One of the most anticipated hockey seasons in BG’s recent past is about to start tonight.
Finally after three weeks of practice the Falcons are ready to head to Schenectady, N.Y. to take on the Union Dutchmen in a two-game weekend series to start the regular season.
“We’re really excited to get going,” head coach Scott Paluch said. “We’ve spent three weeks now preparing for this weekend and after seeing some good things last Friday night, I think we’re ready to head out to Schenectady and play a good Union team. It’s a team that came in here (last season) and took three out of four points from us and they got everyone back from that team. They’re well coached, they’re disciplined, they got great goaltending and it’s going to be a good test for us to open up the year.”
The Dutchmen are coming off a pair of 4-2 losses at Colorado College to open their season.
However, they saw big play from their goaltender Kris Mayotte. He recorded 33 saves on Friday and had 39 on Saturday for a total of 72 on the weekend.
“He (Mayotte) was tremendous here the weekend against us,” Paluch said. “A big part of the weekend for us will be solving him…getting traffic, getting rebounds and figuring him out on the weekend.”
Up front, the Dutchmen are lead by forwards: Jonathan Poirier, Josh Coyle, Jason Visser, Scott Seney and Jordan Webb.
Poirier, Coyle and Webb all had a goal a piece this past weekend.
On defense, they are lead by: Olivier Bouchard, Matt Vagvolgyi and Scott Wheeler.
Bouchard leads the team in points with three after recording a goal and two assists at CC on the weekend.
“They got a good combination of guys that can move with skill and guys that are big with skill,” Paluch said. “They didn’t get any points out the weekend at Colorado College, which is probably as tough a venue as there is to play. They played extremely well and they had opportunities both games. They’re a good hockey team.”
The Falcons are 25th in the latest USCHO.com poll and come into the weekend after a 3-2 overtime exhibition win against Windsor.
It was a game that saw the Falcons out-shoot the Lancers 46-13.
Freshman forward Derek Whitmore got the game-winner just 2:53 into the extra session. It was Whitmore’s second overtime-winner in a row, as he scored the game-winner in the Falcon Face-off to start the preseason schedule.
Six underclassmen contributed in the win. Sophomores Jeremy Bronson, Rich Meloche and Jonathan Sigalet all recorded assists. Then freshman Ben Geelan and Michael Hodgson recorded assists as well, in addition to Whitmore getting the overtime goal.
Senior defenseman Taylor Christie also came up big in the win. He recorded a goal and an assist to give the Falcons a big boost on defense.
James Unger was a force all night on both offense and defense for the Falcons. Whether it was creating havoc in front of the net or making a big hit on the other end, Unger made his presence felt.
He and his team are looking forward to the tough challenge ahead in their first weekend of the season and know that they’ll have to continue their strong play. “It should be fun,” Unger said. “Everybody is pretty excited to start off the year. They’re a good team other there. We lost to them last year so we’re trying to get a little revenge. We have a lot more offensive skill than we had last year…a lot more, so hopefully that’ll come into play and we’ll score more goals than we did this past weekend.”
Freshman defenseman Mike Nesdill will sit out the weekend with a shoulder injury as his status is yet to be determined.
The Falcons and Dutchmen will drop the puck at 7:05 p.m. tonight and tomorrow for the Achilles Center. Play-by-play of the games will be aired on 88.1 FM with Andy Evans doing the call.
