AIR FORCE ACADEMY — Watching actor Kurt Russell portray 1980 U.S. Olympic team coach Herb Brooks in the movie “Miracle” is a lot like listening to Frank Serratore talk about his Air Force Falcons.
“Gentlemen,” Brooks told his Olympians before they shockingly beat the Russians en route to winning the gold medal, “you can’t win on talent alone.”
Last season, for the first time in the program’s 39 years, the underdog Falcons captured a conference championship and qualified for the NCAA Tournament. They came within five minutes of upsetting No. 1 Minnesota in the West Regional at the Pepsi Center before losing 4-3.
The Falcons are not underdogs anymore. Led by Eric Ehn, one of three Hobey Baker Award finalists last season, Air Force is deeper and more talented than most of its opponents this season.
But that doesn’t mean better results. Air Force is 4-2, but the two losses were to previously winless Bentley 4-0 on Oct. 26 and to previously winless Mercyhurst 5-3 at home Friday.
Serratore, who can recruit only American citizens, is concerned that his team is too focused on proving itself in future big games against Boston College (Dec. 29), Denver (Jan. 18) and Colorado College (Jan. 19), and not against American Hockey Association teams.
“We have a disease, and we have a disease that we have to cure,” Serratore said. “We don’t seem to play with the sense of urgency and intensity that we need to be successful unless we’re playing a team that we think is better than us.
“Right now, I really believe there isn’t a team on our schedule that we can’t beat, but there’s not a team on our schedule that can’t beat us. Consistency has alluded us, and we’ve got to overcome that.”
The Falcons, picked to finish second in the AHA, came back to easily defeat those teams in the two-game series finale.
“It’s kind of a shot in a heart, but then again, we’ve never been 6-0, and closer to 0-6,” Air Force senior defenseman Frank Schiavone said. “Those losses, as bad as they were to our ego, our record, to whatever people think about us, will be good for us in the end.”
Injuries to three veteran forwards also likely have contributed to Air Force’s two unexpected losses, particularly because they have disrupted the No. 1 line featuring senior center Ehn, who finished second nationally with 64 points last season. Senior Josh Print (ankle) has been out the entire season, junior Mike Phillipich (knee) has missed the past three games and Josh Schaffer (ankle) went down Friday.
Print and Phillipich aren’t expected to return until after Christmas.
“If we had Phillipich, Print and Schaffer go out with injuries last year, we would have been demoralized,” Schiavone said. “We’re a lot deeper.”
Ehn isn’t panicking.
“It’s beginning-of-the-year stuff that keeps you from where you want to be,” he said. “We were a little sharper at the end of last year, but this year we have the model to prove it. We know we’ve got some talent. We know we can play with ranked teams. Last year we wanted to prove we could beat a ranked team. This year we want to prove it consistently.”
In March, Serratore expects to have “a very, very good Air Force team, a very good service academy team.
“What you’ll see is what we hope we can always be.”
Mike Chambers: 303-954-1357 or mchambers@denverpost.com
