The Hockey Div. II team (3-1) gave the crowd plenty to be happy about in its first games at home this

weekend.

The Huskies won their games against the University of Missouri 7-1 and 9-6.

“It was nice to see the offense come into their own and put a lot of pucks in the net,” said head coach Chuck Rinaldo. “Obviously any time you are scoring that many goals in a weekend you are going to see good things happen.”

Ten Huskies combined for 16 goals against Mizzou (0-4) over the weekend.

Another reason for NIU’s success was being able to play on its home ice at Fox Valley Ice Arena.

“There is nothing like playing at home,” Rinaldo said. “The guys are obviously very comfortable at home and they have a lot more confidence playing on their home ice.”

Many young players stepped up over the weekend. One of them was freshman forward Tyler Sukel. Sukel tallied four goals on the weekend.

“My linemates and everyone around me were big,” Sukel said. “I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.”

Rinaldo has been surprised with Sukel’s play so far and believes the freshman is in for a big season.

“He has kind of climbed up the ladder on the depth chart very quickly,” Rinaldo said. “He is a hard worker, has good skill, and his hard work is paying off. He gets himself in the right place at the right time and expectations are growing.”

While the Div. II Huskies had a very successful weekend, the Div. III team didn’t fare as well. NIU struggled against Marquette University (3-1), losing 11-0 and 11-2.

“It was a tough weekend against a very, very good team…,” head coach John Lyne said. “We just came out flat, started giving up goals like crazy early. It just didn’t go well for us at all.”

The Huskies’ (0-4) struggle was the environment they played in.

“The way the rink is set up, the crowd is right on the glass,” Lyne said. “They were very loud and most of our guys had never played in front of anything like that before; never played in front of a wild crowd that is yelling and screaming. When you have never experienced something like that it gets in your head pretty quickly.”

Team captain JC Weems also felt the crowd created a problem for the team.

“They had probably about 600 or 800 people there Friday,” Weems said. “That kind of got into our younger players’ heads, even some of our veteran guys.”

While the results were not what NIU was looking for, Weems felt there were some positives that could be taken away from the weekend.

“We started passing better, skating better, and we changed some lines around and I think we found some good chemistry,” Weems said. “In the second game we skated with one of the best teams in the country for two periods.”