The men’s hockey team has high aspirations for the 2006-07 season that starts this Friday when the Cards face NESCAC and Little Three rival Amherst College.

Last season, Wesleyan finished with a record of 7-13-4, losing only one game of their final seven. The Cardinals expect a significant improvement this season after returning practically the entire team from a year ago when the squad made the NESCAC playoffs for the first time since the 1999-2000 season.

Second-team all NESCAC goaltender Dave Scardella ’07 returns for his senior year after breaking the all time Wesleyan record for goals against average last year, allowing only 1.87 per game. He also boasted a .941 save percentage, best of any goalie in the NESCAC.

Co-captain Will Bennett ’07 (ten goals, 11 assists) returns and looks to continue his habitual success for the Cards. Playing along with Bennett at forward will be his co-captain, Ryan Hendrickson ’07, who the squad will also rely on for consistent offensive production.

The reigning NESCAC rookie of the year, Dallas Bossort ’09 is back for his sophomore year and hopes to be even better this year than last, when he was second on the team in scoring with nine goals and eight assists. Other key returnees for the offense are Brenton Stafford ’08 (four goals, nine assists), Scott Burns ’09 (four goals, six assists), Taylor Evans ’07 (three goals, seven assists), John Wierzba ’09 (three goals) and Mike Dorsey ’08 (four goals, five assists).

Defensively, the Cards also have several solid returnees to support Scardella. Ed Klein ’08, Dusty Mones ’09, Brent Winship ’09, and Greg Goldman ’08 will all see actions on the blue line this season.

Amherst, who was 12-12-1 last season, opens its 2006 campaign leaning on captain Sean Ellis (10 goals, 14 assists). In their meeting last season, Amherst beat Wesleyan in overtime 3-2.