‘Learning experience’ for hockey team in opening tournament

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The GCSU club hockey team traveled to Gwinnett County this past weekend for the Southeastern Collegiate Roller Hockey League opening event. The tournament pitted the team against a wide variety of schools, from large out-of-state universities like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to in-state schools like Emory University.

The team went 0-4 over the weekend, with three games on Saturday and one on Sunday. The closest result was a 7-6 loss to Florida International University.

“It was a very big learning experience,” senior Erik Olney said. “It was interesting to see where we were at among that type of competition, and what we need to do to bring our level up to where those teams are already at.”

The focus of the team was not on a high finish but on gaining valuable experience against tough opponents.

“I think the weekend actually went well,” senior Matt Moore said. “I mean you couldn’t have expected us to go out and beat most of those teams from huge schools that have been playing together for a while.”

“We had never played competitively before,” Olney said, “so we got to see which lines and players worked well together, and get the new guys involved.”

The team recently became a Registered Student Organization, making them an official club team at GCSU. The team held open tryouts earlier this semester and finalized its roster in late September.

“Our two freshmen, Ryan Kaufman and Brandon Leonard, are really talented guys, so they are already helping us out a lot,” Moore said.

The team’s next tournament will be in mid-November in Columbia, S.C.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 9 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