December 5, 2011
Coach’s Corner
As we move in to the month of December, it is hard to believe that a third of the season is over already. We currently sit at 8-6-2 overall and if I had one word to describe our play this far – it would be inconsistent. There have been times when we appear to be heading in the right direction, only to take a couple of steps backwards.
December will be a challenging month for the team as we play twelve games against very good competition. Highlighting the month will be an outdoor game at the newly opened Penguins Pond at Southside Works. The Pittsburgh Penguins constructed this facility as a legacy to last year’s NHL Winter Classic. Our Junior Varsity and Varsity teams will play there December 14th. The JV’s will take on Pine Richland while the varsity team will play long time rival Bethel Park.
At the end of the month we will travel over to Cleveland for the St. Edward Eagle Classic which has some great teams in the tournament this year, so we will be tested often this month.
Scoring goals continues to be the biggest challenge for our team and much of our practices now focus on that aspect. Eric Shilling has been excellent in goal for us through the early part of the season. We have played several younger players more than I had originally thought I might. However, as they have adjusted to bigger, older and stronger opponents, I see progress with these younger kids and they are pushing some of our older players for more ice time.
I believe it will take until late January/early February until we really find our identity as we experiment with line combinations and defense pairings on a weekly basis.
Over the Thanksgiving break we had our annual Alumni Game. It was a departure from the normal time of year (Christmas) when we usually play the game.
I apologize to any and all former players who did not receive word that we had moved the game to the night before Thanksgiving. It was my error not to advertise the game better. That said we still had close to 40 players and we are giving thought to keeping the game at Thanksgiving for next year – either on the Wednesday night or the day after Thanksgiving. I promise we will do a better job of getting the word out to everyone.
Happy Holidays,
Jamie Plunkett
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