“We are going to have a target on our backs, and we are going to get everyone’s best game.”
Senior defenseman and staff captain Justin Lee is aware of that the University of Denver hockey staff won’t sneak up on any individual this season. Coming off this system’s record-tying 9th nationwide championship, the staff’s quest to shield the identify and change into the primary NCAA hockey program to win 10 championships starts this Friday.
“We’ve earned that target, so we have to use it to our advantage,” says David Carle, the Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey Head Coach. “The big thing for us is just trying to stay humble and stay hungry and understand that there is a target on us, and we are going to get everyone’s best game. But at the end of the day, I think that is a very good thing for us in our growth and our development throughout the year.”
The Pioneers, who input the season because the No. 1-ranked staff within the nation, include the speculation of being in everybody’s crosshair.
“I think that will make us better in the long run,” says defenseman Mike Benning. “We are going to get everyone’s best game and by the time we get to the end of the season that will help develop the young guys and the team as a whole.”
This weekend, the puck drops at the common season as DU co-hosts the Ice Breaker Tournament. Notre Dame comes to Magness Arena on Friday night time, adopted through the University of Maine on Saturday.
There are 9 freshmen to the staff this 12 months, seven first-year student-athletes and two switch scholars. However, DU is returning 18 gamers from remaining 12 months’s championship staff, together with six defensemen and all 3 goaltenders. Carle is depending in this staff to lead the staff this season.
“We have challenged that group to be great from day one,” he says. “It’s a different challenge and a different dynamic year to year. This year we are young with a lot of new people up front and on the back end, and in goal we are a veteran group.”
This staff is in a position to lead the Pioneers—and they don’t seem to be residing previously.
“The coaches make us focus on the task at hand and that is weekend by weekend, and game by game,” Benning says. “We won, so we know what the standard is and so there’s not much dwelling on what we did last season. We are now focused on what we need to do this season.”
Carle admits there can be bumps alongside the street and has no illusions that DU will play its perfect hockey in each and every unmarried recreation. However, he says it’s the ones moments that the staff should be told from if they would like to accomplish one thing no different faculty has ever carried out.
“We want to win another one. We want to be the first program to 10,” Carle says. “The reality is that you don’t just get there by talking about it. You have to stay present and be in the moment and try to get better day to day and week to week.”