The Arcadia Knights are a step closer to beginning their inaugural season of NCAA Division III hockey. The Knights will play a pair of exhibition games before opening their regular season on October 29 when they host Aurora University.
Coach Vincent Pietrangelo says his players are looking forward to facing an opponent.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “We’ve had really, really good practices and really good competition. But, since the boys have been here at the start, they’ve only been practicing against themselves so a change of pace will be nice, it will be refreshing, it will be exciting,
“That’s what we all came here for, to play college hockey and compete against other schools. We have a couple exhibition games against other opponents before we start our regular season, and it will be a really good test for us. We’ll kind of see how we stack up and see maybe where some guys end up.”
Pietrangelo was asked if he felt his team was ready for the start of the regular season. “I guess we’ll never know until our first game,” he said. “I really like what we have. I’m pleasantly surprised at what we have.
“We’re a lot further along in terms of skill. There have been a few guys that have really surprised me. From the recruiting process, they’ve gotten a lot better over the summer. They’ve put the time in, they’ve put the work in, so I’m very happy to see that. That was really good to see, guys coming in and doing the right things.”
One of Pietrangelo’s concerns is injuries. “We have a few guys banged up right now We have some opportunities for some other guys to certainly make their mark in the lineup and (the exhibition games) will be a really good tool evaluating tool for myself and my assistant coach.”
Only one player on the Arcadia roster has NCAA hockey experience.
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