What a difference a year can make.
Last season in the Boston University men’s hockey team’s second game of the season, then-freshman forward Cason Hohmann centered the team’s third line against Providence College and had more turnovers than shots on goal.
But Saturday night at Agganis Arena, 366 days after that first matchup with Providence, was a completely different story. Hohmann assisted two goals and scored one of his own as the No. 12/14 Terriers (1–0) topped the Friars (1–1), 4–2, to open its 2012–13 season.
The dramatic transformation is the result of a combination of factors, said BU coach Jack Parker.
“One, he has gotten a little bit older and a little bit stronger. Two, he has gotten a lot more confident,” Parker said. “He was always worried about stuff last year, trying … to get more ice time.
“Now he is centering one of our best lines, he is playing every power play and killing every penalty. He knew that coming into this game so I think he got a little bit more confident.”
Ironically, that line — with Hohmann at center, senior captain Wade Megan on the left and sophomore forward Evan Rodrigues on the right — was the same one Hohmann played with in that first, less successful game against the Friars.
No one could deny Parker’s “best line” description Saturday, though, as the team’s second forward unit was on the ice for the team’s first three goals.
Hohmann and Megan tallied assists on redshirt senior assistant captain Ryan Ruikka’s goal, BU’s first of the season. Then Hohmann and Rodrigues assisted sophomore defenseman Garrett Noonan’s game-tying goal in the second, just three minutes before Rodrigues assisted Hohmann’s game-winner.
“It was a great breakout from Matt Grzelcyk and it just went up the boards to Evan Rodrigues, and he drove down the left side,” Hohmann said. “He tried to go around the [Providence defenseman] and luckily he passed it back out in front to me and I buried it home.”
Hohmann’s big game — which gave him a good start to beating his totals of two goals and six assists last season — was no surprise Nate Leaman, Providence’s second-year head coach.
Leaman, who was the head coach at Union College for eight seasons before joining PC, said he does not remember Hohmann from when the teams played three times during the 2011–12 campaign. However, he does remember him from Hohmann’s days with the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders of the USHL.
“He’s a good hockey player, but last year [BU was] a lot deeper. You didn’t see him as much, and now he’s a newer player for them,” Leaman said. “He’s a crafty player, he’s a headsy player and he’s going to be a good four-year college player.”
Leaman also spoke to the idea of that all-important jump a player makes between his first and second collegiate seasons.
“It’s an easier jump if you have a bad freshman year, believe it or not,” Leaman said, not referencing Hohmann in particular. “Because you keep the mentality and the mindset that you got to work your tail off to get better and better and better. You’re striving for more.”
That seems to be exactly the case with Hohmann, who spent the first half of the summer at BU to take classes and put in the hours in the gym.Hohmann often got pushed around and muscled off of pucks in the 2011–12 season, but seemed determined to change that trend this time around.
“I worked really hard over the summer. Anthony Morando [one of BU’s strength and conditioning coaches] did a really good job,” Hohmann said. “I feel like I’m way stronger because of him, so I just put a lot of effort into it and I just want to come out this year and be stronger and a better player.”
At 5-foot-8 and 178 pounds, Hohmann is far from the biggest guy on the ice. He will likely be a difference-maker for the Terriers nonetheless, especially at a center forward position that is a bit short on depth.
“I [am] way more confident this year,” Hohmann said. “I worked really hard this summer and I just worked on all aspects of the game, and I’m just really, really confident and looking forward to a great year.”