College Hockey Scribbles

Captain brings experience to inexperienced team
The surprise of the Frozen Four teams is Notre Dame, which is making its first Frozen Four appearance in school history. The captain of the Irish is Roseville's Mark Van Guilder. He was an invited walk-on and eventually became a star forward. Despite Notre Dame's inexperience in NCAA play, Van Guilder brings a lot of hockey experience playing in 162 career games for the Irish. Prior to heading to South Bend the 24 year old played for the Tri-City Storm of the USHL following his high school career for Roseville.

Van Guilder is third on the team in scoring with 12 goals and 17 assists.

Inside College Hockey Q and A with Van Guilder

3 WCHA Players named to All-Rookie Team
Minnesota's Cade Fairchild got off to a great start in his freshman season and proved to be one of only Gopher defensemen to jump into the play and make things happen offensively. He was also one of the Gophers to leave the team during the holidays and play for the team USA in the World Juniors and missed four Gophers games.

He didn't play nearly as well in the second half of the season but that didn't stop the 19 year old from Duluth from being named to the Inside College Hockey All-Rookie Team. Fairchild had two goals and 13 assists, but 10 of his 15 points came in Minnesota's first 15 games. Fairchild was also named to the WCHA All-Rookie Team. He has spent his amateur hockey days on the fast track playing varsity hockey for Duluth East before playing two years for the US National Development Team.

Joining Fairchild on the All-Rookie Team from the WCHA was forward Garrett Roe from St. Cloud State and goalie Richard Bachman from Colorado College.

Roe was the leading WCHA rookie in scoring with 18 goals and 27 assists and second in the NCAA.

Bachman won the Inside College Hockey Rookie of the Year Award and the WCHA award as well. Bachman had a 25-9-1 record, a 1.85 Goals against Average and a .931 save percentage.