Vegas, baby, Vegas
After a week off for Thanksgiving, the Utah State hockey club will head to Las Vegas for a mid-season tournament with UNLV, BYU and the Weber State Division-II squad.
The Aggies will face UNLV Thursday and then will play BYU on Friday. The top two teams from the first two days will face off on Saturday evening with the bottom two teams playing earlier in the day.
“It will be a fun tournament,” Aggie Robert Hashimoto said. “It will be a battle to see who is the best team in Utah. We want to be No. 1 in Utah so we have to win this tournament.”
The Aggies requested not to be paired with WSU for the first two days because the two teams will play a home-and-home next weekend.
USU has already played two games against the Wildcats, winning 10-6 in Logan on Sept. 30, but lost to them for the first time ever 3-2 on Oct. 1 in Ogden.
“I want to beat them so bad because after they beat us, they thought they won the Stanley Cup,” Hashimoto said. “They have shown a lot of improvement so they are going to be our biggest competition.”
USU has already beat BYU twice this season by scores of 4-3 (in overtime) and 3-0, but the Aggies lost to the Icecats 5-3 in their last meeting in Provo.
“They’ve been a rival so we need to play really hard to beat them,” Hashimoto said. “They know who to watch on our team.”
USU has never played UNLV as this is the Rebels first season with a hockey team.
“We don’t know anything about them,” Hashimoto said. “But we can’t underestimate them because it’s a tournament and we want to bring home the trophy.”
USU will be without defenseman Brett Fryslie due to a shoulder injury.
“It will hurt us,” Hashimoto said. “Everytime we lose a defenseman it hurts, especially when it’s a key defenseman like Fryslie.”
The Aggies last played in the state of Washington two weeks ago when they faced the Huskies and Eastern Washington. USU beat UW 2-1, but lost both games against the Eagles by scores of 6-2 and 4-2.
The team now has a record of 8-11-1 on the season, but is ranked No. 8 in the second regional rankings by the American Collegiate Hockey Association. USU was No. 10 in the first ranking of the season.
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu