Army West Point Athletics
Feature Friday: Hockey's Depth
January 01, 2016 | General, Hockey, Athletics
This story was originally published on collegehockeynews.com and was written by Mike McMahon.
Recruiting isn't easy across the board in college hockey. For the staff at Army West Point, it's an even tougher challenge, and that's without even considering the unique person it takes to join the U.S. Military Academy.
According to College Hockey, Inc., 32 percent of college hockey players are not American citizens, either coming from Canada (30 percent) or Europe (2 percent). Those players are entirely off limits for Army, unless they hold dual citizenship.
It's a unique situation for sure — the same goes for Air Force — but it's something Army head coach Brian Riley and his coaching staff embrace.
"We all realize that this is a special place," said Riley, whose father Jack led the program for 36 years and his older brother, Rob Riley, then coached the team for 18 years before Brian took over in 2004.
Riley continued, "We need attract a special type of young man. It's easy to go find who the good hockey players are. We need to find good kidd who have strong character, good academics and great leadership. The army part of it, once we get them here, I know our guys will do fine in the army because the army is the ultimate team and hockey is the ultimate team sport."
On Tuesday night, the Black Knights beat Merrimack, 3-2, at a jam-packed Tate Rink. It was Army's first win over the Warriors in 30 years, dating back to 1985 (a span of 14 straight wins for the Warriors).
Army's recruiting has been building for the last several seasons. Riley said that a few years ago, the coaching staff determined that while the Black Knights always worked hard, they needed to be a tougher team to play against.
"This has been a process over the last couple of years," Riley said. "We would come out of games as coaches and know that we worked hard and put in the effort, but there was something missing. We wanted to be tougher to play against and we're starting to see that now. Our younger guys have come in and made an impact and our older guys have lead them, and that's the key to the whole thing.
"Recruiting is never easy, and we have to identify some key attributes in our players, but usually once we get guys to visit us here at West Point, they leave here impressed."
It's hard not to be. The sprawling campus is not terribly far from New York City — about 50 miles — but also has the qualities of a small town. Driving up to the campus, the windows of just about every local small business dons signs that read either "Go Army!" or, as you might imagine, the more popular, "Beat Navy!"
According to Merrimack head coach Mark Dennehy, the Black Knights were the toughest team the Warriors have faced all season on Tuesday night.
"I don't know if anyone plays harder and they're a physical team," he said. "Tonight was a grind-it-out, crash-and-bang game. … They're very good at hand-to-hand combat, which I'm happy as a citizen. I have all the respect in the world for Army, their program and their players."
Four of Army's top-seven scorers are either freshmen or sophomores and only one — Joe Kozlak — is a senior. Starting goaltender Parker Gahagen is a junior and his counterpart, Cole Burns, is only a sophomore.
The Black Knights have 17 underclassmen on their roster, and despite a 5-8-5 record, have seen plenty of growth this season. Riley's team is on pace for its most wins since 2010, having not eclipsed the eight-win mark the last four seasons.
This season alone, the Black Knights have wins over a pair of Hockey East opponents — Merrimack and Connecticut — and have also swept Sacred Heart in Atlantic Hockey.
There is still room for more growth, however. Heading into a break before the game on Tuesday, the Black Knights were swept by AIC in a weekend series in mid-December.
Still, over its last 10 games, the Black Knights sport a record of 5-3-2, including those wins over UConn and Merrimack.
Assistant coaches Eric Lang and former Army defenseman Zach McKelvie get most of the credit when it comes to recruiting, Riley said.
"People around the country know the players we're bringing in, and that's because they're good players," he said. "All of the credit there goes to our assistant coaches. They're the ones identifying these young men."
That young depth was on display Tuesday, Nick DeCenzo (sophmore), Conor Andrle (sophomore) and Trevor Fidler (freshman) were the goal scorers for the Black Knights.
"It's always good to have younger players contributing," Riley said, "but especially here our older guys are the key to it all. They're not only leading this team on the ice but off of it. That's the most important thing here.'
Army will host another Hockey East opponent, Massachusetts, on Saturday night.
