Moving forward

Joel Scherban and Kalvin Sagert say the disciplinary issues are behind the Lakehead Thunderwolves and it’s full speed ahead in OUA play.

Scherban last week suspended five players, a mixture of veterans and rookies, for breaking unspecified team rules. The quintet, which included Matt Caria, Ryan McDonald, Ryan Magill, Jake Carrick and third-string goalie Josh Mrakic missed Friday’s contest against Michigan Tech, and won’t make the road trip next weekend when the team heads to Ottawa.

“We have team rules in place and I made it very clear at the beginning of the year that those team rules are to be followed and there’s zero tolerance,” Scherban said. “Unfortunately we had five players make a bad decision and violate team rules, so I suspended them.”

Sagert, one of three associated captains on the Wolves, said the players involved, who will play this weekend, have learned their lesson.

“Yeah, we’ve dealt with it internally and we talked about it as a team. We dealt with some consequences. We feel we can move forward from her and this weekend’s a big step for that,” Sagert said.

The Wolves, who won just once in four non-conference tries, kick off their 11th season on Friday night at Fort William Gardens, and face a tough test right away, the defending national silver medalist McGill Redmen.

LU last saw McGill at the 2010 Queen’s Cup final, a game the visiting Red Men won 3-1. The Wolves have gotten noticeably larger since then, and will need to make that size count against a squad that returns some of the top players in Canadian university hockey.

Among the Red Men corps are defenceman Marc-Andre Dorion and forwards Maxime Langelier-Parent, and playmaker Alexandre Picard-Hooper, who led the nation last season with 58 points.

“We know who their key players are. We decided to have a blueprint for how to beat them and we’re just going to try to make sure that happens. We’ve got to jump on them early and try to be physical with them,” Sagert said.

“Throughout the whole preseason we’ve tried to make an identity for ourselves. We are a bigger team than we have been in previous years, especially on the back end. Against these skilled teams we’ve got to be physical, we’ve got to take the body on them.”

Fan support will also be key, he said.

“Obviously with our rink being the smaller rink and we’ve got the bigger crowd, we’ve got to get the fans and everyone into it and start banging bodies and take away their time and space.”

The Wolves, coming off a 16-9-3 season that saw them depart the playoffs in the opening round for the first time in team history, want to get off to a fast start and show the rest of the league they mean business.

“Obviously last year wasn’t acceptable and we want to kind of turn the page a little bit on that, remember what happened and move on from there,” Sagert said.

“With the young guys coming in, they’ve got something to prove as well. It’s a great time of year to be playing (McGill). It’s a great test for us. We had some tough competition in the preseason. We thought we battled hard, but obviously we still have to battle a lot harder against a tougher team like McGill.”

Claw marks: Carrick and first-year defenceman Mitch Fillman will sit out Friday’s game with OUA-sanctioned suspensions meted out for incidents in the Wolves home-opening pre-season series against Trois-Rivieres.