Ryan Ladika/MDN Jared Hamm scored two goals and notched four total points in the Beavers’ three games against GCU and Arizona last weekend.

“It was kind of the day from hell, for sure, in terms of travel.”

Head coach Wyatt Waselenchuk’s Minot State men’s hockey team was expecting a challenge from its second half-opening road trip through Arizona, but perhaps not until the Beavers actually stepped foot on the ice.

That the second-ranked Beavers completed their three-game sweep of Grand Canyon University and No. 15 University of Arizona coming off 26 consecutive days off was impressive enough. Not even two hours removed from a travel fiasco in arriving in Arizona did Minot State hit the Arizona Ice Arcadia rink for its matchup with the Lopes.

After the team’s flights out of Bismarck the evening of Wednesday, Jan. 5 were canceled, the Beavers scrambled by bus to fly out of Minneapolis early Thursday morning. Half the team caught a connection in Houston and the other half in Chicago. The Chicago group, including Waselenchuk, experienced more technical issues and was forced to de-plane after sitting on the tarmac for two hours.

Finally, after arriving in Phoenix at 4 p.m. Jan. 6 and leaving the airport an hour later, the reunited Beavers reached GCU for a delayed start time past the 7 p.m. hour.

All things considered, Waselenchuk could not have asked for much more out of his team that night. The Beavers shut the Lopes out by a 4-0 final score, peppering netminder Scott Kasaboski with 54 total shots while allowing Riley Wallace to face 27, including just nine and six in the final two periods of play. Sophomore Carter Barley potted his first hat trick and fourth multi-goal effort of the season, and Justin Metcalf added a third-period insurance tally to put the game out of reach.

“I think that we worked really hard. I was proud of our group,” Waselenchuk said. “Obviously having three weeks off, systematically we could definitely clean some things up. Overall, we had a really good effort through three tough games.”

Barley’s first goal of the night marked the first of three in two games for the Minot State power play, a group that had struggled away from the Maysa Arena in the first half. Reece Henry and Jared Hamm added consecutive goals on the man advantage during the Beavers’ Jan. 7 win against Arizona, improving on a power play that had cashed in on just five of 22 chances on the road entering the road trip.

“I think that we have so much skill and we’re so offensive-minded that my thought process is not to over-coach that,” Waselenchuk said of the power play. “The best power plays in the game of hockey are the ones that are creative, and players are making plays. I think we’re just kind of overthinking things.”

The Beavers also exercised a skill that will prove beneficial for inevitable challenging matchups in the national tournament this spring. Minot State fell behind in both matchups with the Wildcats last weekend and clawed its way back to top Arizona in both games, by respective 3-1 and 3-2 final scores.

“That’s been my message from day one, is we’re never too high and we’re never too low,” Waselenchuk continued. “You’re never out of a game, and you’re always working to protect your lead, and you don’t do that by just sitting back.”

Minot State will now prepare to trade the warmth of the desert for the frigid North Dakotan winter as it headlines a seven-game outdoor schedule on the University of Jamestown’s campus Jan. 21-22 for Hockey Day in North Dakota.

The Beavers faced the Jimmies in the event two years ago on Jan. 17, 2020, weathering a torrential blizzard and sub-zero temperatures that forced the cancelation of the scheduled high school games, all to come out on the losing end of a 14-round shootout that went in the record books as an official tie.

“Obviously we have a great in-state rival and they’re a fantastic team,” Waselenchuk said of the Jimmies. “To add even just a little bit more on the line, if you will, to give us a little extra motivation in terms of a pretty cool setup and scenario, and to get to do it in their backyard was of interest to me. I know that our guys are looking forward to it.”