The United States Hockey League’s Clark Cup will be handed out in Waterloo on Tuesday night as the Black Hawks host the Indiana Ice in Game 5 of the league’s championship series. Waterloo stayed alive with a 7-2 win at Indiana Saturday night.
With a win, head coach P.K. O’Handley’s team would earn its first regular-season and playoff title sweep as a junior franchise. “It’s a hard league to win in. You know this group has found ways to win through the regular season and playoffs,” O’Handley says.
Waterloo edged the Ice by a single point to win the league’s regular-season Anderson Cup crown. O’Handley says both teams will need a few good bounces to win tomorrow night. He says all the intangibles come to play at this point as both teams know each other well.
O’Handley says the teams are similar in their defensive abilities, but take a different approach to the offense. “Both teams can skate very well, the style are staggeringly different,” O’Handley says.
Win or lose, the USHL will say farewell to the Ice following Tuesday’s game. Earlier this month, the league announced the team will go dark while team owners search for a new facility in the Indianapolis area. O’Handley says that will likely give them a little bit of motivation to win, something like the movie “Major League.”
Waterloo won its only Clark Cup in 2004. Indiana has also brought home the trophy once, in 2009.
(Reporting by Austin Draude KLMJ Hampton)