Ags to play in Colorado

Despite being winless in Colorado for the last three years, the Utah State hockey club has high hopes of a successful weekend against Denver, Colorado and Colorado State.

The Aggies lost to CSU 6-2 last Saturday at home, but felt they gave the game away.

“I want revenge,” Aggie Parker Richards said. “I thought we were the better squad. I didn’t think they were that good.”

USU led the Rams 2-0 late in the first period, but quit playing its systems and did individual work for the rest of the game, defenseman Chad Johnson said.

“CSU is just as good as they were last year,” he said. “They are in the top five or six in the country and we played with them.”

Johnson said the team is addressing play as one unit and not individuals.

“We’re trying to be more focused on playing out systems for 60 minutes a game,” he said. “Game by game, we’re getting better.”

The Aggies faced Denver last night and will play Colorado tonight. It will be the Buffaloes’ first game of the season.

“I see that as an advantage for us,” Johnson said. “We can beat them with our conditioning and speed.”

This will be the first time this season USU will play three games in one weekend.

Head coach Jerry Crossley said it will help get the team ready for nationals.

“This is what you prepare for,” he said. “This will be a tournament-type situation.”

Richards and Johnson both scored their first goal of the season last weekend. Crossley said the team needs more of that.

“As a team, we need to score more goals,” he said. “We’re going to try to work on scoring.”

Both CU and CSU play on NHL-size rinks as opposed to the Olympic size that all of the teams from Utah play on. Olympic rinks are wider than NHL rinks.

“There’s a lot less time and space,” Johnson said. “You have to make decisions that much faster.”

Johnson said the smaller ice should work toward the Aggies’ favor.

“We have a chippy style of play,” he said. “That gives us more of an advantage. We have great speed and we can utilize it.”

-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu