Here is a piece from Kevin a's blog about yesterday's practice. It is good to see Motzko make the team skate.
Worst. Bagskate. Ever.
Posted 1/5/2010 7:58 PM CST on sctimes.com
So much for sweeping.
That's what some of the Huskies were thinking at practice on Tuesday at the National Hockey Center. They took Monday off, as mandated by the fact that they played a Saturday-Sunday series against Brown (5-1 and 5-3 wins), and showed up Tuesday in good humor.
That evaporated after an hour-and-15-minute practice when Bob Motzko proceeded to condition them with the most intense bag skate I can recall in 12 years of covering the program. (Equipment manager Jeremiah Minkel said he remembers one under Craig Dahl where the players had to crawl the length of the ice, but I guess I was somewhere else that day.)
The players (grouped in lines and defensive pairs) skated blue line and back, center line and back, far blue line and back, goal line and back several times. Then they lined up along the half wall and skated side-to-side across the rink several times -- even stepping into and out of the benches to touch the far wall before returning and skating the length of the ice. After that, it was each individual's turn to skate side-to-side from wall-to-wall twice before the next skater was whistled to do so. After a couple of rounds of that, Motzko finally relented.
Captain Garrett Raboin agreed it was the worst conditioning skate of his tenure, but the good news is he and most of the older players held up under the strain fairly well.
"It was rough, but it could've been worse," Raboin said as he left the rink.
Nick Oslund also looked in fine form -- no small feat for a big man.
"It really wasn't that bad," Oslund said.
Tell that to freshman Ben Hanowski. He almost crawled to the bench after it was over and remained sitting there long after the others had left for the dressing room.
"The older guys were like 'Aw, it's not that bad,' " Hanowski said. "The younger guys were like (choking)."
Motzko said his conditioning stint had no other motive than just that: conditioning.
"Just cleaning out the cobwebs," Motzko said. "Those are nice to do when you're not mad."
He wasn't on Tuesday, though you have to wonder if maybe he wasn't thinking about sending a message. Saturday was a 1-goal game until early in the third period and Sunday was a one-goal game with less than two minutes to go. On home ice, perhaps the Huskies should've been more dominant over the Bears.
"Were we rusty? Absolutely," Motzko said. "Did we play our best hockey? Nope. But we're going to get back to it and the guys should feel good about themselves."
Of course, he said that BEFORE Tuesday's bag skate.
HUSKIES NOTEBOOK:
* Sam Zabkowicz skated in a no-contact jersey on Tuesday. He looked a little ginger, but should return to action soon -- maybe yet this weekend.
* Brian Volpei (shoulder) did not skate. He worked out briefly on an eliptical machine, but he won't play this weekend and the next series, at Quinnipiac, is a question mark.
