Seniors say goodbye
For USU hockey seniors Aaron Burrell and Nick Thiros, it’s been six years in the making. For Chris Webber and Nick Haase, two years are finishing just as soon as they started.
These four seniors and Brandon Lang, who has played for USU for the last four years, will be playing their last home game for the Aggies this Saturday against the Weber State Division-I squad.
“I’ll have to hold back the emotion a little bit,” Burrell said. “I’m pretty excited. I’ve been staring this one down for a few years now.”
Burrell thought that last season would be his last, but he decided to use his last year of eligibility this season.
“I don’t think there’s any way in hell that [the league] will let me play a seventh year,” he said.
Thiros said he too has tried to quit before, but has kept coming back until his eligibility has run out.
“This day has come two or three times now and I kept delaying it,” he said. “But it’s over now and I want to go out on a win.”
Head coach Jerry Crossley said he will try not to be too emotional Saturday.
Crossley said he coached many of the USU players when they were younger.
“I watched them grow up and become fine hockey players,” he said.
Webber said it has been a special season and it will be hard to say goodbye.
“All good things have to come to an end,” he said.
Aaron Burrell
“I don’t know what I’m going to do in the winter next year,” he said. “I’ve always played hockey. I got to figure something out. I’ll probably gain 50 pounds because I won’t be working out anymore.”
Last season, Burrell broke the USU record for career goals with 165. He now has 194.
But he said he will miss his teammates more than his accomplishments.
“I’ll miss the locker room a lot,” he said. “I’ll miss the games. The fans up here are crazy.”
Burrell played back in the day when there was no ice arena in Cache Valley and the USU team played and practiced at the Ogden Ice Sheet. He said he loves the new facility and all the fans that it has attracted.
Nick Thiros
Burrell and Thiros have played together since youth hockey, and Thiros said it has been interesting to see the sport grow in Cache Valley.
“When I started here, the program wasn’t nearly what it is today,” he said. “We were still driving to Ogden. But having this rink built is great and I’m going to miss it forever.”
Thiros is second on the team in assists this season with 27 and has scored a team-high 14 power-play goals.
His favorite memory as Aggie came during his freshman year when he scored a game-winning, shorthanded goal to win the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Hockey Association title.
Thiros joked, “I guess I peaked a little early.”
Brandon Lang
Even though he has played defense for his whole career and doesn’t have the statistics that Burrell has, Lang said he wouldn’t trade his experience at USU for anything.
“It’s been an incredible time,” he said. “I’ve loved every minute that I’ve played for the team. I’ll miss the guys.”
Lang said the Aggies are unique in that the players are as close as they are.
“We’re all a big family in there,” he said. “I’ll miss the comradery. We’ve made lifelong friends.”
Lang, who is from Chasworth, Calif., said the community has been a great help to him.
“The community has been incredible,” he said. “Since my first year up here, they’ve been there for me. They just make me feel at home. The entire town of Logan in just a big family to us.”
Lang said he is very excited to play WSU in his final home game.
“It’s a love-hate relationship,” he said. “We love to hate them. It’s kind of a fitting ending here.”
Chris Webber
Webber started his career at San Jose State, where he played goalie for two years. He transferred to USU at the beginning of last season. Still, he said he feels like he belongs.
“I think I’ve been included, because I played against them before,” he said. “I love these guys. It feels like I’ve been here longer.”
After only one year at USU, Webber set the record for the highest save percentage and goals-against average in a season.
But like the other seniors, it will be his teammates that he’ll miss the most.
“I’ve been to a lot places in Logan, but the place where I’ve spent the most time is in that locker room,” he said. “It’s going to be kind of emotional Saturday.”
Webber said he technically has one more year of eligibility, but he will be graduating at the end of the semester.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with it,” he said. “I’ve been looking at graduate school at Arizona State, and they have a D-I program there.”
Nick Haase
Haase, like Webber, didn’t play hockey for USU until last season.
“It was short and sweet,” he said.
He said he transferred from a college in Osh Kosh, Wisconsin, but he hadn’t played hockey since his senior year of high school.
“I wasn’t planning on playing,” he said. “I had fun with it.”
Haase was an assistant captain last season and was named team captain this season.
He said it was hard to be the leader of a team that had so many players with more experience than he had.
“It’s hard to move in and be on the same team as guys who have been playing for five and six years,” he said. “But I’ve been friends with all of those guys. I’m glad I got the opportunity to play with them. I’ve enjoyed everything about it.”
Haase said he will not be playing Saturday because of a knee injury he suffered earlier this semester. He said even though he played last weekend against BYU, the pain in his knee has not gone away.
He said he does not know if he will play again this season.
“My knee is just killing me,” he said. “We’ll see about nationals.”
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu