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| Chat with Matt Irwin on Thursday morning at 11 AM. |
Fans, Matt Irwin of the hockey team will come by to chat online with you Thursday morning at 11 AM. Send in your questions now so the sophomore from Brentwood Bay, British Columbia can answer them. The Minutemen have a huge game on Friday night against Hockey East rival Maine in the Mullins Center. Come out to support your Mass Attack!
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Matt Irwin: Hello everyone it's Matt Irwin here I'm here to answer your questions and I'm looking forward to chatting with you today!! |
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| Kia: When are you coming home??????????? |
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Matt Irwin: Great question Kia I dont know when I will be coming home, but whenever that is I'm looking forward to it. |
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| Jim (Sunderland): Matt, good start to the season and good luck tomorrow night. I read that you have had a bit of a scoring streak lately. Have you always been a scoring defenseman or is that something you've worked on while at UMass? |
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Matt Irwin: Thanks for the question Jim. While I was playing juniors in Nanaimo my coach really encouraged the d-man to be active in the offense and jump up in the play and with that comes the opportunity to get some scoring chances. |
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| Sarah in boston: I was there on Friday and it was so loud! Could you hear the crowd with everything going on down at the ice? |
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Matt Irwin: Thats a interesting question because at times you can really hear the crowd but most of the time your focused on the game so you cant really pay much attention to it.....Obviously we know the crowd is there and we have the best fans in college hockey so its hard not to hear anything. |
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| Neil - Springfield: How often do you get to go home? How far away is it from UMass? |
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Matt Irwin: Thanks for the question Neil. I get to go home once during the year and thats a christmas time for a couple days. Its really nice to get home and see my family and friends for a couple days. The flight home takes about 13 hours plus the exciting time sitting in airports. |
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| Alex (Amherst): Matt, I'm a huge fan of you guys. How did you hear of UMass all the way from BC? |
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Matt Irwin: Thanks for the question. I was playing in my second year of juniors for the Nanaimo Clippers in the BCHL and at the time Len Quesnelle flew up to watch me play a couple of times and I became really interested in Umass. I came on a recruiting trip and fell in love with everything the school and hockey program had to offer and chose that this was the best place to continue my hockey career. |
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| West Springfield: Some of the talk in the seats around us last Friday night was that it appear that the defense expects Dainton to do it all. Way to often it appears that the Umass defense allows opposing forewards a free trip down the boards into the Umass end with out hitting them or riding them off the play, resulting in them being able to make a pass or take a shot. Why is that? |
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Matt Irwin: Thanks for the question. As a defensive group we got to improve our gap between us and the forwards and thats something we have been working on in practice this week. We want to keep their forwards to the outside as much as possible and if they get a shot off we know we have Paul back there and we are all extremely confident that he will make the saves. |
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| chris (worcester, ma): thank you for beating BU. your
blue line slap shot is awesome-is it from timing/technique or your
tremendous strength? go umass-destroy maine. thank you. |
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Matt Irwin: Thanks for the support. It was a big win for us last friday now we got to keep the ball rolling into this weekend agaisnt maine. As for my slap shot a lot has to do with timing and the pass from a team mate if it's a one timer. Most the time I'm just trying to get the shot off towards the net because anything can happen from there. |
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| Mark (Hull, MA): Hi Matt,
Hi Matt. Congrats on your hot start to the season.
How would you compare the level of play in the BCHL to the NCAA? |
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Matt Irwin: Hi Mark, thanks for your question. It's great that our team has got off to a good start, but it's only two games and we got stay focused at the task at hand starting this friday against maine. As of the level of play between the two leagues, I think the biggest difference is the speed of the game and the skill of every player. Decisions have to be made much quicker on the ice at this level. |
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| Guy Boychuck (Thunder Bay): Hey there Matty, big fan. Have you noticed a difference in how you have to prepare physically for each season compared to your time with the Clippers? Keep pumping em in the net eh and good luck the rest of the year! |
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Matt Irwin: Great questions Guy!!! There's a huge difference in how I prepare for our season physically thanks to the great help I have received from our strength and conditioning coach I have been able to prepare mentally and physically for the upcoming season more than I have for any previous season in my career!! He's now a consultant with the Springfield Falcons of AHL so as a team we know we are getting the best help neccesary to help us improve. Also we have Jeff Smith who's our athletic trainer that does a great job in keeping us healthy as well. |
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| Dude Love (B-Town): Why did you wear No. 44? Big fan of Janne Niinnimaa? |
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Matt Irwin: Good question, the reason I wear number 44 is because when I was playing junior B as a 16 year it was the only jersey left to choose from so that was the number I had to wear and I have stuck with it ever since. |
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| Rick in Westfield: Matt, I'll always remember your shot against Northeastern last year to tie the game. What went through your mind as the play developed? |
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Matt Irwin: Thanks Rick, as for how the play developed we had our net empty with a extra attacker and James Marcou came up the wall and when he has the puck all you want to do is get open because you know he will find you with a pass, so I snuck in from the left point got the pass from James and put my head down and shot. Fortunately the puck went in and at the time the team was really excited and confident that we would come back and win the game in OT, but unfortunately that didn't work out. |
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| Billy Ray (Montague): What's with the black suit on black shirt? Are you your team's Johnny Cash or something? |
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Matt Irwin: Thanks Billy Ray, I wouldn't say I'm the teams Johnny Cash, it's just the shirt, suit and tie combo I chose to go with at the time. |
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Matt Irwin: Thanks everyone for the great questions, I had a great time chatting with you all. Thanks for all your support our team really appreciates it. Hope to see you all friday night at the Mullins Center for country night as we take on Maine. |
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