St. Lawrence Saints

The St. Lawrence Saints are a team in the ECAC Hockey League in Men's Division I and Women's Division I.

Men's program
Since the team's inception in 1925, the Skating Saints men's hockey program has been a competitive team at the top ranks of American college hockey. Due to World War II, there were no teams during the 1941-42 season, or the 1943-44 through 1945-46 seasons.[1]

The team plays in the ECAC Hockey League, one of six Division I leagues. This league currently includes six Ivy League teams, including perennial powers Cornell and Harvard as well as six colleges from upstate New York and Connecticut. Since the inception of the ECAC in 1961, SLU has won six ECAC tournament titles and two ECAC regular season titles.

Since the 1951-52 season, SLU has made sixteen NCAA tournament appearances. St. Lawrence has been to the Frozen Four and its antecedent the four team NCAA Championships a total of nine times, playing in the title games in 1961 and 1988. St. Lawrence has accomplished this despite being, at approximately 2,000 students, one of the smallest colleges to play at the Division I level. A Division III school in all other sports, St. Lawrence has maintained Division I "play-up" status in hockey thanks to a 2004 NCAA resolution, allowing it (along with 11 other schools) to offer Division I scholarships in only one sport.[2] St. Lawrence did not offer grant-in-aid hockey scholarships until the mid-1990s.

In 1988, the Saints played in the NCAA national championship game at the Olympic Arena in Lake Placid, NY, losing to Lake Superior State University 4-3 in overtime. The 1987-88 season was the most successful in team history, with an overall record of 29-9-0. In 2000, the Saints played in the longest NCAA tournament game on record; a 3-2, quadruple overtime victory over Boston University. The win advanced the Saints to the Frozen Four, where the team eventually lost to Boston College in the National Semifinals. The Men's program has produced twenty-eight All-American players, seven ECAC tournament MVPs, six ECAC players of the year, four ECAC rookies of the year, and seven Hobey Baker Memorial Award finalists.

Since 1985, Joe Marsh has been the head coach at St. Lawrence. In 2007, he won his 400th Division I game (all at St. Lawrence) placing him in 6th place among active NCAA Division I coaches in career wins. Marsh is a two time winner of the Spencer Penrose award given to the best college coach of the year.

St. Lawrence's biggest hockey rival is Clarkson University, located ten miles from the St. Lawrence campus. For many years, the road trip by opponents to play these two North Country teams has been considered to be one of the most grueling weekends on any college hockey schedule.

St. Lawrence plays it's home hockey games at Appleton Arena, a classic old time hockey barn which has seen many upgrades since opening in 1950 with a 4-2 St. Lawrence win over Dartmouth College.[3]

Uniforms
Traditionally, the Skating Saints home jersey is white with scarlet shoulders and brown trim. The end of the sleeves and bottom of the sweater feature scarlet and brown stripes. The school’s StL logo and the player’s name and number all appear in scarlet with brown trim. The road jersey are identically designed, but with the white and scarlet portions reversed. In 2002, a lace-up neck was adopted by the men’s team.

In 2001, in honor of Appleton Arena’s fiftieth anniversary, an alternate “throw-back” jersey was introduced for the men’s team. The alternate jersey is white but does not feature colored shoulders. The StL logo is significantly smaller, and “St. Lawrence” is spelled out across the chest. The school seal also appears on both shoulders of the sweater. This jersey continued to be used occasionally until gaining popularity during the 2006-07 season, when the men’s team exhibited frequent success when wearing the alternate jerseys on home ice. As a result, the alternate jersey quickly became the staple home jersey.

Originally, the women’s program wore jerseys that were identical to the men’s jerseys. However, in fall 2005, the women’s jerseys were designed to be unique from the men’s jerseys. The scarlet and brown on the shoulders of the home jersey was extended down the arms until it met with the trim at the end of the sleeve. The player’s number appears within the scarlet portion and is white with brown trim. The road jerseys feature a similar pattern, but the shoulders and sleeves are brown with white trim (a reverse of the traditional road-jersey scheme) on a red background.

In tribute to Mike Pelletier and Rich Stewart, teammates on the 1988 NCAA finalist team who were among the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,[4] the 2001-02 men's team wore a patch on the shoulder of their jerseys with both players' initials. Pelletier and Stewart had both been employees of Cantor Fitzgerald working in the World Trade Center.[5] [6]

In the 2008-09 season, St. Lawrence, along with all other ECACHL teams, participated in Coaches vs. Cancer's "Pink at the Rink" fundraiser. The Men's team wore black sweaters with pink and white trim while the Women's team wore pink uniforms with white trim. The jerseys, along with pink ties worn by the coaches and pink sticks were then auctioned off to raise funds for breast cancer research. (It should be noted that the Men's team only wore the pink jerseys during warmups, as Harvard (the visiting team that evening) had forgotten to bring their home white jerseys)[7]

Traditions
Max Taylor skates with the St. Lawrence flag in March 2007.*Whenever the Skating Saints are introduced or score a goal on home ice, a siren sounds and "When the Saints go Marching in" plays. A skating saint logo in the corner of the arena lights up as well. Since NCAA rules limit the time for a stoppage of play to 18 seconds[8] and amplified music ceases when the puck is dropped, Saints fans will continue to sing "When the Saints go Marching in" a cappella after the puck drops.
 * When the final minute of the period is announced, Skating Saints fans will respond by yelling “And Clarkson Still Sucks!” referring to St Lawrence’s nearby rival school. This same cheer is often used by fans at Rensselaer, whose rivalry with Clarkson stems from being another engineering school in the ECACHL, and not from geographic location.
 * Due to St Lawrence’s proximity to Canada, both the American and Canadian national anthems are played prior to home games. Many fans will shout the word “saints” over the final word of the American national anthem. This is a shared tradition among schools in the ECACHL; notably Clarkson fans and Cornell fans will shout "knights" and "red," respectively, when those words appear in the anthem's lyrics.
 * Since the fall of 1999, fans have brought a school flag into the stands to wave when team takes the ice and when they score. Cowbells have also become popular among fans (possibly due to the large population of dairy farmers in the region), and are sold at the school’s bookstore, with the StL logo printed on them.
 * Other traditions have included throwing a rubber chicken onto the ice, which is then reeled in by a fishing pole, and hanging a bull’s-eye behind the opposing team’s goalie.

Notable Skating Saints alumni

 * Gregory J. Carvel (1993): an assistant coach with the Ottawa Senators of the NHL.
 * Mike Keenan (1972), current head coach of the Calgary Flames, former GM for the Florida Panthers, coached the 1994 Stanley Cup winning New York Rangers.[9]
 * Jacques Martin (1975), former coach of the Florida Panthers. Also an assistant coach of the Gold-Medal winning Canadian men’s hockey team at the 2002 Winter Olympics.
 * Ray Shero (1984) is the current GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team. He is the son of legendary Philadelphia Flyers coach, Fred Shero.
 * Brian McFarlane (1955), Canadian television sportscaster. scored 101 goals as a "Larry" and went on to host "Hockey Night in Canada" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for 25 years. Also the author of multiple books on hockey. A member of the media section of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
 * Mike Barnett, former GM of NHL's Phoenix Coyotes, former NHL player and sports agent.
 * Gary Croteau (1968) NHL Left Wing who scored 144 NHL goals from 1969-1980 primarily with California Golden Seals and Colorado Rockies.
 * Bill Wilkinson (1970), winner of over 400 NCAA Division I games as head coach at Wayne State University and Western Michigan
 * Jamie Baker (1989) Scored 150 points (71 goals, 79 assists) in 404 career NHL games with the Quebec Nordiques, San Jose Sharks, Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs. Currently a radio and TV commentator for the San Jose Sharks.
 * Paul Flanagan (1980) Head Coach of the St.Lawrence women's hockey team from 1999-2008. He has compiled a 230-83-24 record (as of 4/1/08) making him one of the winningest coaches in Division I women's hockey history. In 2007, Flanagan served as assistant coach to the U.S. Women's National Team at the Four Nations Cup in Leksand, Sweden. His teams have been to the NCAA Women's Frozen Four five times. He coached St. Lawrence in the 2000 National Championship game, losing to the University of Minnesota-Duluth 4-2. Flanagan is slated to begin coaching Syracuse University in the fall of 2008.
 * Randy Sexton, assistant GM for the Florida Panthers.
 * Rich Peverley professional ice hockey player for the Atlanta Thrashers.
 * John Zeiler professional ice hockey player for the Los Angeles Kings.
 * Kevin O'Shea (1947–2010), Played in the NHL for the Buffalo Sabres and the St. Louis Blues.
 * Chris Wells (1992), Named Head Coach of the St. Lawrence University Women's team in March 2008. Former Associate Head Coach of the SLU men's team.
 * Bill Torrey, former New York Islanders GM and Florida Panthers president.
 * Ron Mason (1964), current athletic director at Michigan State University. Mason is the winningest ice hockey coach in NCAA history with 924 career wins.
 * Terry Slater (1961), Two time SLU All-American, Head Coach of the Colgate University Men's Hockey Team from 1977 until his death in 1991. Slater compiled a record of 251-180-23 in 15 seasons and his 1989-90 team played for the NCAA Championship against Wisconsin. He was followed at St. Lawrence by his brothers Peter (1969) and Mark (1977).
 * Steve Cady (1975), the first coach of Miami University's men's ice hockey program, from 1978-85. A rink at Miami of Ohio's Goggin Ice Center is named for Cady