News
ShareChalk Talk with Head Ice Hockey Coach Dave Reno - Week 1 (2008-2009)
09/26/08
As the team prepares for the 2008-2009 season, it might be a good time to review last year’s accomplishments. It was by far the best season ever for your Musketeers! With a record of 9-6-1, it was the team’s first winning season. Especially rewarding for the team was their first ever win against Cincinnati, in a shut out. In fact, the team had a 3-0-1 record against our cross town rivals and also won the first ever Crosstown face-off. At one point the team was ranked #14 in our region (ACHA D3 North) and fell only a few games short of making the playoffs.
From the coaching staff’s perspective, we could not be more satisfied with the team’s results. Considering that we played a large number of games with very few players, the amount of desire and passion for winning that was demonstrated by the entire team was exceptional. As the year progressed, team skills and game play improved and winning became an expectation. However, there were still a number of teams who beat the Musketeers handily and the team recognized that their work ethic for this season needed to take a huge step forward.
This year promises to be even better. The coaches have appointed Justin Wheeler as the team captain, with Mike Graber and Adam Keck serving as assistants. We trust that these three individuals will demonstrate excellent leadership and help for the players.
This year we have eight freshmen who have made the team and we are extremely confident that each of them will have a positive impact with our success this season. With our best players also returning this year, we are expecting to take a giant step forward in building a solid ice hockey program at Xavier University. Not only does this give us a full roster for this season, but we have a young team and will only lose one senior at the end of the year. So our future looks pretty promising. We will continue to skate in the American College Hockey Associations club M3 level for this season, with hopes of moving up to M2 next year. This will be a big step for the program with very competitive teams.
We open our season on October 2nd when we travel to Fort Wayne, Indiana to play IPFW. This team beat us handily last year so we are hoping to start the season off by returning the favor. Shortly our entire schedule will be finalized and the website will be updated. As previously mentioned, our year looks promising, but it will be a tough schedule since we will be playing a number of teams from the M2 division.
A few of the team objectives this year are;
- To have another winning season.
- To make the playoffs.
- To have more students come to the games and cheer on the team!!
Our first home game is Friday, October 24th at the Cincinnati Gardens. We will be playing Middle Tennessee State who traditionally has a tough team. Game time is 9:00 PM and we are hoping for a large student turnout.
Hope to see you there!
Coach Reno