Mar. 16: The St. Lawrence University men's hockey team will square off with Union College in the 2010 ECAC Hockey Tournament semifinals this Friday, March 19th at 7:00pm at the Times Union Center in Albany, NY. The winner of Friday's game will earn a slot in the title bout on Saturday for an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament.
      VERMEULEN IS BEST DEFENSIVE FORWARD
Saint senior captain Travis Vermeulen has been named the winner of the 2010 ECAC Hockey Best Defensive Forward Award.
Vermeulen will be among the honorees Thursday evening at the ECAC Hockey tournament and awards banquet in Albany. The Saint captain is SLU's leading scorer with 17 goals and 24 assists for 41 points in his senior season. He has six career short¬handed goals and is among the Saint career leaders in shorthanded goals and points.
"We have had some outstanding defensive forwards over the years, but Travis is without question the best defensive forward I have ever had the opportunity to coach," said Saint head coach Joe Marsh. "He has had a tremendous four years for us and we are going to really miss him once he graduates."
Vermeulen becomes the fifth Saint player to win the Outstanding Defensive Forward award, joining Greg Carvel (1993), Joel Prpic (1997), Mike Gellard (2001) and Kyle Rank (2007). Like Vermeulen this season, Carvel, Gellard and Rank were also the leading scorers on their teams.
The Saints enter the weekend with a record of 19-14-7 coming off a quarterfinal series sweep against Colgate University. Meanwhile, the Dutchmen are 20-11-6 overall but needed three games to eliminate Quinnipiac University, including a five-overtime thriller in game one that became the longest NCAA hockey game in history.
Union swept the regular season series against St. Lawrence, defeating the Saints 4-3 in Appleton Arena and 4-2 at Messa Rink.
The St. Lawrence University Alumni office will be hosting a Laurentian reception between periods at the St. Lawrence hospitality suite in the Exhibition Hall (lower level near sections 126 and 127) of the Times Union Center.
Meanwhile, both ECAC Hockey semifinal games and the championship game will be televised on Fox College Sports channel 235 on the Time Warner sports package and channel 617 on DirectTV. The third place game will be on the B2 Network only with an in-house feed for the video. The B2 coverage of the semifinals and championship game will be the Fox College Sports feed.
The Saints' games will also be broadcast on the WOLF 95.3 with Greg Lapinski and Wally Johnson. The Saint radio broadcast is also available online through the St. Lawrence athletics web site. The Saints will play Union at 7 p.m. on Friday night in the second semifinal game. The third place game is slated for 4 p.m. Saturday with the championship game at 7 p.m.
