59 Teams in 59 Days Robert Morris

The 59 Teams in 59 Days tour continues with a trip to Moon Township, Pennsylvania where the Robert Morris Colonials are featured on day number 50 of the tour.

Last year the Colonials went 12-20-3 and made it to the conference semi-finals where they lost to Niagara. The good news is Robert Morris only lost two Seniors. The bad news is, the Colonials are still a relatively young team.

This year the Colonials will only have three Seniors on the squad. Forwards Doug Conleyn and Aaron Clark, and backup goaltender Joe Tuset are the three Seniors who will look to lead the squad to bigger things this year.

On offense the Colonials return three double digit goal scorers in Sophomore Chris Margott (the teams leading scorer last year), and Juniors Brett Hopfe and Sean Berkstresser. Overall the three combined for 37 goals, the rest of the 18 players only scored 45 goals last year. The Colonials will need more offense if they want to make a run at becoming a threat in the CHA.

Defensively the Colonials return five. The only player they lose is Brian Mills. However, the defense must improve on becoming a unit as they gave up 117 goals last year in 35 games. There are no seniors on the defense, however they have five Juniors. Although they will improve this year, expect the Defense to struggle at times with teams such as Quinnipiac, Cornell, and Miami all of them had solid offenses last season.

Goaltending wise, Junior Christian Boucher is a returning two year starter. In the last six games last season Boucher only gave up 14 goals and the team went 3-3 which included the semi-final game against Niagara. Boucher has put up solid numbers in the past. Expect Boucher to be the backbone of the team this year. He will really need to step it up a little bit if the Colonials want to carry over their momentum from last season.

Third year head coach Derek Schooley had a four win improvement from 2004-2005. This year Schooley will have a lot of work ahead of him on an important season for the Colonials. Can Robert Morris get to the top of the CHA this year? Or will Schooley and the Colonials have to wait another year or two? Expect Robert Morris to jump around from place to place in the standings, but they are not yet ready to be up in the top.

The predicted ceiling for Robert Morris is third in the CHA, while their gutter is fifth.

Tommorrow one of the early favorites to win the Atlantic Hockey conference will be featured as we take a trip to Milford, Connecticut where the Sacred Heart Pioneers will be featured. Sacred Heart was one of the most improved teams in the country last season as they went from sixth in Atlantic Hockey in 2004-2005 to third in 2005-2006, can the Pioneers take the Atlantic Hockey title this year? Find out tommorrow as we hit day number 51 on the tour.