2008 Woodie Awards
Hockey team dreams of greatness
Clarence Plank
Issue date: 6/13/07 Section: Sports
The Blue Raiders Hockey Club is hoping to ride their momentum into the 07-08 season and take the Southern division by storm.
After a slow start, the team started to rebound with their 9-8 win over top ranked division opponent University of Tennessee-Knoxville back in January of this year.
The second half of the season saw a team that was in their first year in the Southern Division were adjusting to traveling far less since moving out of the Northern Division.
The club has been in existance for five years in a Division III league called the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA).
"It helps us out a lot on our travel schedule," Cody Smith president and team captain of the club said. Two years ago we were going to places like Michigan, North Texas and we were all over the place. Now it's more Georgia. Kentucky, Alabama and Florida. Places that are closer to here."
The team would travel a lot sometimes, so those 17 hour or long bus ride really wear them out especially if they have to play a game in a couple of hours.
It's a lot easier on our budget and our players," Smith said. "It's hard to get off a bus to play."
The ACHA has over 300 collegiate schools competing in the league along with some of the Sun Belt Conference members that we know.
The team calls Southern Ice Arena their home ice, which is located in Franklin, Tn., near the Cool Springs Galleria mall. The Arena has two ice skating rinks and is off Gothic Dr.
Students can get into the games for one dollar and non-students only have to pay two dollars. Their season starts on September 22-23 with Robert Morris University in Birmingham, Ala. The Blue Raiders first home game is October 6 against the University of Georgia.
They have been doing their best to recruit new players to the team since they were short handed for much of the season, while doing customs.
It was due to being short handed that they ended up in third place in the rankings tournament earlier in the year.
If they had a full roster they might have won the tournament and made the nationals, since they take the top two teams.
The team will have all of their members returning for the new season, but some of them will graduate in December. Smith is one of those people that will be playing for part of the season.
Things have been going really well since Seth Lake took over coaching the team in the fall of 2006 and he has been working on bring in new sponsorship to help out the team.
"He was the roller hockey coach before he came to us," Smith said "He's been great. He does our scheduling. He went down to the meetings down in Naples, Fla., where all the coaches go. It's more like a scheduling thing. He's really dedicated himself to the team."
If you are interested in joining the club you can call head coach Seth Lake at 615-945-7470 or e-mail him at mtsuicehockey@yahoo.com. Cody Smith can be reached at 615-300-6776 or e-mail him at puckster67@hotmail.com.
After a slow start, the team started to rebound with their 9-8 win over top ranked division opponent University of Tennessee-Knoxville back in January of this year.
The second half of the season saw a team that was in their first year in the Southern Division were adjusting to traveling far less since moving out of the Northern Division.
The club has been in existance for five years in a Division III league called the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA).
"It helps us out a lot on our travel schedule," Cody Smith president and team captain of the club said. Two years ago we were going to places like Michigan, North Texas and we were all over the place. Now it's more Georgia. Kentucky, Alabama and Florida. Places that are closer to here."
The team would travel a lot sometimes, so those 17 hour or long bus ride really wear them out especially if they have to play a game in a couple of hours.
It's a lot easier on our budget and our players," Smith said. "It's hard to get off a bus to play."
The ACHA has over 300 collegiate schools competing in the league along with some of the Sun Belt Conference members that we know.
The team calls Southern Ice Arena their home ice, which is located in Franklin, Tn., near the Cool Springs Galleria mall. The Arena has two ice skating rinks and is off Gothic Dr.
Students can get into the games for one dollar and non-students only have to pay two dollars. Their season starts on September 22-23 with Robert Morris University in Birmingham, Ala. The Blue Raiders first home game is October 6 against the University of Georgia.
They have been doing their best to recruit new players to the team since they were short handed for much of the season, while doing customs.
It was due to being short handed that they ended up in third place in the rankings tournament earlier in the year.
If they had a full roster they might have won the tournament and made the nationals, since they take the top two teams.
The team will have all of their members returning for the new season, but some of them will graduate in December. Smith is one of those people that will be playing for part of the season.
Things have been going really well since Seth Lake took over coaching the team in the fall of 2006 and he has been working on bring in new sponsorship to help out the team.
"He was the roller hockey coach before he came to us," Smith said "He's been great. He does our scheduling. He went down to the meetings down in Naples, Fla., where all the coaches go. It's more like a scheduling thing. He's really dedicated himself to the team."
If you are interested in joining the club you can call head coach Seth Lake at 615-945-7470 or e-mail him at mtsuicehockey@yahoo.com. Cody Smith can be reached at 615-300-6776 or e-mail him at puckster67@hotmail.com.
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