No longer winless: Club hockey looks for more conference ‘Ws’

With its month-long home stretch drawing to an end, the IU club hockey team is looking to add two more wins at the Frank Southern Ice Arena.

It will have to do so against a team it knocked out of the national semi-finals last year.

The Grand Valley State Lakers will take on the Hoosiers in a pair of games this weekend. The 9-5 Hoosiers are 1-5 in the Great Midwest Hockey League conference.

“(Grand Valley State is) going to be coming out hard and ready to play,” said senior Mike Vaughan. “We just have to match their intensity and work hard in practice.”

Vaughan said he thinks last year’s match will be on the Lakers’ minds this weekend.

“They’re a really good team, and they’re probably looking for revenge after we beat them in the semi-finals at nationals last year,” he said. “But we beat them before, and we can beat them again.”

He also said Grand Valley State is consistently one of the top teams in the nation.
Senior Adam Fishbein said he thinks his team will have an edge at home against the Lakers.

“They’re generally a smaller, faster team, which matches well up against us,” he said. “We like to bang the bodies a little bit, so I think playing them in the Frank is a big advantage for us, and it’s definitely going to compromise what they want to do.”

He said he hopes the team will offset the Lakers’ offensive talent by utilizing the aggressiveness the Hoosiers bring to the ice.

“They’re very offensive, with great passing and good skaters,” he said. “But when you get them in the corners, we’re a bigger, stronger team. We’re going to go out there and try and bang and get those loose pucks and put those rebounds in front of the net.”

While he knows all league games are tough, his team is confident.

“It’s the GMHL. Any team can win on any given day,” he said. “But we want to win every game in the Frank.”

IU coach Tom Orr said he knows most teams from Michigan are hard to beat in hockey.

“They’re going to be as good of a team that we’ve played since Davenport,” he said. “They have a lot of depth, and they’re another one of these Michigan teams that have a lot of players on scholarships and have a lot of support from the university, so it’s going to be a tough weekend.”

The arena IU plays in is smaller than other rinks, something Orr said could hinder Grand Valley’s speed.

“I think we’ll match their speed nicely,” he said. “They’re a quick team, but here at the Frank they’ll be trapped in a little bit. Last year our system had some pretty good success against them at the tournament.”