UNO Hockey Coach Mike Gabinet, senior goaltender Evan Weninger, and senior defenseman Jalen Schulz answered media questions as part of the “Omaha Athletics Weekly Media Availability” on Feb. 12, 2019.
The three fielded questions regarding the UNO Hockey team’s series at Miami on Feb. 8-9, the bye week, and the upcoming series against St. Cloud State on Feb. 22-23 at Baxter Arena. Here are excerpts.
If you would like to watch the entire hockey news conference, you can do so here.
ON THE SERIES AT MIAMI...
GABINET: “Good game Friday night there. Nice to come away with a victory there. Actually thought we played probably a little bit better on Saturday night — besides the first 10 minutes of the game.”
ON THE BYE WEEK...
GABINET: “I think we’re looking forward to the bye week this weekend. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a break. With our schedule we’ve had — with the quality opponents we’ve had — I think everybody is looking forward to working on a few things we need to clean up in our game, and recharging the batteries, and taking steps.”
GABINET: “I think it’s nice to get a little bit of a chance to catch your breath a little bit, to catch up on some recruiting things, and other things too — away from the game — that come with the job.”
TEAM’S FOCUS DURING THE BYE WEEK...
GABINET: “I think sometimes the tendency in a bye week is to relax and catch your breath a little bit. Which is part of the purpose, but it can’t be a wasted week. I think we have to look at our game, we had a good captain’s meeting yesterday — even asking the players’ input on what they feel we need to continue to improve at to be successful — and making sure that we’re shoring up some of those concepts and systems here. With St. Cloud coming into town, we need to use it to our advantage.”
ON INJURIES...
GABINET: “We lost a couple d-men there right before the trip to Miami, and then one in Miami. So, we have six d-men right now, so everybody is going to be playing that’s healthy. It’s been kind of a theme for the whole season. Hopefully some of those guys can get a little breather.”
GABINET: “We’ve got some guys — like Primeau and those guys that have been out for eight weeks — that I think still need to take some steps in their conditioning and use this time to their advantage.”
ON THE RECRUITING PROCESS...
GABINET: “I remember talking to [former UNO assistant] David Quinn about his experiences coaching and why he enjoyed going to coach pro a little bit — because you don’t have to recruit. I think when you’re playing ‘catch up’ it’s a huge, huge part of the job, and very time-consuming. And yet, as you see in our conference, it’s probably the most important thing to do. So, it’s been a grind for us.”
GABINET: “Paul [Jerrard] just got back yesterday. Dave [Noel-Bernier] drove four hours after the game in Miami and was in Detroit on Sunday. Paul drove all the way back from Winnipeg yesterday.”
GABINET: “It's been a grind, but we’re making some progress. The way it works now is there’s no quick fixes. You have to do things the right way for a long time.”
GABINET: “I think there was an article the other day about Brad Berry still having Hakstol’s recruits there. That’s just how it works now in hockey. A lot of these high, high end players are recruited three [or] four years out. So it’s important that we get eyes on those younger players.”
GABINET: “And then continue to work on improving our current roster with some of the late bloomers out there as well.”
GABINET: “To me, it’s probably the most grinding part of the job. You’ve gotta learn to enjoy the grind as we tell our players, and keep taking steps forward in that process.”
GABINET: “Experience is a positive. You get to know the different leagues, the different coaches. Now Paul is going through that same thing now, and I went through the year before, and Dave went through it last year.”
GABINET: “You can definitely see why the staffs that have been together for a long time have a leg up on other programs. Just because they’re so well connected. A lot of it’s word of mouth now and being connected and knowing the right people.”
GABINET: “It’s definitely nice to see Dave do such a good job in working so hard this year on it. Then Paul, getting his feet wet as well. He’s got a huge network as well — Paul Jerrard does with his past history. Tapping into that and getting to know the age groups. It’s tough when you’re talking about ‘04s, ‘03s, ‘02s, ‘01s, ‘99s, ‘98s.”
GABINET: “I remember when I first came it was a little bit overwhelming. And you start to get a grasp on that now — seeing the different levels, and seeing kids up in Canada, and seeing kids in Europe, seeing kids in the States, and comparing them. The U16s in Michigan compared to them in Chicago, compared to them in Canada, to Midget AAA.”
GABINET: “I’ll have to take off this weekend here to go up to the Canada Winter Games for a little bit.”
GABINET: “It’s lots of work, but it’s also fun. We’re talking to some really good kids and get to explain how excited we are about Omaha, and what we have to offer here, and getting the word about Omaha and our program here and our university. To me, that’s something I really enjoy talking about.”
DOES THE TEAM HAVE THE ABILITY TO PLAY ITS BEST HOCKEY AT THE END OF THE SEASON...
GABINET: “I think so. I think we’ve shown it. I think that’s one of the positives of the last eight games, I guess, against these top-ranked opponents where we’ve been one goal away, or tied, or in a position to have a chance at success.”
GABINET: “I think it’s really important that we keep taking those steps, but also recognizing what we’re doing to give us a chance to get those good results. We got a little bit away from it on Saturday night. We didn’t finish a couple tracks. We dove at one play there. It’s just two mental lapses and they’re in the back of your net and now you’re playing catch up.”
WAYS THE TEAM PLAYED BETTER ON SATURDAY...
GABINET: “When we were doing things right, we really skated, I thought. We usually have a pretty hard F1. But we need F2 to skate as well. You’ve gotta get up in the play and your d-men have to be connected to the play. You gotta not let them out of their zone for free.”
GABINET: “We ended up outshooting them and having way more o-zone time than we did on Friday night.”
ON THE BYE WEEK...
WENINGER: “I think it’s good timing for us, honestly. We had a tough schedule the last couple weeks — pretty much since Christmas, honestly. It’s definitely good timing, and I think our team has taken a lot of big steps since Christmas, and this week kind of just gives us a chance to reflect and then kind of look forward to this last three weeks of the season and try and push for fifth or sixth place in the conference at least.”
WENINGER: “We have the opportunity. It’s there for us. We’ve just got to take advantage of it.”
ON YOUR PLAY IN THE SECOND HALF THIS SEASON...
WENINGER: “I think it has a lot to do with the team, the staff, and kind of just the support that I’ve had. Obviously, the first half wasn’t great. It was kind of a struggle at times. When I went home at Christmas, I kind of just went and relaxed, reset, and kind of just said ‘it’s a new season.’”
WENINGER: “Obviously, we’re not sitting well in the PairWise. With this conference and our schedule, we still have a chance to make some noise, and give ourselves a chance to kind of make the tournament.”
WENINGER: “It’s nice having a staff that’s so task-oriented and focuses on the little things and helps you kind of pinpoint, ‘Hey, this is something that we need to work on,’ or ‘This is a tendency of the team we’re playing against coming up.’”
ON MOTIVATION TO DO SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT IN THE POST-SEASON...
WENINGER: “It’s definitely a big, big motivating factor. You look at the senior class, none of us have really had that post-season success here. We’ve gotten swept twice, lost in game three against Western there our sophomore year. We’re confident going against any team in the league. We’ve at least given every team a close game, if not beat them.”
WENINGER: “I think we’re one of the more resilient teams in the country. Especially looking at how tough our opponents have been. I’m proud of the guys we have.”
WENINGER: “If we put everything together and we all buy in, we can make some noise.”
ON FINISHING STRONG...
ON FINISHING STRONG...
SCHULZ: We’re just really focusing on bettering our systems and everything like that — so that when we do go up against St. Cloud, North Dakota, and those guys — we’ll be ready for them.”
ON PLAYING FORWARD AT POINTS IN THE SECOND HALF...
SCHULZ: “It’s been fun. It wasn’t much of a shock, I guess, being at forward, because I was there a little bit my freshman/sophomore year under Blais.”
SCHULZ: “I get to do something a little different for once. In practices, guys are always chuckling, making fun of me and stuff, but they make it fun.”
ON JALEN’S CAREER AT UNO COMING TO A CLOSE...
SCHULZ: “You think about it a little bit here and there.”
SCHULZ: “You try to think about it the best way you can. Try to put the team first, and think about what you can to make sure the team is winning.”
ON THE TEAM MAKING A PLAYOFF RUN...
SCHULZ: “At the end of the day, we just have to go out and win. That’s the bottom line.”
SCHULZ: “I think in three weeks, four weeks, whenever the regular season is over, I think we’ll know more.”
ON THE UP AND DOWN NATURE OF THE SEASON...
SCHULZ: “They always say it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
SCHULZ: “The attitude in the lockerroom is that everybody is positive, no matter what the circumstances are.”
ON THE TEAM’S FEELINGS REGARDING EVAN WENINGER’S SUCCESS...
SCHULZ: “He works his bag off every single day, and it shows every weekend on the ice in the games. He’s a great player, but he’s a better person.”
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