Two coaches, 27 players, 30 minutes and a dozen or so old tires scattered around the rink.
The clock ticked frantically at Civic Auditorium, and without question, it was time to burn some rubber.
Dean Blais and Mike Hastings got their first chance to lace up their skates and work with the Mavericks, and the two coaches spent an intense half hour putting their new hockey team through a demanding set of drills.
UNO has been staging unsupervised captains practices since Aug. 24, and the Mavs won't have their first official team practice until Oct. 3. But per NCAA rules, coaches on Tuesday could start working with their players for limited amounts of time.
Blais, hired as UNO's coach on June 12, will slice his two-hour-per-week allotment into four 30-minute sessions so he can work with the team on more days during each remaining week of September.
“It's just different when the coaches are on the ice, and I'm sure they would've preferred we weren't out there,” Blais said, laughing. “They have to do everything a little bit quicker than they would've liked, so you see guys rushing their passes and rushing their shots.
“They'll get more relaxed as we go, but I don't think there was anybody relaxed out there today. The guys know when we're out there that it's going to be short and intense and fast.”
Maybe it wasn't a coincidence, then, that the Mavericks had to spend a good portion of their time Tuesday navigating those tires. At one point, defensemen working with Hastings had to get off a rapid-fire series of shots while avoiding the tires set up just inside the blueline.
Later, during three-man rush drills that covered the length of the rink, skaters had to dodge the tires at mid-ice while making passes and weaving as a unit through the neutral zone.
It seemed clear that Blais and Hastings on Tuesday were putting a priority on quickness, puck movement, communication and awareness.
“It was really good. It was a great pace, and everything we did, we did with speed,” senior defenseman Eddie DelGrosso said. “And of course, everybody wants to make a good impression on the first day with the coaches.”
UNO plays a home exhibition game on Oct. 5 against the University of Lethbridge, and the Mavs open the regular season on Oct. 9 and 10 hosting the Mutual of Omaha Icebreaker Tournament.
Last season, UNO got off to a school-record 12-4-3 start but fizzled in the second half, finishing 15-17-8.
“The way we've been working, we've pushed ourselves to a new level,” DelGrosso said. “We thought we had a good start last year, and we thought we worked hard. But this year, it's 10 times what it was last year. So I definitely think everybody's excited to get going.”
• NOTES: UNO announced Tuesday that individual game tickets for the Mutual of Omaha Icebreaker tournament will go on sale at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Qwest Center Omaha box office and at Sapp Fieldhouse. For the first time in program history, the Mavs are hosting the NCAA's traditional season-opening tournament. The field on Oct. 9 and 10 in Omaha will include St. Lawrence, Massachusetts-Lowell, Army and UNO. Tickets cost $17 for lower bowl sections 120 through 122, $15 for all other lower bowl sections and $12 for the upper bowl. Tickets will cost $2 more when purchased on game day. Tickets for the Mavericks' Oct. 5 exhibition game against Lethbridge also will go on sale Thursday. Individual game tickets for UNO's remaining 2009-10 home games will go on sale Oct. 15 at 10 a.m.
Contact the writer:
444-1207, chad.purcell@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
