Almost everyone on the Pirates agrees. Individually, the hockey players have the speed, handling, and aggression. Offensively on the ice, the WWP-South players cover the puck hard and bring it swiftly down to a shot. But transforming that move into a multi-pass play becomes another matter.##M:[more]##
This depth of individual talent has scarcely proved an embarrassment to the Pirates. With an admirable 8-5-2 record, they muscle through their games leaning heavily on a strong offensive arm. But when, as happened with their 8-0 victory over Ewing, half the goals were slammed in by senior forward Jeff Katz, word gets around. “It’s frustrating,” says coach Brian McGurney. “The opponents know Katz is the lead scorer so they instantly double team and key off of him.”
Yet no one who has watched the Pirates on the ice sees a one-man offense. Junior Jon Reece at center and senior left wing Max Stember-Young have both been been powerful play makers and scorers. Reece, who has played hockey competitively for nine years, very much sees the need for team play. “We just have a lot of, well, diversity here. We’ve so many types of characters here, that it’s hard for us all to pull together,” he says.
Despite being a mere six months past a broken pelvis, Stember-Young cuts a swift and aggressive path towards the goal. While he admits to being yet another of the Pirates’ cavalier individuals, he agrees with Reece in the need for teamwork. “We depend too much on the play makers. Sometimes it’s Jeff (Katz), sometimes it’s Jon (Reece,) but we let them take it alone.”
While the offense boasts a few strong leaders, coach McGurney could wish for a greater depth of experience in the upcoming players. The same is true defensively. Senior Jamie Carnegie has provided the Pirates with a solid wall against oncoming opponents, but here again, his fellow players admit to leaning on him heavily to break up the shot.
As the Pirates ease onto the Mercer rink ice warming up for their 9:45 p.m. practice, goalie Chris Kazi makes a restless series of figure eights before his goal. His 10 years of competitive hockey have included stints at Iceland rink and with the Lawrence Flames, a club team for whom he still plays.
According to Kazi, “a good goalie needs speed on the ice, very sharp reflexes and a sense of his place — knowing where the play is in relation to you.” Kazi seems to have it. As the offensive players line up for shot drills, puck after puck comes flying at the heavily padded Kazi. With stick, paw and even helmet he fends off an impressive majority of these short range attempts.
“We’re a good team, but we’re small,” states Kazi. “Our problem is that we need to be more physical out there.” This from an athlete who endured a concussion last year after taking two head shots in one Iceland game.
No one doubts that hockey by nature is a physical game. Set a batch of boys all gliding on the slick stuff toward one single black spot and hard collisions are inevitable. Famed l920s Notre Dame football coach Knute Rockney noted that while football may be violent, at least it’s not like hockey, “where you’ve got a bunch of Irishmen armed with sticks.”
And yet increasingly, into this body-slamming realm come the ladies. This year’s Pirates freshman Samantha So and sophomore Amanda Yates are scarcely the first women to skate with the Pirates.
By the time So and Yates finish padding up in thick gloves and all the body armor, they are distinguishable from the gentlemen only by small pony tails poking out from behind their helmets. When girls first began to play on WWP hockey teams, the boys stated that they played protectively, keeping their female players out of harms way. Not so now.
“These girls take their hits,” says coach McGurney. “And while they may not be as physical as the guys, they make up for it. I’d say Samantha So may just be the smartest play reader on our team.” The girls themselves no longer see their femininity as enigmatic. When asked how it is to be a girl on a boys hockey team, the smiling . So responded, “Oh, it’s easy.”
Somehow the skill and brute force seem to balance out, a fact noted by High School North, which played the Tiger Lilies, a local girls club in an exhibition game this preseason and lost.
As the team lines up for drills, coach McGurney skates among those waiting their turn and flips pucks playfully at them with the warning, “You’ve always got to be alert on the ice.” It is all part of McGurney’s strive-at-play theory of practice. “Mr. McGurney’s the best — a real character,” says Reece, “He really keeps the practice alive.”
McGurney’s own hockey experience began in his Newtown, Pennsylvania home town where he played wing man for the local high school. He continued to play for Kutztown University, from which he graduated in 1995 with a Bachelors in special education. He currently teaches at Grover Middle school.
About 8,”000 years ago by archeological estimate, when the first man sharpened reindeer bones into blades and lashed them to his feet, he discovered that skating was fun. Caesar’s Roman legionaries who made skates of similar materials to transport themselves across England’s frozen rivers are reported to have strayed enmass from the line of march to play on the ice. Ice was, and ever remains fun. And for his players today, coach McGurney wouldn’t change the ancient tradition a hair.
“The number one thing I want for my players out there is to have fun,” says McGurney. “We’re not going to win any state titles this year, but hopefully the players are walking away with some new skills, a great sense of camaraderie, and a truly fun experience.”
If success can be measured by all the returning graduates who come back to recall their good times on ice, then coach McGurney is truly successful.
