Goalie Romeo prepared for Gophers’ big ice

Ohio State is headed to Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes and home to one of the larger ice sheets in the country, to take on the Golden Gophers in a Big Ten men’s hockey doubleheader this weekend.

Goalie Sean Romeo, for one, is undaunted by the challenge of playing on big ice.

“You’ve still got to stop the puck,” he said. “Nothing changes.”

Well, the view does. The Golden Gophers’ home, the 3M Arena at Mariucci, has an ice sheet that measures the Olympic size of 200 feet long by 100 feet wide. Most North American rinks, including the Buckeyes’ home at Value City Arena, measure 200-by85 feet.

Romeo, who was named the Big Ten’s second star after OSU split with No. 1-ranked Notre Dame last weekend, indicated the game slows down for him on larger ice sheets.

“I’ll have more time to play the puck, a better opportunity to help my D out,” Romeo said. “It’s more room for me to make plays. I think I can be more active in that area and kind of help them out more.”

The sixth-ranked Buckeyes, who have a solid grip on the No. 2 seed for the Big Ten tournament after watching Notre Dame clinch the No. 1 last week, will face No. 4 Minnesota, which is led by last year’s Big Ten player of the year, forward Tyler Sheehy. He’s averaged 1.11 points in his three seasons.

Ohio State seems to have made itself comfortable being ranked among the nation’s elite this season. As Romeo noted, that’s a doubleedged situation.

“I know we’ve kind of solidified ourselves in the top 10 this year. … It’s an honor,” he said. “But there’s always someone ahead of you that you’re trying to knock off, and there’s a lot of people behind us trying to knock us off, too. So our work’s not done. … Every night, we’re going to get a team’s best, and we’re not going to be overlooked at all.”