St. Louis — Boston College registered 13 shots in the first period in Saturday night's national championship game.
St. Louis — The crowd at Scottrade Center knew something magical was about to happen. As the 1-1 game against Boston College for the national championship Saturday crept closer to a possible overtime, Spartans fans in the Frozen Four record-setting crowd of 19,432 kept cheering.
St. Louis — MSU head coach Rick Comley has been picked apart by the media, fans and the public ever since he was named Ron Mason's successor in 2002. He has dealt with two seasons in which the team failed to meet lofty preseason expectations, ultimately falling short of an NCAA Tournament bid. But with Saturday's 3-1 victory over Boston College to give MSU its third national championship in program history, Comley has met those lofty expectations, silencing the critics in the process. "I want to publicly thank Ron Mason," Comley said of MSU's athletic director.
State News sports editor Eric Fish kept a running blog of his journey this past weekend with hockey reporter Zack Colman and photographer Mike Itchue at the Frozen Four in St.
St. Louis — Justin Abdelkader wasn't even born when Mike Donnelly scored the game-winning goal in the 1986 NCAA championship game to earn the crown for the Spartans, but the sophomore forward will take his place in the hockey history books alongside him. Abdelkader, like Donnelly, scored the game-winning goal to give MSU the national title.
St. Louis — Jeff Lerg gave the Spartans a chance to win the game. Early in the third period, he denied forward Brian Boyle on a two-on-one rush with a glove save that could have given Boston College a 2-0 lead. That save was ranked the fourth best play of the night on SportsCenter and was arguably the turning point in the game. "Coach Newton said on the bench after he made that save, he's like, 'We're going to score two goals and win it.
St. Louis — Resilient. It's the word MSU head coach Rick Comley has used again and again this season to describe his team. The Spartans continued to define the term Thursday in the Frozen Four national semifinal game when they found themselves down 2-0 to Maine less than four minutes into the game.
The State News recently caught up with former MSU All-American and current Colorado Avalanche defenseman John-Michael Liles.
Maine's offense vs. MSU's defense Although Maine is ranked 12th in the nation with 3.36 goals per game, the ranking is misleading.
Not a big hockey fan, but want to root on the Spartans in their improbable march to a national championship?
Boston College: The Eagles are the hottest team in college hockey right now as winners of 12 straight games.
Jeff Lerg got up at 6 a.m. for a month straight after Maine eliminated MSU in last year's East Regional final.
Prior to this season, the Spartans last saw themselves in the Frozen Four in 2001. Anchored by the goaltending of All-American goaltender Ryan Miller, the Spartans earned a No.
The State News recently caught up with sophomore defenseman Brandon Gentile. Gentile and the Spartans leave today for the Frozen Four in St.
Maybe you haven't heard of freshman forward Jay Sprague or sophomore forward Matt Schepke, and you wouldn't be in the minority if you hadn't.
Not much was expected of the MSU hockey team entering the 1991-92 season. Preseason predictions had the Spartans penciled in for a fifth-place finish in the CCHA. The Spartans made those predictions look like a joke in the postseason. MSU was a five seed in the West Regional and proceeded to defeat Boston, 4-2, on the strength of three unanswered third-period goals.
It was supposed to be last year's MSU hockey team that had all the glory, not this year's squad. After losing a large portion of the team's offense, as well as several steady, reliable defensemen, hardly anybody would have expected the 2006-07 Spartans to surpass last year's team. But it happened. Last season After starting out the 2005-06 season around the .500 mark and battling through several key injuries, the Spartans were looking for some kind of turnaround. MSU got its spark when then-freshman goaltender Jeff Lerg took over in net and led the Spartans on a 17-4-3 second-half surge. "Last year was a really good team, I think from Christmas on," MSU head coach Rick Comley said. Behind Lerg's goaltending and a stingy defense, the Spartans captured the 2006 CCHA Tournament Championship and earned a No.
MSU hockey head coach Rick Comley has been named one of 11 finalists for the Spencer Penrose Award, which is awarded to college hockey's top coach of the season by the American Hockey Coaches Association. Comley previously won the award in 1980 and in 1991, a year when Comley won his lone national championship.
Four years ago, senior captain Chris Lawrence had everything planned out. After his successful stint in juniors with the Pittsburgh Forge of the North American Hockey League, he was going to star at small Division I Mercyhurst College on scholarship in his home state of Pennsylvania, which made his parents happy that he'd be close to home. But then MSU changed everything when the university told Lawrence it wanted him to play hockey as a member of the Spartans. "I never even took a visit when I came here," Lawrence said.
Although the Spartans won Saturday against Notre Dame in the NCAA Midwest Regional, they lost one of their top defenders. Junior defenseman Daniel Vukovic injured his knee early in the second period when he got tangled up behind the MSU net.