HARTLAND — After thoroughly dominating in a Division 2 regional on its home ice, the Hartland hockey team is taking its act on the road.
And, coach Rick Gadwa says, none too soon.
“I think it’s time to fly the coop, so to speak,” he said. “We did a good job here (three wins with a combined score of 29-0), but you don’t get that true playoff experience until you leave your home ice.”
That experience starts tonight, when the Eagles take on Midland Dow at the Dow Federal Credit Union Event Center in Flint.
The game will be broadcast on The Livingston Post starting at 5:50 P.M.
“We work for this every year,” Gadwa said. “We’ve got guys who have been in the bright lights before. So we just hope that experience takes over.”
The experience is fueled not by extensive scouting, although the Eagles have scouted the Chargers, but by players working on playing Gadwa’s style.
“Usually, we just prepare ourselves to play our game,” defenseman Jake DeYoung said, “to stick to our system and things our coaches have been going over with us. It comes down to who wants it more at the end of the day. As long as we buy into the systems our coaches have been preaching about, and we play as physical and tough as we can, we should be good.”
Dow is led in scoring by Shane Astrike, who has 19 goals and 10 assists. In contrast, Hartland has five players with 38 or more points this season, led by Joey Larson with 25 goals among his 49 points.
In goal, Bret Tome (17-2-1, 1.81 goals-against, .918 save percentage) will start for Hartland against Dow’s Jeremy Slazor (17-2-1, 1.61, .931).
But the nature of playoffs is that scoring dips to the goalies’ tiny GAAs rather than high volumes of goals and assists.
“A lot of team play a lot of different ways,” DeYoung said. “They start to switch up stuff and get a lot more physical and start to battle more. It becomes less of a skill game and more of a heart game once it gets to playoffs. A lot of the newer kids don’t realize teams don’t always have a bunch of skill guys, but they have guys who will play with all their hearts.”
It’s the ninth consecutive quarterfinal berth for the Eagles, while Dow is in the quarterfinals for the first time since 2000.
“We have to start on time,” Gadwa said. ‘We have to dictate play right away. We want to be the ones controlling the game. We don’t want to give them any life early. You give them life, and then you’re trailing, and then you’re working from behind and it’s too little, too late. It’s important for us to set a tone early.”
Tonight’s winner will play either Kingsford or Grand Rapids Forest Hills Eastern at 5 p.m. Thursday at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth.
