By Brandon Wood
@Brandonwood27
After practice Thursday, Feb. 13, the College at Brockport ice hockey team's Assistant Coach Nick Unger confirmed that freshman forward Nick Marinac would be ineligible to play in Friday's game against SUNY Cortland. Marinac has four goals and 10 assists on the season, but hasn't found the back of the net in his last six games.
Marinac picked up a disqualification near the end of last Saturday's game against SUNY Geneseo for slew-footing. According to the rule book, a slew-footing penalty is called by the referee when a player trips an opposing player with their stick, or uses their skate against the other players skate, causing them to lose balance and fall. Many of these penalties are major penalties and typically come with an ejection depending on player intent and injury.
Per SUNYAC rules, if a player is disqualified, they are suspended for the team's next game.
Unger was uncertain whether Marinac would be back in the lineup for Brockport's game Saturday at No. 10 SUNY Oswego.
"We'll see after Friday night, we'll go from there," Unger said. "He got penalized and it was a fair penalty. He's got to sit the game [Friday] and we'll honor that. We're not trying to fight it or anything. We'll have him sit and move forward and depending on what happens Friday we'll decide about Saturday from there."
Even if there was no disqualification for the slew-footing penalty, Unger said Brockport would've likely scratched Marinac anyway.
"Quite honestly, we probably would've sat him anyway because you can't do that kind of stuff," Unger said. "We would've wanted to send that message."
Unger said the coaching staff sat down with Marinac afterward to discuss the play.
"We talked with him about it and discussed it with him," Unger said. "He knows the emotions got the best of him and sometimes that happens with young guys. They have to learn how to control their emotions."
As for who will take his place in the lineup, Unger wouldn't say definitively who would be in the lineup for tomorrow's game in Cortland.
During practice, the forward lines and defensive pairings remained the same except for Marinac's line. Sophomore forward Michael Zagari, who has been a healthy scratch in Brockport's last nine games was skating in Marinac's place on a line with sophomore James Ryan and freshman Andrew Parks.
Freshman Nate Pelligra and Parks were rotating in the spot Marinac usually occupies on Brockport's first power play unit.
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With a chance to leap-frog into sixth place in the SUNYAC tomorrow at Cortland, many players stressed the importance of winning and playing a successful game. I asked several players about the importance of the game tomorrow, so here are the transcripts of what some of the players are thinking going into the game tomorrow:
Senior forward Brendon Rothfuss: "A lot of times we are in a situation where we need to win, but this is a must win. This is obviously the biggest game of the season. It's either do-or-die at this point in the season and they're up a point on us in the standings and we can't afford to give them any more of an advantage over us."
Sophomore goalie Jared Lockhurst: "The game's huge. Obviously, it's do-or-die for us to make the playoffs and that was our goal coming into the season so we'll see what the boys got for us tomorrow."
Sophomore forward Shane Cavalieri: "It's the biggest game. There's no ifs, we have to win if we want to make the playoffs. We put in a good effort in practice this week. I feel like we have what it takes to put a solid effort together and win this game."
Sophomore defenseman Chad Cummings: "It's an unbelievably big game. There's big playoff implications for sure. We have to steal two points up in their barn because they stole two from us [at home] earlier this season, so we definitely need to win this one."
Those are just a few of the thoughts from different members of the team. It's obvious the players know how critical winning tomorrow's game is for Brockport's SUNYAC playoff hopes.
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A couple weeks back, Cavalieri decided to get a hair cut. Prior to changing his hairstyle he was easily recognizable on the ice with his lengthy brown curly hair shown hanging out of his mask. Now there is no hair hanging from his mask.
"I had to change it up, it had been like two years," Cavalieri said. "I cut it and I was like 'Oh my god!' It feels so much better now though."
Sophomore forward Jeremy DeFazio Tweeted that he "thought he noticed something different" about his line-mate.
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