The puck drops here

The GCSU hockey team acquired its charter as a Registered Student Organization during fall semester last year. Since then, the players have been excited to begin playing in an official collegiate circuit.

GCSU hockey unofficially started in 2006 with a few players who played pickup games. Senior player and creative writing major Matt Moore described the team’s history.

“We picked up players and beginning entering adult beer league tournaments,” Moore said. “Jeff Brittain came along last year and got the official club started and team going. Now we play on the roller rink with skates; quite a rags to riches story.”

Sophomore Cain Cantrell described the feeling of being quickly granted true collegiate sport status.

“Last year, we all stepped up and formed a legit team and played in a couple of tournaments,” Cantrell said. “Then next thing we knew, we are in the SEC division of the National Roller Hockey League.”

Upperclassmen players began recruiting new players this summer during each of the freshmen orientations. They found a good bunch of prospective players who went to try out this past Sunday.

“The skill we saw in tryouts exceeded my expectations,” Moore said. “We have got some really talented freshman and I expect the team to be very competitive.”

The team’s roster changes each semester, so it will hold tryouts again during spring. The team has big plans until then.

Its next scheduled event is Oct. 3-4 in Gwinnett County. After that, players anticipate playing regular season games on various weekends throughout the fall semester. These games will be played at different venues throughout the Southeast.

Junior player Jeff Brittain is hopeful that the team’s performance will bring it invitations to prestigious tournaments.

“The NCRHA national championship tournament will be in the spring,” Brittain said. “Hopefully we’ll work hard enough this year to earn an invitation to it.”

The team currently practices twice a week to prepare for the upcoming season. It practices on foot Tuesdays from 8-10 p.m. and with full pads and skates Sundays from 5-6 p.m. at the Rocket Roller Rink off of Ga. 29. In addition, the team hopes to add one more day of practice at the rink into its weekly schedule.

The players look forward to playing several different schools during the upcoming year, including Kennesaw State, Georgia Tech, Georgia State and Florida State.

Like any other sport at GCSU, the hockey team hopes to be able to rely on the support of the student body during its season. To do this, it will hold various activities to try and engage students.

“We want to be out in the public around all the students as much as possible,” Cantrell said. “So we can get a bigger and better fan support club.”

Always armed with a quick wit, Moore proposed that the team make a team calendar to engage students and “for the girls to drool over.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 4 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry