The UAH club hockey team is participating in the College Hockey South Veterans Cup at the Huntsville Ice Sports Center this weekend.
For the Chargers, it will be another tough challenge in a challenging season.
“We’re very excited to be hosting the Veterans Cup again this year and looking forward to seeing all the veterans at the rink this weekend,” UAH head coach Tim Flynn said. “From a hockey standpoint, any time you get to play for a trophy it’s special and it’s a great opportunity to showcase College Hockey South and the caliber of hockey that’s out there. (CHS commissioner) Kyle Knell does a great job working with the Huntsville Ice Sports Center and the Huntsville Sports Commission to put this event on and make sure it’s a first class event every year.”
UAH is still looking for its first win of the season. The Chargers were swept by Middle Tennessee at home last week to fall to 0-8 overall and 0-4 in CHS Division 2 North play.
So it will be a tall order to take down South Carolina, the defending AAU Division 1 national champions, on Saturday night at 8 p.m. The Gamecocks are 7-2-2 this season.
The winner of the UAH-South Carolina match will face the winner of the first semifinal between Alabama (4-6-1) and Auburn (1-10-0). That game is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Saturday.
The third-place game will take place Sunday at 10 a.m., followed by the championship at 12:30 p.m.
“We’re going to have our work cut out for us,” Flynn said. “They’re obviously a great team but we’re just focused on us right now. We need to execute better and more consistently. No one is happy with our record, and if you look at the scores it doesn’t look much better from the outside looking in. Trust me, we get that and we feel that too. We’re disappointed, we’re frustrated but we haven’t stopped working and won’t stop competing.
“We talked after last weekend about cleaning up these 2-3 minute spans where we go from being tied or down by a goal to all of a sudden down by three or four, and being right there and having a chance to win to essentially being out of the game. That’s happened in five of our eight games this year, and a sixth was a 2-1 loss. So you can look at scores and shots against and come to one conclusion, but you play differently when you’re in a tight game versus when you’re in a game with a larger margin. If we can eliminate those stretches from our game, I think we’ll start being a lot happier with the results.
“We have a young team, experience wise. Even guys that have played for a year or two, they’re being asked to take on bigger roles. We have first year players getting thrown into the fire. It’s a big jump to play at this level so to expect a seamless transition, that we all hoped for, from last year just isn’t realistic. To me, all in all, there’s been a lot more good than bad when it comes to everyone getting acclimated to this level and our expectations. The improvement from Day 1 is noticeable at an individual level across the board, and as coaches it’s on us to roll that individual improvement into team improvement and play well down the stretch. We still have 12 divisional points left, so everything is still in front of us. Our goal is to be a playoff team, and that’s still what we’re striving for.”
2024 College Hockey South Veterans Cup
Saturday, November 9
Game 1: Auburn vs. Alabama, 5:30 p.m.
Game 2: UAH vs. South Carolina, 8 p.m.
Sunday, November 10
3rd Place Game: Semifinal losers, 10 a.m.
Championship: Semifinal winners, 12:30 p.m.
All games will be streamed on the College Hockey South YouTube channel.
Tickets:
Weekend pass (all four games): $20
Adult day pass: $12
Child day pass: $5
Veterans admitted free with valid ID.
Purchase tickets