Derek Schooley talks Robert Morris' hockey schedule, Pittsburgh 'Frozen Four' hopes
Robert Morris men’s hockey coach Derek Schooley must’ve said it three or four times during a recent Zoom conversation.
With increasing anticipation each time.
“Let’s drop the puck and go.”
His Colonials haven’t played since March 8, an elimination game victory over Holy Cross in Round 1 of the Atlantic Hockey playoffs. The team was in Connecticut, anticipating the start of its second-round series against Sacred Heart when the rest of the 2020 postseason was scuttled because of coronavirus concerns.
By this point on the calendar in 2019, RMU was already seven games deep into its season. Now Schooley is just happy that a 2020-21 schedule has been released and a return-to-play plan has been implemented.
“We’re excited to play,” Schooley said. “We’ve been practicing since Sept. 1 in small pods. Then we got bigger pods. Then we’ve been going full team. This has been an individual skill development month. Power skating. Yoga. A strength phase with our guys. They are tired of practicing. We’ve got something to look forward to.”
The school’s athletic department unveiled a 28-game slate for the Colonials, starting with back-to-back home games against Alabama-Huntsville on Nov. 20 and 21 in Colonials Arena at the Clearview Island Sports Center.
The Colonials are set to play a 22-game Atlantic Hockey conference season. The two games against Alabama-Huntsville will be followed by a Tuesday night home game against Bowling Green (Nov. 24). Then the first conference games against Canisius will be home-and-away on back-to-back nights on Nov. 27 and 28.
Atlantic Hockey has done its best to split the conference slate between northeastern teams and teams in Western New York and Pennsylvania. That will minimize hotel stays for schools, thus hopefully minimizing exposure to the virus.
Given its geographical removal from the rest of the conference, Air Force will only play 20 games. And Long Island University will play each Atlantic Hockey program, but games against the Sharks won’t count toward conference records.
Since teams will be playing an unbalanced schedule, standings will be kept based on a percentage of points earned. For instance, with three points available for every game, RMU will be rated based on percentage of points earned off 66 points over 22 games. Air Force will be ranked based on the percentage of points earned for 60 points over 20 conference games.
The 11-team playoff tree — with the top five playoff teams earning byes — will be unchanged.
As far as the NCAA Tournament and Frozen Four slated for April 8-10 at PPG Paints Arena?
“I’m on the tournament committee,” Schooley said. “It’s up in the air how we are going to pick the teams right now. There’s been rumblings about moving the Frozen Four back for a couple weeks. Coaches would like that. But I think the tournament committee and Pittsburgh are looking at keeping the tournament right as (is) and moving toward those dates. A lot depends on how many people you can put in the stands. There are a lot of questions, but not a lot of answers.”
In Tuesday’s podcast, Schooley tries to answer some other questions about various college hockey rules changes, some promising freshmen and how new leaders will emerge from the ranks of returning upperclassmen.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
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