Snowstorm proves challenging for Great Danes
Team forced to practice at indoor facility on Tuesday
Before the University at Albany football team plays at Montana State in the NCAA playoffs on Saturday, the Great Danes have to deal with the storm that dumped more than a foot of snow on the Capital Region.
The Great Danes didn’t practice on Monday because it’s the regularly scheduled day off for the players. Head coach Greg Gattuso texted that his team will practice indoors at Afrim’s Sports Park in Colonie on Tuesday in preparation for its Football Championship Subdivision second-round game against the Bobcats in Bozeman, Mont.
“It’s fun to throw all these challenges at us when you’re getting ready for a second-round playoff game with over a foot of snow on the field and digging out and getting the staff in,” Gattuso said on a Colonial Athletic Association media conference call. “But we’re on track and we’re tough in Albany. We’re used to the cold weather and the snow.”
Gattuso said he sent his coaching staff home with their laptops on Sunday night with the storm under way. Ualbany grounds manager Shaun Lynch and his crew are working to try to clear the Casey Stadium field.
“Really, we’re clearly fighting
through,” Gattuso said. “We had to make some adjustments, obviously ... But we’re adjusting. It’s something we’ll deal with. I’m not worried about it. I’ve had to do these things before in my life. We just don’t allow things to be a distraction. We never have. We’ve got a couple of plans in place to make sure we have a good week of practice. Shaun from our grounds crew is out there busting his tail trying to get our field cleared for us right now.”
Generally, a football team would prefer not to break its routine and would rather practice in game conditions. The Great Danes will play Montana State at Bobcat Stadium, an outdoor facility.
“I hope we can be out on our own field by Wednesday, but we’ll see,” he said. “We’re working on it now.”
The Great Danes are scheduled to f ly to Bozeman on Thursday night. The forecast for Saturday’s game calls for a high of 39 degrees and mostly cloudy skies. That’s warmer than Ualbany’s first-round victory at home over Central Connecticut on Saturday.
If nothing else, Ualbany will be braced for the Montana weather. There’s no snow predicted for Bozeman this week, according to the National Weather Service.
“We’re looking at it like it’s a vacation,” Gattuso quipped. “Believe me when I tell you, we’re not afraid of weather. No one on this team or staff is concerned with anything to do with weather. We’ll take whatever Montana has to throw at us. We know it’s a loud stadium and the weather’s going to be the weather. We’ve really got a tough group of guys. It’s not going to affect us in the least. It’s not even a factor.”
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