COVID. The pandemic has presented immense challenge to all of us in so many ways and continues to be part of our everyday lives at home and at work. For student athletes playing hockey across New England, the challenges were varied by conference and institution. While some programs managed to find continuity with some games and/or team practices for the 2020-21, not all were able to create the desired team environment nor participate on the ice in a productive or culture-building way for new recruits joining the program. Among the NESCAC schools, who saw their season canceled early by the institution Presidents, Amherst is one of few that saw unique challenges that now create different opportunities in the 2021-22 season that has just commenced.
“It has been surreal,” said head coach Jack Arena. “We had nine players on campus last fall, just nine. That number by institution guidelines was too large to have at one practice so we skated in multiple sessions. When the season was canceled and the kids came back from break, the ice had been taken out, so we did not have a place to continue skating for last season. Based on last year’s first-year class and now the new players joining this year, we had 15 players on the ice in October that had never been in a college practice nor coached by this staff. It has really made us look at our approach and building our culture into a group of players that hasn’t had the continuity of the past – not as a group. This is a very unique year for sure and it will be interesting to see how other teams in the league deal with varying degrees of activity over the past year.”
Last week the Mammoths opened their season on the road against Hamilton and, in typical Amherst fashion, scored a power play goal to take a 1-0 lead in the first period. Unfortunately, the Continentals answered back with five goals over the final 41 minutes of play, including a goal in the final minute of the first period and a goal in the final second of the second period for a convincing 5-1 win.
“We are going to have to develop our game quickly,” noted Arena. “We have seen some progress in practice, and it was a benefit to start a couple weeks earlier than usual to give us more prep time, but practice and game situations are different. We are scheduled at home against St. Michael’s on Tuesday who have had their own COVID protocol challenges to start the season. If we don’t get that game [on schedule for 11/23], we have a very difficult schedule starting against Utica on Friday. Depending on that outcome we either get Massachusetts-Boston or Geneseo and then Trinity, Wesleyan, Middlebury and Williams all on the road before we play another home game. We are going to have a young team learning as they go, and the early season schedule will certainly challenge us to improve quickly.”
St. Michael’s opened their season this past weekend after several postponements to start the season. The Purple Knights have two games under their belt so far with a 5-2 win over Franklin Pierce and a 4-2 loss to Assumption. The Mammoths would certainly like to take advantage of playing a home game Tuesday afternoon before the Thanksgiving holiday and embarking on a road trip to Utica for their Thanksgiving Tournament this weekend.
