The University of Maine men’s hockey team is ready for Friday night’s Hockey East final, despite its late double-overtime victory over Northeastern Thursday night, according to the team’s athletic trainer.
Paul Culina said he doesn’t think Thursday night’s double-overtime 4-3 victory over Northeastern in the Hockey East semifinals will hurt his team’s chances in its Friday night championship game against the University of Connecticut.
The Thursday night matchup lasted 91 minutes and two seconds. UConn beat Boston University 5-2 in the early game on Thursday.
“I don’t think it will have much of an impact,” Culina said. “Obviously, you expend more calories the longer you are on the ice.”
“But we’ve come a long way. They have so many snacks and beverages in the locker room during the game and they keep up on it,” Culina said. “They make sure they get calories and stay hydrated.”
The list of foods team members eat include bananas, apple sauce, energy bars and fruit snacks and the fluids include water and Gatorade.
“You name it and we probably have it,” Culina said. “We also have some electrolyte supplements.”
Culina said sports performance coach Codi Fitzgerald is in charge of food and beverages.
“We have a day-to-day routine to make sure they’re ready for the weekend,” said Culina, who is in his 30th season at UMaine.
“If overtime comes up, we deal with it and go on. They put so much work into their conditioning that it’s not a big deal,” said Culina, who was a trainer at his alma mater, Norwich University, and at Bowdoin College before coming to UMaine. “That’s why they come back in July (for an optional six-week workout program) so they can be ready for this kind of stuff.”
He said the biggest deal was the late night on Thursday. The team didn’t get back to the hotel until midnight and then players had their usual post-game meal before going to bed.
Culina said director of hockey operations Nick Fonzi probably had a busy night communicating with the hotel to keep them up to date on the status of the team and when to expect them to return for the meal.
Culina said they did push back Friday’s team breakfast from 9 to 10 a.m. to give the players more time to sleep.
He doesn’t expect the team to be fatigued, although he did say if the game goes to overtime tonight “that might be different.”
