PEORIA, Ill. — The Peoria Rivermen hockey team is headed to the President’s Cup Finals.
Rivermen Head Coach Jean-Guy Trudel told WMBD’s “The Greg and Dan Show”, getting the team he wanted this season was a struggle initially, due to COVID-19.
The Rivermen, like other teams in the SPHL, didn’t play last year.
“You haven’t done it for a year, and you lost a lot of those players that you thought were coming back. We actually lost seven or eight players that we had signed, that made the ECHL that you would not expect, because of COVID the pool of players was so small that they took all our players,” Trudel said.
Trudel said it’s his job to build the roster at the start of the season, but after that, the team’s leadership really steers the ship.
“We were fortunate, we had a great leadership group of about five or six guys, with Hagaman, Neville, Piotrowski. Guys that really care about Peoria and want to be here,” Trudel said.
And, as this season started, no one was really sure how many games they’d get to play.
CEO and Owner Bart Rogers oversees the day-to-day operations of the Rivermen.
He said this has been the longest year of his life. But, as Coach Trudel would attest, the team has risen above all the challenges this season to make it to the top.
“Toward the end of February, the mask mandates were lifted, and it just seemed like after that people started to come out more, and had a sense of relief to come out to our games and other things in the community,” Rogers said.
The Rivermen beat out rivals the Quad City Storm last weekend to advance to the President’s Cup Finals. They play the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs Thursday night and Friday night at home at Carver Arena.
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