BGSU hockey (0-2) secured its first win of the season in an exhibition match against the University of Windsor (4-4) that saw the Orange and Brown leave the ice with a 6-3 victory. 

This weekend, BGSU hockey will begin conference play as they travel to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to face the Lake Superior State University Lakers (2-2) for a weekend series.

During the weekly press conference held on Oct. 21, head coach Dennis “Willi” Williams discussed his team’s upcoming opponent, the feeling of getting into the win column, being tough to play against, and improvements he wants to see out of his team. 

Here are the Falcon Four takeaways from the press conference: 

Winning

Before their 6-3 victory over Windsor, Bowling Green had lost 4-1 against Robert Morris University in an exhibition game at the Slater Family Ice Arena and been swept by the Niagara Purple Eagles in their first weekend series of the regular season. 

While the win against the Lancers of the University of Windsor will not count towards their record due to it being an exhibition match, it did serve as a confidence boost for the team. 

“Just getting that win as a group, and getting in the locker room with the win song and just kinda seeing your two months of hard work kinda come together,” said coach Williams. “Hopefully we can build off that.” 

The game saw six unique goal scorers and even more players contributing points throughout the contest, which serves as a confidence boost to the players on a personal level. 

“I know it was an exhibition game where they don’t count in points, but a lot of players left that game feeling good about themselves, which is really important, especially as we prepare for Lake State,” said Williams. 

Preparing for LSSU

Lake Superior State has started its season by sweeping Stonehill College, being swept by Lindenwood, and winning back-to-back exhibition games against the USA Hockey National Developmental U-18 team and Simon Fraser University.

“They played six games, their 2-2 in non-league games and 2-0 in their exhibition games, so 4-2 on the season,” said Willi. “They’re scoring goals, they got a lot of new players, a lot of new excitement up there too, and they’re playing a lot of good hockey.” 

Coach Williams continued, “It’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be two teams that are gonna battle, and I think every team goes into the weekend trying to get points, and right now we just gotta focus on Friday. We’ll worry about Saturday when that comes.” 

Being hard to play against

During his first season coaching the Falcons last season, Willi’s play style became known for being hard to play against. He emphasized the importance of being physical, having high shot volumes, crashing the net for second and third opportunities, and playing the game within the slot and the blue paint. 

This coaching style has carried over to this season, and Willi wants to see his team improve even more at this style of play.

“I need our team to play a much heavier, hard-nosed style game inside the dots. We gotta be difficult to play against and we gotta be difficult for the opponents because of how we wanna play inside the blue paint,” said Williams. 

“You can never get enough bodies around that net and be able to kinda hack and whack in goals, so it’s really important that we not just get to the net front, but you gotta get there with a purpose and a mindset.” 

Improvement

While the team and Williams are happy to have earned their first victory of the season, that does not mean that they are content and are done improving. 

“We probably don’t have enough time right now to go through it all,” responded Willy when asked about things he wants to see his team improve. 

“We’re always looking to improve. We’re always looking to get better in areas. We want to make sure that at the end of the day, I wanna see us stay connected as five. I wanna see five in each zone,” explained Willi. “I want our (defensemen) to get up the ice and play with pace, I want our forwards to track back. I wanna see five in the (offensive) zone, five in the neutral zone. I wanna see short shifts, good puck deposits, good discipline, all things that we control, and I’d like to see better.”