Royal hockey preview

As the Pavilion prepares for a grand re-opening, the Hopkins Royals boys and girls varsity hockey teams are preparing for the 2018-19 season. They seek similar goals and a common goal is improvement.

The girls’ season is underway already with a big 6-3 win at St. Louis Park’s outdoor rink against Orono.

The boys team looks to improve immensely this year and believes this is 100 percent obtainable.

“I am excited because every senior is ready to go off this year, and we are gonna have the best season that we have had in years,” said Ethan Myers, senior.

The veteran presence is strongfelt within the walls of the Hopkins Pavilion. Senior leadership from the girls and boys teams are going to have a great impact on this season, and the years to come.

“It feels different to be a leader as a senior, and know that I have a lot more control over how the season goes, but at the same time it is exciting,” Myers said.

Last season was a rough patch for both teams with the boys team going 0-4 in the Lake Conference, and 6-19 overall. Whereas the girls team went 1-7 in the Lake Conference, and 12-13 overall.

As the girls team is combined with St. Louis Park High School’s team, the captains this year consist of Mary O’Neil, senior, and Mary Gleason, SLP senior. The captains of the boys team are Sam Haberman, senior, and Henry Sweeney, senior.

Being a captain of any team in general is a big honor, and an extra workload for one. Living in the state of hockey, being a captain of your hockey team is one of the biggest roles to have in Minnesota high school athletics.

“Building and maintaining team chemistry is very important and as a captain I have to make sure we are going in the right direction on and off the ice,” Haberman said.

O’Neil agrees.

“I think my role has definitely changed this year as a captain and being one of just a few returning players it is up to me to help the younger players transition smoothly into high school hockey and feel included on the team,” O’Neil said.

O’Neil and Haberman also shared with the Royal Page on how the game plan looks compared to past years with first year head coaches, Ryan St. Martin (girls) and David Bakken (boys).

“We are playing a different system in both the offensive and defensive zones which I think will surprise our lake conference opponents and help us have more success in those games,”  O’Neil said.

Haberman agrees.

“This upcoming year is different. We have all worked hard in the off-season preparing for what is coming up and we are ready to show it,” Haberman said.

Both Royals teams play in arguably the toughest hockey conference in the country at the high school level, The Lake Conference. Since 2008, a Lake Conference team in both the boys and girls class AA level have won seven out of ten state championships.    

As the girls season has already kicked off, the boys season kicks off Friday, Nov.23 at 5:30 pm at Mankato East High School.

The girls took a victory in their first game this season, led by a hat-trick by Justina Valentini, freshman, and two assists from Maia Weiler, junior.