Club of the week: Hampton Roads “Whaler Nation Mites and Squirts in New Era for Hampton Roads” MITES Last February a group of nine Mite house players were asked to make up a select team to enter the 1st Mite Beach Bash Tournament in Ocean City, MD. Some of these players had played together and some have been opponents, but for one weekend in February they took the ice as a team. They played four games and won them all, including the championship game against an experienced Montgomery-A travel team. These nine children would become the core of the 2014-15 Hampton Roads Squirt and first ever Mite travel teams. Brad Jones, who put this dream team together, along with Robert Rajnys, immediately began work on forming the Mite travel team, recruiting from all of Hampton Roads, to include players living as far away as Williamsburg and North Carolina. They spoke with parents, rented the Ice on their own to hold practices last spring and presented the idea to the Director of Hockey at Chilled Ponds. What followed were May tryouts, team selection and a dream becoming reality: Hampton Roads Whaler Nation had its first Mite Travel Team. The Mites practiced through the summer, five days a week, working on skating, skating and more skating. These nine players now have their uniforms, have had over 15 practices and intra-squad scrimmages, where their skills and skating have been challenged thoroughly, and have met those challenges with fantastic effort and enthusiasm, always with a smile, eager to learn more and push harder. Now it is time for games, and we could not be more excited for this team to compete in the upcoming CBHL Upper Patrick Season, bringing Mite teams from Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia to Hampton Roads for the first time. Kayden, Peter, Robbie, Taylor, Jackson, Travis, Cole, Samuel and Miami are also looking forward to winning tournaments in Ocean City, MD, Hershey PA, and Laurel, MD. SQUIRTS The 2014-1015 Squirt Whalers are a club destined to bring back a proud squirt level tradition that’s lain dormant for far too long. That tradition transcends wins & loses, goals scored or saves made. That tradition is a group of 9 & 10 year old players who play like one fine-tuned, well-oiled machine. That tradition is playing like a team. From the first game of the July tournament, Chilled Ponds knew they had a special group of young men and women adorning the familiar blue and white whale tale. After being shut out in game one, the undersized, overmatched squad didn’t crawl into the locker room and blame the loss on summer rust. Instead, they regrouped, came back strong in the following two games and used superior teamwork to vanquish the same team that had so easily blanked them just the day before to proudly raise a well-earned championship banner. This philosophy of unselfish teamwork as well as focus beyond their years has noticeably carried over to each and every practice and game. The future is indeed bright for this rowdy band of brothers and sisters as they look forward to a fun season of ups and downs, wins and losses and most importantly the pride they feel wearing the Whaler blue. Hail to the Whale!
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 13:20:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015