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Phantoms visit Ice tonight, then off for Thanksgiving
By Tom Williams
YOUNGSTOWN
A weekend off in the USHL is about as rare as finding a parking space within 100 feet of a store on Black Friday. But thanks to an overloaded early schedule, many of the Youngstown Phantoms are planning family reunions for the Thanksgiving weekend.
Tonight in Indianapolis, the seventh-place Phantoms (7-11-2, 16 points) will take on the sixth-place Ice (8-5-3, 13 points). The Phantoms’ next game is Dec. 6 against the eighth-place Chicago Steel (6-13-0, 12 points) at the Covelli Centre.
Because the regular season stretches into eight months, Phantoms head coach Anthony Noreen said he’s pleased that his players get a small break.
“We’re going to use the weekend to give the guys a little rest,” Noreen said Tuesday before the team bus left for Indiana. “A lot of guys have parents and family meeting them in Indiana, guys who are from closer that way.
“Others will be coming back then traveling on Thanksgiving Day.”
Most of the Phantoms will return to Ohio after tonight’s game, their 21st of the campaign. Only Team USA has played more.
“A lot of teams had one-game weekends early on, trying to avoid high school football [conflicts],” Noreen said. “I believe we’re the only [USHL] team who has this weekend off.
“I’d like to try and get into our schedule [regularly], to give the guys a weekend away,” Noreen said. “It gives them some time to go home and see family.”
Of course, the holiday mood of the team will depend on how well they play in Indianapolis.
The Phantoms are coming off one of their best performances of the season, last Saturday’s 4-1 victory over the Sioux City Musketeers in Iowa. Josh Nenedal scored two goals, Zach Evancho and Kyle Connor netted the others and Colin DeAugustine stopped 28 shots.
“Saturday was one of the, if not the, best games we’ve played,” Noreen said.
That win was part of a three-point weekend trip. Last Friday in Nebraska, the Phantoms lost to the Lincoln Stars, 4-3, in a shootout.
Another rarity would be seeing a member of the Phantoms hockey operations staff shopping on Friday. Noreen, assistant coach Michael Zucker and assistant general manager Jason Koehler said they won’t be fighting crowds looking for bargains.
“I spent New Year’s Eve in Times Square once,” Zucker said. “The sheer volume of people pushing and jostling around you — to me, that’s what Black Friday would be like.”
However, assistant coach Brad Patterson, who grew up in British Columbia, can’t wait.
‘[Someday], I’m going to introduce these guys to [the true meaning of] Black Friday,” the former Youngstown SteelHounds player said.
Noreen said, “Brad’s more into it than we are. I do all my shopping on one day every year — Christmas Eve. Crunch time, that’s when I work best.”
First is a contest against the much-improved Ice.
“We’re going to approach it like a playoff game,” Noreen said. “The one thing nice about a one-game [trip] is there is nothing to save for — we have the rest of the weekend off. There’s time to regroup and recover.
“There’s nothing better than going into a long break than with a win, and there’s nothing worse than going into a long break than coming off a loss.”