Having walked off the ice at the end of a 1-1 tie in Ohio’s annual Green and White intra-squad scrimmage, coach Sean Hogan had a lot to smile about after his team’s performance against one another.
Of all the things to smile about, it’s the little things.
“We talk a lot about habits with hockey,” Hogan said. “Habits are what separate the good teams from the great teams, the good players from the great players.”
The habits are the fundamentals for the Bobcats — skating hard, crisp passes, communication. Those habits are what will give the Bobcats another season of success.
Friday night, Ohio was in mid-season form of doing the little things.
As the little things build into big things, that’s where Ohio will hold a competitive edge.
In the first half (the Green and White game was two, 25-minute halves) team White fired 15 shots on goal against freshman goalie Mason Kostner, but only one found the back of the net, courtesy of freshman forward Zach Frank.
Partially why Kostner was so successful, even with his “opponent” barring shot after shot on him, was because the defense helped with the little things — laying out for shots, getting sticks in the way and roughing up around the boards.
The Bobcats as a whole communicated well too. The sounds of commands from fellow teammates rattled the pipes at Bird.
“That’s something we preach all the time,” assistant coach Dan Bremner said. “If that player can have the same (good) habits, they’ll be a high caliber player at any level.”
A team full of high caliber players, in turn makes it a high caliber team, which isn’t uncommon for the Bobcats.
The team became American Collegiate Hockey Conference national runners up by doing the little things and by doing them consistently.
From saved shots to kicked pucks off the boards, based off of a game in which they played against themselves, the Bobcats once again have the tools to succeed.
If they can keep doing the little things.
