WMU men’s hockey hopeful as weekend match-up against Miami University looms near

By Kristen Vermetten
Western Herald

After another brutal weekend, the Western Michigan University (6-12-4, 2-11-3 Central Collegiate Hockey Association) hockey team is looking ahead as they take on No.1 Miami University of Ohio (16-4-6, 13-1-4 CCHA) this weekend.

“We just can’t seem to get the goals at the right time and the bounces just aren’t going our way,” said senior defenseman Jordan Collins. “Every night it seems like there is something else going wrong for us but we are keeping focused. We aren’t looking for a tie this weekend — we are looking to win and that’s all there is to it.”

The team has been playing consistent one-goal tie games all season, yet the Brown and Gold’s current CCHA ranking and team statistics are not where the players and coach would like them to be.

Continuous shifts are being made and the team is measuring every aspect of their game for improvement.

“We’re pretty disappointed with where we sit after this weekend but the bottom line is that we need to go hard at Miami,” WMU head coach Jim Culhane said. “Riley [Gill, senior goalie] is playing exceptionally well right now — he is probably at the top of his game and, you know, we are going down there with the mindset ‘let’s upset the No. 1 team in the country’ — we’ve got nothing to lose.”

“What I am working on with the guys right now is the mindset that 10 games from now, it is going to be playoffs,” Culhane said. “On the grease board in the team room I put, ‘playoffs start right now.’ This weekend against Miami we need to treat like a playoff game because five weeks from now, that’s what we’re going to be confronted with.”

WMU travels to Oxford, Ohio to face Miami University on Friday at 7:35 p.m. The Broncos will then turn around and face Miami again on Saturday at Goggin Ice Center at 5:05 p.m.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Jan 27 2010. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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