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By CRISTINA LEDRA, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 29, 2007

Updated: 12/29/2007 12:18 am

TAMPA - Those who watched the first Lightning College Hockey Classic last year may remember seeing Notre Dame win the championship and there is a good chance the Fighting Irish could repeat in this weekend's four-team tournament.

The composition of this year's team is a little different but No. 6 Notre Dame has reloaded with some younger players and is riding a nine-game win streak coming into the tournament, the longest active streak in the nation.

"We returned the main core of guys from last year," sophomore Ryan Thang said. "We lost some senior leadership. This year I think we're a little more offensive than we were last year.

"The scoring has really balanced out. We have four solid lines, all can score, all can play defense and we have really good role players. All in all I think it's about the same makeup, but we've increased our speed a little bit."
Thang leads the team in goals with 10 and was named the MVP of the RPI Holiday Tournament after scoring game-winning goals in each of the team's wins.

Erik Condra, his linemate, is second in goals with eight and leads the team with 22 points, while Mark VanGuilder has eight goals and 18 points and six others have five or six goals apiece.

Tonight's 5 p.m. game against the University of Massachusetts is the first of the tournament and the first for Notre Dame in three weeks due to finals and the holidays.

Normally they have around two weeks off.

"Long breaks can be good or bad," Thang said. "I know we had some injuries going into the break so it's good to get some guys healed up and get some rest.

"Also, when you're on a roll like that you don't want to take a break because you have a lot of momentum. I think we did all right though. We worked hard the last couple weeks before we left at Christmas for a couple days so we should be fine."

The Irish were doing a lot of things right before the holidays and they are hoping this weekend's tournament will serve as the continuation of that.

"I hope that we can get back to playing the way we were before the break where we were doing a really good job of managing the puck and not throwing the puck away," Coach Jeff Jackson said. "That's allowed us to be good offensively. We're scoring quite a few goals every night and yet our forte is how we play defensively. We get good transition from our defense."

The Irish will face a higher quality of team in this year's Classic, so defending their title will almost certainly be tougher. Colorado College is ranked No. 4 in the latest USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine poll while Massachusetts was tied for No. 9 and RPI received votes.

But will only make the whole experience of playing a tournament in Tampa even richer.

"It's just fun to get away," Condra said. "Up north it's snowing and negative degrees out. We don't want to take it as a vacation because we've gotta be focused for the games but it's kind of nice to get down to the nice weather and have a holiday tournament. It's kind of like a regional NCAA where there are four of the best teams from around the nation and you play a new team each night. So it's kind of fun that way and to get the tournament experience in."

Reporter Cristina Ledra can be reached at (813) 948-4203 or cledra@tampatrib.com.

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