By Lindsay Chung
Skates soared across the ice, bodies slammed against the boards, and the goalie’s glove flew to snatch pucks out of thin air. Unfortunately for the Immaculata boys contact hockey team, the goalie making the saves was too often at the other end of the ice.
The Immaculata Saints lost 3-2 against the St. Joseph Jaguars in the third and deciding game of their semi-finals on March 1. In this physical game, the two teams traded checks and goals until the Jaguars went ahead for good early in the final frame.
With the loss bringing their season to an end, Immaculata players and coaches can build on this year’s playoff success and look forward to next year.
In only their second year of existence, Immaculata is a young team without any Grade 12 players.
That bodes well for the future, since everyone, with the possible exception of captain Eric Deneen, will be back.
“In theory, (next season) should be pretty good,” coach Brent Hopkins said. “Plus, I don’t know about the Grade 9s coming in, but that should help.”
Like Don Cherry’s outfits, having a younger team can be good and bad.
The biggest advantage is the players will all have another year to gel together.
“If they have four years to get better, then that’s obviously a huge benefit,” Hopkins added.
He said the many ninth-graders on the team often have to make adjustments at the start of the season.
For some, the pace of the game could be faster than they are used to.
“A disadvantage for some of them is size,” he said. “They’re a lot smaller (than the older players) so it could be intimidating.”
Small or not, Immaculata didn’t give in to St. Joseph.
The heart-pounding close-scoring nature of the game mirrored the rest of the series that pitted the second-place Jaguars against the fourth-place Saints.
St. Joseph won the first game 4-1, before Immaculata came back and won the next one 4-3.
“It could have gone either way,” goalie Brad Thomas said following the final game. “We worked our butts off. They got a few lucky bounces, and that’s what took the series for them.”
Forward Ruslan Yanishevesky, an eleventh-grader, wasn’t quite so positive.
“We didn’t skate hard enough,” he said. “We got penalties we shouldn’t have.”
Most of the team’s players were proud of their season. Immaculata finished fourth in the seven-team league with five wins, three losses and two ties for 12 points.
That left them six points behind league champion Holy Trinity. Immaculata and Osgoode High School finished with identical records, but Immaculata fell to fourth on goal differential.
“I think (the season) went well,” Thomas said. “We had our ups and downs, but we’ve just got to work harder.”
Yanishevesky, one of the team’s top scorers, thought the team could have done better.
Hopkins believes the team’s biggest strength is its work ethic, which helped the team stay undefeated in its first four games,.and should continue to be a strength next season with all the returning players.
Next year will also provide plenty of time to work on defense and taking fewer unnecessary penalties.
However, Hopkins thinks the team needs to work most on improving its defensive play.
“We don’t have very many selfish players,” he added.
Grade 9 defenceman Colton Crabtree thinks the team will be hard to beat next year.
“We’ve got a quick team and a physical team too,” he said.
Crabtree agreed the team needs to work on getting the puck out of the zone but feels they had a great season.
“It’s too bad it’s over,” he said