After netting six goals and dishing out six assists last season in his rookie effort, earning him UMass hockey team Rookie of the Year honors, Rocco Carzo has yet to put the puck in the net this year in NCAA play, and head coach Don Cahoon decided to bench the sophomore centerman for the Mass Attack's last two games against Quinnipiac and UMass Lowell, both part of a three game win streak.
“Coach [Cahoon] thought I haven't been playing up to where I should be playing,” Carzo said. “He told me, 'just watch it over, get your fire back and then start scoring again when you come back.'”
Carzo downplays the benchings, and admits that he is responsible for his own play and that Cahoon made the right decision.
“It's just a fact that I haven't been working hard,” Carzo said. I [needed] the wake up call and I'll move on from it.”
Carzo expects to play Saturday when UMass heads out for an away game against the University of Maine, and is more excited for his team's recent success than he is disappointed with his own personal struggles. Carzo maintains a positive attitude despite the fact that it would appear he is suffering from a syndrome famously known as the sophomore slump.
The sophomore slump is a phenomenon that describes a lackluster effort in the second year or installment of someone or something's career or existence. It is often used to describe athletes who's second season doesn't quite add up to their rookie effort, but was initially utilized as a term for students who became increasingly lazy in their sophomore year leading to results under the expectations they had set for themselves in their freshman year.
In this case, Carzo is an athlete and a student, but his sophomore slump has been taking place on the ice. Despite this lack of scoring, Carzo continues to look on the bright side of things.
"I'm getting shots, I'm getting chances and I'm getting a lot of minutes so I think I'll pick it up
and start producing more," Carzo said before the benching.
Carzo was able to net a goal in a scrimmage against the Swedish Under-20 National Team Saturday, Nov. 6th when he out-hustled one of his adversaries to a puck and put it in an open net, but scrimmages are just that, they are not official bouts. He was not satisfied.
"It was nothing special," Carzo said after the 5-1 University of Massachusetts victory in the scrimmage. "It was just an empty net goal."
Carzo won't lie to you and say his lack of scoring thus far isn't at all discouraging, but he is a little more worried about his team's season struggles than his own personal scoring droughts.
"I'd rather win games than score," Carzo said during the Mass Attack's opening nine game streak of winless games.
In a game on Saturday, Nov. 13th against the University of New Hampshire, UMass was still in search of its first win at the time and led 3-2 in the third period, but UNH tied the game with 41.8 seconds left in the third period to force a 3-3 tie.
"We had them down 3-2," said Carzo. "We out played them, we out battled them, but it just didn't happen."
You can see the frustration in Carzo’s body language and voice when he speaks of losses, but his attitude towards the team never changes.
The Minutemen are now 3-6-3 and have shown some signs of life as of late winning three straight, but Carzo knows that they still have a lot of work to do to recover from their slow start. He sees that the Mass Attack is a team filled with inexperienced players and tries to focus on the
bright spots in their squad.
"We've got maybe seven or eight guys in the lineup that are first year players," Carzo said. "But they've been solid. We just have to keep competing."
Carzo is a small town kid from Media, Penn. He was the second of four children in his family, all of the siblings being sisters.
“It was just me and my dad on our own in that house with four other girls,” Carzo said. “It was tough.”
Being the only male in the litter didn’t just mean having to deal with three sisters, but Carzo also had to carry on a long stretching family name. He is the fourth Rocco in the Carzo lineage.
“It’s an honor,” Carzo said. “I’m going to pass it on, obviously. The first boy is going to be Rocco.”
Carzo played just about every sport as a kid, and stuck with soccer, basketball and baseball up until the eighth grade when he decided he needed to pick one sport and stick with it.
“I chose hockey, obviously.”
He made the right choice. In Carzo’s freshman year of high school he was by far the youngest player on his high school hockey team and led the team in scoring. In his sophomore year of high school he played United States Hockey League (USHL) Junior-A hockey in Philadelphia, was the
youngest player in the league and was a top 20 scorer there.
“That’s when team’s started calling me and I knew I could take this somewhere.”
During his junior year he was still skating in the USHL in Philadelphia until one Friday night he got a call from the Des Moines Buccaneers in Iowa that shook up his life a bit.
“They said they had just traded for me,” Carzo said. “So I packed up all my stuff and left on Monday. It happened really fast.”
Carzo continued to stay positive in this situation as well. He recalls Des Moines as a fairly easy adjustment since it was a pretty big city, but the city’s surroundings sort of threw him for a loop. Carzo speaks of miles and miles of corn fields traveling from town to town, or as he put it, “a whole lot of nothing.”
“It really is a culture shock,” Carzo said. “But [the experience] got me a scholarship [to UMass]. I wouldn’t have gotten it without that.”
UMass wasn’t the only school that came calling for Carzo’s services, but when he went to visit the campus as a junior in high school he had a pretty good idea of where he was going.
“I got to meet Coach [Cahoon] and all the guys,” Carzo said. “They were just very welcoming and had everything planned out for me. I just felt like this was the best fit for me.”
Again, Carzo made the right decision, as he very much enjoys his life at UMass.
“It’s real real fun to play at the Mullins [Center],” Carzo said.
[Watch Rocco give a tour of the UMass hockey practice rink.]
When Carzo isn’t playing hockey or doing schoolwork, he likes to spend time lounging around and playing video games with his roommates and teammates sophomore forward Eddie Olczyk, red shirt freshman Anthony Raiola and sophomore defenseman Darren Rowe.
Carzo is a Business major, and plans to follow in his father’s footsteps and open up a business someday if he can’t continue his hockey career past college, but he isn’t ready to give up on that dream just yet.
Carzo has competed at two NHL team rookie camps including the Philadelphia Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks.
“The Flyers camp was great because they had all of their draft picks and minor league guys,” Carzo said. “You get to see how you compare with other guys in the nation and you get to compete with some guys in the pros.”
Carzo says that the camps are mainly to get your name out there and gain some experience playing against to talent, but he has gained some contact with professional teams.
“I think every hockey player wants to get to the pros,” Carzo said. “I stay in contact with some teams but it’s nothing special. Just talking with them.”
Carzo’s sophomore slump has yet to be overcome thus far, but as he keeps his positive attitude and continues to make good decisions, he may just break out of it yet.
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