Tigers plod through this season after one of the best year's in school history last season. The Tigers have seemed out-of-sync all season which was all to obvious in the first week against Alabama-Huntsville. There was a good article Wednesday about the Tigers' struggles and how losing Jack Hillen has really hurt the team. He had 31 assists and created countless scoring chances with his blue-line blasts. I think we are seeing now just how big a presence he had in setting up offensive chances, regardless of stats. Let's hope Owens can get the team back in a groove this weekend as the Tigers get some rest and regroup for the final months of the season.

Why is the magic gone?
FRANK SCHWAB-THE GAZETTE

This season was supposed to be a continuation for Colorado College.

The Tigers returned 76 percent of its goal scoring and goaltender Richard Bachman, the Western Collegiate Hockey Association Player of the Year, from a team that won the regular-season title. They were picked to repeat in the WCHA.

CC is unranked and barely above .500 in the WCHA at 9-8-3, 13-9-6 overall. Nobody saw this drop coming.

"I think that's been the most frustrating is it's not that much different from last year's team," CC coach Scott Owens said.

So what has happened? Most answers are vague, referring to intangibles like chemistry and consistency.

"It's just we're not all on the same page, we're not clicking," senior defenseman and captain Jake Gannon said. "We've got to start working together better."

There are some tangible reasons CC has had a disappointing season.

Defenseman Jack Hillen's graduation was probably underestimated. He had a heavy slap shot from the blue line, which helped on the power play and to generate offensive chances. He had six goals and 31 assists last year. His production hasn't been replaced.

"He could log a lot of minutes and gave us a strong presence on the blue line," Owens said.

Also, Bachman hasn't had an All-American season. He can't be blamed for everything - he gave up four first-period goals in Saturday's embarrassing 6-1 loss to St. Cloud State, but two were deflected off CC players. However, he isn't dominating like last year.

Last year he saved 93.1 percent of shots he saw and had a 1.85 goals-against average.

This year he has a 91.4 save percentage and a 2.60 goals-against average.

"I feel healthy, I've just got to work on a few things," Bachman said. "I definitely feel confident and that I can get on a run here."

Injuries have hurt the Tigers. Defensemen Jake Gannon and Kris Fredheim and forwards Matt Overman, Nick Dineen, Scott McCulloch, Andreas Vlassopoulos and Tim Hall, and backup goaltender Drew O'Connell have missed time because of injuries.

CC had a strange schedule in which it played 22 games before its first weekend off, the most in college hockey. There's no way to tell if that contributed to the rash of injuries, but last year's balanced schedule was more beneficial.

"I think that helped us stay fresh," Owens said.

And chemistry issues have plagued CC. After CC's offense started slowly, players might have started pressing. Forwards Bill Sweatt and Eric Walsky appear to be trying to do too much at times. CC is scoring just 2.68 goals per game, which is ninth in the WCHA.

Whatever the Tigers' problems are, they don't have long to fix them with eight league games left after a weekend off.

"I think it's a matter of everybody getting on the same page and buying into what we're doing," Gannon said. "Once we do that, I think it's going to come along for us."

• • •

This season vs. last season

Last season (‘07-'08) is listed first in each category, then this season (‘08-'09)

Goals per game
3.32
2.68

Goals against per game
2.15
2.68

Assists per game
5.32
4.10

Power play percentage
19.2
14.8

Penalties per game
5.8
7.5

Record, winning percentage
28-12-1 .695
13-9-6 .571