Last year, the men’s hockey team opened its season right at home in Matthews Arena. This season, they’ll be opening up about 4,500 miles west of Matthews.
The Huskies begin play for the 2008-09 season tomorrow in Anchorage, Alaska as part of the Kendall Hockey Classic hosted by the University of Alaska-Anchorage. Northeastern squares off against Alaska-Fairbanks in the first of two weekend games for NU.
The biggest challenge for the Huskies may not come in the form of Alaska-Fairbanks or Alaska-Anchorage, their Saturday opponent; but rather the exhaustive travel involved with getting from Boston to Alaska, which may slow the team down on the ice.
The team was scheduled to leave today from Matthews Arena by bus at 6:30 a.m. before departing Logan Airport at 8 a.m, said senior captain Joe Vitale. They’ll then fly five and a half hours to Seattle where they’ll have a brief layover, before flying another four hours to complete the journey to Alaska, where they’re expected to arrive at 4 p.m. before heading to practice at five.
Junior goaltender Brad Thiessen said the team has been taking steps to try and ensure the rigorous trip doesn’t leave players fatigued for game time.
“Our strength and condition coach told us that because of the time change, we should just try and stay awake an hour longer every night,” he said Tuesday night. “It’s a four hour time difference over there, so hopefully that’ll pay off. It’ll be a long day Thursday.”
Head coach Greg Cronin said last night he wasn’t worried about the trip impairing his players in any way.
“I actually think it works out pretty well,” he said. “It’s [an early flight]. They’ll only get up an hour or two earlier than they usually do. They get into Anchorage at a good time, so their internal clock shouldn’t be affected too badly. There’s always that concern with jet lag, but I don’t really see it being an issue.”
Thiessen said that despite the long trip, most of the team was excited to be getting the experience to travel and play in a place they’ve never gone before.
“It’s exciting for everyone. I mean a lot of the guys really like the travel,” he said. “We get to spend a lot of time with each other, especially here at the beginning of the year. To come together as a team is a good thing for us.”
The team has been preparing for the trip in practice by getting accustomed to Cronin’s systems and getting freshmen up to speed. They’ve also worked on power play, penalty kill and defensive zone coverage, Thiessen said.
Last year, Boston University made a similar trip to Alaska for its season opener and was shocked by Robert Morris with a 3-2 loss. BU played the next night and drew Alaska-Anchorage 4-4 en route to struggling to a disappointing first half of its season.
Thiessen said the Huskies aren’t worried abut any kind of similar ramifications from their own Alaska trip.
“We’ve prepared for the past couple of weeks for this, so whatever happens, happens,” he said. “We’re excited to be able to play there and I don’t think it’ll have any effect on what happens the rest of the season.”
The Huskies play Alaska-Fairbanks tomorrow at 5 p.m. (9 p.m. EST) and Alaska-Anchorage Saturday at 7 p.m. (11 p.m. EST). They are scheduled to leave Alaska at 2 a.m. local time Sunday morning and arrive back in Boston at 5 p.m. later that day.
