The EHHS Boys Varsity Hockey team has a record of 12-0 as of January 17, 2024. The hockey team consists of a Co-Op team including EHHS, Sheehan High School, Lyme-Old Lyme High School, East Hampton High School, Morgan High School, and Valley Regional High School). The team captains include EHHS senior, John D’Albero, EHHS senior, Michael Savo, Sheehan senior, Michael Fritz, and Lyme/Old Lyme senior, Griffin McGlinchey.
A Co-Op athletic team is a team which consists of players from outside schools joining together with the host team to make one large team because the outside schools do not have enough players to have a full team. This is the first year that EHHS has joined Sheehan High School in Co-Op, but this is not the first year that EHHS has joined with other schools. EH hockey has been a Co-Op team for about five years now.
The decision to Co-Op with Sheehan was not easy, but the idea came about at the ending of last year’s hockey season. Senior captain, John D’Albero says that both teams began talking at the end of last season with EHHS being in need of a goalie and the coaches and schools decided it would be a good fit for both teams to join together.
The record for the 2022-23 season was 4-9-2. This means that they had four wins, nine losses, and two ties. The overall record for the 2023-24 season is much better than last year seeing as the team is undefeated this year and hoping to stay that way. Both EHHS varsity captains believe that the team has been affected positively by the new Co-Op by just looking at the statistics of our record. Not only has the record been affected positively, but Senior captain Michael Savo believes that the overall energy of the team is better and even their locker room environment has improved. D’Albero believes that the team is much more determined to win this year and has the confidence to make it further in states compared to last year.
With joining these two whole teams together comes the problem of having so many players on the roster. There are 36 plays on the roster, but this does not mean that all of them dress each game. There is a Varsity and JV team within the complete roster. The players who made varsity at the beginning of the season will be dressed every game, but there are some extra spots that may be filled by JV players depending on how they practiced during the week. Savo says, “If the JV guys have practice well throughout the week they have the chance to dress varsity. It’s like a battle for the JV kids.”
As the season continues the boys will face many battles, but are hoping to continue to stay undefeated and finish their amazing season. The next game will be this Saturday, January 20th at 7:30 p.m. at the Northford Ice Pavilion.
