Cey makes mark in CCHA play
TED FOX
Fox Sports ... Almost
I watched the Notre Dame hockey team battle traditionally dominant Michigan to a 3-3 tie and a 2-1 loss over winter break. Everyone in the sea of maize and blue I was drowning in was impressed not only by the performance by the Irish against the now eighth-ranked team in the country but also by the play of a freshman net minder named Cey.
Morgan Cey, that is, Notre Dame's goalie whose freshman season has produced a lot of highlights, including stopping 70 shots in those two games.
I talked to the Wilkie, Saskatchewan native before practice one day last week.
TF: [Can] you kind of explain how hockey is set up differently from other sports?
MC: In Canada, you play AAA Midget. You go, you move away from home when you're like 16, 17 if you want to play junior hockey. I moved away when I was 17, and I made the AAA Midget team in the city near my hometown. I played there, and then I got picked up for my next year, I went and played junior hockey in Flin Flon.
I played two successful years out of high school there, and made it to the national final my last year there, and got a scholarship to Notre Dame, and was fortunate enough to get one to a great school like this.
TF: So for most guys is it usually about a two-year thing?
MC: Well, usually it's three — [you] usually play until you're 20. But I had a pretty good year last year.
TF: What's the difference, in terms of style of play, from the junior league that you were in to being at a place in the CCHA. Is the CCHA that much better?
MC: The guys are a lot stronger [in the CCHA], the shots are a lot harder, the pace of the game ... everything's a pretty big step up. When I first got here, I was kind of blown away. But I've felt like I've adjusted well, and I'm pretty used to the pace of the game now, and I think I'm fitting in pretty well, and hopefully I can start to excel.
TF: Where's been the toughest place for you to play so far, just in terms of fans or environment, or does that really even enter in when you're out there?
MC: Yeah, it does enter in. When I was in Boston College ... there [were] over 8,000 people chanting "Morgan sucks, Morgan sucks". I had a pretty strong game that game, and it kind of motivates you a little bit. It kind of bothers you, but at the same way, you kind of feed off it, and I kind of like it a little bit. I like to show them up when they're doing that, too.
TF: Is that probably the worst thing you've had chanted at you?
MC: Yeah, definitely. Well, among others. I can't remember all of them. It was a pretty good time.
TF: Is there anything, when you're screened or whenever else, that you're yelling out to your guys out there to keep them moving?
MC: Yeah, I'm constantly yelling, you know, sometimes I got a little high-pitched voice out there.
We've got some pretty strong [defense] that gets the guys out of the way, and that's definitely one of the things I've had trouble with sometimes this year ... I'll kind of freeze myself, and I don't really move my body enough to see the shots in the point, and I've got a few screen goals on me this year ... but it's something that I'm definitely working on, and our [defense is] getting pretty good at letting me see the puck.
TF: Is that hard sometimes, being a freshman, being younger than a lot of the other guys out there and telling them where to go?
MC: [I've gotten] pretty used to it. I get along really great with all the guys, so I'll yell at everyone during the game. They know it's just in the heat of the moment. It's pretty good to have the chemistry I think that we have on the team this year.
I mean, it's a good chemistry. I think we're going to take it somewhere this year.
TF: How often when someone scores on you do you feel like that you should've been able to make the stop?
MC: When any goal that goes in ... I'm always pretty hard on myself after the game but not exactly at that right moment because I know that I have to just forget about the goal.
But after the game, say if we lost a 3-2 game, and they got a shot that went in on me, even if it was a really good shot, I feel like I'm always up to the task.
There's not really a shooter — I know it's a pretty bold statement to make — but I don't think there's a shooter in the league that I can't stop.
All Sports Stories for Tuesday, January 29, 2002
