Posts Tagged ‘Dan Rohanna’

This should be a very interesting game to watch. Not only because the Aces barely squeaked out a 7-6 win when these two teams played each other last week, but because of the fact that both Dan Rohanna and Jerry Cardinale were added to the Bears roster yesterday.

After speaking to various members of the team and the Aces coach Chris Firriolo yesterday, I got a feeling those rosters moves were made for a variety of reasons:

1- On any other team in this league, Cardinale gets a regular shift, as to the Aces where he and new captain Chad Wilcox were only getting spot shifted.

2- The Aces team is stacked from top to bottom and a guy like Cardinale could really help the Bears round out their top two lines or be a extremely solid grinder on the third.

Nick Niedert made 60 saves the last time the New Jersey Rockhoppers faced the Aces at Aviator Arena on November 8. But Brooklyn, coming off of consecutive seven-goal performances against Hudson Valley and Danbury, wasn’t worried about producing offensively.

Why exactly? Three letters explain it all: B…M…T.

Combining for 12 points on the night, the Aces “BMT line” of James Brannigan, Kyle McCollaugh and and C.J. Tozzo, proved the New Jersey goaltender’s game of the year performance two weeks ago was simply a mirage, shredding both Niedert and the Rockhoppers defense to bits in a more than convincing 8-2 win.

“These guys are on fire right now,” said Aces coach Chris Firriolo. “They’re definitely a top line in this league.”

After a short-feeling out process by both team’s that included several solid saves by Niedert and Brooklyn goaltender Eddie Neville, McCollaugh, the team’s leading assist man, proved he could do a lot more than pass, scoring on a surreptitious one-timer after a beautiful backhand pass from behind the net from Aces leading scorer Brannigan at 11:31, giving them a 1-0 lead.

Outscoring their opponents 12-7 over their first two games this season, the Brooklyn Aces have combined a talented and speedy offense with an experienced defense and excellent goaltending.

Regardless of their perfect record thus far though, Aces head coach believes his team is capable of even more on the ice.

“We have to get better every day and every game,” he said. “I think we have to create a bit more traffic in front of the net and generate more offense from the top of the blue line in between the circles, that hot zone. 83 percent of the goals in the NHL are scored from that area. We’re also a team that depends on our forecheck. In order for us to be succesful, we have to be consistent on every single shift. That’s the only way these guys are going to get to the next level. They have to continue to work as hard as they possibly can.”

The newest team in the EPHL, the Hudson Valley Bears, concluded their player draft earlier in the week and three players from the Aces were lost in the process. Defensemen Joe Lyle and Gabe Yeung and goaltender Len DiCostanzo will all have some Uhauls to rent in the next few days on their ways to their new club. While Lyle and DiConstanzo have minimal professional hockey experience, so it’s impossible to know what they would have done this season in Brooklyn, it would have been nice to see the 6′5, 230 pound Yeung [who has skated for 13 teams over the past five seasons in 10 different leagues] in Brooklyn this season, especially with the gritty Dan Rohanna as his partner.

Nevertheless, in spite of those losses, you have to like the direction this team is going. With only three players announced thus far, the Aces have already addressed several key roles, which could play a pivotal role in their success this season.

At 5′10, 190 pounds, Aces defenseman Nick Grove may not be the biggest or strongest player in the lineup this season, but he has two things in abundance that put him in a league of his own.

Smarts and heart.

However, like fellow teammate Dan Rohanna, Grove has been out of professional hockey for a while, having played his last game during the 2006-07 season with the SPHL Pee Dee Cyclones.

Nevertheless, he’s ready to resurrect his career in Brooklyn this season.

“This is a chance for me to prove to myself that I can play again,” the New York City Native said. “I’m ready to go.”

Ironically, Grove was a teammate of Rohanna’s at SUNY- Fredonia before transferring to Johnson and Wales University in 2004 and has remained close to him over the past few years. Nevertheless, during his time at Fredonia with Rohanna, Grove battled serious leg injuries that limited his ability to develop as a forward. Once at Johnson and Wales however, Grove developed into an excellent two-way defenseman, scoring 36 points in 52 games, while serving as the team’s lone captain.

At 29 years of age, Dan Rohanna is currently the oldest player on the Brooklyn Aces.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything to prove though.

Having been out of professional hockey for nearly three years, Rohanna is eager to get back in the game that at one point, he saw himself making a career out of.

“It’s nice to be back and playing again,” Rohanna said. “I always missed it and it was something that I was always meant to do. Being away from it was tough on me.”

Things changed for Rohanna after his mother, Terrie, passed away in 2005. Forced to pick between the sport he loved and keeping his grief-stricken family above water, Rohanna chose the latter, prematurely ending a career some thought could have ended much differently.