Braves hockey faces tough schedule
Just like previous years, the Bottineau-Rugby Braves face a tough schedule on the ice.
The first game of the season was on Tuesday against Devils Lake at the Bottineau Community Arena. Next week, the team will host Jamestown at the Al Wentz Arena in Rugby (Dec. 1, starting at 5 p.m.) and Dickinson in Bottineau (starting at 2:30 p.m. on Dec. 2).
Other games down the pipe include a tournament in Wadena, Minn.; a road game to Mandan (Jan. 6) and home varsity games against Bismarck (7:15 p.m. Jan. 13), Bismarck Century (7:30 p.m. Feb. 9 in Rugby) and Minot (7:30 p.m. Jan. 22).
“The Bismarck teams and Minot are always good,” said Braves head coach David Hoff. “As a small school, you just don’t get a break because the big schools always have good teams.”
Last year the Braves went 3-17 overall. The Braves lost five experienced players from that year’s squad due to graduation.
However, this year’s squad includes three juniors and 10 experienced seniors, six from Rugby Jace Scherr, Gabe Clements, Alex Hoffert, Kyler Odden, Nate Haman and Chance Lemar and four from Bottineau Wyatt Haakenson, Nic Costa, Evan Nelson and Jarek Dolbeare.
“I like the experience these guys bring to our team,” Hoff said. “We have several guys who played a lot. Hopefully we can turn this into a little more scoring than we have had the last couple of years.”
Hoff said there are also 10 players on this year’s team that are just starting out.
“I like where we are at and I like our practices to this point,” Hoff said.
(Results of Tuesday’s opening game will be in next week’s edition.)