The Illini hockey team continued its roller coaster start to the season in its opening weekend of play. Illinois lost a scrimmage to the Springfield Jr Blues on Friday, then came back to rout Northern Illinois in the regular season opener, 7-2. 

The up and down trajectory to the beginning of the Illini’s season has been mainly caused by the closing of the Illinois ice rink. Head coach Nick Fabbrini has been holding practices 45 minutes from campus in Danville, to which players are driving themselves.

September 18 will end the Illini’s wait to return home, as that is the date the arena reopens. 

Between finally being able to practice at home again and getting into the regular season routine, the Illini are hoping to settle in. 

“Our guys are starting to gel after playing together for more than a couple of weeks now and coming home for our first practice back in our rink. It will give us an extra little boost this weekend,” Fabbrini said. 

The reopening of the Big Pond seems to have come at a perfect time, considering the way the Illini’s schedule looks. Illinois will play two games almost every weekend from now through November, and will be on the road for the remaining two weekends in September. With the heavy travel for the next few weeks, it seems that eliminating the travel back and forth from practice should benefit the Illini at the beginning of the season. 

This weekend, Illinois will continue to go up against in-state teams by hitting the road to face Illinois State. The teams will face off on both Friday and Saturday night, something that is usual for the program. Most every weekend that the Illini hit the ice, they play the same team twice in order to make the most of travel costs. Because of this normality, Fabbrini said the game plan doesn’t often change between the first and second games. He did add, however, that adjustments were key in the Illini’s opening weekend. 

“For it just being our second game I liked how well we were able to make some adjustments and to come back and respond after a tough game on Friday night and play a pretty good game overall on Saturday,” Fabbrini said. 

One of the team’s main flaws last season was goal scoring, which seemed to have been addressed in the opener. Not only did Illinois net seven goals, but they also put up 48 shots. Captain John Olen was the leader of the offensive attack, netting two goals against Northern Illinois.

“I like to position myself well and try to spread the ice open to find myself open areas,” Olen said. “On both of those goals I really just got good passes and I was kind of in the right area.”

The problem that Fabbrini wants to address moving forward is discipline, something many teams have issues with to begin seasons. The Illini committed six penalties against the Huskies, with five of them coming in the first period. 

“(Discipline) is something that’s easy to control,” Fabbrini said. “I think we saw that when we do control our emotions and stay out of the box to play teams five-on-five that we’re a pretty good hockey team. I’m hoping that’s one of the bigger lessons we learned Saturday.” 

Brett can be reached at [email protected] and @Blerner10.