Welcome back to the Johnnie Hockey Blog. This is my third entry and will recap this past weekend’s non-conference series against UW-River Falls and UW-Superior. The theme of this entry will be ADVERSITY. Our team’s ability to play through adversity was tested this weekend (especially Saturday).
On Friday night, we went into River Falls on a cold and snowy evening for a big non-conference game against another ranked opponent (#11 UW-River Falls). The game was a chess match with both teams playing good defense, while also getting great goaltending. Goals did not come easy in this game. River Falls took the lead half way though the 2nd period with a quick little play in front of the net. SJU came out in the second with a quick goal by #25 Dan Voce about 6 minutes into the period. #28 Sam Valerius chased down a dumped puck, won the race and found Voce in front for the tying goal. The team played well the rest of the 3rd period until an unfortunate turnover caused a lone opportunity that was capitalized on by the Falcons to put them ahead 2-1. We had a number of opportunities before ultimately giving up an empty-net goal with under a minute left in the game. The game ended with the Johnnies losing 3-1 to the ranked River Falls team. The team then battled through icy road conditions to get back to St. Cloud for some much needed rest before a 5pm game the following night at UW-Superior.
On Saturday afternoon we traveled to Superior to play our final non-conference game of the regular season. This is where the theme of adversity really kicked in. After a short team meeting before loading the bus, the team packed up our gear and headed out to get on the bus. The only problem was there was no bus to be seen. I made a quick call to the bus company and learned that the bus was at SJU instead of at the SCSU National Hockey Center in St. Cloud. So with that, we waited another 20 minutes until the bus showed up and left the Hockey Center about a half hour late. I jokingly told the bus driver that we were going to find out how fast this bus was, and he replied, “I will see what I can do.” In short, we arrived right on time.
The adversity on this day also came in the form of injuries and sickness. Our leading scorer, #10 Huba Sekesi, was not able to make the trip due to strep throat. Our assistant captain, #18 Neal Smith, had an upper-body injury that did not allow him to play and our leading scoring defensemen, #2 Sean Lang, also had an injury that did not allow him to play. We had two players go down to injury during the UW Superior game. #24 Joe Chitwood was finally able to play from a previous injury, but unfortunately was once again knocked out of the game in his first shift with another separate injury (very tough on him!). #4 Zach Glienke went out in the 2nd period with a lower-body injury that also took him out of the game. We finished the game short one defensemen and one forward. With all of that said, we played the game with a “next man up” mentality and had great games from a lot of players that have been itching for the opportunity. We were able to fight through this adversity and got a big win 3-2 on the road. We had another huge game by #25 Dan Voce (1 goal, 1 assist) and got a great game from #19 Tyler Dunagan (1 goal, 1 assist). I also want to mention that goaltender, #1 Tyler Nelson, had another great game and got his second career win while getting the coveted hard hat award from his teammates.
It was a good weekend for Johnnie hockey as we had a number of players step up and play well to get us the split on the weekend. The weekend also allowed us, as coaches, to see some of our other players contribute while preparing ourselves for the MIAC series against St. Olaf this weekend.
All 10 of our remaining games are against MIAC opponents and will determine our spot in the MIAC playoffs as well as our opportunity to play in the NCAA tournament by winning the MIAC playoffs. It feels like playoff time already as these games are so important. St. Olaf is a team that always plays hard and that plays a lot of close games. This past weekend they played two nationally-ranked opponents in UW-Eau Claire and UW-Stevens Point and lost both in very close games. Their rink is a very tough place to play with it being a very cold county arena (dress warm if you are coming!). Their players are not big in size, but they play with a lot of heart and passion. It does look like they have some uncertainty at the goaltending position with four goalies having seen time in the net. We have to be prepared for a close, hard-fought game, and we need to test their goaltending by shooting a lot and crashing the net to find those second and third opportunities.
It is going to be a very exciting 10-game stretch of MIAC hockey and much of our success this season will be determined from now through the end of February.
Thanks for supporting and following Johnnie hockey and we hope to see you at a game soon!
