With regard to this season's outlook for the Wisconsin Badger men's hockey team, head coach Mike Eaves could best be described as a realist.
As things stand, his team prepares for a series with North Dakota this weekend with a record of 3-6-1 in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. That places them in the lower reaches of the standings, 10 points behind leading Minnesota.
When asked Monday at a weekly press conference whether the Badgers are currently in a hole halfway through the season, Eaves pressed the idea that UW would be ill-advised to worry about other teams.
""If we can do our part and if other teams, they continue to play, they lose some and they win some, that'll determine how deep a hole it is,"" he said. ""Right now I think our focus has to be on getting some points every weekend. That becomes a thing we talk about, controlling what we can control. That becomes our focus.""
After two weeks of practice—the Badgers were not in action this past weekend—Wisconsin's first opportunity to score some points in the standings will come on the road against North Dakota. The two teams each recorded a win in a series earlier this season in Madison.
Eaves said that the past week of practice had been a productive one for the Badgers. ""You look at what we set out to do,"" he said. ""We had a battle plan, we scripted it. We followed the script. Whether or not it was effective will be determined by this weekend.""
""The guys worked really hard. I think once they realized this wasn't going to be a slack week, that we were going to press forward ... I think they enjoyed the week, in terms of the competitiveness that we had within the team,"" Eaves added. ""It made the days go by quicker, it made the practices go by a little quicker, the fact that they were competitive. They worked hard. I know they felt good about themselves when they left.""
