The St. Lawrence Men’s Hockey team starts its season in under two weeks and many are wondering if this season will be better than the last. With an injury prone season last year and the year before, Coach Mike Morris is aiming to keep the team healthy and the roster full through March and has focused on preparing for the worst. Alongside coaching efforts, the guys suiting up have been grinding on and off the ice this fall; making personal improvements to their game, living at the gym, and getting to know their teammates like their own family.

Coach Morris emphasizes that improvement is on its way and its probable that we will see the work put into the off-season carry over to more wins on the schedule.  Coach Morris exclaims, “We aim to improve in all areas, the players are working diligently at producing goals and defending better. Our leadership group has been meeting regularly to address how we can improve and become a tight bunch.” A fact that gets left out about last year’s season is that 15 games were lost by a margin of one goal. This being said, Coach Morris has been trying to push optimization of scoring chances on his players this off-season.

The St. Lawrence roster has mostly underclassmen with only three seniors holding the candle, showing a promising path for this season and seasons to come. The roster has been filled past its standard capacity with freshman and newcomers and Coach Morris seems to have infinite faith in the guys he selected to join the team this year, “The freshman are a good group of character people, true student/athletes.” With a deep roster and a large freshman class, the problems from last year with injuries and lost players is more avoidable.

The Ice Hockey roster has made strides to score goals and stop them this off-season, but also the team is doing phenomenal from a bonding stand-point and if you know hockey, this can often be the most important factor in a winning team.  Coach Morris states that, “To date this appears to be a close knit team. The guys are enjoying their time together at the rink, in the weight room and on campus. They feel they have lots to prove. To date they’ve had great energy and displayed excellent work habits. Above all, this group is taking ownership of the team. Everyone seems happy. You can hear it in their voices and see the interaction as they enjoy each other’s company around Appleton.” The player’s commitment to the organization is yet another good sign for the prospects of this year’s success.

The Saints have another challenging schedule this season with games against historically elite teams like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota and it is yet to be seen how this young team will fare against these titans of college hockey. There is optimism amongst the players and coaching staff however and they are taking it one day at a time to try and get back to the top of the ECAC.