As the saying goes, “you can’t make this stuff up”.

     That was certainly the case during Kent State University’s recent home-and-home series against Robert Morris University in A.C.H.A. Division I action.

     An anticipated late night on Friday (due to a 9:35 PM scheduled start time) at the RMU Island Sports Center became an even longer ordeal for the teams after a hole was created in the dasher boards as a result of a first period hit along those boards.

     The damage required the teams to move to a different rink within the RMU complex.

     “We started the game on their Olympic-sized sheet, and we scored to make it one to nothing. We took a penalty with about 6:50 left in the first period and one of their players fell into the board very awkwardly and blew a two-foot diameter hole out of the boards. It wasn’t like a crack or hole; a small child could have crawled through it,” explained Kent State head coach Jim Underwood. “Finally, we came to the decision that we would move the game over to the varsity rink. It was a fifteen-or-twenty minutes delay.”

     And then came overtime….and a shootout.

     And eventually a 3-2 loss for the Golden Flashes.

     Ironically, for the second weekend in a row, the Golden Flashes lost both games in a series by an identical score as the Colonials skated past Kent State 3-2 in the second game of the weekend.

    While Friday night’s late-night adventure required a shoot out to determine a winner, Saturday night’s game at the Kent State University Ice Arena needed an overtime period prior to Robert Morris’ series sweeping victory.

     “We have had four games this year go into overtime. We have had minimal success, but you can’t put a price on the experience,” declared Underwood.

      Goaltending duties for the Golden Flashes against RMU were split between Shea Spanier (Friday) and Ben White (Saturday). While their save percentages, .939 and .930 respectively, were impressive, Underwood noted that a few small improvements will aid his team as they prepare for a series of weekend games against Great Lakes Collegiate Hockey League challengers.

     “They are doing well. They are competing, battling and making the hard saves but we get beat on the easy, routine saves,” observed Underwood.

       “To their defense, when you’re not scoring enough as a team, those type of goals are magnified. To be fair to them, you can’t put that on (the goaltenders).

      The Golden Flashes are averaging 2.90 goals per game.

      Kent has four challenging weekends of action remaining in the fall semester and each of those series is against a GLCHL opponent.

     In three of those league matchups, Kent will face teams included among the Top 25 in the ACHA Division I National rankings. Adrian College (ranked first) Calving College (12th) and Oakland University (16th) will each provide a test for the Golden Flashes

     Kent State will open this group of games with a home-and-home set of games against Eastern Michigan this weekend.

     “Last weekend, for over 130 minutes, from start to finish we were spot on. The message going into this weekend is that if we play like that every single game, every single weekend moving forward for the rest of the semester we are going to find ourselves in the winning column. We are going to start earning points in our league standings,” assessed Underwood.

     “As long as that message is understood by our young team, we are going to go into Eastern Michigan feeling better about how we compete. We’re excited and I think we are ready to take that next step.”

BLUELINE NOTES:

--- Kent travels to the Ann Arbor Ice Cube for Friday night’s game against Eastern Michigan at 7:00 PM. The teams play again on Saturday night at 8:00 PM at the Kent State University Ice Arena.

--- The Golden Flashes’ Division III team faces off against Cleveland State University at the John M. Coyne Recreation Center in Brooklyn (Ohio) on Friday night at 7:15 PM

--- DYK? Seven area high school hockey program consider the Kent State University Ice Arena as “home ice”. Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy (CVCA), Hudson, Kent Cyclones (USA Hockey), Stow, Theodore Roosevelt, Walsh Jesuit and Western Reserve Academy (WRA) all practice and play home games in Kent.

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