Great Falls, Mont. – After suffering a close overtime loss to one of the best teams in the nation, the University of Providence men's hockey team will look to rebound with a three-game home stand, starting tonight against Utah State at 7:30 p.m.

The Argos will take on the Aggies tonight, Brigham Young on Friday and Weber State on Saturday. The Argos have already beaten all three teams so far this season.

The Argos are coming off a disappointing weekend against Minot State, one of the top teams from Division 1 (the Argos compete at Division 2). The Argos lost 6-1 on Friday in a game where head coach Jeff Heimel questioned the teams effort. After starting down 0-4 in the first period on Saturday, the Argos responded with four unanswered goals in regulation, forcing overtime. Despite several good chances, they lost 5-4.

"It was encouraging that we were able to take Friday night and look at some things, look at our effort, and make a change," Heimel said. "When you look at Saturday night, I know we went down 4-0, but we played a really good first period. 80 percent of that period was in line with what we thought about fixing the night before. They are such a good team that if you make four mistakes, it's in the back of the net and you don't have anything to show for it and it looks worse than it is. To see us come back in the second was huge. There's two ways to go about that. You can quit and let excuses take over, or you can keep going and play hard. I thought we bounced back pretty well there. We had some good chances in overtime to win it. With how good that team is, the fact they're established and also a division above us, I think we come out of the weekend feeling pretty good about our effort on Saturday night against the best team we've played all year."

Heimel says the team has responded well to the weekend in practice this week, and is looking forward to showcase that over the course of the next few days.

"We ended the weekend on a high note as we come back into conference play this week," Heimel said. "We improved our progress. I think the team is in good spirits. We've had a good week of practice and I'm excited to see how things are going to shake up."

Despite the fact that the Argos have already defeated the Aggies, Heimel wasn't particularly pleased with how his team played. He's hoping the weekend has taught the team on the importance of playing a complete game.

"We were a little undisciplined in that game," Heimel said. "We felt like we had lapses there. From the rest of the weekend, we played pretty well against the other teams. Specifically, we want to play a full 60 minutes."

"I'm excited," he said. "Three games in three days - it's a lot of hockey and it's a lot of fun. I think we're up to the challenge."