Series Preview: Omaha at MSU-Mankato, Oct. 25-26, 2024
By Bridget (Weide) Brooks
Yesterday (Wednesday, Oct. 23) was the ninth anniversary of the first home series at Baxter Arena. It’s also been nine years since the “Red Mavericks” of Omaha Hockey have faced off in a regular-season series against the “Purple Mavericks” of MSU-Mankato. In the previous regular-season series — Oct. 9-10, 2015 — Omaha swept MSU-Mankato, 3-2 and 2-0 in Mankato.
In the intervening years, Omaha and MSU-Mankato have only met in exhibition games. In 2022, the teams played in Omaha, with Omaha beating MSU-Mankato 7-2. Last year, the exhibition was in Mankato, and UNO won 1-0. Forward Matt Miller scored the lone goal in that contest.
The “Spirit of the Mavericks Trophy” is at stake again. The “Red Mavericks” currently possess the trophy, awarded to the team that wins the annual series. The winner will be decided by one team winning both games, one team winning one game (with the other ending in a tie), or in the case of a series split, the winner will be determined by the total goals differential. Should the series end in a split — and both teams score the same number of goals — the trophy stays with the team that previously held the trophy.
Former MSU-Mankato Blue Line Club President Brad Reeves and UNO Blue Line Club President Jim Semerad (now deceased) originally came up with the trophy as a way to try and spur a rivalry between the two schools (who played more frequently two decades ago).
Fun Fact: I had the opportunity to be involved in the presentation of the Spirit of the Mavericks Trophy in February 2008. (I was the UNO Blue Line Club representative in attendance for the series finale that season.)
Interesting Tidbits:
Both teams made the jump to Division I men's hockey in the same season 1997-98) and have competed against one another in various conference and non-conference matchups since since that season (we were also in the same conference as Mankato from 2009 to 2013).
Omaha Coach Mike Gabinet played four games in the “Mavs vs. Mavs” series during the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons, recording several shots and serving one penalty.
MSU-Mankato leads the all-time series 18-16-5.
Coach Gabinet met the media on Wednesday and said the team is moving forward after getting swept last weekend by unranked Augustana at Baxter Arena.
“Losses are losses. They’re hard to take and don’t make you feel good,” Gabinet noted. He said they had good practices early in the week — including some special teams work.
“You got to just find ways to … just keep moving forward. What do you have to focus on this week? How did you get better? What was the feedback from the weekend that we can use to keep on developing? That’s exactly what we did,” he added.
Looking ahead to MSU-Mankato, Gabinet praised Coach Luke Strand’s team. “They beat Michigan, they beat North Dakota … they almost beat North Dakota twice. So you know they’re a good team. They play very fast, and they skate extremely well. It’s going to be a tough competition.”
With the Spirit of the Mavericks trophy on the line, “it’s kind of nice to revive a little bit of a rivalry that even goes back to when I played here,” Gabinet said. He added that it’s “nice to play some of these teams that are within driving distance for our fans and for the team. I think rivalries are good for sports, and especially with the proximity of the locations and obviously both (being) Maverick (named) teams.”
Gabinet said he is looking forward to the first real road games of the season. (The Ice Breaker games were neutral site contests.) “I think it will be a good experience for the guys. It’s always a hostile environment when you go on the road and teams have good fan bases. So I think it’s a really good opportunity to come together as a group… and face that head on as a group together.”
The series will be streamed on Midco Sports Plus. Subscribe to the Midco Sports Plus 2 package to view the games live or on demand. The app is available on mobile/tablet apps (iOS and Android), connected TV device apps (AppleTV, FireTV and Roku), and a web-based browser interface. A monthly subscription is $24.99. To subscribe, visit MidcoSportsPlus.com.
The series will be broadcast live on 1290 KOIL or the Varsity Sports app. “Voice of the Mavs” Mike Vaillancourt will provide play-by-play and Terry Leahy is back with color commentary. Coverage begins 30 minutes before puck drop each night.
Omaha is off for a week following the MSU-Mankato series. The Mavs return to Baxter Arena to begin NCHC conference play on Friday, Nov. 8 and Saturday, Nov. 9 (Homecoming Weekend) in a series against the Western Michigan Broncos.
No comments:
Post a Comment