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Finlandia men’s hockey still looking for 1st win of season

Lions host Wisconsin-River Falls this weekend in search of win

HANCOCK — To say that the first half of head coach Joe Burcar’s return to Finlandia has not gone as planned would be an understatement. Burcar expected his team to be fighting for .500 at this point in the season. Instead, the Lions are winless through their first 11 games after a pair of losses to No. 2 Adrian last weekend.

The Lions remain at home this week as they prepare for a pair of nonconference bouts with Wisconsin-River Falls.

The most games Burcar has lost in a season with Finlandia is 14. It would take a severe turnaround to keep that from changing this season. However, Burcar is proud of his players for not hanging their heads and checking out during practice.

Burcar believes it is still a matter of when, not if, the Lions will win.

“I think we have come a long way,” said Burcar. “At the same time, we haven’t made enough to get that win.”

Against the Bulldogs, the Lions surprised the visitors by jumping out to a 1-0 lead just a minute into the contest on a goal from sophomore Alex Rezansoff. From there, things went downhill for the hosts in a hurry.

Not only did the Bulldogs pot the next 10 goals, they began to verbally antagonize the Lions, which led to a very messy third period. Before the final buzzer rang, the teams combined for 239 minutes worth of penalties.

On Saturday, the Bulldogs came out quickly and took a 1-0 lead 1 minute, six seconds into the contest. They would go on to win 4-1.

One bright spot for the Lions was the play of freshman Danny Hill from Hancock. The former Bulldog netted his first career goal on a 4-on-3 power play.

Hill, who played in four games for the Lions’ junior varsity team before being brought up to the varsity level, has played in Finlandia’s last four games. He has found himself a home alongside sophomore Kendall Bolen-Porter, and they are making up 2/3 of the Lions’ top unit.

Burcar is seeing an internal competition happening amongst the players to slot in on the side opposite to Hill, which is a tremendous compliment to the rookie.

“Danny and Kendall are not big guys, but I think what other teammates are seeing is that they are willing to go to the hard areas,” said Burcar. “They are finding success. I think the guys are thinking if they can do it, maybe I should be doing that too.”

Despite the fact that the Lions are still searching for their first victory of the season, Burcar has noticed something else happening that was unexpected: the players are informing their friends who are interested in playing college hockey that Finlandia should be on their radar.

That has translated to better-paced practices.

“It has been a challenging season, and we haven’t had the success in the win column,” said Burcar. “It is frustrating that we haven’t had the wins, but even this week, you could not tell this team hasn’t won a game yet.”

This weekend, the Lions host the Falcons, who are off to an uncharacteristically rough start. The Falcons are just 3-8-1 on the season thus far, the 21st for head coach Steve Freeman. Freeman has never won less than 10 games with the Falcons.

Senior Mitch Konty is tied with freshman Hunter Schneider for the team lead in points with seven each. Sophomore Joe Drapluk leads the Falcons in goals with five.

Between the pipes, freshman Zach Quinn has played well, going 3-4-1 thus far with a goals against average of 1.96 and a .929 save percentage.

FAMOUS COACHES: The Falcons have helped a some well-known former WCHA coaches get their start. George Gwozdecky (Denver), Craig Dahl (St. Cloud State) and Dean Talafous (Alaska-Anchorage) all served as head coach for at least one season at Wisconsin-River Falls.

GAME TIMES: Game time for Friday’s contest is 7:15 p.m. Saturday’s game is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. Both games will take place at the Houghton County Arena.

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