Basketball and hockey took center stage for the first time this season at Air Force’s weekly news conferences this week, and that meant the return of coach Frank Serratore to the broader media galaxy. Couple that with a six-game win streak that has put the Falcons in first place in Atlantic Hockey and the triumphant return of Director of Hockey Steve Miller, who was fresh off helping the U.S. World Junior team capture a gold medal in an unprecedented fashion, and it was a big afternoon behind the mic for Falcons hockey.
Enjoy excerpts from our latest edition of Frank Talk.
On the U.S. World Junior gold medal …
This could easily be framed as a top-5 event, for sure a top-10 event, in USA Hockey history. You’ve got ’60-’80-’96, the first time that we won the World Juniors. To win it up there, to beat Canada twice, to beat Russia twice … we were talking about it after our game in Erie (against Mercyhurst last weekend), top-10 for sure, possibly top-5 in all of USA Hockey history in my opinion.
On the Falcons’ six-game winning streak …
We got our legs under us before Christmas. We played Sacred Heart, which has been struggling a little bit, Mercyhurst, which is always tough in their building. I don’t care who you are, where you are, especially in this age of parity, to go on the road and win four consecutive road games especially is an accomplishment to be proud of and it’s not easy to do. When you look at what that did for us, winning these six games, but especially the past four, we’re in first place now. We were kind of in the middle of the pack. It’s about the only way you can make up ground on people and pass people is to go on an unrelentless run. Everybody’s going to lose. Your goal is to get up and get a few games in hand and then just play consistent hockey and win more than you lose because it’s going to be hard for people to put together runs to catch you. We’re in a good place right now but there’s a lot of hockey left to be played. … Our ultimate goal is to finish in the top four so we don’t have to go on the road to win a playoff series to get to the final four in our league. The final four in our league is going to be the route to the NCAA Tournament. It’s not an easy road, but it’s a lot easier if you don’t have to win a road game. Hopefully we can keep pace with this and ultimately finish where we want to finish, get that home series then win two games at a neutral site to get to the NCAA Tournament.
On sophomore goalie Billy Christopoulos getting rewarded for his strong play this season with a victory this past Saturday at Mercyhurst …
We were down 2-1 in the third period, and my biggest fear wasn’t losing. We just needed something good to happen for Billy and his mojo. Billy played really good against Western Michigan and didn’t win, and it wasn’t his fault. I thought, “Are you kidding me we’re only going to score one goal for Billy here?” If we lose this game I didn’t want it to be 2-1. They took a bad penalty late in the game and we took advantage of it, ended up scoring three goals on the major penalty and ended up winning the game. …. Shane Starrett is our best player, everyone knows that. Billy wasn’t playing because we didn’t care about the game. Shane got dinged the game before.
Not only did Christopoulos step up, but so did the depleted defense …
Johnny Kopacka broke his ankle the night before. So we also had Billy playing in the net. And we had Matt Burchill playing defense. When we started the season we had 10 defensemen, more than we’ve ever had. Matt was No. 10. With the injuries and everything that’s happened, Johnny Hrabovsky out, he’s our sixth defenseman. … I thought he did a great job. He didn’t try to go out and try to do anything he wasn’t capable of. He defended, he made a good first pass, got pucks out, got pucks deep, and for a 5-6 guy that’s all you really need him to do. For us to be able to go into that game with our backup goalie and our D core not at 100 percent, and we played a very good three periods. I went in after the second period and said, “Guys just stay with it. We’re going to get chances, they’re going to make a mistake. We just haven’t had a bounce the first two periods.” Eventually we got that bounce, got that break and took advantage of it. …
It’s a real feel-gooder regardless, it put us in first place, but doing it with Billy in the net. Now we’ve got a guy that we know can not only compete for us but can win for us, and he knows he can win. He needed to get that little monkey off his back.
What do the Falcons do on D with Jonathan Kopacka out long-term and captain Johnny Hrabovsky also injured?
One thing that we’re going to be in fear is we are thin on our D core. We’re going to have retrain Tyler Rostenkowski, a converted defenseman, back there. Maybe the best thing, other than the win, on Saturday night was we didn’t get another defenseman hurt back there. …
We have to prepare ourselves that something’s going to happen. We’re down to six until Johnny comes back. … Tyler has a history of playing D. He played all through youth hockey. In junior hockey he played D. He plays with great energy, with great heart. He’s the logical one. Hopefully we won’t have to use him back there.
Keys to the Falcons’ recent run include …
I don’t know if we gave up an outnumbered rush (against a skilled Mercyhurst team). That’s real frustrating for teams like that. So we’re playing a real good team game. I think the guys have bought into the system. This year for whatever reason, things took a long time. … It’s just all starting to come together. Nobody is confused.
You have to have a good defensive foundation, and we were inconsistent early. … Steve (Miller) brought some things to our penalty killing. We were doing a pro trap down system to more of a man on man system. Right now our penalty killing is really good. We’re top-5.
Special teams starts on the dot. … whoever wins that tap it’s a huge advantage for your penalty kill and your power play. We won a lot of initial draws. That’s a big part of that.
What makes me feel good about those six games is we came from behind in the third period to win three of them. And we won four of those on the road, which is a good indicator.
@AFAFlightpath
