Sauer Speaks About Upcoming Games for Badgers
November 12, 2001 | Men's Hockey
Wisconsin head men's hockey coach Jeff Sauer spoke to the media on Monday during his weekly news conference. The news conference was in preparation for this weekend's home series against Michigan Tech and the upcoming stretch of competition.
A partial transcription of the news conference follows.
On Michigan Tech:
'We'll be looking at tapes from their series with Minnesota from two weeks ago. They've played some good games up to this point. They played some people tough. I know they had a rough weekend this last weekend. I know a lot of power play goals were scored on Friday night against them. We'll have to look at the tapes and determine from there.'
What does a road sweep mean for the Badgers'
'We have not yet played a WCHA series at home. We 've been on the road for two series. We're 3-1 in the WCHA on the road, which is a real positive. Forever, coaches in this league said that if you can split on the road and win at home, it's a good scenario. The problem we've had is not being on the road. We've not had a great league record at home. So being on the road, I think we're more comfortable and especially this last weekend. It was a smaller ice surface. It was a fun series from the players' standpoint in relation to being able to use our size and those types of things.'
'This is an important stretch for us in the WCHA. We play this weekend's series, then Michigan, Michigan State and then we go to Alaska. The next four WCHA games are against teams we hope we'll be behind us in the standings. This means we need to help put them there. If we can go in and win a couple this weekend, we can keep ourselves abreast of what's happening above us in the schedule.'
'We're getting better and better each week. Our biggest improvement right now is the play of our six defensemen and our goaltender Scott (Kabotoff) has played incredibly strong for us. We've given up a lot of shots, but I like the confidence that's he's playing with right now.'
How much emphasis will you put on sweeping Tech'
'It's like an eight-point series because we only play Michigan Tech twice. This weekend to win two puts them behind the eight ball if we end up tied at the end of the year, which won't happen, but also puts us in a scenario where we can eliminate a team from our competition by beating them twice at home. '
On fighting in college hockey:
'The rules are there for fighting. I don't condone fighting. The rules are pretty strict and they've changed over the last couple of years. If Eric (Jensen) is involved in another fight, he has to miss three games after that and if he's involved in a third fight, he's out for the rest of the year. The rules are pretty strong in relation to fighting. I think in our league this year, there have been three incidents of fighting. It's not something I condone, but it was a pretty good fight.'
'The problem that we have is that is now the normal occurrence at all levels of hockey, except college hockey. You see it in the National Hockey League. You see it in junior games in Canada. If you go to a junior game in Cedar Rapids, Iowa tonight and there's a fight, it's the same thing. The only thing we we're missing the other night was spotlights.'
Can fighting have a positive effect'
'Absolutely.'
On the first half versus second half of schedule:
'I never felt that the first half of our schedule was a tough as people made it out to be because of the losses that ND and BC had over the course of the summer in player personnel. I looked at our scenario saying that we lost some pretty good players as well, but I thought we would be on an even basis and I think we have been. I think that's leveled it off a bit. This stretch of our schedule right now, I knew these two teams would be better, but I think they're teams we can still be successful against. Alaska has a new coach. I think we can be successful against as well. We can put ourselves in great shape at Christmas time. Going into that North Dakota weekend, we can put ourselves in pretty good shape in terms of the WCHA and I think that 's a real positive for this team. Get us started for the second half of the year. '
'People are underestimating us at forward. It became very evident this past weekend again, because we had success from a lot of different people and a lot of scoring from a lot of different people. I think that's a real positive. '
