College hockey aficionado and Pittsburgh media personality Mike Prisuta contributes regular commentary on the RMU men's hockey team. This is his latest:
 
Pittsburgh, Pa. – Two snapshots from last weekend's trip to Worcester, Mass. captured what Robert Morris has been battling all season, and what the Colonials must continue to confront the rest of the way on the way to wherever it is they're eventually headed.
 
The first: Game Two against Holy Cross on Saturday night.
 
Senior winger Matt Cope scores at 19:56 of the first period to cut into a 2-0 Holy Cross lead. But on his way off the ice Cope passes the Holy Cross bench, utters a few choice words over his shoulder, inadvertently collides with one of the Crusaders and winds up with a two-minute penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, also at 19:56.
 
"We want to play to the edge, play to that line, but you can't cross that line," RMU head coach Derek Schooley said. "We cannot self-destruct in that manner."
 
And the second: Game Two against Holy Cross on Saturday night.
 
The Crusaders called their timeout with 27 seconds remaining in a game they were leading, 5-2, prior to a neutral-zone face-off. Was Holy Cross still strategizing at that point or simply soaking in the moment?
 
"That's a good question," Schooley said. "You'd have to ask their coach on that.
 
"When they won they celebrated like they won the Stanley Cup."
 
And so it goes for Robert Morris.
 
The Colonials' 14-7-3 overall record ranks No. 14 in the nation in winning percentage (.646) and their 11-4-3 mark in Atlantic Hockey is good enough for a conference-leading 25 points.
 
But they're admittedly a team that's still searching for a consistency that'll need to be attained if RMU is to achieve its goal of playing its best hockey in the season's stretch run and heading into tournament time.
 
The search continues this weekend against Mercyhurst (11-11-0. 9-7-0) at the RMU Island Sports Center (7:05 p.m., Friday and Saturday).
 
The passion, emotion, energy and physicality RMU often exhibits are prerequisites toward the team maximizing its potential.
 
But sometimes the Colonials go too far. Cope's transgression at Holy Cross was an example of what's periodically occurred up and down the roster much more than it was an isolated incident. Sometimes, RMU succumbs to opponents' attempts at verbal and physical distraction.
 
Schooley likened such lapses in focus and discipline, especially the unnecessary penalties, to the Cincinnati Bengals committing a pair of personal fouls in the final minute and hand-delivering an NFL playoff victory to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
 
RMU hasn't yet suffered a similar fate, but the Colonials have left points on the ice against four teams ranked in the bottom seven of this week's PairWise rankings (No. 54 Canisius, No. 55 Army, No. 59 AIC and No. 60 Niagara).
 
RMU also has victories over No. 7 Michigan, No. 13 Massachusetts-Lowell and No. 15 Penn State.
 
"We have no problem getting up for those big games," senior winger Zac Lynch said. "Atlantic Hockey, that's kind of our issue. We have that target on our back so we're seeing every team's best game. We've expected that, we've known that was coming. But it seems we're having a little trouble handling that two nights in a row."

Holy Cross' Stanley Cup-worthy celebration after earning a split against Atlantic Hockey's 2014 NCAA Tournament representative and the conference's 2015 regular-season champion was RMU's latest reminder about that target on the program's back.
 
"Just recently the seniors and the captains have met and talked about it a little more, seeing what we can do," Lynch said. "We think we have a pretty good base of what we need to do moving forward.
 
"We just have to apply that to our game and watch it happen."
 
"We've been at the top of the league now for the last year and a half and with that there's pressure," added Schooley. "With that you've gotta be able to respond the right way. We've addressed it (as a coaching staff). They say they're addressing it (as players), but right now it's just words.
 
"They need to make sure they're ready to play with controlled emotion. We're in this as a group. It's our job to give them direction. It's their job to take direction. This is a very good hockey team. It would be a shame to let something like the Cincinnati Bengals did get in the way of your season. We've won some big hockey games. We've won at Michigan. We beat (Massachusetts-) Lowell, beat Penn State.
 
"It's to be determined if they're going to raise any more banners."

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