Great at home, not so great on the road for Cedar Rapids RoughRiders this season

CEDAR RAPIDS — The splits are incredible, make you do a double check. A triple check.

The Cedar Rapids RoughRiders have been great at home this United States Hockey League season. They’ve been far less than great on the road.

Going into their huge home-and-home weekend series against the Madison Capitols, including Friday night’s game at ImOn Ice, the Riders had a 27-28-2-1 overall record. How they’d accumulated that record, those 57 standings points, has been something.

Cedar Rapids is 21-6-1-1 in its own barn, the win total second highest in the USHL. However, it is 6-22-1-0 away from its own barn, the win total second lowest in the USHL.

And, actually, those numbers are a tick skewed. The RoughRiders got credit for a road win in a recent game against the Des Moines Buccaneers that had to be switched at the last second to ImOn Ice because of an issue with the Bucs’ rink.

“I actually think we’ve been playing good on the road,” said RoughRiders forward Andy Moore. “We just haven’t been able to find a way to win. I believe that you’ve just got to be mentally tougher, and that will help us get the wins we need on the road.”

“We have a Stable game, that always helps us. We’re a great team at home,” said RoughRiders defenseman Brendan Fitzgerald. “I think a big thing with away games is mindset. If you look at our record away, it’s not too good. But no one thinks about that when we’re on the bus. We try to make our own energy, try to create that Stable-like energy at away rinks. We just try to keep the spirits high. Create energy ourselves.”

Cedar Rapids has outscored opponents in home games this season by a 115-88 margin. In road games, it has been outscored by a 115-65 margin.

You can’t help but think the overall inexperience of this group has been a reason for the home-road inconsistency. Or actually it’s been home-road consistency.

There are 22 players on the current roster who’d never played in the USHL before this season.

“Since there’s so many rookies, no one has played in that atmosphere of an away game. Unless you played Minnesota high school hockey. I haven’t,” Fitzgerald said. “But, honestly, you’ve got to embrace it, the other team’s fans throwing a beer at you, stuff like that. It’s actually a blast, especially when you win.”

The RoughRiders went into Friday with four regular-season games remaining: two at home, one each against Madison and Dubuque, and two on the road, one each at Madison and Dubuque. They were tied with Team USA for sixth place in the USHL’s Eastern Conference and the corresponding playoff berth that goes with it.

Madison was one point ahead of the Riders and Team USA, which had a game in hand on the other two teams.

“We’re trying to keep the atmosphere positive, just this whole week. Because we don’t think ahead of the next game,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s just next game, get two points. We’re not really looking toward playoffs. We’re just win the next game, win the next game, and then see what happens.”

“Definitely a big weekend, but, to be honest, we’re never really thinking about the big picture,” Moore agreed. “We trust the fact that if we play our game, good things will come.”

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