Arizona hockey fans will have another reason to cheer on the UA: The Wildcats announced a deal with the fast food restaurant chain Wendy’s to give fans free burgers.
When Arizona scores two or more goals at home games, fans can present their ticket stub to any Tucson Wendy’s location to get a free junior hamburger.
“It’s pretty cool,” head coach Sean Hogan said of the new deal.
“It’s just another reason to bring the family down and catch a hockey game; and it’s a pretty good possibility we’ll score two goals.”
The Wildcats have scored at least three goals in every home game this year, except in two losses to No. 1 Arizona State. They close out the semester with games against Division II teams, San Diego State (5-8-1) and Northern Arizona (13-3-0). Arizona beat NAU 7-3 and 4-2 on the road to open the season.
The deal was set up by the college marketing wing of IMG, who Arizona has been working with all year.
“They’ve done a real good job for us setting up our sponsorships,” Hogan said. “It will just get better every year.”
Fall break
After playing a gauntlet of highly-ranked foes, Wildcat hockey is finally getting a break.
No. 17 Arizona (8-9-0) had a bye last week and will cap the semester by playing four games against Division II teams. The Wildcats played a ranked team six weeks in a row and a top-ten team three weeks in a row.
Assistant captain and junior forward Andrew Murmes said he likes the break from playing top teams, but also loves playing ranked opponents.
“Like coach Hogan says, ‘You want to be the best, you have to play the best,’” Murmes said. “It’s nice to get a little bit of a break, especially coming in for Thanksgiving. These are four games where we obviously need four wins and we’ll work hard to get them.”
UA last played three games in three days at No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 16 Central Oklahoma.
“You don’t want to overlook anybody and everybody’s tough,” Hogan said. “We can’t overlook anybody, that’s for sure. We’re not capable of overlooking anybody.”
Of the current top 25, Arizona has played ASU four times, No. 4 Ohio twice, Oklahoma once, No. 6 Illinois twice, No. 10 Oakland twice, Central Oklahoma and Eastern Michigan, which just dropped out of the top 25.
Against Division I teams, Arizona is 5-6-0 against top teams, but 1-3-0 against teams ranked 11-20.
The Wildcats took last week off from practice and did shuttle runs Monday on the old football practice field. The break gives Arizona a chance to heal.
“We had a lot of injuries, concussions, shoulders, knees,” Hogan said. “Having that five days off was really good for the guys.”
The big three
Murmes, Slugocki and junior forward Ansel Ivens-Anderson lead UA in scoring, and often are the most reliable options for the Wildcats.
Murmes has 24 points on eight goals and 16 assists, Slugocki has 20 points from 11 goals and nine assists and Ivens-Anderson has 18 points, eight goals and 10 assists.
In Arizona’s losses, though, Murmes, Slugocki and Ivens-Anderson only have six goals, including two in four losses to Arizona State and zero in the losses at Central Oklahoma.
“We’re put in those situations to score and we love to score,” Murmes said. “That doesn’t mean that those guys aren’t capable of scoring. I think everyone is capable of scoring, we just need to ‘bear down’ on our chances and that just comes with hard and me and Ansel and Slugo have been fortunate enough to score a bunch.”
