Weekend Quotes

Here are some of the quotes I got after practice today:

Lance Monych
On team chemistry: I'm pretty surprised, actually, with how we are already. It seems like we've been together for months now. Even after the first win, everyone worked so hard that it was almost like a bonding experience. After the game, everyone was just super pumped, and it seemed like we'd been together for years. But it was only the first game, so it was pretty cool to have that. It must have just been the 10 days of hard practice we had the week before and the tryout process. It seems like we have good guys, and it seems like it's going to work.

On the effort this weekend: I think everything was awesome. Penalty killing, defense, the goalies played awesome. It was just a total team effort. Everyone came to play, both games, even with all the hard travel and stuff. No excuses, and everyone played really well, so it's awesome.

On his line (Jeff Bes-Darryl Smith-Monych): I think we're just three smart hockey players, and with the practice we had the week before, we kind of got to know where each other would go and how each other played. It doesn't always happen that fast that you get production right away, so we're lucky and hopefully we can keep it. That was an exciting weekend, and hopefully we can carry it on.

Coach Ruskowski
On the team's strong start: I was kind of impressed, especially with some of the situations that we had and dealt with pretty well. Especially in Rio, we were up two goals and we get two penalties and we're down almost a minute and a half 5-on-3, and they didn't score. I thought the guys did a tremendous job killing the penalty, and that was a huge aspect of it. Scoring timely goals is huge, too; they had the momentum, and we came back and scored to make it 5-2. It was huge for us. We played basically pretty good defense, but we need to get a little bit better moving the puck and being more composed. A team's going to come on and get more momentum, and we need to be more composed to handle that and make that situation to our advantage not to their advantage.

On special teams: Considering we didn't practice a whole lot, I thought we did a good job. We practiced again today our breakouts, power play and one little thing that we changed up killing the penalties to see how we can do with that. But, basically, I was happy with it. I thought there were guys who worked hard, and guys who I thought were questionable to do that job did it well. Now we're going to see how consistent they are throughout the weekend and the rest of the season. The problem is consistency.

On the goalies: I liked both of them. The thing about it is that the defensemen and forwards like both of them, too. They're good guys, they work hard, they both played very well in the games that they played. I feel very confident that these guys can haul the load for us and do a very good job.

On winning in Bossier: I was surprised. But the thing that really happened was timely goals were very important. One aspect of it was that we scored early - well, not early, but midway through the first period. We played really strong defense, and we didn't let them get going very often. That really brought the crowd out of it, and once you get the crowd out of it, it was just a game. It wasn't such a high-focus, high-tempo game. Third period, they started picking it up, they scored a goal, and they had a couple more chances to score. But our goalie made a good save, or a defenseman who was out by himself made a good play. We have to improve that aspect, but it was the first game. We dealt with that situation, and it was good. Same thing in Rio; they started getting some goals, then we got a timely goal to put things back in place and started playing good defense again.

On possible weaknesses: They're always a concern. Am I totally worried? No. I thought the guys did a pretty good job. But if you want to be a contender, you have to try to improve your team as much as you can and as quickly as you can so you can learn the system and, as the season goes on, get better and better with the system. So there are still some concerns, and there are still some guys I'm looking at really hard to see how they do.

On choosing Adam Rivet as captain: I think he's got a lot of respect amongst the team. He has my respect. He's been for a while, so he knows the ins and outs of hockey and what I do and how to do it. He's a guy that people feel comfortable talking to, and he's a leader. He'll talk to the referees... he's bold enough to go there and ask the questions or relay a message from me to a referee. He's a good ambassador for the game of hockey here in Laredo and to the Central Hockey League. Being here as long as he has, I think people look up to him, and I think he was a good choice for me to be my captain.

On making Mike Looby and Darryl Smith alternates: Looby's the type of guy who'll stand up and say things, and I think Smitty is the type of guy who leads by his emotions on the ice. If he's going well, it seems like everyone's going well. But there are other guys on the team who are pretty good leaders. (Jarred) Mohr is a guy who will stand up and be heard, and he's earned a lot of respect out of that, so it was a tough decision, because he's very capable of doing the same job as the other guys are.


So I guess we know who will be wearing an A if the current captain/alternates miss a game. I know the stuff about the letters is a bit belated, but they left town before anyone was officially willing to talk about the captains last week.

It's obviously a bit early to tell too much about the way this season will go, but as Monych's quotes might tell you, the guys think things are pretty "awesome" so far.

Today's practice lasted a bit longer than one might have expected from a team coming off a weekend of wins and long bus rides, but they were all having a lot of fun out there. But I guess anyone can have fun when they're winning, so let's see if that keeps up and how this team reacts if it doesn't.

I'll be going to practice again tomorrow to collect stuff for the Bucks tab that will hopefully be coming out this Saturday, but if you have any specific questions you'd like answered before then, feel free to let me know.