The forward was elected captain this year after playing in all of the Big Green's 33 games last season, scoring eight goals and posting eight assists. He continues his success this year, having already tallied eight points on the season.
Well-known hockey writer Eric Mirlis of NCAA.com contacted Pritchard earlier this year, seeking to get Dartmouth's captain to work on an online blog with a player on the Army hockey team. Mirlis envisioned the blog contrasting the two squads.
Pritchard, who hails from Burnaby, British Columbia, is not the first Dartmouth athlete to have his own online forum. Members of the Big Green football team have been involved in similar ventures over the years.
"They wanted a Dartmouth player to do it," Pritchard said. "I think they want to give a perspective on NCAA hockey."
When the collaboration with the Army player fell through, Pritchard took on the duty solo. New posts on his blog come out almost every week, depending on how much time Pritchard has available.
"It's not a big time commitment, but it's hard to do in term," he said. "It's been pretty fun so far."
Pritchard acknowledged that writing in a public forum has its downfalls.
"My teammates sometimes give me a hard time, and I get it a lot from the alumni players," he said. "But I'm surprised how many people read it and post on it. People mention it to me all the time."
The idea of a blog is a somewhat unique concept for a student-athlete, Pritchard said.
"A lot of teams have newsletters that they'll send out to alumni to raise money or something, and players contribute to that," he said. "But I've never actually heard of anything similar to this."
While Pritchard receives no compensation from the NCAA, he is able to bring attention to the Dartmouth team, an aspect of the project that Pritchard said he appreciates.
"It's all voluntary, but it's good to get such great exposure to a small market team like Dartmouth hockey," he said. "We have great fans, but we play in a small town in the Northeast, so having some type of connection to the national stage is great."
Because of all the travel time associated with NCAA hockey, Pritchard often writes his blog on the bus returning from games or while staying in hotels. In several posts he explains what he and the team are doing while he is writing.
Some entries are more detailed than others, depending on the amount of academic work he has that week, Pritchard said. In his posts, he often mentions that he has just finished a paper or is in the process of working on one, a refreshing reminder of the true nature of a Dartmouth student-athlete.
Even while balancing academics and athletics, Pritchard manages to include solid insight about the Big Green's games.
"Sometimes it'll be just a quick recap, but when I have more time I highlight big plays and even throw in specific experiences or names like when I talked about Corky the other week," he said, referencing the team's equipment manager Brian Corcoran, who put six stitches in Pritchard's chin between the first and second periods of Dartmouth's game against St. Lawrence last November.
The blog is a mix of game action, personal insight and a sense of the culture of one of Dartmouth's most popular teams.
"It's really whatever comes to mind," Pritchard said.
Big Green hockey as a whole continues to be successful on the ice, posting an impressive 4-0 win at Princeton (13-3-0, 8-2-0 ECAC Hockey), the number one team in the conference, Monday night.
"Everyone's happy with where they're at right now," Pritchard said. "We have some good young guys scoring goals and this year we're a very deep team."
The young Big Green team, picked to finish second-to-last in the ECAC this season by "US Hockey Online," has risen to fifth in the conference and No. 15 in the national poll rankings. In the national mathematical rankings, Dartmouth is ranked No. 13.
"Right now we're focused on maintaining a good position to win the league, and have our sights set on making the national tourney," Pritchard said. "But we have to continue this type of play against good teams to keep our ranking up."
The Dartmouth men's hockey team will return to the ice and be tested this weekend by Ivy League foes Yale at 7 p.m. Friday and Brown at 7 p.m. Saturday. Both contests will be held in Thompson Arena.
Yale (9-4-0, 4-2-0 ECAC Hockey) is coming off of a 3-2 home win against Air Force on Sunday, and Brown (1-9-3, 1-4-2 ECAC Hockey) is looking to snap a four-game winless streak.
