In order for a team to succeed it is important that they play a wide variety of opponents outside their league.
The Bowling Green hockey team is doing exactly that. Tonight they will face another new opponent in the United States National Team Development Program Under-18 squad at BGSU Ice Arena at 7:05.
The U.S.A. Under-18 team is based out of Ann Arbor, Mich. It consists of mainly high school juniors and seniors who have been recruited from USA hockey.
“They play a competitive schedule against junior teams, college teams and international teams,” said head coach Scott Paluch. “They receive season-long coaching and training from full-time people.”
Many players have already committed to playing with college teams for next season, however, none have signed with Bowling Green.
“They have an MO of being extremely quick and extremely skilled,” Paluch said. “Last year’s team finished 8-8 against U.S. colleges, so they are extremely competitive at that level.”
This season the U.S.A. Under-18 team is 0-7-1 against Division I schools with their one tie against Yale (3-3).
“It’s an interesting take that we get an exhibition game basically 12 games into our season, which is a little bit unique,” Paluch said. “It’s an important game for us because we’re coming off an emotional game in which we saw a lot of positives. We want to be able to continue that.”
The Falcons are coming off an 0-1-1 finish against the University of Michigan last weekend.
“I thought we played one of our best efforts so far this year,” said Mark Wires. “The whole team played 60 minutes, which is something that we haven’t quite done so far this year.”
Bowling Green came out strong on Friday scoring the first goal, but were unable to hold onto the lead and lost 6-4.
“We had a couple of let-downs,” Wires said. “We let in a short-handed goal and, unfortunately, we didn’t play a full 60 minutes.”
Saturday was a different story as each team recorded only one goal. This was the first time in the last 52 meetings between the two teams that the Falcons were able to hold Michigan to just one goal.
“Saturday night was a war,” Wires said. “It came down to great saves by Jordan [Sigalet] in net. Everyone played strong defense. It was a one-to-one game. It could have gone either way.”
“There was a lot of speed in the series and a lot of physical contact,” Paluch said. “I thought it was a very good college hockey weekend. For us to be able to take Saturday’s tie and understand what put us in that situation, the effort from a speed standpoint, and build on that. We want to carry that into this weekend and beyond.”
However, that may be easier said than done. The U.S.A. Under-18 team is coming off a 3-0 finish at the Four Nations Tournament in Sweden where they defeated Switzerland (3-2), Finland (4-2) and Sweden (4-3).
According to Paluch, even though this will be an exhibition game, it’s still an important game.
“It’s very important in that we’re not playing a lot of games,” Paluch said.
The Falcons are playing two games in the next 23 days and four games over 41 days.
Tonight, however, BG will be without the presence of assistant captain Kevin Bieksa on the ice, who scored the Falcons lone goal Saturday against the Wolverines.
“Kevin was hit and suffered a great concussion,” Paluch said. “He wasn’t allowed to do any real physical exertion for six days. He will be reevaluated and we’re looking to get him back in the lineup next Friday.”
