By Ryan Stieg
The 2024-25 season got underway last Sunday for the St. Thomas men’s hockey team and it got off to a bad start.
Just like the exhibition game against Manitoba the day before, the Tommies started slow and were burned by an early goal. However, unlike the exhibition game, UST couldn’t find an answer and despite a strong third period, it fell to now-No. 15 St. Cloud State 1-0.
“I thought it was a pretty good game on Sunday,” Tommies head coach Rico Blasi said Tuesday. “I thought we got better as the game went along. Obviously, we’ve got a long way to go still, navigating through the season and the process. That’s really the name of the game. So that’s what we’re going to do.”
Blasi also said that he and his staff are constantly evaluating the team’s performances and they learned a lot from both the exhibition and the game against the Huskies.
“There’s only so much you can do in the preseason,” he said. “You’re trying to let guys get their legs and their chemistry and you’re trying to be as detailed as possible. I think that’s part of our process and that’s part of our identity. But then when you start playing some games, things start to kind of come out a little bit. We were working on a few things today that we didn’t do so well on Sunday. I think our detail and our habits will continue to get better as we continue to play in high energy and high intensity games like we did on Sunday.
“As I told the team after the second period, this is big boy hockey. You’ve got to be ready to go, not only physically but mentally and take what the game gives you. We worked on that today and we’ll continue to work on the little details of the game, but it’s a process that you have to navigate through. We feel like we have the right guys in the locker room. It’s just a matter of putting it all together. This is a long season and there’s certainly no reason that we can’t get better. That’s part of our identity. We’ve got to continue to do that.”
Jake Sibell started in net for the Tommies Sunday and looked sharp throughout the game. He rotated playing time with teammate Aaron Trotter every weekend last season and when asked if he was going to play both goalies during this weekend’s series against Vermont, Blasi said he said he’ll make that decision later.
“You guys can ask me that question every week and I’m going to tell you the same thing,” he said. “We’ll evaluate during the week and come Thursday night, we’ll make a decision on who’s going to play Friday and come Friday night after the game, we’ll decide who’s going to play on Saturday. It’s not something that we go into every week knowing that we’re going to play one or the other any given night. It may work out that way and it may look like we have an idea or a plan, but I don’t think that’s fair to the goaltenders during the week. It’s no different than any other position on our team. You still have to come ready to practice and get better and compete and do the things that we’re asking you to do so that you can earn that spot on Friday night.”
Speaking of Friday night, the Tommies have an interesting opponent coming to town in the Catamounts. Vermont was picked to finish last in the Hockey East preseason poll and has yet to play a regular season game. However, the Catamounts did host UST in Burlington last year and swept them easily. So, the Tommies know that Vermont is better than people might think.
“There’s no secrets in college hockey,” Blasi said. “We know all the players that they have. We’ve seen them play. We played them a year ago and they took it to us pretty good. Most of their guys are back. Their coach was there. Even though he was in an interim position, he was there for the entire year. So, they’re familiar with him and feel comfortable with him. I think it’s a really good staff that has their guys prepared every night. Kind of like St. Cloud, they’ve got depth in all positions. They’re either solid and they know their roles, or they’re dynamic and they can make you pay if you make mistakes. So, our preparation, just like last week, has to be the same. It’s got to be detailed, it has to be focused and purposeful with everything that we do. And then you’ve got to bring your A game on Friday and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”
Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday in Mendota Heights.