After a split this past weekend with St. Lawrence and New Hampshire, the No. 9 MSU hockey team will travel to Marquette to play Northern Michigan.
An oddity of the Wildcats' home, the Berry Events Center, is that it hosts an Olympic-sized ice sheet. The ice surface is 200 by 100 feet, which is 15 feet wider than the ice sheet at Munn Ice Arena, which - at NHL size - is 200 feet by 85 feet.
"It's big," MSU head coach Rick Comley said. "You forget how big it really is. The players get out there and they're kind of in shock."
Under Comley, the Spartans have only played two games in Marquette, both in 2002, Comley's first year as MSU's head coach. The team fell 10-4 the first night before coming back to win 3-1.
"There's a comfort zone that goes with playing on Olympic-sized ice for teams that do it well," he said.
As a goaltender, senior Matt Migliaccio doesn't see the ice as that big of a change.
"It's a little weird getting used to it (but) it's the same game," he said.
Senior forward Kevin Estrada, who is used to playing in the bigger rinks at home in British Columbia, thinks the change in ice size can only help the forwards.
"I like skating in big rinks," he said. "It's harder for the defense to make the right plays."
To prepare for the game, the team has practiced the last two days at The Summit in Dimondale, which hosts an Olympic-sized ice sheet. They will also skate twice at the Berry Events Center.
"Good players are still good players," Comley said. "For some kids, it will help them. They should be comfortable with the physical feel of the ice surface by then."
Senior captain Jim Slater compared the change with something his gridiron counterparts go through.
"It's like football going from real grass to Astroturf," he said.
Fresh faces
The Spartans received contributions from three of their freshman forwards in Sunday's 5-1 win over New Hampshire.
Both Bryan Lerg and Jim McKenzie scored their first collegiate goals in the victory, and Peder Skinner picked up the assist on McKenzie's goal.
"It's no secret that every team wants to find scoring and needs to get some balance on the offensive side of the game," Comley said.
"We had freshmen pick up the slack."
Slater knows that if the freshmen contribute, it will take a lot of pressure off his top line.
"It's good for the team to have some depth like that," he said. "It makes some guys' jobs a lot easier on this team."
Consistently inconsistent
A combined 20 penalties were called in MSU's 3-1 loss to St. Lawrence on Friday, but only 11 were called Sunday.
"It better be more like Friday, because that's what (the league) told us it was going to be," Comley said.
"The players were frustrated on Friday, then on Sunday they were saying, 'Well, what's going on?'"
Estrada was a bit more forgiving.
"It takes a while for us to adjust, just like the referees."
