University of Minnesota Athletics
Minnesota Postgame Quotes
1/3/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Hockey
Minnesota 6, Brown 2
Minnesota Assistant Coach John Hill
Opening Statement...
“As a coaching staff, we are proud of our guys. All week they recognized that it was just Mike (Hastings) and I and that we were missing Don. They did things during the week when it comes to practice to let us know ahead of time that we were going to be prepared to play.
“We thought that this morning’s skate was very quiet. We had a good week of practice but a lot of times, you know that you don’t win or lose games based on your pre-game skate. We talked to them about it and told them to come out and play with a lot of pride and energy. I think for most of the game we had energy. Granted, there were a couple of moments were Brown had a little bit of the play but there were a lot of positives tonight.
“It was good to get Mike Carman and Jay Barriball back in the line up and have them both score goals. I think our leaders stepped up tonight and not just the guys who have the C’ and the A’s’ on their sweaters. I think we have a core group of guys who are leaders on this team and they stepped up in a big way.
“There was a lot of positive energy on the bench. The important question is, can we come here tomorrow and play a good opponent like Northeastern? It is time for us to play good back to back games. It is obviously a challenge but we are looking forward to tomorrow.”
On Don Lucia...
“I talked to Don this afternoon. He said that you guys should coach, it is your game, and the show must go on. I was happy for the players and I think they had a good time tonight. They scored some goals and we got some guys back in the lineup. For me personally, this was not fun, not having Don here. I am hopeful that he will be in the building tomorrow night. Even if he is not feeling up to standing on the bench, just having him upstairs would be good.”
On a lot of guys getting points tonight...
“We felt tonight that our entire team played pretty well tonight. There were scoring chances created by all of the lines. The only disappointment is that we wanted to get some power play goals but we are a little dis-jointed right now. If we are going to beat Northeastern, we will need to score some power play goals.”
