YOUR AD HERE »

Icemen look to jump on Spartans, keep pedal down to finish out regular season

Harper Dial
Special to the Tribune
Lake Tahoe Icemen forward Paul Frys leads his team in scoring and is in the top 10 in the Western States Hockey League.
Bill Rozak / Tahoe Daily Tribune |

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Last weekend, the Southern Oregon Spartans played the Bellingham Blazers and lost all three games on home ice, giving the Blazers enough points to tie the Lake Tahoe Icemen for second place in the Western States Hockey League’s Northwest Division.

Tahoe swept a three-game series from the Spartans in their last match-up, two weeks ago, Feb. 9-11, at South Lake Tahoe Ice Arena. That was the last time the Icemen played.

The teams will meet again for a three-game set starting Friday, Feb. 23, in Oregon.



Ahead of the weekend, Icemen head coach Mickey Lang said: “These are must win games for us, but the last three games were also must wins for us. They [Spartans] haven’t been performing well, so we want to get on them early, and stay on them the entire 60 minutes.”

The Icemen head to Oregon with an 8-10-1 record away from home ice. They are tied with the Blazers with 49 points in 45 games overall (23-19-3).



Both the Icemen and the last place Spartans (11-34-1) this season have collected penalty minutes at a high clip. The Icemen average 28 minutes in the box per game while the Spartans are averaging 29 minutes.

Icemen forward Paul Frys will look to continue his 24-game point scoring streak and reach triple digits in total points. He has 95 points with six games to play in the regular season.

The Icemen have three goaltenders, Wade Conlan, Tommy Spero and Maximilian Haselbacher, who all have about the same save percentage .903, .890 and .906, respectively.

Following the three-game set in Oregon, Tahoe will head to Washington to play the West Sound Warriors on Friday through Sunday, March 2-4, at Bremerton Ice Center.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around the Lake Tahoe Basin and beyond make the Tahoe Tribune's work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Your donation will help us continue to cover COVID-19 and our other vital local news.