Opponent: #15 Miami Redhawks
Where: Steve Cady Arena; Oxford, Ohio – Friday at 6:05 p.m.
Value City Arena; Columbus Ohio – Saturday at 7:05 p.m.
Cue dramatic music: it all comes down to this. Two weeks ago, the Ohio State Buckeyes finally broke their winless streak and last week they were forced to sit at home while the rest of the CCHA played for conference positioning. Now, where the Buckeyes end up at the end of the weekend is entirely in their hands. Right now they sit at seventh in the CCHA with 39 points, but it remains a tight race all around. If they end up in ninth—Northern Michigan, just three points behind OSU—they will go on the road for the CCHA tournament and never return to the friendly confines of the 43210. If they remain in the 6-8 range, they will host the first round against one of the conference’s bottom feeders. If they jump up to fifth—the RedHawks, just three points ahead—they will have the first week off and then go on the road. Finally, if they end up any higher (a longshot; third is six points away) they will have a week off and then host a playoff series. Any of a million things can happen this weekend, and it’s going to be decided in a traditional home-and-home against the always-competitive RedHawks.
These two teams met back in December for the first round of the home and home, and in each game the road team came away with the victory. In Columbus, Miami won 5-3 and ended OSU’s long 2011 winning streak. However, it was the Buckeyes who played the spoiler the next night as they came away with a win in overtime. Coming into this weekend’s series, the RedHawks are on a bit of a roll while the Buckeyes are just starting to get over their cold streak. Miami has won four games in a row—though two of them were against Alabama-Huntsville—and they’ve been playing great defense all around. In these four wins, they gave up one goal three times and zero goals one time. On offense, they have scored three goals twice and four goals twice. If that’s not a winning formula, I don’t know what is.
This is a huge game for the Buckeyes outside of the CCHA standings as well. Saturday will be senior day, and while veterans are few and far between it will still be an emotional day for seniors Danny Dries, Sean Duddy, Cal Heeter and Cory Schneider. All four of these players have contributed greatly to the hockey program in their time here, and you know they are going to be playing hard for the home crowd on Saturday. Hopefully the rest of the team can follow suit and come away with a huge win to finish off the season. In all likelihood, just getting a split will probably guarantee you a home series next weekend.
The Buckeyes are also doing all they can to sell out the Schott for the game on Saturday, and they are pulling out all the stops to try and make that a reality. There will be handouts of rally towels and thundersticks, a postgame autograph session with the entire team, and OSU president Gordon Gee will be dropping the puck. It’s bound to be a memorable night for fans of Buckeye hockey, and hopefully the on-ice product rises to the occasion.
Weekend prediction: Both the home teams win, and this split will mean the Buckeyes will be playing at the ice rink next weekend.
SGSR will be making the trip down to Oxford for the game on Friday, so be sure to listen for our broadcast at 6 p.m. EST. Saturday’s game will be broadcast on the Big Ten Digital Network online, with a television airing at 4 p.m. EST on Monday.
Go Bucks!
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