NMU Hockey preps for game vs. Mankato

MARQUETTE — The Northern Michigan hockey team will be in action this weekend as they are coming off a well–deserved bye week and the team would agree with that sentiment.

“The big thing is when you come back from Alaska, it’s always nice to have the bye at the backend of that trip. It’s tough to get back and give the guys a couple days rest and replay the following weekend. We gave the guys rest. We hope they had a chance to physically recover. We hope they have a chance to recover academically from being gone and being a long way’s away. And we had some injuries that needed to heal so I think for us, the week worked out pretty well,” Kyle said.

“Yeah it was a good bye weekend. Everybody had a good time, getting our rest. We were able to just get away for a little bit and get ready to go this weekend. It’s big, really big for us, coming into a big series like this,” Payne said.

And the series will be against the #2 team in the WCHA, Minnesota State Mankato and the gameplan is set for the Wildcats to try and take down the Mavericks.

“We have to come to play every night. That’s the big thing. And when our team doesn’t do that, we’re not on and it’s not a good night. We’ve seen that in the last couple of weekends. But since then, when our team is going, everything’s going good, we can compete with anyone,” Maschmeyer said.

“Just be fast and be hard to play against. They’re going to be a fast team but we have to be too and we can play right with them, I think if we can play defensively, play in our own zone, I think we’ll do really well against them,” said Payne.
“I think Mankato…I would have to say they are the class of our league right now and I think that if you look at the pre–game polls, it would show you that. They won both championships last year. They’re a very good team,” Kyle said.

The series begins tomorrow night at the Berry Events Center with puck drop set for just after 7 o’clock.