University of Minnesota Athletics
Gophers Meet with Media
12/7/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Hockey
MINNEAPOLIS - Head coach Brad Frost and Gophers Sidney Peters, Kate Schipper, and Lee Stecklein spoke with the media in preparation for this weekend's non-conference series on the road at Boston University.
On the team's loss to Wisconsin...
Schipper: I think on Sunday, a big takeaway was that it just wasn't our day. Everyone, on that day, it wasn't their day to perform, it wasn't their day to play a game. We need to learn how to not have that happen again. I think one big thing is just turning it around at practice this week, focusing on BU and how we can perform against them. Learn and improve from Sunday but not let it hang over our heads. Looking back, I think a lot of people are really shocked. I'm a senior now, and this has never happened. Shock and embarrassment are two big feelings right now. One of the big things is focusing on improving and taking stuff away from it, not only focusing on the negative and not letting it ruin the rest of our season.
Frost: It wasn't our day, but it was an embarrassing day. We haven't given up eight goals since 1999 when most of our current players were toddlers. We're not happy about that as a program. But, in saying that, certainly things snowballed and they got worse and worse. I don't think it was because of a lack of effort, but I do think there were just a ton of combinations that allowed things to get worse. We talked in between periods. We're down 4-2 after one; we get the next one, all of a sudden it's 4-3 and we're back in the game. Early on in the second period, we had a 2-on-1 miss the net and that same shift they come down on a breakaway and make it 5-2, so it goes to 4-3 there it's different. It goes to 5-2 and it ends up the way it ended up.
Peters: It stunk. It was a bad game, just a bad day for everyone. At the end of the night, you can be upset about it but you can't dwell on it because we have a lot of the season left to play. It was just one game; it may feel like it was more than one game because it stung a lot worse than other losses probably would because we have a special rivalry and competitiveness for Wisconsin. Like I said, at the end of the night, you just have to pick yourself up and dust yourself off and come back the next weekend.
On what went wrong against Wisconsin and if it can be fixed...
Stecklein: I don't think it's the end of the world. We still have a lot of season left. It's one game. I definitely wish we could go back and change it, but we can't so we'll have a lot to learn here, looking at film and talking with the coaches. For the most part, it's all within our control so as long as we can fix those things, I think we're pretty good.
Frost: If those games were flip-flopped and we got spanked 8-2 the first night and you win 2-0 the next night, you're feeling pretty good coming into this week. It just so happens it's the opposite, so we have to deal with that mentally. It's all in how you respond to it. If we allow the 8-2 loss to affect us going forward into BU and beyond, then it's different. If you can learn from it and understand that we're not as invincible as we thought, we have to be better, then it can certainly help us as we get down the stretch, too.
Peters: My defense are great just like my forwards are great. I didn't lose any confidence in my team this weekend. I think that all of us, like I said, just had a rough day. Sometimes hockey is like that. We play a lot of hockey, and we're bound to have a bad day every once in a while. At the U, we don't have as many bad days as other teams do, and that's what has made us historically so strong. But, we're not perfect, we're never going to be perfect. We have to be gracious with ourselves and with each other and understand that. We just have to learn and be better.
On this weekend's series with BU...
Schipper: I think a lot of us are ready for the game on Friday just to prove ourselves and back on that forward-moving road.
Frost: Certainly, you want to learn from what happened Sunday, but these two games that we have against BU are the biggest games of our season because they're the next ones. They're also the last ones in the first half. It's critically important to go out there and try to end the first half on a good note. If we do that, you look at our first half record-wise, and it would be an incredibly successful first half.
On facing Wisconsin again in the season...
Schipper: I think things will be different going into the last series in February when we play them again for our senior weekend. It's going to be different looking at that weekend remembering what happened on Sunday, obviously, but I think again, focusing on the positives, what we can do well and how we can perform to beat them is going to be what we need to focus on, not what happened last time.
Peters: For us, the next time we play Wisconsin is going to be a huge show of character. I think it will be a really cool opportunity for us to demonstrate that we aren't a team that's just going to go to sleep after one night.
On how the younger players are handling the loss...
Schipper: I think one of the big things they're going to learn is how to handle something like this, and how to handle a loss; we've had two all year. They're going to look at how the juniors and seniors come back from that loss and come back from Sunday and how they react. I think they'll follow our lead, hopefully, and then that's a way for us to teach them how to come back and how to focus on the positives.
Peters: The younger players are following the older players' lead on how to respond to what happened on Sunday, so I think they're looking at how upset a lot of the older players were. They're starting to realize that that was a big game for us and it meant a lot, even more so for pride reasons. It's showing them what a special opportunity it is to play a team like Wisconsin because it's such a good game every time we play them. Unfortunately, Sunday was not our best showing, but we get to play them a couple more times this year and another good thing is that it was just one game.
Frost: I'm not sure yet, but as a program we have to know that that's unacceptable. While hockey is hockey and sometimes things like that happen, those goals could have been prevented. We turned the puck over way too much in really bad spots, and when you do that against a really good team, the puck ends up in the net. Mentally, it's something that we're going to have to talk about get over and move forward.
The Gophers travel to Boston University for their final series of the 2016 calendar year this weekend. The non-conference matchup between the Gophers and Terriers is set for 6 p.m. CT Friday and 2 p.m. CT Saturday at Walter Brown Arena in Boston.
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