New York Hockey Journal

16 NEW YORK HOCKEY JOURNAL April 2020 Subscribe today at NYHockeyJournal.com/subscribe league playoff bye from March 3-5. Marotte said they practiced the following Monday, then heard from a staff member the next day there was only a 25 percent chance they'd be playing that upcoming weekend. "It was pretty weird," recalled Marotte. "By Wednes- day it had escalated, with Harvard pulling out, and then it got worse." The Ivy League started things off by canceling its basketball tournaments. Professional leagues then started postponing their seasons, beginning with the NBA and the NHL, and then the NCAA ultimately shut down its winter championships, including ice hockey, at all levels. Clarkson's championship chances were gone. "In a matter of 48 hours, it all ended," said Marotte. "It was pretty shocking." H IS SEASON-LONG performance in net still earned him ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Year accolades. "Obviously you want to win the big prizes — confer- ence and national championships — but this is about the team in front of you, and the rest is your own prepara- tion," he said. "I'm glad I could help us win some games." His head coach agreed. "He's so calm, and he doesn't give up second chanc- es," said Jones after Clarkson's 3-1 win at Princeton on Feb. 15, in which Marotte made 31 saves. "He makes the really difficult saves look easy, and sometimes he doesn't get the attention he deserves." Marotte ultimately received that recognition from ECAC Hockey, and he was named one of 10 semifinal- ists for the Mike Richter Award as the top goaltender in the nation. He has been finishing up courses for his MBA remotely, as Clarkson, like other universities in the U.S., was forced to close its physical campus to stu- dents as COVID-19 became more widespread. "Everything is interactive, and all classes are online," said Marotte. "It's a bit of a change, to finish up like that and not go back to campus. It all started that Tuesday, when we were still practicing, and by that Thursday we had two days to get off campus. It was quite the turn- around." It's a far cry from the first semester, when students were still on campus attending classes. Marotte ad- mitted that he took no less than nine courses then, in Clarkson's compressed one-year MBA program, while still dealing with daily practices and weekend games with the Golden Knights. "I was pretty busy, on and off the ice," he said. Transferring to an ECAC Hockey school from an At- lantic Hockey institution also posed its own challenges. "I knew I had to speed up my game, and I put in the time last summer to get ready," he recalled. "I did well, and obviously my team helped as well." He'll long remember his experiences at Clarkson, even if they lasted just one abbreviated season. "It exceeded my expectations for sure," said Marotte. "I knew the culture would be good, but I didn't know how good. Devin (Brosseau) did an unreal job bringing guys together, as did our whole leadership group. The relationships that guys had to one another was amaz- ing, and was why we were so good." Now it's on to the next step of playing professionally, whenever that is. "Obviously, that's the goal," said Marotte, a free agent. "With everything going on now, it's kind of vague what might happen. There are matters of more importance, and I'm more concerned with the health of the people around me. I will play pro next year, but I'm not sure where right now. " C LARKSON senior forward and team captain Brosseau led the Golden Knights to ECAC Hockey's Whitelaw Cup as playoff champion last year, while he recorded 14 goals and 29 points in 38 outings. He posted a team-high 21 assists this sea- son and finished second on the squad with 29 points to classmate Harold Egles. Brosseau ended his career with 40 goals and 112 points in 144 outings, including 18 power-play goals. Along with Egles, he also was named to the 2019-20 All-ECAC Hockey third team. "I think from a team standpoint, it was a pretty good year," said Brosseau. "Guys put their hearts on the line, and unfortunately like the rest of the country we were heart- broken (at the ending). We were focused on the details, and it was a special team, even compared to last year." Lately, Clarkson's leading scorers have jumped right from the college ranks to the professional game immedi- ately following the end of the NCAA season. Two years ago, it was Rempal passing up his final two years to sign with the Los Angeles Kings, after Clarkson's NCAA East regional loss to Providence. Last spring, it was Sturm passing up his final collegiate campaign, to ink a deal with the Minnesota Wild, following an NCAA Northeast regional overtime defeat to Notre Dame. Unlike those past years when Clarkson's season came to a close, though, COVID-19 has put both the NHL and AHL on hold through at least April, and outright canceled the ECHL season. Those stoppages haven't deterred the undrafted Brosseau from planning the next step in his playing career, though. "I will definitely pursue it, playing in the NHL one day," he said. "I'll play pro somewhere next year, and inch closer to my NHL goal." In late March, Brosseau agreed to a two-year Ameri- can Hockey League contract with the Bakersfield Con- dors. He reflected on his time at school, even after mov- ing off campus and having to study remotely. "I've had an unbelievable time at Clarkson," admit- ted Brosseau. "I grew as a player and a person, and I got to play here right off the hop and start my career the right way. It sucks it ended the way it did — but I look back at our accomplishments as a team, and it's some- thing I will cherish for sure." Looking back, he believed winning the ECAC Hockey championship last year, after coming up a goal short the season before, will stand out the most among his college memories. Brosseau scored the Golden Knights' first two goals in the 2019 title contest against Cornell, then set up the game-winner by Chris Klack less than 15 minutes into overtime in a 3-2 victory. "We had that goal coming in, and our hard work paid off," said Brosseau. "The whole weekend in Lake Placid was great, and we got Clarkson back on track in the ECAC and the NCAAs. It was awesome, and a great moment." He's also currently working on his MBA, having grad- uated in three years with a degree in financial informa- tion analysis, while also earning last year's ECAC Men's Hockey's Student-Athlete of the Year award. He said he currently has six online classes to go, although he'd love to don the Golden Knight uniform one more time. "Online classes are a little more difficult, with our schedules," he said. "You have to stay home now and home-school a little bit, and I'd trade it for a whole new season — but obviously you can't do that." Brosseau believes he and his classmates also helped to turn around the culture of the hockey program when they arrived on campus in 2016, with Clarkson not hav- ing earned an NCAA tournament berth or any ECAC Hockey title since 2008. "When our class came in, the culture was not great," he said of a storied program that had finished below .500 overall in six of the previous seven seasons. "My class and I were set on changing that, and the biggest thing I'll take away is that that we were able to change it to a more winning culture." feedback@nyhockeyjournal�com DIVISION 1 COLLEGES DIVISION 1 COLLEGES Continued from Page 15 Jim Meagher/Clarkson Athletics (top); Clarkson Athletics Clarkson went 23-8-3 overall and finished with a No. 8 national ranking. Frank Marotte was named ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Year.

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