Hockey is Canada’s pasttime, so it makes sense that any university sharing a lake border with the country would have an advantage against NIU.

In a battle of Northern schools this past weekend, the Northern Michigan University Wildcats (4-4-0) defeated the Huskies (2-2-2) in two games, 7-1 on Friday and 4-3 on Saturday.

“It was a long bus ride,” said NIU head coach Greg Chromy. “We just didn’t have our legs going.”

The ride to NMU in Marquette, Mich. took about eight hours. It was the first road trip of the year for the Huskies. The home-ice advantage would play in favor of the host Wildcats.

“They had a wider than normal ice sheet and that caught us off guard a bit,” Chromy said. “They ran specific plays that helped them and we didn’t react quick enough.”

Senior Chris Imber would score the lone goal for NIU in the first contest, which saw the Huskies down 2-1 after the first period of play. Fatigue may have set in after that, as the Wildcats put five more pucks past sophomore goaltender Craig Haa en route to their 7-1 victory.

“We had bus legs,” said freshman winger Brian Pounds. “We didn’t come out as fast as we should have, and it showed in the first game.”

After a scoreless first period in the second game, NIU would go up 2-0 on power play goals by freshmen Joe Boris and Jon Pounds in the second period. The Wildcats would even the score with 8:24 left in the third period and go up by a goal a few minutes later. Jon Pounds added his second goal of the game to keep the score tied at three, but with just over a minute left in the game, NMU scored on a two-on-one break to sweep the Huskies.

“They had a lot of speed and moved the puck very well,” Chromy said of the Wildcats. “It didn’t go the way we planned.”

The Huskies are at home for their next four weekend games before embarking on a twelve-game road trip.