Amidst the hottest stretch of the season, the UW men’s hockey team will change gears when it hosts the French Olympic team in an exhibition game tonight.

While the game offers the Badgers no opportunity to move up in the conference standings and comes rather ill-timed as Wisconsin prepares for this weekend’s series against Alaska-Anchorage, tonight’s contest should provide a unique opportunity to experience a different level of competition.

“It’s a different style of hockey,” UW coach Jeff Sauer said of the French Olympic team. “It’ll provide a chance to show our boys what hockey is like in Europe.”

In addition to providing the team with a valuable opportunity of competing on a worldwide platform, it offers the young Badger team a glimpse of what could possibly lie ahead once their eligibility here in Madison has been exhausted.

“Tomorrow night’s game offers our boys a look at the future in terms of whether they want to go over seas and play,” commented Sauer. “It should be a good learning experience.”

On the heels of their most impressive series of the season, the Badgers hope to experiment with some new strategies, as well as brush up on their fundamentals. Heading into the teeth of their remaining schedule, UW can ill afford to be playing anything but their most quality hockey.

As for the recent play of the resurgent Badgers, things just seem to be coming together at the right time.

“A light seems to have just gone on,” commented Sauer on Monday. “The guys are starting to realize what it takes to win.”

UW has been playing so well of late, a home sweep this weekend over struggling Alaska-Anchorage would catapult Wisconsin into a commanding position for home-ice advantage in the playoffs and, with the help of other teams, land them in third place in the WCHA.

“We want to be playing our best hockey towards the end of the year,” stated Sauer. “If we can get some momentum on our side, we can be a dangerous hockey team.”

With only five weeks remaining in the regular season, the Badgers appear to be gaining that necessary momentum and are rapidly climbing the conference ladder. With fourth-place Colorado College playing in a non-conference series last weekend and third place Minnesota splitting with Denver, UW gained some serious ground on their conference foes.

If Wisconsin hopes to finish in the upper half of its conference, it must take advantage of the series this weekend before their schedule takes a turn for the worse.

After hosting Alaska-Anchorage this Friday and Saturday, the Badgers travel to Colorado College, host Denver and head north to Minnesota before their series finale versus Minnesota-Duluth at the Kohl Center.

If the present play of the Badgers begins to snowball as the season winds down, it could be an interesting post-season for the hockey faithful here in Madison.

“We’ve learned a lot about ourselves in the past few weeks,” commented Sauer. “St. Cloud State was as good as a team as we’ll play down the stretch and we proved we could play with them.”