ECRHA Victorious at USAHIL Nationals

The ECRHA was well represented at the USA Hockey InLine Nationals, held in Voorhees, NJ. In all, 9 ECRHA member-clubs were represented on two tournament teams; Team ECRHA and ECRHA Revision. Team ECRHA, led by Towson coach Kevin Murphy, was comprised of players from Maryland, Towson, and Rhode Island while ECRHA Revision, coached by leage President Rebecca Breitel included players from Brockport, Drexel, Hofstra, Neumann, Pittsburgh, and Shippensburg.

Team ECRHA was the victor on the weekend, completing an undefeated weekend with 4-2 win over Team MCRHL, including two scored by Greg Pantaleo (Towson). This was Team ECRHA's second victory over Team MCRHL, having beaten them the previous day by the same score. Team ECRHA also beat Bryn Athyn College twice on the weekend by scores of 6-2 in round robin play and 6-0 in their first elimination game. Gene Gsell and Josh Stein (both of Towson), led their team and the College Division with 12 points in 5 games. Goaltender Rob Serrateli (Rhode Island) was the leading goalie with a .900 SV% and 1.6 GAA.

ECRHA Revision nearly made it an all-ECRHA final, turning a 4-1 deficit into a hard-fought 5-4 loss to Team MCRHL. Victor Scotto (Neumann) and John Deise (Towson) led ECRHA Revision with 6 points each in 4 games. Early games by ECRHA Revision included a 6-2 loss to Team MCRHL in the weekend's opening game, where MCRHL enjoyed a man advantage for over 10 minutes in the middle of game. ECRHA Revision also lost a tough one to Team ECRHA 8-2 and dominated Bryn Athyn College 7-1, despite a 15 minute delay of game due to a power outage.

Bryn Athyn College, a small school outside of Philadelphia, is a tentative future ECRHA club which, despite their performance on the weekend, showed the grit and determination that all ECRHA teams continually exhibit. If and when Bryn Athyn joins, the ECRHA will surely welcome them to the league and wish them success. They will be tough competitors.

ECRHA's thanks go out to USA Hockey InLine and the NCRHA for offering this opportunity to showcase college roller hockey to the younger hockey community. The NCRHA booth, set up in the lobby of the Flyers Skate Zone during the press release for the Flyers' signing of Peter Forsberg, caught everyone's attention and college players and administration educated interested people about the future of collegiate roller hockey. Ron DeGregorio, President of USA Hockey, spent over an hour at the booth eagerly speaking with NCRHA Advisor Rebecca Breitel about the direction of collegiate roller hockey and the support system offered by USA Hockey InLine.

Through the partnership with USAHIL, NCRHA offers a college division at USAHIL Nationals to showcase regional all star teams. Although only in its second year, NCRHA has seen a total of 8 teams attending this event; SCHL, WCRHL, ACRHA, and MCRHL in 2004 and ECRHAI, ECRHA II, Bryn Athyn and MCRHL again in 2005. Ultimately, we hope to see all 7 NCRHA regions produce all star teams to participate in future events.

ECRHA looks forward to being able to defend its title at the 2006 USA Hockey InLine Nationals.