Wildcats lose Ludwig for the season
The Northern Michigan University hockey team will travel to Minnesota State Mankato on Thursday for their first series ever against the Mavericks. But NMU won’t have the services of defenseman C.J. Ludwig.
The senior defenseman and captain will miss the rest of the season with a knee injury. Ludwig was hurt late in the third period on Friday against Ferris State.
Ludwig scored 12 points in 14 games this season for NMU. With Ludwig now out for the season, Wildcats head coach Walt Kyle has named a new captain. Stephan Vigier will wear the ‘C’ the rest of the season.
“I’m not going to do anything different. I am going to try and keep leading by example,” said Vigier. “I’m not the most vocal guy, but I am going to go out there and work as hard as I can every night and hopefully the boys will follow my lead.”
“We wish we had Ludwig. He’s a great person, a great leader, and a really good player for us. We think we have some guys that can step in and help. We all have to be a little bit better and I think in the end we should be ok,” added Vigier.
“C.J. is a big loss for us. He’s our leader and he’s a great player,” said Wildcats head coach Walt Kyle. “But the reality is we don’t have him. We try to prepare for that scenario from the very first day of practice to make sure that the next guy up is ready to go. We tell our guys all the time that we wouldn’t have you here if we didn’t think that they could help us win.”
Puck drop between the Wildcats and Mavericks is scheduled for 8:37 p.m. on Friday and at 8:07 p.m. on Saturday.