The club roller hockey team's motto may be "It's easy to score when you go back door," but right now they'd love to go through any door that leads to a roller rink in Ann Arbor.

Currently, the team's home arena is in Canton - about 15 minutes outside of Ann Arbor.

"This sport really didn't even exist 10-15 years ago," sophomore Paul Czarnecki said. "But before a potential varsity status, one of the biggest things for us is a home roller hockey rink on campus. We don't have one, and other teams do. Yet we're Michigan, you know? And having a rink on campus would help us draw attention to the team."

Czarnecki's concerns are shared by senior Jeff Wheeler, who is the team's president. Wheeler feels the team is in a catch-22, unable to get fan support because there is no rink near campus and unable to get funding for a rink because of a lack of fan support.

"Here's the bottom line: If we don't have a home rink, on campus or near it, within 10 minutes of students, we cannot flourish in any real way at this university," Wheeler said.

For now, though, the team has been successful behind its strong depth at goalie.

All talk of the goalie situation starts with freshman Adam Goldberg. The similarity of his name to the goalie Greg Goldberg of the Mighty Ducks movie was not lost on his teammates.

"It started right from day one at tryouts," Czarnecki said. "Someone found out his name was Goldberg, and the jokes started playing. 'Wait your name is Goldberg, and you're a goalie? Goldberg the goalie.' "

Once the team got past the Mighty Ducks jokes, Goldberg won the No. 1 spot, posting a 3-4 record since then.

Czarnecki, who played club ice hockey last year but switched to roller hockey in hopes of more playing time, has gone 3-0 in the net.

"Well, the coaches told all of the goalies at the beginning of the year that he thought we were all roughly equal, and that he was having a hard time deciding who's gonna play where," Czarnecki said. "But that he was going to kind of pick an order for us guys and try to stick with it."

Sophomore Ricky Winowiecki, the main goalie on the B, or junior varsity team, won the only game he played for the A team. Both Goldberg and Czarnecki have seen time on the B team as well.

Throw in last year's No.1 goalie, junior Daniel Mooney, who could start practicing soon after missing all of the season thus far, and the goalie controversy just grows.

When the team travels to St. Peters, Mo., this weekend to play in the Winter National Invitational Tournament, Czarnecki expects to split playing time with Goldberg, with a slight edge to Goldberg. But Czarnecki knows what he must do to earn playing time.

"I always try to give it my best in practice, and certainly in games, because no one's spot is really guaranteed," Czarnecki said. "At least for me anyways, I know it makes me work a little extra harder."

In front of whoever's manning the net for the Wolverines, the rest of the team plays a conservative game.

"We are a puck control team, always looking to make a pass back to the D rather than dumping the puck in the corner," sophomore Scott Janowiak said. "If you get in trouble getting out of the zone, send it back behind the net and break it out again. Look for good shots or good chances, not bad angle shots or long shots. Basically, our philosophy is, if they don't have the puck, they won't score."

Said Wheeler: "We have a very controlled game, very systematic. We're definitely not a run 'n' gun team, which is more common in the eastern conferences. We're a very controlled team. We focus on bringing out the puck. Puck control is key. We're a small team We have to rely on our speed and our puck control."

The team's slow-it-down strategy has put them in third place in the Midwest Collegiate Roller Hockey League with a 7-4 record.

"We are a hardworking team," Janowiak said. "We don't have one person that will skate the puck the whole length of the floor. We are a team. We pass the puck and do what's best for the team."

Three of Michigan's losses were to its nemeses in the green and white. Two were to Michigan State, and the third to Eastern Michigan. Those two schools are national powerhouses combining for a record of 22-1 this season. The one loss came when the two teams met against each other.

"We always step up for the games against State and Eastern, and we play very well against them, even though the score doesn't show it," Janowiak said.