The Oregon club hockey team easily handled the first two games of the Portland State series this weekend, ending their homestand with 5-3 and 9-0 wins on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
“There was definitely an improvement,” said goaltender Trevor Peterson of the second night compared to the first. “I think that PSU may not have played as well [the second night], but we also looked a lot better and a lot cleaner. We were a lot faster.”
Friday, Oct. 17, the Ducks hockey team will face Washington, the team’s biggest rival in the league, in the home opener at Lane Events Center. Each year, both teams square off in a brutal four-game series for the I-5 Cup.
Last year, Washington won in a shootout after splitting the series 2-2. The year before, Oregon took it home for the first time in four years after an overtime victory.
“We don’t play Oregon State in hockey,” senior goaltender Trevor Peterson said. “This is really our biggest rival. We have the I-5 Cup and that’s our thing, our big game.”
Unsatisfied with its brief time with the cup, the team has spent the last month releasing Youtube videos with the hashtag #TakeBackTheCup to pump up fans, and themselves, for the start of the regular season.
Three seed Oregon took on six seed UCLA for the first game of the Pac-8 playoffs held in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Ducks emerged victorious with a 5-2 win over the Bruins.
The win over the Bruins means that the Ducks will be facing the No. 15 Arizona State Sun Devils, the top seed in Pool B, tomorrow night for a spot in the Pac-8 Championship, where the Ducks had fallen to Utah the year prior.
When you ask an ice hockey player where he learned to play, the answer is rarely Nipomo, Calif.
The reason? There’s no place to play.
Many ice hockey hopefuls had to head to other cities like Bakersfield or Oxnard, both two hours away.
But senior Trevor Peterson — now a goaltender for the Oregon club ice hockey team — didn’t start on ice skates. He began on roller blades.
Nick Sciabarra did not expect this level of success when he joined the Oregon club hockey team earlier this fall.
The Oregon freshman never thought he’d be playing center instead of right wing, which he previously played. He never thought he’d be on the second line for his first year with the Ducks. And he certainly never thought that, during his rookie season, he’d be tied for first in assists as well as be the second-leading player in points and goals on the team, just two behind junior Alex Sulitzer in both categories.
Just before Oregon played the Washington State Cougars in football, they faced off on the ice for Washington State’s second and last game in Eugene.
Oregon, who split their opening weekend at home 2-2, once again defeated the Cougars, but this time it was with a 16-2 score.