NIU head soccer coach Willy Roy decided to make history by bringing the newest professional Chicago team into DeKalb for an exhibition with his highly talented Huskies this Saturday at 1 p.m. at Huskie Soccer Field.

Saturday’s game will mark the finale of NIU’s successful home spring exhibition schedule. The Huskies were scheduled to take on the Northwestern Wildcats last Friday, but the Wildcat coach pulled out at the last minute, infuriating Roy. So instead of playing the exhibition against the Wildcats, the Huskies had a full scrimmage.

But there’s no need to worry about the Saturday exhibition, the Chicago Blaze will show up, and so will SportsChannel who will televise the game on a tape delayed basis. SportsChannel will be there to mark the first game ever of the Blaze franchise. Alek Mihailovic, the Blaze head coach, who was a standout for the Washington Diplomats of the NASL will bring his fresh group to battle the Huskies.

The Huskies are not total strangers in facing professional teams. NIU handled professional indoor specialist Chicago Power 3-1 last fall before having its successful season.

“It’s a great opportunity for the both of us (NIU and the Blaze) to expose our products. It’ll be a good opportunity for (Mihailovic) to see some quality collegiate talent and it’s also a good opportunity for us to have a good fund raiser,” Roy said.

The Blaze belong to the newly formed American Soccer League which has about 20 teams around the country. Mihailovic is anxious to see how his talent will perform in a game situation. “It’ll be a good opportunity for us to put our players in a game situation to see what they’re capable of doing against a quality collegiate team,” Mihailovic said.

“(NIU) has one of the finest coaches in America and he has turned the program around. He has a good family of players contributing to the program so it should be an exciting game.”

Although the Blaze is a professional team, NIU has to be favored since soccer is such a team oriented sport. “I think NIU has an advantage since they have been playing together for a couple years now. I hope that it will be a high-quality game and hopefully we can blend in our talents and play a competive game,” Mihailovic said.

The Huskie boss hopes to see a big crowd Saturday and has been distributing flyers and promoting the game with a shoot out for prizes during half time.

“It should be fun,” Roy said. “It’s always nice to play in front of a big crowd and they’ll have an opportunity to shoot penalty kicks against the goalies and win prizes.”