Sunday, November 27, 2011

New Season

It's that time of the year again, another hockey season for the Mt. Pleasant Oilers. Along with a new season comes new faces and new challenges.

After leading the Oilers for the first three seasons of the schools program, Paul Visich has moved on to a new opportunity in his life, taking a position at the University of New England and will be remembered as a competitive coach who led both on and off the ice and exits with a career mark of 29-41-2.

An assistant coach last year with the program, Alex Weisenburger takes over as the programs new head coach. His resume includes coaching stops with Central Michigan University, Florida Gulf Coast University and Grand Valley State. He will be joined by secone year assistant Greg Millis and new assistant Coach Evan Crawford who played for Coach Weisenburger at FGCU and CMU.

The Oilers have been on the ice now for three weeks and have already battled the injury bug and the early season absence of some key players due to the Oiler Football program making another strong run through the playoffs and a Division 3 State Runner-up spot. Congrats to Coach McIntyre and the Oiler football players for an amazing 13-1 season.

The Oiler invite was held this weekend at the Mt. Pleasant Ice Arena, a annual four team tournament including the Oilers, L'anse Creuse North Crusaders, Bay City Central Wolves and Freeland Falcons.

In the opener Friday afternoon, Bay City skated past L'Anse Creuse to a 4-2 victory and advanced to the Tournament Final. In the evening nightcap, the Oilers played an exciting contest against Freeland. Freeland started the scoring and led 1-0 after the first period. The Flacons added to that lead early in the second and the Oilers responded shortly after with a goal from Junior Nick Coscarelly with assists going to Freshman RJ Cilibraise and Sophomore Robert Backus. Mt. Pleasant tied the game on a slap shot from Sophomore defenseman Tyler Jackson, with assists going Nick Coscarelly and Junior Dan Pulver. The game was back and forth with several scoring chances by each team and some solid goaltending by each squad. Both teams headed in to a eight minute sudden death overtime and when time expired without a goal being scored the tournament match was sent to a three player shootout. Each team took turns on the center ice one on one, Freeland going first and Sophomore Adam Salisbury making the save. Coscarelly gave Mt. Pleasant a lead with a goal on the Oilers first attempt. After another brilliant save on Freelands second attempt, Robert Backus had an opprtunity to send the Oilers to the finals and did not disappoint the home crowd, burying the puck in the back of the net and giving the Oilers their first win of the season 4-2.

Salisbury finished the game with 29 saves on 31 shots.

The finals on Saturday was a preview of two Saginaw Valley League conference foes and Bay City cruised to a 8-1 victory over a very shorthanded Oiler squad. The lone Oiler goal was scored by Junior Nick Coscarelly with an assist going to Senior Derek D'Artagnan. Salisbury made 43 saves in the loss.

In the third place game L'Anse Creuse skated to an 8-0 victory that was stopped after two periods due to the High School mercy rule.

Come out this Friday evening to catch the Oilers in action against Hudsonville at 6:00.