NMU Wildcats in good position
With 10 games to play on the Western Collegiate Hockey Association regular-season slate, the Northern Michigan University Wildcats have a good shot at fourth place and home-ice in the first round of the playoffs.
Currently in fifth place in the 10-team WCHA with 18 points from a record of 7-7-4, Northern Michigan is home to the eighth-seeded Alaska Anchorage Seawolves for games on Friday and Saturday nights.
Northern Michigan is four points back of fourth-place Ferris State with two games in hand on the Bulldogs.
Veteran coach Walt Kyle’s Wildcats control their own destiny as far as finishing in fourth place given that of their 10 remaining games in the WCHA regular season, two are against Ferris State.
Besides the two games against Alaska Anchorage and the duo with Ferris State, Northern Michigan’s six other matches to end the regular season are weekend pairs against the last-place Alabama Huntsville Chargers, the seventh-place Lake Superior State Lakers and the third-place Michigan Tech Huskies.
Meanwhile, the Wildcats, who have an overall record of 10-10-6, feature a pair of former Soo Eagles as regular forwards.
Sophomore Robbie Payne is third on the Wildcats in scoring with 9 goals, 6 assists, 15 points. Freshman Denver Pierce has 3 goals, 3 assists, 6 points.
Both are northern Michigan products as Payne is from Gaylord and Pierce hails from the Sault Ste. Marie area.
you be the man Randy over there in Canada…Oh Canada our true and native land..When I was growing up down there on our tobacco farm in the Chatham area we had to stand beside our desks in the morn and sing God Save the Queen. That was just after the earth was cooling…….