After going on a tear this weekend, Miami RedHawks’ captain Ryan Jones was named Central Collegiate Hockey Association Offensive Player of the Week. Facing a surging Robert Morris University squad, the junior forward provided five goals and two assists in the series sweep. Thursday night in Oxford, Ohio, Jones scored two goals in the first four minutes of the game on his way to his second career hat-trick. Saturday night on the road in Pittsburgh, Jones provided similar heroics with a pair of goals and a game winning goal.
The native of Chatham, Ontario, is having a stellar campaign. This season, the left-winger broke Miami’s single season record for goals scored. He currently has 25 goals and 17 assists for a total of 42 points. Jones also holds Miami’s record for game-winning goals with 13, including four this season.
I had the opportunity to speak with Jones earlier this week.
On Miami’s unofficial fan site, a lot of the fans expressed concerns that you would not gain the CCHA Offensive Player of the Week award with the RedHawks facing a non-conference opponent in Robert Morris. Did you give that much thought?
No, (laughs) as players, you don’t really worry about whether you are going to get awards and whatnot. You are just glad that you can contribute to the team winning a couple games. To tell you the truth, it was the last thing on my mind until somebody said [I had won the award’]. I really didn’t know.
You have had an illustrious career at Miami. This season, you broke the single season goal record, and you are Miami’s career leader in all-time game winning goals, are those things that you will look back at one day rather than at this moment in time?
Yeah, it will be one of those things where you can brag to everyone about when you are an old guy, but like I said, right now, it is about getting the team where we all want to be at the end of the season. And you know when we get to the Frozen Four or if we are blessed enough to win a national championship, it doesn’t matter who scored the goals and who gets the points, it is the whole team that gets recognized.
Speaking of the team, it seemed like you guys had hit a low with a four-game winless streak and Brian Kaufman went down with an injury against Alaska, and now all of a sudden the team has bounced back, winning four in a row and earning a first-round bye in the CCHA playoffs. Have the spirits totally changed since the Alaska trip?
No, not really. I don’t think there is a huge difference between the four games where we didn’t get a win and the four games where we did. We got a few unlucky bounces in those two games. We went to the overtime with Alaska, twice. Anything can happen in overtime. And, I think the last four games, the bounces just went our way, and when you work hard, you tend to get those bounces and that’s just the difference between those two quarters there.
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