For the past two years, Mike Domsodi channeled all of his energies into playing hockey, but when he arrived at Wentworth Institute of Technology in the fall, he found that he not only had to channel his energies into hockey and academics, he had to strike the right balance between them.
“I think it’s something that relates to everyone,” said Domsodi, a freshman forward for the Leopards who is studying biomedical engineering. “Everyone who’s in this position has the same kinds of issues. Finding the time to get all your schoolwork done and putting your energy into hockey. It’s about finding that happy medium and putting the energy and effort into both.”
Domsodi has emerged as one of the ECAC Northeast’s top freshman, scoring nine goals and 10 assists in his first 13 games. He’s third in the nation among Division III freshmen in scoring, behind Potsdam’s Trevor Cope (seven goals, 14 assists) and Nichols’ Louie Educate (12 goals, eight assists).
Wentworth (9-4-1, 2-1-1 ECAC Northeast) enters Friday’s game at Becker on a three-game winning streak. In those three games, Domsodi has a goal and three assists, and has at least a point in four of the Leopards’ last five games.
As he prepared for his first year of college hockey, he also spent the summer in Montreal, working at Jewish General Hospital as a doctor’s aide, as a means to prepare for a future in working in biomedical engineering.
“Everything you see on the medical side of things, it’s created by a biomedical engineer, whether it’s a hearing aid or a pacemaker,” Domsodi said. “If you’re (a biomedical engineer) working in a hospital, you’re the one working with the machines that help patients.”
He used open-heart surgery as an example, and explained that he looks to work in biomedical engineering from the clinical side, as opposed to research and development.
“All the machines that are used help monitor things,” Domsodi said. “Someone has to make sure everything’s working properly, to make sure blood and oxygen are flowing properly in a patient.”
During his summer, Domsodi also prepared for his first season of college hockey after two seasons with the Nanaimo Clippers of the British Columbia Hockey League.
“Playing in juniors for the past two years, it taught me to pace myself in order to be at the top of my game,” said Domsodi, who scored 23 goals and 39 assists in two seasons with Nanaimo. “What I’ve been able to do so far, it’s the preparation I did in the summer, not knowing what to expect in college, and it’s also adjusting to the pace of the game here.”
Still, there’s the matter of finding — and striking — that balance in college hockey.
“It’s about staying on top of things and being on top of your game, night in and night out,” Domsodi said. “You have a lot of distractions in the back of your mind, like projects and papers. But it’s in the back of your mind when you’re at the rink. All you think about during those two hours is hockey.”
Numbers of note from around the ECAC Northeast and MASCAC:
Johnson and Wales 7, Southern New Hampshire 0: Danny Kaufmann had two goals and two assists in the shutout at the Codfish Bowl tournament.
Number of note: Johnson and Wales has scored 17 goals in its last three games.
Becker 4, Worcester State 3: Andrew Bates scored 24 seconds into overtime to lift the Hawks to the Worcester City Shootout tournament championship.
Number of note: Five of the game’s seven goals were scored on the power play: three by Becker, two by Worcester State.
Massachusetts-Dartmouth 2, Babson 1: Stephen Ginand scored his second goal of the game at 3:02 of overtime to help the Corsairs to a nonconference win.
Number of note: Massachusetts-Dartmouth won despite being outshot 19-3 in the first period.
