Shawsy's Thoughts: "The Shaw Skate Reflection"
Senior defenseman Hayden Shaw will give us an inside look at the University of North Dakota hockey team as it aims to make a second-half push. Shaw will be blogging from the road with the Fighting Hawks making trips to Omaha, Denver, Kalamazoo, Colorado Springs and then on to St. Paul, Fargo and hopefully another crack in Buffalo down the line. Follow the team's progress here.

OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH boy the fellas are back on the road after a very restful bye week. Road trips mean blog time, let me get these fingers warmed up.
 
THURSDAY
8:00 am:
 Early wake up at the Compound (Rhett and I's apartment) as we suit up and head to the rink to pack our bags and eat breakfast. There is always a different vibe around the rink for the excitement of heading on the road to Western Michigan. We bus to the plane and board, not much movement today due to the early travel, I was asleep before we took off and woke up to a pleasant landing in Kalamazoo.
 
12 pm:
 We have arrived and got settled into our hotel, time to head down to a Mexican-themed lunch spread which pairs perfectly to the show Basty and I are watching, "Narcos". We have about an hour of downtime before we get moving in our Thursday practice. Thursday practice means shootout at the end, could this be Josh Rieger's week to win? Probably not, but we will see.
 
4 pm: 
Aaaaaaaaand not Reggies day… again. Great high-energy Thursday skate followed by a video meeting on what to prepare for this weekend and were off to dinner. The locker room set up in Western is two rooms side by side, leaving all the forwards on one side crammed in as us defenseman live lavish on the other side.
 
7 pm:
Delicious meal as we also honored our very own Tim Hennessy for his 40 years of blessing us all with his voice. I had an 8 oz filet and about 22 slices of bread thanks to Nick Jones' love for carbs.
 
9 pm:
Back to the hotel for some rest as we ease our minds a bit and find a movie to watch. Gabe and my pre game rituals are pretty easy the night before the game, lay in bed and watch a movie or two. We also have Normatecs you put on your legs and helps with recovery and soreness. Time for me to sign off for the night and we'll see you in the morning!

FRIDAY
8:00 am: 
Breakfast for the guys down the hall in the hotel to fuel up for pregame skate and game day. I enjoy pregame skate to get a good sweat in the morning and legs prepped for a heavy physical night.
 
12 pm:
High energy pregame skate and we are ready for a weekend of NCHC battle. Bye week was a great opportunity for us to fine tune a couple things in our game, most importantly rest and recover. Injuries are part of hockey, this was a very timely bye weekend due to a couple banged up bodies. Time for a nap and we'll see you after the game!
 
10 pm:
What. A. Game. We put a lot of emphasis on our starts… 18 seconds, is that good? Thanks, Mark Senden. It's always easier blogging after a win, that was huge for our group. We came out of the gate flying and continued to apply pressure all game, that is our culture. Some incredible work ethic out of guys tonight and I could not be more proud of everyone in our room. The young guys on our team had their first experience in a rink like that, with the crazy "Lawson Lunatics" as their fans are called. Western plays in a smaller rink with a low ceiling making it very loud and exciting for both players and fans. Time for me to log off and lets do it again tomorrow!
 
SATURDAY
10 am:
A well-deserved sleep in for the guys as we have a different morning today, with no pregame skate we have breakfast and a stretch with trainer Mark Poolman. After our stretch we head back into the meeting room for a recap video meeting led by Coach Berry to see what we did well and what we need to improve on. After that it's back to the room for some down time and nap.
 
2 pm:
Gabe and I tend to rest as much as possibly watching TV and getting our dogs up. We know Western is going bring a better effort tonight, we have been on the other side of a Friday loss and know exactly how it feels. We emphasized this morning to not be complacent and we need to exceed our effort of last night. We treat every game as a playoff game now.
 
11 pm:
What a heart breaker. Tough loss, but there was no lack of effort and character in that game. With late heroics in the third, it felt like it was headed our direction as we had them on the ropes, but just not enough. Unfortunately, Adam Scheel went down with an undisclosed lower body injury after an INCREDIBLE performance this weekend. Headed onto the plane, time for airplane mode, thank you for following along and we'll see you soon!