{"id":144828,"date":"2024-01-31T14:00:53","date_gmt":"2024-01-31T20:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/?p=144828"},"modified":"2024-01-31T21:32:07","modified_gmt":"2024-02-01T03:32:07","slug":"this-week-in-nchc-hockey-colorado-college-netminder-mbereko-keeps-winning-for-tigers-knows-always-an-opportunity-to-get-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/2024\/01\/31\/this-week-in-nchc-hockey-colorado-college-netminder-mbereko-keeps-winning-for-tigers-knows-always-an-opportunity-to-get-better\/","title":{"rendered":"This Week in NCHC Hockey: Colorado College netminder Mbereko keeps winning for Tigers, knows ‘always an opportunity to get better’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Kaidan Mbereko is growing his game in his second season with Colorado College (photo: Ashley Huss).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Colorado College\u2019s Kaidan Mbereko was named Monday as the NCHC goaltender of the week, and it\u2019s never a surprise when the Tigers sophomore receives that recognition.<\/p>\n

Sixty-one saves over two 2-1 overtime wins last weekend at then-No. 12 Western Michigan gave Mbereko the conference\u2019s weekly goalie award for the fourth time this season. Also last weekend, the Aspen, Colo., native bumped his current winning streak to a career-long-tying five games.<\/p>\n

And 14th-ranked CC\u2019s wins last weekend were signature ones for several reasons. They came against higher-flying competition than what the Tigers had in the previous two weeks at Minnesota Duluth and home to Miami, and WMU\u2019s Lawson Ice Arena is famously hard to play in, especially on account of its boisterous student section.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy in that environment, and their team is really well coached and they\u2019re really good, but the two games went well, and I think that\u2019s the closest thing we\u2019re going to get, as of now, to playoff hockey,\u201d Mbereko said. \u201cIt was good for our group to go through that, and I\u2019m proud of our guys for coming out on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last weekend\u2019s victories in Kalamazoo bumped Mbereko\u2019s record on the season to 15-8-1, with a NCHC-best .915 save percentage. He also further proved that he relishes playing at Lawson. A three-time NCHC goaltender of the week last season who made the conference’s all-rookie team, he backstopped CC to a conference first-round playoff win there last season, then led the Tigers to a semifinal upset over archrival Denver.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the Pioneers, Mbereko credits one of DU\u2019s former standouts for his own development. Peter Mannino, a national champion on the Pioneers\u2019 2004-05 team, is CC’s associate head coach in his third year with the program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m fortunate to have Peter, because we go through every team we play, with their offensive tendencies, their line rushes, their offensive zone pressure and just some things you don\u2019t usually pay attention to when it\u2019s a team video,\u201d Mbereko said. \u201cWestern\u2019s a fast-transition team, too, and they get guys involved in the rush, so throughout the week, we prepared for that and had that in the back of our minds while drills were going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Mannino is great that way, helping to have a game plan going into the weekend. He\u2019s honestly the best, and he makes everything so fun. I enjoy coming to the rink to go work with him, and he had a great career and knows what he\u2019s talking about. He\u2019s a mentor, but he also helps me become a better goalie and a better person.\u201d<\/p>\n

And much else has gone into that for someone who was already a formidable goaltender with United States national program and World Junior Championship experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mental side of the game, just how I approach games in general, is different,\u201d Mbereko said. \u201cLast year, I was a freshman and wasn\u2019t expecting to play a lot, but as I got more games in, I learned to play back-to-backs and playing really tough teams on consecutive weekends.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving gone through that, my approach to each day is to not take anything for granted and take everything as an opportunity to grow. There\u2019s always an opportunity to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado College\u2019s Kaidan Mbereko was named Monday as the NCHC goaltender of the week, and it\u2019s never a surprise when the Tigers sophomore receives that recognition. Sixty-one saves over two 2-1 overtime wins last weekend at then-No. 12 Western Michigan gave Mbereko the conference\u2019s weekly goalie award for the fourth time this season. Also last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":144829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[812],"coauthors":[810],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThis Week in NCHC Hockey: Colorado College netminder Mbereko keeps winning for Tigers, knows 'always an opportunity to get better' - College Hockey | USCHO.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Colorado College\u2019s Kaidan Mbereko was named Monday as the NCHC goaltender of the week, and it\u2019s never a surprise when the Tigers sophomore receives that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uscho.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144828\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"This Week in NCHC Hockey: Colorado College netminder Mbereko keeps winning for Tigers, knows 'always an opportunity to get better' - 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