Men’s Hockey sets eyes on the prize
After an eight month layover, it’s back. The hits. The Plexiglas. The clutch goals and the nail biting victories.
In pursuit — Andrew McCombe (9) races to the puck. McCombe and the The Flames D1 men’s hockey team have their sights set on a national championship. Photo credit: Ruth Bibby
The wait is over as Division I men’s hockey returns to Liberty Mountain for the fall 2011 season. Head coach Kirk Handy expressed how excited he is about the upcoming season despite this year’s schedule being one of the toughest they’ve had in a long time.
The hockey team will face the defending national champion, Davenport University, twice in Michigan in early October before hosting them at home in mid-January.
Other difficult teams on the Flames schedule include the University of Delaware, Adrian College and the Nittany Lions of Penn State.
Despite the plethora of notoriously good squads this year, Coach Handy has faith in his team.
“It’s a good challenge and a good opportunity for the guys to play consistently at a high level, game in and game out,” Handy said.
Handy also admitted that it was hard losing a great class of seniors, but his expectations remain high thanks to new recruits filling the ranks.
“We actually have 12 new players on our team,” Handy said, “which is over 50 percent of our roster and, on top of that, we have two players who didn’t play last year, so really we have like 14 new players, which is exciting for us in the coaching staff, having a good group of guys we can mold and look to take our program to the next level.”
Co-captain Andrew McCullen echoed what Coach Handy had to say and spoke very highly of the newcomers talent saying, “it’s not much of a learning curve for them.”
Many expect to see the Liberty Flames excel this year on the ice, including Liberty’s point leader from last season, forward Brent Boschman, who hopes all the hard work will pay off.
“We have a lot of new guys, but we have some really good players this year and we realize that we do have a lot of potential. We can really make some noise this year, so (we’re) definitely working that much harder to really come together and put a better product out onto the ice this year.”
The Liberty Men’s Division I Hockey team will take to the ice starting with their long-established Blue and White game on Friday, Sept. 9 at 7:30 p.m., and will begin its regular season the following Sunday, Sept. 16 by hosting the Atlanta Jr. Knights at 7:30 p.m.