BEMIDJI, Minn. – Captain Nick Dineen and goaltender Josh Thorimbert didn’t travel to Bemidji State for Colorado College’s weekend series because of upper-body injuries they suffered Saturday in a 2-2 tie against No. 14 Denver. It was expected, but it’s still a blow.
Joe Howe will start in place of Thorimbert, with untested freshman Courtney Lockwood as the backup on his first road trip. Tim Hall will assume Dineen’s center position on the second line alongside left wing Alexander Krushelnyski and right wing William Rapuzzi, and Archie Skalbeck or Jordan DiGiando should skate where Hall was on the fourth line.
There’s a possibility Dineen, Thorimbert and defenseman Eamonn McDermott (left knee) might come back for a Feb. 17-18 series against Nebraska-Omaha – the most notables on an injury list that features right wing Dakota Eveland (upper body) and left wing Michael Morin (right ankle). Several other Tigers, including right wing Scott Winkler, are playing with pain.
CC coach Scott Owens called Dineen “your heart-and-soul guy,” and he said Thorimbert “may have been the hottest goalie in the country.” In their absence, “different guys have to chip in,” he added. “Some other guys that can put in more ice time have to contribute. The thing about hockey, it’s a great team sport, and hopefully, we’ll pull together. We’ve played pretty well on small (ice) sheets, and we’ve played pretty well on the road.”
A load of uncertainty during a time when No. 10 CC (15-9-2, 12-7-1 Western Collegiate Hockey Association) is scrapping for postseason positioning, in third place in the WCHA and 16th in the PairWise rankings – one spot out of the NCAA Tournament – with eight games left. And Bemidji State (13-12-3, 7-10-3) isn’t the easiest squad to face, constantly hammering the puck around the ice, attempting to coax teams into falling into its trap.
“One game doesn’t take on any more magnitude than the others,” Owens warned, noting that “you can’t get too far ahead of yourself. You’ve just got to kind of look at it weekend to weekend.” Still, he conceded, “A lot of teams are going to beat each other up. … You just kind of take care of yourself and hope you’re positioned right for the last weekend.”
Contact Brian Gomez: 719-636-0256 or brian.gomez@gazette.com. Facebook: Brian Gomez. Twitter: @gazettehockey. Google+: Brian Gomez. YouTube: Colorado College Hockey, Covered by The Gazette. For the CC homepage, visit www.gazette.com/sections/sports/cchockey. For the CC blog, visit http://cchockey.freedomblogging.com.











Brian Gomez was born and raised in Tempe, Ariz. He graduated from Arizona State
University in 2005, then began working as a sportswriter for The Colorado
Springs Gazette. He's the Colorado College hockey beat writer and Olympics
reporter, having covered the 2008 Beijing Games and the 2010 Vancouver Games.