As the Upper Montgomery Lightning have reached the mid-point of the 2021-2022 season, the coaches reflected on how they view the team’s progress thus far and look ahead to the remainder of the season. After soundly beating the Wilson Stars coming out of the winter break, the team now has a 5-3-1 record on the season and is poised to earn its first ever division one playoff appearance.
Question—What are your thoughts about the first half of the season? How would you evaluate the Upper Montgomery Lightning hockey program?
Answer—Overall we are very happy with how the team has played and progressed during the early portion of the season. Starting off with three hard fought one goal losses to three very good teams and then coming back to have a six game unbeaten streak, 5-0-1 since then shows the team’s growth and determination. If you look at our varsity roster, about 2/3’s of our student athletes are 9th or 10th graders. While everyone playing is high school aged, there is still a large difference in size and strength from when you are 14/15/16 years old to when you are 17/18 years old. On top of that, we have had a very limited number of practices and with student athletes coming from six different high schools and several different hockey clubs it takes a while to jell. Not having had very much time to play together it took a bit of time for everyone to play as a coordinated team. Our goal from the beginning of the season has been to qualify for the division one playoffs and with continued hard work, we should get there.
Question—And for the junior varsity?
Answer—Our junior varsity student athletes and the junior varsity games have been so much fun. We love that the junior varsity student athletes come out and just love to play the game of hockey. They go out when called upon and play hard. It seems like everyone on the bench is just as happy when we score as the student athlete who actually scored the goal. Junior varsity student athletes work hard and give it their all each shift of every game. The coaches have been using the junior varsity games to coach up the student athletes since we have not had many practices. The team is growing, and the student athletes have been really listening to the instruction they have been provided and they have been trying to implement what we are teaching them. Lately, we have been talking about playing smarter rather than harder and anticipating the game rather than reacting when on the ice. This is much different than how many of them have been coached in their prior seasons. We are encouraged watching the team go out each game as they learn to incorporate what we are coaching them into game play.
Question—What, or who, has been the biggest surprise thus far?
Answer—Everyone has progressed nicely since last season or since spring hockey. The entire team dynamic has changed since last year. Last year’s games would normally be somewhat close on the scoreboard, but we would be outplayed and outshot considerably, sometimes as much as five to one in shots on goal. The team survived with Hall of Fame netminder Jonas Clark in net keeping the games respectable. This year, we have controlled the games that we won in all aspects (offense, defense, and in net) and even controlled the play for good parts of the games that we have come up just short.
Question—And for the junior varsity?
Answer—We don’t usually like to point out any student athletes in particular, but the two Josh’s come to mind. Josh Nadler is a 9th grader and looked good in spring hockey. He has really stepped up on the ice and as a leader for the junior varsity team. Joshua Miller is a senior but did not play last season in our first year coaching the team, so we hadn’t seen him play before. He has come in and really added a spark to the junior varsity team with his speed and anticipation. It is good for the younger student athletes to see how he plays. We are happy with how everyone has progressed overall.
Question—What area needs the biggest improvement for the team to reach its full potential in the second half of the season?
Answer—The coaches have been talking with the student athletes about playing with a sense of urgency every second of every shift regardless of what the score is or who we are playing. We ask the team to visualize the last couple of minutes of the Blair game, when we flew around the ice, pulled our goalie, and scored two goals with several chances to get the third goal and tie the game, and to take that sense of urgency and play every shift that way. Other teams may have older, and higher level, travel team student athletes, but as Coach Scott says every game, “Hard work will beat better talent”. We need to be the team that outworks everyone else.
Question—And for the junior varsity?
Answer—Same thing for the junior varsity. We need to improve playing with that sense of urgency every shift. We need to try and win every shift, every race, every battle. We also want to see the team play with more confidence out there on the ice. Other than the Landon game, we have won or been in every game and can absolutely compete with all the other junior varsity teams in the league. Let’s play with the confidence of one of the better junior varsity teams in the league. Lastly, we need to work on anticipation rather than reacting. High school hockey is so much bigger and faster than what most of our young student athletes are used to playing and there is not enough time to react to the play on the ice. We need to anticipate what may happen to be in better position to make plays. The coaching staff would rather the team anticipate and be wrong, rather than be standing around playing it safe trying not to make a mistake.
Question—What are the team’s goals for the remainder of the season?
Answer—In all regards, we are a young team. We have a couple of seniors and juniors who have been a huge part of this team for the past three to four years, but the majority of our student athletes are 9th graders and 10th graders. We have heard of current middle school students that should be coming into the system and we continue to build towards the future. With that being said, our stated goal this season has been to make the division 1 playoffs this year. We want to face the best teams we can to finish out the season. We get better by playing the better teams, not by beating inferior teams.
Question—And for the junior varsity?
Answer—Our overall goal is to develop our junior varsity student athletes into future varsity contributors and that will continue to be our focus. Teaching and coaching the junior varsity how to play the right way, how to improve their game, and continue to develop up through the end of the season as we enter into the junior varsity playoffs. Each game is a valuable teaching tool so getting to play a couple of junior varsity playoff games and getting a sense of what is necessary to win in the playoffs is important for the development of our junior varsity student athletes.
Question—How big was the Whitman victory in terms of the growth of the program?
Answer—There is a stigma in the Montgomery Hockey Conference about the disparity in levels of the teams in division one versus division two. It was important for our team and our student athletes to see firsthand that they can compete with teams in the upper division. Even though Blair and Quince Orchard are in our division and are really good teams that we competed with toe to toe, it was important for our players to beat a good Whitman team who is in division one to know that we belong and that we have a bright future. The confidence from that win was invaluable.
Question—What would you tell student athletes eligible to participate with Upper Montgomery to get them excited for joining the team next season or playing with Upper Montgomery during the upcoming spring 2022 season?
Answer—First, taking away the game of hockey, the most important thing to be excited about is getting to come in and become teammates and friends with the rest of the students. Our student athletes are great young people, and they all get along so well. We have student athletes from six different high schools so it is a chance to meet and make new friends and play with teammates who you may not have had the chance of playing with before. From a hockey perspective, we are excited about where our program is headed. Two years ago, the team barely had enough student athletes to field a varsity team. We now have a full varsity team and almost a complete junior varsity team. We are working to develop our student athletes over the coming years to be one of the best high school programs in the county. Spring hockey is a great opportunity for new student athletes of the program and rising 8th graders to get a sense of the level of play in high school hockey. They can get a feel for the team and our style of play, start meeting your teammates for years to come, and allow the coaches to evaluate your game and start coaching you up before you actually start high school.
Question—What message would you like to communicate to the Upper Montgomery Lightning supporters and fan base?
Answer—Over the years our sons would leave MYHA practices early on Friday evenings just as the crowds of high school teams would be arriving to watch their classmates play hockey. We would stay and watch the high school games and you got such a sense of how different the atmosphere is with your classmates and friends in the stands cheering on your school and it was just incredible. We want our student athletes to get this same feeling. Last year was a season played under Covid restrictions and most games were limited to just one parent and no other fans. We are still in the midst of the pandemic, and everyone needs to be careful, but we can start to see things building this year. The first couple of games our supporters were mostly family a good amount of our junior varsity student athletes. We then noticed the next couple of game, more friends and classmates with green jerseys in the stands. Then we got to the Northwest game. Northwest is known for having a lot of fans at their games, but we looked over from the bench and saw a large crowd, mostly in green and white and even some signs posted around the glass. We can’t tell you how much of a boost this gave our student athletes and really gave us a big advantage. And it showed on the ice as well as we dominated against Northwest. It was no longer just about our team playing for themselves and their parents, but for their classmates, for their schools, and for the Upper Montgomery community. Please continue to come out and support, bring more friends and classmates, and cheer our student athletes on as we push to qualify for the division one conference tournament and then participate in the division two playoff tournament.