Indiana University Hockey proudly welcomes new head coach Jan Jas!

By Tyler James Perry

After seeing their national championship dreams go up in smoke last week, the Hoosiers are hoping to put that behind them when they head into the GMHL league tournament this weekend. With a conference record of 2-12, Indiana is the eighth seed, and they will play top-seeded Michigan State.

Though the Spartans won both games against Indiana when they played in January, the underdog Hoosiers surprised State in a close 4-2 match.

Friday’s rematch will be IU’s last chance to gain redemption, as their season -- and their time as a Division II team -- will be finished after this weekend.

Next season, the team will make the move up to Division I, meaning they will no longer be in the GMHL.

“It’s our last tournament, so it’d be a nice way to finish out the season by winning,” said junior defensemen Brandon Dornsish. “There will be more of an all-out atmosphere with the team.”

He said he isn’t any more concerned about playing the Spartans just because they are the top seed.

“I think we should play them just as we did earlier in the year,” he said. “We lost, but we had them on their heels, they just got a couple of lucky breaks.”

For Dornish, winning the GMHL tournament would make a grand statement.

“It would be nice to win, because winners of the GMHL are usually in the national championship game,” he said. “It would show that we just as easily could have been back in that game.”

The first step at taking the cup is to beat State on Friday. Then, they would play a Saturday morning game, where the winner would play for the league championship Saturday night.

In order to take that first step, Dornish said they need to challenge the Spartan’s top line.

“They’re not as deep of a team as they’ve been in past years,” he said. “They’re top line is pretty good, but their other lines aren’t as great. If we can just frustrate them and take their space away, they should tire out and we shouldn’t have a problem with them.”

Junior center Adam Logue looks at the big picture heading into the tournament.

“We’re going D1 next year, and going into the first game of the GMHL and losing to Michigan State would be an absolute slam to our program,” Logue said. “There’s no different game-play. It’s a hard week of practice, and everyone’s pretty much ready to beat Michigan State.”

Logue also said the key to a Hoosier upset Friday is for them to play a complete game.

“We need to string three periods of hockey together,” he said. “We need to be there 100 percent of the game. If we do, we won’t have any problem.”

Win or lose, the 2002 GMHL tournament champions will be saying goodbye to the league after the final buzzer.

“We don’t want to go out of Division II by losing,” Logue said. “We have much more pride for our program than that. This weekend is just strictly about pride.”