Hockey club searches for early season leadership
Utah State University club hockey coach Jerry Crossly said he is looking for a few good men to take over leadership of the team going into the season opener Friday night at Weber State University.
And he said he wouldn’t mind if there were a lot of excited USU fans there to see who it is.
Crossley said he doesn’t know yet who will take the leadership role on the team and set an example for the rest of the team.
“It’s too early to tell for sure [who the leader will be],” he said. “A lot of times you don’t know who that’s going to be. You just don’t really know yet.
“We’re really trying to push a team concept,” he said. “We want everyone to play their part.”
The team plays its regular season opener Friday night at Weber State, and its home opener Saturday against the University of Utah at 7:30 p.m. at the Eccles Ice Arena.
There will be a special guest at Saturday’s game.
USU President Kermit L. Hall will be on hand to drop the puck as the Aggies play their first regular season game at the Ice Arena.
Friday’s game against the Wildcats will be USU’s first regular season game.
So far, the team has played three exhibition games, beating BYU and losing once and tying once against Weber State.
Weber State has been USU’s biggest rival since the clubs inception.
Crossley said this year is different because the team is no longer part of the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Hockey Association.
“Now, we’re playing as an independent team in the ACHA [American Collegiate Hockey Association] – the national governing body for club hockey.”
Historically, USU has been one of the 16 best club teams in the country, Crossley said.
The ACHA National Championship is held in March, and the top four teams in each region are selected by a voting panel of six people who rank the teams.
“We’ve actually gone to the tournament every year, but one that we’ve been eligible.”
Last year, the Aggies finished No. 12, but their best finish has been No. 4.
“We were the first team in the West to break the top four,” Crossley said.
Crossley said he hopes the team will return to the tournament again this year.
“You always expect to [go to the tournament],” he said. “It will be tougher this year because USC, a team that traditionally hasn’t been in the tournament, has an automatic bid because they are hosting the event. That leaves only three bids for the region.”
Last year was the first year Utah State played its home games in the new Eccles Ice Arena, and it makes a big difference for the team, Crossley said.
“It’s nothing but good,” he said. “It just creates a good atmosphere. It makes it fun for the guys to play in front of that crowd. It’s nice to be able to get home at 11 at night and not two in the morning.”
Forward Mike Lewandowski said the home crowd helps the team.
“I have a lot of fun playing at home because whenever something big happens, like a big hit, the adrenaline rush is just amazing. It really gets us going playing at home,” he said.
For the Aggies this year, Crossley said forward Aaron Burrell is a player to watch.
“A lot of people come to watch Aaron play,” he said. “We’ve got a couple of younger players we hope will step up and do the same thing.”
Center Nick Thiros said his role with the team is to “play an all-around game.”
Defenseman Aaron Sutliff said, “My role with the team is to play strong defense, help the team lead each other, and be consistent.”
Assistant coach Ty Newberry said the club hockey team differs from other club teams on campus.
“This team is unique compared to a lot of other teams at the university,” he said. “They give back to the community. They came back during the summer to do a youth hockey camp and they are going to do a reading program in the schools.”
Newberry was the head coach at Penn State and West Virginia before moving out West.
“I previously coached college hockey and retired until these guys talked me into it,” he said. “I actually moved here to open up this rink.”
Crossley said jokingly that he got involved with the team because, “I was in the wrong place at the right time.”
He was involved with youth hockey in the area, and the people who began the club hockey program happened to know about him, he said. He was an assistant coach and then became the head coach after a few years, Crossley said.
-royburton@cc.usu.edu