Odds stacked against icers for first round

The MSU hockey team is doing all it can to prepare for what lies ahead in its NCAA West Regional semifinal game against host Colorado College on Friday in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Two factors, above all else, could play a role in MSU’s success or failure this weekend.

The first is elevation: Colorado Springs sits more than 6,000 feet above sea level.

The second is the Olympic-size ice sheet the World Arena uses, which is 15 feet wider than the surface at Munn Ice Arena.

While the team is able to prepare for the ice by finding a local arena with Olympic ice, bracing itself for the elevation is a completely different story.

“The table’s set for (Colorado College),” MSU head coach Rick Comley said. “At home, altitude, rink. You can’t have a situation any better than what they have.”

Senior defenseman Daniel Vukovic and junior forward Tim Kennedy both said they’ve never played at altitude.

“I can’t even tell you how that’s gonna be,” Vukovic said.

“From what I’ve heard, when you first get up there, it takes maybe a day or two to get back in it. All we can do right now is skate on the big ice. Coach is skating us a good amount. At this point in the season, I don’t know if the altitude is going to have that big of an effect.”

Vukovic added that being in good mental shape is a key to battling the altitude.

“I think we’ll be strong mentally,” he said. “We’re fighters. We’re not looking to have any excuses no matter what the outcome of any of the games are.”

As for the Olympic ice, the Spartans are 2-2 on big sheets this season, sweeping Alaska in November and losing two at Northern Michigan in February.

Comley said he tried to secure ice for the team to practice on when it arrives in Colorado today, but couldn’t do so.

That means the team will have to wait until Thursday to get the full effect of the altitude combined with the large ice surface.

Only time will tell how the Spartans react to those factors and an aggressive Colorado College team.

“They are built for that rink,” Comley said. “They love the big ice, they know altitude is an advantage and they come at you hard. They play up-tempo, all-out and they want to beat you.”

Road warriors

Last season, the Spartans were 6-9-1 on the road.

Now, it’s a completely different story, as MSU has rolled to a 10-3-1 road record this season, with wins at Michigan, Ferris State and Western Michigan — places where the Spartans traditionally have struggled.

Against Colorado College, MSU can expect a decidedly pro-Tigers crowd at World Arena.

“Playing on the road and having some big wins will help us in the end,” Vukovic said. “We’ll see Friday, but we’ll be ready.”

Kennedy said it will be nice playing in front of a packed building.

The two NCAA Tournaments he’s played in — in Grand Rapids last year and Albany, N.Y., in 2006 — have not been well-attended.

In Grand Rapids, about 5,000 people saw each of MSU’s two games while an average of fewer than 4,800 saw the two games in Albany. For arenas with capacities of more than 10,000, it felt empty.

That won’t be the case in Colorado Springs, where a capacity crowd of 7,343 shouldn’t be much of a problem.

“These regionals sell out almost every year,” Kennedy said. “You hate traveling out there, but you like playing there.”

But the team doesn’t expect for it to compare to the atmosphere at U-M.

“You’re not going to go into a harder rink than Yost to play,” Kennedy said. “We went in there this year and came out with a win. I’m not putting (Colorado College’s) arena or crowd down because I haven’t seen it, I’ve just heard about it, but I think Yost is one of the hardest rinks to play in in college hockey.”