The Upper Montgomery Lightning have returned to the ice! The 2023 – 2024 regular season is just around the corner. It’s time to play hockey. Pre-season evaluation sessions and practices have begun. The 27 Lightning student athletes are looking forward to building off of last season’s historic accomplishments. Qualifying for the state playoffs for the first time in program history is a realistic opportunity for Upper Montgomery.
With an experienced roster dominated by seniors and juniors, the team is primed to meet these high expectations. The Lightning begin the season ranked fifth in the Montgomery Hockey Conference rankings. This is the highest ranking ever achieved by the program. The challenge that awaits the team is that the program will face off against all of the top teams in the league. The season schedule is awaiting release, but the Lightning will face the other top teams in the conference to kick off the season. Anticipated early season matchups will be against the defending state champion Walter Johnson Wildcats, the state championship game finalist Churchill Bulldogs, the BCC Barons, and the Whitman Vikings. Together, with Upper Montgomery, these five teams are likely battling for the four state playoff spots that are awarded to the Montgomery Hockey Conference each season.
The Upper Montgomery program has twelve skaters that are only eligible to play in varsity competition, many of whom also play on high level AA or AAA external travel hockey teams. The coaching staff will be supplementing the varsity squad with student athletes that have thus far historically played the majority of their high school hockey career at the junior varsity level. Look for the game day roster to fluctuate all season long based upon which student athletes are healthy scratches as they are out of state with their external travel teams competing in out-of-town games or tournaments. The depth of the Lightning roster is finally able to handle one or two student athletes missing a game here or there.
The junior varsity season will begin in early October with an opening game against Whitman, the team that knocked Upper Montgomery out of the junior varsity playoffs last season. The junior varsity will have fourteen skaters and incoming 9th grade netminder Ilan Shterenberg handling the goaltending duties. The team should be much better than last year’s junior varsity squad as there is a significant amount of experience returning on defense. The junior varsity games may be lower scoring than last season as the team uses its defensive strength to focus on preventing the opposition from scoring. The big change in the junior varsity season will be the additional length of the periods, now fifteen minutes up from twelve minute periods that had been played in previous seasons. There will also be several nighttime junior varsity games scheduled throughout the season.
Look for the Upper Montgomery Lightning season preview in next month’s blog.
#Our Time, #UML, #Bleed Green, #Go Bolts!