Wildcats to play at North Dakota

The Northern Michigan University hockey team will play their final non-conference series of the season Friday and Saturday in Grand Forks, N.D. against the University of North Dakota.

This will be the first matchup between the two schools since 1997. North Dakota is a member of the newly formed National Collegiate Hockey Conference. UND is 7–7–2 this season.

NMU will use this weekend to get back on track. The Wildcats have yet to win a game in the month of December. A victory or two would is exactly what the Wildcats need as they close out the 2013 portion of their schedule.

“For us to get some momentum right now I think is critical to get feeling good about ourselves,” said Wildcats head coach Walt Kyle. This is a team that always has very, very good players. (North Dakota) is always one of the top teams in the country. For us to play a high level team right now in a big building and in a tough environment is everything we want.”

“The last couple weekends we weren’t happy with the way we played,” said Wildcats captain Stephan Vigier. “We’re looking to get our quality of play back to where it should be. We haven’t been doing the little things as well as we should be, like just getting pucks deep, forechecking, and things like that. We just have to get back to more or less the basics, just work hard, and do those things right.”

Puck drop is set for 8:37 p.m. on Friday and at 8:07 p.m. on Saturday. Look for Wildcats goaltender Mathias Dahlstrom to start both games between the pipes. Sophomore goaltender Michael Doan is out indefinitely after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery earlier this week.