To say it’s been a rough start for the UAH club hockey team would be an understatement. The 0-4 Chargers have been beset with shorthandedness — not by penalties, but bodies.
The Chargers are 0-4 with series sweeps by Alabama (AAU D1) and Alabama (AAU D3). They have scored only four goals and allowed 26. But what personnel the Chargers did have fought hard as long as they could.
“We were a little more shorthanded than expected that played a big part,” UAH head coach Tim Flynn said regarding the season opening series against Alabama D1 on Sept. 6-7, which the Chargers lost 7-1 and 7-0. “If you look at the first period of each game, we’re right there on Friday, down 2-1 and 0-0 on Saturday. I liked the way we played for the most part out of the gate both nights, we just ran out of gas way to soon and that’s something we will work at and improve on throughout the season.
“We certainly weren’t happy with the result of the weekend, but our young guys got some good experience playing a team like that can be like drinking from a firehose for your first game and I think overall they did a good job navigating that.”
UAH’s biggest losses are its main offensive weapons from last season. Kolton and Keaton Watts, who combined for 47 goals and 96 points, are not on the team for personal reasons. The Chargers also lost Josh Corrow, who was tied on the club with 16 goals.
Henry Hoff, Tyler Trombly, and Bradly McDonald are back as UAH’s top returning offensive threats, but Hoff and McDonald missed last Saturday’s game after being injured the night before.
“We also a couple others were unable to go on in the second game and we had a very limited line up,” Flynn said of UAH’s 2-1 loss to Alabama D3 on Saturday, the Chargers’ most competitive game so far despite only having 12 skaters. “I was very pleased with how the guys took a new concept and executed it, again we knew as a byproduct of this they were going to get a lot of shots, and we were going to have to capitalize when we had our chances. That’s not a recipe for a successful season, but in a unique circumstance like this, they did a great job.”
UAH did see a lot of shots — 71 to be precise. Ayden Trombly was crazy in his first start between the pipes, making 69 saves, the most in the current club hockey era.
“Obviously, Ayden played great,” Flynn said. “I can’t speak high enough about how impressed I’ve been with his work ethic and compete level since day one.”
Thankfully, the Chargers have a month off before their next series. And that series is at home against Vanderbilt (Oct. 18-19) in a crucial start to College Hockey South play.
“We have a a good break here,” Flynn said. “Hopefully we can start to get healthy again and we’ll look at some video and clean up the problem areas. Looking forward to taking advantage of the time without games to keep getting better. Now we start a stretch of divisional games, and this next stretch is going to very important in where we end up in the race for playoffs.”