It took a lot of fine-tuning, but UCLA club hockey is now a force to be reckoned with.
On Saturday, the UCLA club hockey team defeated USC for the Crosstown Cup -– the first time in two years. –
“This year, the guys on the team were really dedicated, our chemistry was right and the talent was great,” coach Mark Francis said. “We had the recipe for success.”
The Crosstown Cup, a yearly five-game series against crosstown rival USC, has not created fond memories for UCLA.
For the entirety of the game’s 18-year history, UCLA has won only four times, but Saturday’s victory was a possible turning point for the Bruins’ hockey program.
The Bruins had a strong freshman class complemented by some more experienced graduates returning to the team while working on their MBA degrees.
This eclectic mix gave the team the depth and quality “line,” or shift of forwards that play during a game, necessary to form an effective team.
Last year, the team started strong but weakened gradually as the season progressed. The Crosstown Cup that year came down to a fifth game, but the Bruins ran out of gas and failed to clinch a victory.
Going into Saturday’s match up 2-1, the Bruins showed up with a level of confidence unseen in past years. In the first 40 seconds, second-year political science student Doo Soo Kim scored a goal, followed by another goal only minutes later by fourth-year economics student and captain Michael Carder. By the end of the final period, the Bruins maintained their lead with a score of 7-3.
“Going in we knew we had a dominant squad that was feisty and ready to play,” third-year physiological science student Mark Yost said. “We went in with more purpose than USC and treated the game with much more importance.”
Carder, one of five current team members who won the Crosstown Cup their freshman year, was especially ardent about winning this year’s Cup, knowing what it felt like to win such a symbolically important match.
These five teammates are the only players in UCLA history to have won it twice.
“I didn’t understand what the victory meant the first time we won it,” Carder said. “Now in my senior year I see what an incredible achievement it is.”
Yost also attributed their recent success to the team’s stability in regard to coaching. Francis began in 2010, and throughout his three years as coach the team has become accustomed to his methods and truly grasped his coaching philosophy toward victory.
“There is a learning curve for working with coaches, but working three years with him has allowed us to learn his style and take to heart what coach was preaching,” Yost said.
Using their victory against the Trojans as a jumping-off point, the Bruins now strive to earn a playoff berth and establish themselves as serious contenders with their next match against the University of Washington, the defending conference champions.
“We needed to win that game and have a lot more confidence now,” Carder said. “We control our destiny, and this is definitely a momentum-builder.”
Francis is optimistic that this victory is a sign of good prospects for the team’s future and that fans can expect great things from the Bruins.
“I’m trying to build a contending team, not a one-year wonder,” Francis said. “When this team first started, they didn’t see the big picture.
“I try to teach them to win with a lot of class and character, and I believe they bought into this philosophy and won the right way.”