Jump to content
The Official Site of the Vancouver Canucks
Canucks Community

Joseph LaBate | C/LW


b3.

Recommended Posts

Wisconsin upset #1 St. Cloud State 4-1 today in the first semifinal to advance to the WCHA final game! Skating on the 2nd line with Brendan Woods and Michael Mersch, Labate helped out with a goal and a powerplay assist and finished with 2 PIMS, 3 shots on net and a +1 rating.

The title game will take place tomorrow and Wisconsin will face the winner of today's 2nd semifinal between Colorado College and Minnesota.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wisconsin upset #1 St. Cloud State 4-1 today in the first semifinal to advance to the WCHA final game! Skating on the 2nd line with Brendan Woods and Michael Mersch, Labate helped out with a goal and a powerplay assist and finished with 2 PIMS, 3 shots on net and a +1 rating.

The title game will take place tomorrow and Wisconsin will face the winner of today's 2nd semifinal between Colorado College and Minnesota.

Ahh so it looks like he might be playing Bjugstad after all.

I'd love to see that match-up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Dasein

Wisconsin upset #1 St. Cloud State 4-1 today in the first semifinal to advance to the WCHA final game! Skating on the 2nd line with Brendan Woods and Michael Mersch, Labate helped out with a goal and a powerplay assist and finished with 2 PIMS, 3 shots on net and a +1 rating.

The title game will take place tomorrow and Wisconsin will face the winner of today's 2nd semifinal between Colorado College and Minnesota.

Is he playing the wing or playing center on that line?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wisconsin defeats Colorado College 3-2 to win the WCHA title! Labate had no points, 2 PIMS, 5 shots and finished even in the victory.

Wisconsin last won the WCHA title in 1998 so it's been a long time coming for them. They will now advance to the NCAA tournament.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

CarolineLaBate

Just teared up watching #Badgers win Championship #WCHA all the hard work, sweat & tears. So damn proud @JosephLaBate pic.twitter.com/ze35IoT2N8

BGFyyLPCIAEi9VL.jpg

WISCONSIN CLAIMS WCHA FINAL FIVE TITLE WITH 3-2 WIN OVER COLORADO COLLEGE

Wisconsin goaltender Joel Rumpel's nickname is "Sunshine," which might imply thatTyler Barnes and Nic Kerdiles could be called the moon and the stars. Collectively, they sent the Badgers into NCAA tournament orbit with a 3-2 victory over Colorado College Saturday night that provided an out-of-this-world reward of the Broadmoor Cup as well.

...

Nothing really in there about LaBate and his night was recapped earlier, but good to hear he and his team have had some success. It should help his development.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The seedings and brackets for the NCAA tournament were announced yesterday. Wisconsin will go in as the #4 seed in the Northeast Regional and face UMass Lowell, the Hockey East tournament winner, the #1 seed in the Northeast Regional, and the #3 seed overall in the NCAA tournament, in the first regional semifinal on March 29. The Northeast Regional is taking place in Manchester, New Hampshire.

For those that are wondering how the NCAA tournament works, I'll try to sum it up here. The tournament is divided into four regionals: the East regional (in Providence, Rhode Island), the the Northeast Regional (in Manchester, New Hampshire), the West Regional (in Grand Rapids, Michigan) and the Midwest Regional (in Toledo, Ohio). Each Regional is comprised of four teams who play a semifinal / final format to determine the regional winner. Then, the four winners of each regional play in what's called the 'Frozen Four', which is basically where it's for all the marbles. The winner of the Frozen Four is declared the NCAA champ.

Labate and the Wisconsin Badgers are going to have a tough test right off the bat with UMass Lowell. If they can win that game, I like their chances of winning the regional and advancing to the Frozen Four.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Big and getting bigger. Fast and getting faster. Strong and getting stronger.

It was quite the season for Vancouver Canucks prospect Joseph Labate and his University of Wisconsin Badgers. After starting the season slow, Labate and his team turned it on in the second half, winning the WCHA Tournament and booking a ticket into the NCAA Tournament.

“Obviously we started out pretty slow and had a rough start,” said Labate. “Then we pulled together as a team and really turned our season around. I thought we got hot at the right time and went into the playoffs playing our best hockey. We played really well, got some good bounces and were lucky enough to win the WCHA tournament and go to the NCAA Tournament.”

May2813_labatte1_rr.jpg

The NCAA Tournament didn’t go the way Labate and the Badgers had hoped after getting eliminated in the opener 6-1 to Massachusetts-Lowell. Some would say the Badgers were lucky making it as far as they did considering they started out with just one win in their first 10 games of the season, but Labate said he and his teammates knew they had a good team, it just took a little while to get rolling. Once they got rolling, they were nearly unstoppable, losing just six times in the final 32 games.

“Coming in we all knew we had a really good team, but at the beginning of the year things weren’t going right, weren’t clicking, but the coaching staff and the core leadership guys stuck with the team and we all believed we had a good team and just stuck with it and I think that showed at the end of the year.”

As for Labate himself, his season mirrored that of his team. He was slow out of the gates, grabbing just two assists in his first 12 games before catching on fire with 21 points in his final 29 games.

“I think my season followed in the same path as the teams. Things weren’t going right at the beginning of the year, it just wasn’t working out, wasn’t clicking, and in the middle of the season I sat down and talked to my coaches and my family and tried to start fresh and forget about the beginning of the season and I think I did that.

“I finished with more goals then I did last year, more points than I did last year and I was pretty proud that I was able to turn my season around like I did.”

Not only did Labate grow as a player this past season, he also grew as a person, in more ways than one.

“I learned a lot about myself this season, not only as hockey player but as a person as well by going through that tough time at the beginning of the year,” said Labate. “I also grew an inch this past season, so now I am close to being 6-foot-5.”

May2813_labatte2_rr.jpg

Labate was already big when the Canucks drafted him in the fourth round (101st overall) in 2011, problem is, he hasn’t stopped growing, something he hopes will happen soon so he can focus on filling out and getting stronger.

“I want to stop growing so I can start having my body mature and hopefully it’s starting to slow down now.”

Labate says the growth spurt this past season didn’t affect him that much, not like the spurt he had in high school when he went from 5-foot-11 to a towering 6-foot-3 between his freshman and sophomore years.

After the school year is over, Labate doesn’t plan to take much time off before getting right back into training and hitting the books. He is applying for business school in the summer, with a goal to major in personal finance.

“I get to go home for about a month; I will train at home and spend time with my family in Minnesota and then head back to Madison in the summer, train there, take a couple classes and get a couple extra credits done. Just focus on training, school, my diet and putting some weight on.”

Labate knows how important this off-season is for his development as he heads into his junior year with the Badgers.

“Over the summer I am going to put on some much needed muscle and mass and I am going to come out of the gates next season faster and stronger. This summer is going to be a big turning point in my career as I finally started to stop growing and I think I am ready to start filling out as much as possible.”

Awesome to hear that he's about 6'5" now! A late growth spurt could explain why he was a bit weak on his skates this season and last year he put on about 15lbs or so, if he can do that again he'll be a healthy 6'5 220lbs and then he'd really tower over his opponents.

Really excited for this kid, he could end up being a solid 3rd liner or a 2nd liner if he develops a solid power game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...