Football forces RoughRiders to look elsewhere to practice

CEDAR RAPIDS - Back to where it all began.

The presence of the Cedar Rapids Titans professional indoor football team has forced the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders hockey team to adjust its practice schedule a tad. That's OK with them.

For instance, the Riders have been using the Olympic-sized ice sheet at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena for some workouts. The club also made a trip last week to Coralville to practice at Coral Ridge Mall.

That's deja vu, considering the RoughRiders practiced there every day their inaugural 1999-2000 season until the Ice Arena's construction was complete in January 2000.

“The guys like going to the mall, like practicing at the mall,” RoughRiders Coach Mark Carlson said. “It's a good thing to do every once in awhile. For me, it brings us back to our roots a little bit. That's where it started. Thirteen years ago, we didn't have a rink here, and we practiced at that mall for four months, every single day.”

The Titans had a preseason game at The Stable last week and host their first regular-season game in the Indoor Football League against Lehigh Valley on Saturday night. The RoughRiders have road games tonight at Lincoln and Saturday night at Tri-City.

Riders ramblings

- Cedar Rapids will have to find a way to subdue the United States Hockey League's top scorer. Lincoln's Kevin Roy has 39 goals and 75 points in 48 games, his goal total a Tier I league record. Roy is from Quebec and turned down a chance during the Christmas break to join NHL Hall of Famer Patrick Roy's team in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. They are no relation. Kevin Roy instead will play college hockey next year at Brown University.

- The RoughRiders hope to continue to build momentum from last weekend's sweep of Team USA and Chicago. Cedar Rapids scored 14 goals last weekend after a stretch in which it dented the net just three times in its previous four games. Austin Ortega had four goals, two in each game, last weekend. Ryan McGrath had three goals. The RoughRiders go into the weekend in fifth place in the USHL's Eastern Conference with 46 points, on a 19-18-8 record. They are four points up on sixth-place Team USA, though Team USA has five games in hand. Muskegon has 34 points in the battle for the final two playoff berths in the division.

“Play our game, bring it every single night. Wins will come our way if we do that,” Ortega said.

“We've just got to be consistent. We've got the skill, we've just got to use it every night,” said forward Landon Smith. “We've got to come prepared every night, we've got to be smart with our systems and just be consistent with our play.”