KALAMAZOO, Mich. — For the first time in three weeks, Western Michigan Hockey will be at Lawson Arena getting ready to host No. 3 Denver. The 19-7 Broncos hoping to get some wins this weekend in their third to last series of conference play.
“We’re a one game at a time team. We don’t look right we don’t look left. We don’t look ahead and back, we focus on the now and we approach that way every day,” said Western Head Hockey Coach Pat Ferschweiler.
Under first year head coach Pat Ferschweiler, Western Michigan Hockey has almost doubled their wins from 2021. One more dub this weekend gives them 20 on the year, and it will be against one of the best.
“Denver handed it pretty good to us in two games in their building. I think they’re the best team we’ve played this season so it’s going to be a real challenge,” said Ferschwiler.
“Playing in this conference you’re going to play against the best teams in the nation almost on a weekly basis so I don’t think it’s nerve wracking, I think it’s more of an exiting opportunity,” said graduate student forward Josh Passolt.
The Broncos currently sit at third in the NCHC behind the Pioneers and North Dakota, just seven points back with 6 games to go. The guys say their maturity and level of experience has played a big role in their success this year.
“The fact that we have so many older guys who have been through the riggers of this conference and season so. I think we’re a very mature team I that sense and that if we’re up in a game or down in a game we don’t change the way we play because we’ve all been through it before,” said Passolt.
“The freshman and sophomores, we have a lot of sophomores and they look up to these guys and they come in every day, work hard and they set a good. Standard for us. So it’s great to see them and they’re excelling too,” said junior forward Jason Polin.
Last weekend Western split the series against No. 8 St. Cloud, they hope to use those games as motivation for Friday and Saturday.
“You can see that even when we don’t play out best we learn to claw back and gets some points out of the weekend. But we know it wasn’t our best weekend and we’ll take some learning points out of out weaknesses from the weekend and go from there,” said Polin.
