Ags set for Eastern Washington
The Utah State hockey club will host the Eastern Washington Eagles on Thursday and Saturday, after beating BYU last Saturday 7-5 in Provo.
The puck will drop at 7:30 p.m., on both nights, in the Eccles Ice Arena in North Logan.
The Eagles finished fifth in the West Region of the American Collegiate Hockey Association last year. The top four teams of each ACHA region go to nationals at the end of the year. USU finished third last year.
“They were a pretty good team last year,” Aggie Ben Froehle said. “I don’t think they showed it when they were down here.”
The Aggies won the only game between these two teams in Cache Valley last season 6-0 in the team’s only shutout of the season.
“They’re not the caliber of Weber D-I,” Aggie defensive coach Ned Hillyard said. “But the problem with our team is we have a great talent to play down to the ability of the team we’re playing. I mean that as sarcastically as I can possibly make it.”
Still, USU players said they’ll be ready for Ew.
“We know this team wasn’t as strong last year, but we’re not going to into it like we did with BYU and think they’re a push-over,” Aggie Scotty John said. “We’re going to go in there ready to work and expect to win the game.”
The Aggies said they were over-confident going into the BYU game last Saturday in which the IceCats took an early 3-0 lead.
“I’m not expecting to walk over them,” Froehle said. “It’s one of those teams that you don’t really know anything about.”
However, USU is still expecting to make a good showing.
“If we play any team like we played Weber D-I, we will dominate,” Hillyard said. “If we don’t [shut them out], I will be very disappointed.”
“I’m expecting good things,” John said.
In last season’s meeting between the teams in North Logan, there was an incident involving Eagle Powell Gallagher and the USU fans sitting behind the EWU penalty box. Powell was put in the box for being the seventh man on the ice and immediately squirted water on the fans.
A USU fan then dumped his drink onto Gallagher, inciting loud shouting and other objects to be thrown at Gallagher. The police had to escort Gallagher to the penalty box and the USU fan out of the rink. Penalties were issued both to Gallagher and the USU fans.
“That was pretty funny last year,” Froehle said. “The superfans [who sit behind the penalty box] – we love them. They follow us everywhere.”
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu