Catching Oberlin's plague

Oberlin's Plague is showing up this year in a whole new way.

A brand new league and ten new players are giving an optimistic outlook on the ice hockey team's upcoming season.

The new league is a club league, made up of mostly schools who are in the North Coast Athletic Conference, which is seen as an improvement over the previous schedule of playing whomever the Plague could schedule. Last year, there were just three games.

Besides structured game schedules, the other feature the league is bringing is the possibility of a tournament to end the season. Otherwise the team with the most points at the end will be deemed champion.

The abundance of new talent is bringing both needed numbers and skills to the team. Captain junior Scott Sheppard said, "We're looking a lot better this year. We've got 20 people, which is twice as many as last year." Some of the people are transfers from other colleges such as junior Rory Keohane, who attended Northeastern University before coming to Oberlin, and played in intramural leagues there. Greg Scranton attended and played at Villanova University.

The season will be started up today as the Plague hits the road to play Case Western Reserve University. "Everybody's really excited about tommorow," said Keohane. If they do win, they will be on their way to besting last year's record of 1-2.

Unfortunately for Oberlin-bound hockey fans, there is a while to wait to see the Plague in action, the first home game is not until they skate against Wooster on Dec. 2.