Fusion fans will know that the girl’s hockey team has been the barometer for success in the Big Rivers Conference for many years now, and they will be hunting for a fifth consecutive BRC championship this season.

Head Coach Matt Cranston, who has been with the St. Croix Valley Fusion since its inception 20 years ago, says their formula is obviously working, so if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

“We should be very similar to last year, so my expectations and goals would be to win the conference again. Practices have been going great, and everyone is healthy,” Cranston said. “I would say the two players to watch who will make the greatest impact are our two captains, senior Kraly Walker and senior Kendall Sundby. They are both defensemen.”

Cranston says defense is the name of the game for his Wildcats, and it will have to be considering their schedule this season is going to be just as hard as last year.

“We play a very defensive style game, and both goalies are solid. We had the number one strength of schedule in the state last year and will have one of the toughest schedules again this year,” Cranston said.

For a team that’s looking for a 5-peat in the BRC, they’ve lost in the second round of sectionals four of the past five years. During this time of prolonged regular season success, the Wildcats only advanced to the sectional finals once, and that was three years ago during the 2020-21 season where they fell one game short of going to state.

Hudson has been their Achilles’ Heel for the greater part of this, as the Wildcats are 1-3 against them in the playoffs over that five-year span. This is sort of odd considering River Falls has had so much regular season success against the Raiders, but Coach Cranston says there’s not a specific reason they can point to for this.

“Maybe it’s just hard to beat a team three times in one year,” Cranston said. “They have a really good goalie, which makes a big difference. She’s a senior this year, so we will have to beat her if we face them in the playoffs.”

The Wildcats got a good look at Hudson on Thursday went they hosted them for a practice game.

“We scrimmaged Hudson last night, and our girls looked ready,” Cranston said. “We’ve had eight practices so far, and we will have two more before our first game against Hastings. Then we play Black River Falls on Friday the 24th and Green Bay on the 25th in Baldwin.”

The season begins for River Falls on Tuesday when the Hastings Raiders will make the trip across the border and face off against the Wildcats on their home ice. The first puck of the season drops at 7 p.m.

Boys hockey

That time of year has come again for teams in the frozen north to take the ice, and the River Falls Wildcats boys hockey team is looking forward to the impending season.

Third year Head Coach Cam Wilken thinks the needle is pointing up for his team after a number of dismal years in a row.

“We’ve definitely been struggling to gain traction as a program for a while now. I think the last two years we’ve really made strides to improve our play. I feel we’ve done that, but we still have to improve if we want our program to grow and compete more consistently,” Wilken said. “This year I really think we could be ready to take another step forward. The young guys we have coming in are so skilled, and the returning players are extremely talented leaders and hockey players in their own right. In just the little bit we’ve seen so far, the group has really gelled.” 

Expectations are hopeful but tempered for the Wildcats; the focus this year is on consistency and playing up to their potential, according to Wilken.

“I’m just looking forward to continuing the growth of our program. We want to be a better team at the end of the year. I’d love to see us make a push in the sectional tournament as well,” Wilken said. “We feel like we underachieved at the end of the season last year. I also feel we’ll be more consistent against the BRC competition this year. This is something the senior class has emphasized as a goal for us.” 

Wilken says the strong group of upperclassmen is going to lead the way for this more competitive Wildcats team.

“Our seniors have been amazing. We really feel like we don’t have just one standout guy from that class. They’ve created a new culture within our program. It’s a small tight knit class of only five. They all have really impressed us and have been great the last three seasons,” Wilken said. “We also have a large incoming group of young freshmen and sophomores who have cracked the varsity roster early in the year. We’re really looking forward to seeing what they can do and how they can move our program forward.” 

With the season upon us, preseason practices and scrimmages coming to an end, even players are taking notice of how strong this team feels this season.

“Practices have been great so far. The pace is totally different than past years. On the first day of practice senior Wyatt Hoepfl skated over to me and said, ‘this is day one, and it feels like a top 5 practice we’ve had in three years,’” Wilken said. “We now have to keep that as the standard and keep building. Everyone can have a good practice in November, we’ve got to have great ones all year. We are also trying to focus on playing better offense. Our bread and butter is strong defensive play, and we’re not going away from that, but we have to score more goals this season if we want to move forward. It’s definitely been a point of emphasis.”

Week 1 of boys Wildcat hockey begins this week when River Falls hosts the Tartan Titans at Wildcat Centre this Friday. The puck drops at 7 p.m.