Jeremiahboyce.com is proud to bring you exclusive coverage of the 2014 Robertson Cup! You won’t find coverage like this from the newspaper in Bismarck, since the Bobcats have been ousted. The battle starts tonight between the Central Division Champion Austin Bruins and the South Division Champion Topeka Roadrunners to see who will go on in the best of 3 challenge. This is survival of the fittest. It used to be if you win you would be automatically going to Frisco, but those were the days. There is no more round-robin. Jeremiahboyce.com was granted an exclusive interview with one of the participants in tonight’s combat. This participant may sound familiar to Bobcats fans, as he was the Bobcats first ever assistant coach. Please welcome back Scott Langer to jeremiahboyce.com. Here are Coach Langer’s thoughts on Austin sniper Jay Dickman. “The first thing for us is to recognize that as talented as Dickman is, if we focus too much on any one player there are plenty of other players who can hurt you,” Langer told jeremiahboyce.com. “We feel that we have some solid systems in place that allow us to compete well against anyone in the league, so as long as we execute our game plan we should be fine.” We also asked Coach Langer about Austin’s goal tender Nick Lehr. The Roadrunners Head Coach and GM stated, “Nick has shown he is capable of being a game changer and so we will need to be strong in the offensive zone and create chances for ourselves. We’ve been facing quality goaltenders a lot this season, so that has helped prepare us for the Robertson Cup playoffs.” Langer is proud of the team for fighting through adversity. He says that this is a special group. Langer said of the Roadrunners ownership, “We are a franchise with a committed ownership group that gives us the tools to be successful. We have established a culture and identity that we are proud of, and I’m incredibly proud of how far this team has come.” Langer states of the challenge, that the ‘Runners are excited to face the Bruins, especially in front of their fans. “Anytime you get to this point in the season, you know you’re going to be facing quality hockey teams, and certainly Austin has established themselves as one of the elite teams in the league. We are looking forward to the challenge, and being able to do it in front of our fans makes it an even better experience for us.” Coach Langer was posed the question of who some of his best players were. Here’s what he told jeremiahboyce.com. “Tyler Poulsen has been our offensive powerhouse, along with his line mates Jake Kamrass and Yu Hikosaka. PJ Bridges is the best goaltender we’ve ever had in our program, and our defensive group is as good as any I’ve coached. We feel very deep roster-wise and every player plays a significant role.” When asked about the physicality of the Bruins, the head coach feels that the Roadrunners should be able to stand up to it, because of the physicality in the Southern Division. “I think the Southern Division features some teams that make their living by crashing and banging and being physical, so it’s not something that we won’t be used to. There’s a lot on the line for both teams at this point, and I would expect both teams to lay it all out on the ice.” The key for the Roadrunners is going to be staying out of the penalty box and doing really well on the PK. The Roadrunners are ranked a close second to the Bruins on the power play. Just a couple of notes for you guys, my readers. There are two stations that you can hear the action with John Peterson on 1480 KURS out of Austin, Minnesota, but I would recomend Arch Eckert at 1490 KTOP. Arch is one of the greatest voices in the North American Hockey League. Topeka is lucky they got him from Butte. If you take a listen, you can hear why. The guy is passionate when he calls hockey.
