Paying for all your equipment, facilitiy use and providing your own transportation to get to games and practices is a norm for most club teams.

For the Eastern hockey club, it is no different.

The club has a yearly budget of about $10,000. including $115 per hour of practice time, equipment and driving to and from practices and games.

Other than a few sponsorships from parents or family members, the team is completely self funded.

Club president and team goaltender Travis Graff said the team sent out letters to local businesses, but received no responses.

“We have a few sponsors, but otherwise we pay it all ourselves,” Graff said. “It definitely isn’t cheap.”

Despite the costs, the club garners a decent turnout each year ranging from 20-25 players. Players range from playing high school, club teams and even some with little experience.

Because of money and travel distances, the team only practices once or twice a week at the Danville Civic Center.

Players are forced to use the student recreation center for the rest of the week so they can prepare for games. The team plays its home games at the David S. Palmer Civic Center in Decatur.

This puts them at a disadvantage with other teams that can practice on the ice several times a week.

The Panthers are in their second year of play in the Mid-American College Hockey Association. MACHA is broken down into two tiers, with Eastern being in the silver tier made up of smaller, less experienced teams.

Eastern is one of eight teams in the silver tier including SIU-Edwardsville, University of Iowa, Northwestern, Robert Morris College, University of Missouri-Columbia, Wheaton College and Washington Universtiy.

The team is manned by many young underclassmen Graf expects to leader when he and his fellow seniors depart after this season.

Freshman center Steve Dorich leads the team in ponts with 27 by scoring 14 goals and assisting on 13 others.

“(Dorich) has been an all around good player whether it has been scoring or just leading out on the ice,” Graff said. “It’s great to see a freshman do that.”

Sophomore winger Chris Coles is right behind Dorich with 24 points on a team leading 15 goals and nine assists while freshman winger Alec Reisberg has notched 16 points this season.

Graff along with Chris Hurtig and Greg Garofalo, have split time in goal this season for the Panthers.

Robert Morris is tops in the standings with a 12-0 conference record up this point. The Panthers are currenly sixth at 3-7, but have had some close losses.

Eastern next faces off against Northwestern (6-3-1) at 9:20 p.m. Friday at the American Heartland Ice Arena in Lincolnwood. Northwestern is participating in its first year of MACHA play, but have been able to keep up with other teams in the division.

“We played them last year in non-conference,” Graff said. “They have surprised a lot of people this year and it should be a good game.”

For more information on the club, call Graff at 348-0299 or e-mail him at [email protected].