We had a great trip with the team this past weekend over Thanksgiving Break. The team left Saint John’s on Thanksgiving morning and headed out to eastern Wisconsin for two games against Northern Collegiate Hockey Association (NCHA) opponents, Marian and Concordia-Wisconsin.
On the way out, we had a great team-bonding experience in that we stopped at Chula Vista Resort, which is owned and operated by the Kaminski family. Jeff Kaminski is a 2006 SJU graduate. They treated us very well and the team had some fun times together. See the pictures along with this blog.
We continued on to play Marian on Friday night to a 3-3 tie. To be honest, we got outplayed a lot of this game, but still had the lead going into the 3rd period. Marian came back to tie it up and then neither team could manage the go-ahead goal.
We had a quick turnaround again in that we played Concordia at 2p.m. on Saturday afternoon. We knew this would be a good test as Concordia was ranked #15 nationally and had been winning some impressive games. We ended up playing a better hockey game than the night before, but still ended with a 2-2 tie. It was a long way to travel for two ties, but on a positive note, it would have been a lot longer trip if we would have suffered two losses. I was impressed on this trip to the level of play and the quality of both teams. It is impressive the level of parity in western Division III hockey. The NCHA is getting deeper with teams like Marian and Concordia improving every year.
This upcoming weekend we get back to MIAC hockey with two games against Saint Mary’s. We are once again on the road for these games and will be playing both in Winona. Friday night we play at 7p.m. and then we have the quick turnaround again for a game at 2p.m. on Saturday. This is a huge weekend and needs to be seen as a playoff weekend for us. SMU managed to get five out of six points against St. Thomas earlier this year and is playing good hockey. We did play SMU earlier this year at the MIAC Showcase and got the 1-0 win, but we need to play much better than we did that night as they have improved significantly since then.
I love these weekends as there is a lot of pressure on the guys and it feels like playoff hockey in December. We know the importance of these games to the outcome of playoffs and the MIAC Championship. We look forward to the challenge and will be bringing our best effort this weekend.
Thanks again for all your support. A special thanks to Jeff Kaminski ’06 for hosting us at Chula Vista Resort and to 1968 graduate Jack McCarthy, for bringing his family to the game at Concordia and for wearing his red #19 jersey!
