A big reason for the Illinois State hockey team’s success this season has been junior center Eric Brown. The three-year veteran is currently leading the team with 41 points, 24 assists and is second with 17 goals. He is on pace to shatter his career-high of 43 points from last season with seven regular season games still to play.

How often does the team practice and what are practices typically like?

The team normally practices every Monday and Wednesday and they last around an hour and a half. Monday we go through the full set of drills and it’s designed to get us to keep our feet moving and to stay active. We practice different scenarios like two-on-ones and one-on-ones and normally end with a team skate. Wednesday is more of a team structure practice where we work on power plays and fore checks and things like that.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I’m just like any other guy during my free time. My favorite thing to do is watching the Redwings whenever they have a game, I love the way they play. Other than that I have gone to the Rec Center to play racquetball a few times.

How much does your equipment cost and is any of it provided for you?

ISU doesn’t provide anything to the team in either equipment or finances. But equipment is really expensive; I am sort of a stick guy so I like to have a bunch with me. One time last season, I broke six sticks in like six games and they run around $100 each so that was an expensive little stretch. Skates can be around $500, the helmet is a couple hundred, shoulder pads are around $100 too. But my parents help pay for some of it and Christmas is always really nice too because normally all I ask for is hockey gear.

Does your social life ever suffer because of hockey?

It did so more in high school because since there wasn’t a school team I had to travel all the time to go play. I had to miss a lot of football games and things like that. In college though, it’s not quite as bad, although sometimes you miss out on Thursday and Friday night fun. Although I’m not a huge basketball fan, I like to go see the Redbirds play and sometimes I miss out on that too.