Whalers Ice Hockey, Winners of Three Straight, Appear To Be Turning a Corner

The Whalers ice hockey team appears to be turning a corner.

After starting the season 1-7, the first-ever South Fork based scholastic freshman team that includes seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders from the East Hampton, Pierson and Southampton school districts have won three straight games, the latest a 7-3 nonleague victory over Longwood on December 18 at Buckskill Winter Club in East Hampton. The Whalers had defeated Patchogue-Medford, 14-2, on December 6 and West Islip, 11-6, on December 9. They faced Longwood again, this time a league game, Friday night at The Rinx in Hauppauge, results of which occurred too late to appear in this week’s article.

The Whalers jumped out to a 5-0 lead through most of two periods in last week’s game at Buckskill before Longwood put a couple in the goal to make it a game. But the Whalers came right back and potted a few goals to ice the game in the third.

Max Goldstein and Andrew Wetter, who have been leading the team in scoring all season long, did so in last week’s game. Goldstein, a Pierson freshman, finished with a hat trick, while Wetter, a Southampton freshman, scored two goals.

Both Goldstein and Wetter were named to Suffolk County High School Hockey League All-Star teams and will play in the All-Star Game at The Rinx in Hauppauge on Thursday, December 26. Wetter, prior to Friday night’s game, was sixth in the freshman division in scoring with 17 points (12 goals, 5 assists). Goldstein was 10th with 15 points (7 goals, 8 assists). Southampton seventh-grader Luka Pisano was not named to the All-Star team, but does rank 15th in the division in scoring with 13 points (8 goals, 5 assists).

Pierson freshman Quinlan Reilly also scored a goal in last week’s win over Longwood as did East Hampton seventh-grader Hunter Harrington. East Hampton freshman Leontios “Teddy” Teryazos made a dozen saves in goal.

“It was a pretty good game. A little gritty,” Whalers head coach Bryan Wish said. “Both teams were taking some runs at each other, which made it a tough game overall. But everyone had a good time and we had a decent crowd there at Buckskill. We had a bunch of people come out to watch the game. And the weather held up for the most part. There was some rain for the beginning of the second period for a few minutes, otherwise we had some drizzle here and there.”

Wish said his team does have another nonleague game scheduled for Buckskill on Sunday, January 12, against Patchogue-Medford at 6 p.m. All league games are required to be played at The Rinx in Hauppauge.

Wish said that it’s good to see his team start to pick things up and play better overall. Since the season began in September, Southampton Ice Rink has opened up, which has led to more practice time both there and at Buckskill, which has certainly helped.

One thing the team has run into, which is a common occurrence specifically in Suffolk County, is that travel or club hockey play takes precedence for many, if not most players, over school play. That has led to the Whalers being shorthanded for a few games here and there due to players going to play for their travel teams when conflicts arise. Wish said in one instance this season against St. Anthony’s, he was missing seven players.

The problem, Wish said, stems from when the games are played. A few years back, SCHSHL games were played primarily on Mondays and Wednesdays, which worked well, he said, because travel teams would practice Tuesdays and Thursdays and play games on the weekends. But now SCHSHL games are primarily played Friday-Sunday — 14 of the Whalers’ 20 league games are scheduled on the weekends currently, which create such conflicts.

Some players can make both travel and school games if the logistics line up, if, for instance, a player has a travel home game in the afternoon and a school game at night. But it is certainly a challenge, Wish said.

“It tends to happen more with the older, stronger players on the team,” he said. “But this is not just a Whalers problem, this is leaguewide. It just so happened when we played St. Anthony’s that game, they didn’t have many conflicts, whereas we did. There have been a couple of forfeits in the league, and I’m not sure it’s because of that directly, but it probably had something to do it with it.

“There are areas in Upstate New York and even out of state that start their travel season at the end of November, at which time they pause their school season so they don’t run into such problems,” Wish continued. “Then they start the travel season back up at a later time. It’s called a split season, but they don’t do that here in Suffolk.”

One thing that at least the younger players on the team have come to find is that the freshman division, that again includes seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders, is a ninth-grade dominated division. The older, bigger, faster players certainly have the upper hand, Wish said, which he knew coming into it. But for a program that is seventh-grade heavy, it’s been a bit of a learning curve for them.

Part of that, Wish said, is that the seventh-graders play 12-and-under travel hockey, in which there is no hitting or checking allowed at all. But on the school level, in the freshman division, checking is allowed, which creates a much different game for them.

“This league, it’s about a year early for them and very new to them,” Wish said. “Having been familiar with the league the past couple of years, I knew that to be the situation coming in, and that for some of them it might take longer to adapt. They’re playing with and against players who are 14 years old, maybe even 15, and playing with contact, and so those two years are definitely challenging.

“But those younger guys on our team are definitely starting to look better, look more confident with the puck on the stick and less hesitant, and they’ll all grow through that which I think will be a big help for us,” he added. “Those seventh-graders perform well at the 12U level, but then going up to the school game where the other players might be huge in comparison can definitely be challenging. Seventh-graders definitely don’t dominate this league, but they’ve got something to contribute, and as they gain more confidence they get better and better.”