The ice may start to melt, but that won’t stop the STLCC-Meramec in-line hockey team from playing this season.
The Magic in-line hockey team has been competing for 10 years. Head coach Ben Lambert is in his first-year with the Magic. He is just coming off an unsuccessful trip to the final four in the 2008 Professional In-Line Hockey Championships where he was the coach of the St. Louis Cobras.
“After that, I was kind of floating in the wind; didn’t know whether or not I was going to get another coaching spot or anything like that. I wanted to, and it just so happened that the St. Louis Community College position opened up, and I was lucky enough to get this spot,” said Lambert.
The in-line hockey team doesn’t get any support from the school because they are a club sport and don’t practice on the Meramec campus. The Magic normally practice at Midwest Sports Complex in Ballwin. They have fundraisers to help pay for their expenses and trips to the National Tournament. Earlier this year they had a poker tournament to help with the budget. On Mar. 13 they will be having a trivia night to help raise money for their trip to the National Tournament in April.
This is their only way to cover expenses, but they get by according to Lambert. “That’s one of the things you have to do if you want to travel: you have to raise your own funds, do the trivia nights, do this, do that.”
In-line hockey is four-on-four, instead of five-on-five like in ice hockey. Rules such as off-sides or icing don’t exist in the sport. “There is no checking, which adds to the stigma of the sport, that roller hockey is for guys who can’t handle playing as physical as ice hockey, but I mean at the college level, they do let you battle along the boards a lot,” said Lambert.
The Magic have had their troubles in the rink, according to Lambert. “The guys really need to improve on their offense. We need to score a lot more.”
Lambert believes these are a great group of guys he has on the team. He wants to get them to the point where St. Charles Community College Cougars are at – winning 5 or 6 National Championships. He preaches beating the Cougars on a regular basis along with becoming one of the top teams in the division at any level.
Nathan Klos, captain and defensemen for Magic, said about the team, “Most of the players on the team are first-year players and there are only a few people who have played together. We have had a few bad losses. We have a lot more season to go, and we have a lot more trust in each other now than in the beginning of the season.”
Check out the video from our interview with head coach Ben Lambert at http://www.youtube.com/user/Meramecmontage#p/a/f/0/ElbI2U7Sv7Y
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