BOULDER — It has been a long time since the Division I Colorado Buffaloes club hockey team has played postseason puck. There’s been a pandemic, the football team has had four different head coaches, Boulder has been rejuvenated as a sports town with the arrival of Deion Sanders, and I still haven’t graduated college.
Now with just about three weekends of play to go until the final bids for nationals are sent out, the Buffaloes are on the outside looking in, trying to reach the illustrious tournament for the first time since 2018.
After their split series with the Oklahoma Sooners, they have six games remaining that will decide if they are playing hockey midway through March.
The first will be a visit to San Diego to face the Aztecs for the second series between the two this season, followed by a visit from the Arizona State Sun Devils for the first battle between the teams. Lastly, is a home-and-home series versus the in-state rival Colorado State Rams before the bids are sent out on February 19 and the fate of the season is determined.
The experience would be new for everyone on the team except one, head coach Trace Jablin. Jablin was in his second season playing for the Buffaloes, tallying 18 goals and 12 assists. Now behind the bench, he is the only one who has been through this experience at the ACHA level.
“I told these guys [at] our first practice, ‘Listen, boys, I have not seen a team with as much talent since I was playing and since [the Buffaloes] were a top 10 team in the country,’” Jablin said.
When talking about the team he’s coaching versus the team he played on six years ago, Jablin can see how much this year's team wants to succeed.
“These guys want to come to the rink and grind,” Jablin continued. “They want it so bad. And you can have all the talent. You can have the tools. But that desire, that fire in your belly, that passion, that’s what gets you far.”
While the Buffs know the road ahead of them won’t be an easy one, they do know that they are going to leave everything on the ice trying to return to the glory of the nationals tournament.
“It’s the playoffs now,” Jablin said. “We know what’s at stake and we know how bad we want it.”
You can keep up with all the action on the Sko Buffs Sports YouTube channel. Tune in to the Dangle, Snipe, and Stampede podcast to follow along with all CU hockey news.
Cover photo by Cristian Blanco/Sko Buffs Sports
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