Weary Icers look to maintain stamina in Wildcats' den

Paul Cohen, affectionately called "Doc" by the Penn State ice hockey team, walked into the hockey office around 6 p.m. Monday and sat quietly behind the computer, minding his own business while everyone else was no where to be seen. Cohen, the team's faculty advisor, didn't do anything drastic. But he did help create a competitive atmosphere with the computer's screen saver.

When Icers assistant coach Scott Balboni emerged from his office, Doc was proud to point out his new screen saver masterpiece.

The new screen saver message simply read "Tame the Wildcats."

The Icers (17-3, 15-1 ACHA) will attempt to accomplish just that when they travel across the state to Philadelphia for a non-conference game with Villanova at 8 p.m. today at the Havertown Skatium.

The game is the second of two rare Wednesday night games this season and signals the midway mark of a grueling stretch of five games in nine days for the team.

"Stamina is certainly a concern right now," coach Joe Battista said. "But when we get to nationals, you've got to win four games in four days. You've got to be ready for it."

With the lack of rest after last weekend's series with West Virginia and a short roster due to injuries, the Icers will not be as fresh as desired going into the matchup, but this doesn't seem to concern the coaching staff.

"We'll be OK," Balboni said. "We took two full days off, which we don't usually do."

The Wednesday game also gives the coaching staff less time to harp on problems that occurred in the West Virginia series.

"Losing a day of practice because of a game in the middle of the week is actually kind of disruptive," Battista said.

After this past weekend, the Icers found themselves needing to focus on team defense and offense. The Icer attack had plenty of scoring opportunities in the two games against West Virginia, but had trouble putting the puck in the net.

"We had 114 shots this weekend and we only scored 14 goals," Battista said. "You could argue that that's a lot of goals, but our goals kind of came in bunches.

"It's frustrating to be getting that many scoring chances. It means that we're doing some things very well to generate that kind of offense, but we're not finishing off our chances."

Penn State is taking on a Villanova squad that opened its season with a 5-3 victory over intra-city rival Drexel but has since dropped 13 straight. Last year, the Icers downed the Icecats 5-0 to control the overall series 23-8-1, but this does not mean they can take their opponent too lightly.

"We have a sign in our locker room that says, 'Respect all. Fear none,' " Battista said, "and I think part of our problem (last weekend) was lack of respect for West Virginia."