The Iowa Heartlanders played Bloomington on Sunday afternoon ... again

CORALVILLE - It’s Groundhog Day, hockey style.

The Iowa Heartlanders and Bloomington Bison played against each other Sunday afternoon. Again.

Eddie Matsushima’s overtime goal gave Bloomington a 3-2 win, but that’s not the story here.

This was the seventh time in Iowa’s 14 games that the Bison have been the opponent. The Heartlanders are 2-3-2 in those games.

The teams played Saturday night in Illinois, with Bloomington winning. They played last Sunday night in Bloomington, with the Bison winning.

They’ll play again Wednesday night at Bloomington. And again Saturday night at Xtream Arena and this coming Sunday afternoon at Xtream Arena.

That’d be six games in a row. There are crazy schedules, then there’s this one.

“It’s tough, honestly,” said Heartlanders Coach Derek Damon. “It’s tough playing a team 10 out of your first 17 games. Then six in a row is really challenging. But at the same time, you treat it like a playoff series. You know their tendencies, pre-scout is not very long because everybody knows what to expect. Then it’s going out there and, as simple as it sounds, wanting it more.

“Because you know what you can do. It’s just going out there and executing and just wanting it more. To me, that’s the disappointing thing about today.”

Iowa (7-4-3-0, 17 standings points) had to get a goal from defenseman Jules Boscq with 46.9 seconds left and goaltender William Rousseau pulled for an extra attacker to salvage a point.

Boscq had both Heartlanders goals, his first two as a North American pro. He opened the scoring in this game with a goal at 6:15 of the second period on a blast from the left point. His tying marker was similar.

“It was a big game for me,” said Boscq. “I’m not happy about the result, but, yeah, (the goals) were good for me. I’m pretty happy about that.”

Bosqc is a 22-year-old from Bordeaux, France, who has played internationally for his country and who played professionally in his country before signing an ECHL contract with the Heartlanders before last season. He played four games for Iowa, then was suspended the rest of the season by the IIHF (International Ice Hockey Federation) for testing positive for a banned substance in 2021.

Appeals of the suspension last two years and a final decision finally came down in October of 2023.

“It has been hard (to be away from home) because I am really close with my family,” Boscq said. “So it’s tough. But I talk to my family every day on the phone, so that’s good. I enjoy that a lot. My girlfriend is here, so that’s good.”

This is a more competitive Heartlanders team overall than last season, at least in the early going. The club plays a gritty game and appears to have good chemistry on and off the ice.

Now if only they can play somebody other than the Bloomington Bison.

“Wasn’t good enough last night. Took positives out of the third period and the way we played,” Damon said. “We need a lot better discipline with our game and also (not) taking penalties. No reason why we couldn’t come out with more energy and jump today. For them, it was the back end of a three in three. For us, it was just our second game of the weekend.

“Our conditioning, I feel like we’re in better condition than them, and we should jump on that and set the tone. They played a good, hard game. To me, the team that played the hardest came away with two points.”

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