Season in photos
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- March
- 16
Here’s a look back at the top story lines from the past three months. Please use the comments section for anything I left out.
1. Back 2 Back
Brett Jackson (left) scored twice as Mamaroneck defeated White Plains 4-1 to win its second straight sectional title. After losing two of its first three league games, the Tigers went on a 22-game unbeaten streak, and in the final regular season game, Sean Hagan scored with 18 seconds left to defeat Suffern at Sport-O and clinch the League 1 title.
2. Pelham overcomes Rye
Rye defeated Pelham twice in the regular season, but Pelham got them back in the Division II final, defeating the two-time defending sectional champions thanks to outstanding defense and two goals from surprise senior Adrian Rivera. The Pelicans pre-season goal of getting back to Utica was about to be realized.
3. Dub Set
White Plains was this close to its first sectional title in 30 years, tied with eight minutes left in the sectional final. The Tigers beat three top-five teams in the state (Mamaroneck, Suffern and Clarkstown North) and finished a strong third in its first season in the power league. The wins against Suffern were its first against the Mounties in the program’s 40-year history, while the playoff win against North came after the team fell behind 4-0.
4. Record breaker
Matt Willows had 87 goals and 138 points this season, breaking the previous state records of 80 and 134 set by Byran Gitler of Scardale in the ‘03-’04 season. Teammate Jake Shuman also finished with 69 assists, the second-most in state history behind former North star Joe Herman, who had 80 in ‘03.
5. Twice as hard
Responding to accusations that Stepinac was just “half a team,” defenseman Ken Kauffman said: “that just means we play twice as hard.” The Crusaders had just 12 players and were predicted by many to miss the playoffs, but Stepinac tied for the regular-season title and made it back to CHSHL finals.
6. All-state honors
Sean Hagan of Mamaroneck (left) became the first player in Section 1 history to win Player of the Year honors (the award was started in 1996). “I’m the luckiest defenseman in the whole state,” teammate Adam Zweig said. “I have the big guy right there to back me up.” Luke Glaser, Matt Willows and Marc Flory were also selected to the first team. In all, a record 14 area players were honored, six more than last year, a sign of the respect that local hockey is gathering around the state.
7. Rising programs
Eastchester/Tuckahoe/Bronxville, a League 5 team just two years ago, finished a strong second in League 2. Sleepy Hollow/Irvington tied White Plains. Ossining never gave up more than three goals in a game (including a 3-2 loss to Mamaroneck). Lakeland/Panas, with basically one senior regular, with less than a minute from beating Mahopac in the sectional quarterfinals. White Plains broke the Mamaroneck-Suffern-Pelham-Rye stranglehold at the top this year. Who will be next?
8. West Point
Section 1 went to a neutral site for the finals for the first time in 20 years. Though fans originally grumbled about the travel, and the planned doubleheader was snowed out, I think the final verdict was clear — Tate Rink is the premier facility in the area, and holding the championships there gave them a big-time feel similar to basketball week at the County Center.
9. The Aud
Only four teams from Section 1 had ever made it to the state final before Pelham and Mamaroneck came to Utica and qualified this year. Mamaroneck avenged its OT loss to Massena last year by beating the Red Raiders in double OT this year, while Marc Flory scored five goals as Pelham avenged an earlier defeat to then-No. 2 Queensbury with a 6-2 win. Mamaroneck then blew past Niagara-Wheatfield while Pelham came back to defeat Burke Catholic in the semis.
Mamaroneck lost a heartbreaking game to Greece Athena/Odyssey in the state final — the Thunder were the first undefeated state champs since 1992 — while Pelham lost to No. 1 New Hartford, the best DII team the state has seen in years. That left Suffern’s 1992 champions (left, being inducted into the hall of fame) as Section 1’s only state champion.
10. Next year
No longer will Mamaroneck and Suffern battle it out for League 1 titles. For that matter, neither will Pelham and Rye. Or Mahopac and White Plains. There will likely be no more power league next year. Instead, budget cuts have forced the athletic directors to split the section into four geographically-based conferences. Hockey officials are trying to get arena-based leagues, but for now, here are your leagues next year. No matter what happens, there will be a totally different landscape from the power-league system we’ve enjoyed for years:
Conference I (8 teams): Yorktown, Lakeland/Panas, Carmel, Mahopac, Kennedy/Putnam Valley, Pawling/Dover, Brewster, Ossining
Conference II (7 teams): White Plains, Scarsdale, Mamaroneck, New Rochelle, Sleepy Hollow/Irvington, Pelham, E/T/B
Conference III (8 teams): Greeley, Fox Lane, John Jay, Somers/North Salem, Byram Hills, Rye Town/Harrison, Rye, Mount Pleasant
Conference IV (6 teams): Clarkstown North, Clarkstown South, Nyack/Tappan Zee, North Rockland, Pearl River, Suffern
That probably depressed some people, so I’ll leave you with two of the best hits I saw all year. One was Mike Meigh in North Rockland’s 2-2 tie against North at Sport-O. The other was Matt Marr in the Division I final (update: so we didn’t photograph that hit. Instead here’s a collision from earlier in the game).
This entry was posted
on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 10:00 pm by Harold Gutmann. 
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more pics from…
mamk- greece
http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/thumbpage.aspx?e=4595512
mamk- niagra wheatfield
http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/thumbpage.aspx?e=4591369
pelham- New Hartford
http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/thumbpage.aspx?e=4595196
pelham- burke catholic
http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/thumbpage.aspx?e=4591016
Modicas hit vs New Rochelle was one of the biggest hits ive seen. The kids stick went flying.
Putting Rye and RTH in that league is silly. You wreck some great local rivalry, they both play at Playland and you INCREASE their travel cost/
Great wrap up, was an amazing season, as a WP fan I was very happy this year, and big hats off to both Pelham, and Mamaroneck, you guys should be very proud. I agree West Point is the perfect place, the travel is not that bad, if the weather cooperates.
Just to add too, Harold, you have done an amazing job, reporting, and keeping this blog going, everyone here will agree with that. I also want to thank the JN for bringing the games to the net, I happen to see the operation first hand, great job all around.
breaking us up from our rivals rye next year
? Conference II is gonna be brutal next year, a conference so deep, ETB, a very up and coming team, is one of the worst teams. I’d be annoyed if I was New Rochelle, I don’t think their hockey team will even be competitive in that conference.
From what I am hearing this conference thing is not a done deal. I would back off saying how many losses or how weak the big four might be next year. Suffern, Mamaroneck Rye and Pelham. All four have been at the top every year. Mamaroneck has depth right down to the 7th and 8th grade. Pelham always has heavy graduation and prep school losses and always lands on their feet. This years Pelham team was not deep past that first line first set of defense, they played a lot of under classmen and freshman.
Maybe something about S/NS comeback and finishing second after moving up a league for the first time in program history?
Congratulations to Joe Marasco for the all state honorable mention award
And to Mamaroneck and Pelham
Well for example and correct me if I am wrong, take Conference II Mamaroneck, 7 teams in conference…..Play a team twice home and away, that’s 12 games right there; they will probably play at least one other game in each conference to continue rivalries and to see how they rank in the section, e.g. Conference I = Mahopac; Conference III = Rye; Conference IV = Suffern. That’s 15 games..the state lowered the amount of games played from 24 to 20, that leaves 5 games to play out of the section and after following Mamaroneck, Pelham and Suffern all year that means you have 5 games to get exposure upstate and if you dont go upstate that will lower Section 1’s profile that we earned this year. Not going up there will mean lower State rankings and lower post season accolades. Take WP.. good team, beat some ranked teams in section 1, didn’t go upstate didn’t get ranked all year until the end.
This new set-up will work better if you are only required to play 1 game against each conference opponent.
With a 20 game maximum regular season that leaves you 13-14 games to schedule non-league competition suitable to your skill level or go upstate for tournaments.
For example Suffern, who should win Conference IV easily, could than schedule enough competition akin to the level of their program.
If they use these conferences for hockey, I hope they only require each team to play the others in the league one time. If Rye has to play 14 games in Conference III and they also schedule traditional rivals Mamo, Pelham, WP and Suffern, that doesn’t leave much room on the new 20 game schedule for upstate matches. Also, since these Conferences (esp Conference III and Conference IV) will be unbalanced with one team that should play at a level well above the others, matching unbalanced opponents 2X in a shortened season really dilutes the experience.
Gameface of the week. (Click my name)
In that pic, that is Thompson colliding with a WP player. Both players went down.
Marrs hit was brutal,with about a minute left in the game, Marr did not go down though. The WP kid definately had cobwebs after that one.
Thompson was one of Mamk’s hardest hitters this year.
Do you really think the Suffern power people will have it so Suffern has to waste precious games on non competitive games? I would say each team in each league will only play a league opponent once. No possibly way Suffern will play Pearl River and Nyack 2 times each. The weaker teams will have to find other weaker teams to play, and it will be up to their a.d.’s to OK the travel.
THis geographic system in high school hockey is flat our stupid, and saves little to no money.
With 20 games, each team will only travel 10 times, probably a few of those times the team will still play in the home rink because many teams share the same rinks. I mean really, have these brain surgeons done the math on this? Do you really think Mamaroneck and Pelham are NOT going to go to the Massena tournament again next year? The only people and teams this hurts is the weaker teams who will be forced to play non competitive games, and risk possible serious injury due to mismatches.
gp…yep.
The geographic conferences make sense for every sport but hockey. There are enough baseball, basketball, lax, soccer, etc. playing schools that you can have A and B divisions within each conference for those sports.
It’s funny how football gets the big exclusion. Their are more blowouts/mismatches in football than in any other sport. New Rochelle against any lower Westchester AA team is usually no contest.
How about New Ro vs. Rye or Harrison or Ossinning in football? Thats what fans would like to see.
Suffern will easily win the “Rockland” conference. But I’m not certain if they will be as good as they have been in the last few years.
They lose a lot of good seniors. The current junior class, with the exception of the one defensemen, have not been standouts. Can the goaltending continue be as good as Natoli and Gabriel?
Two current sophomores and one freshmen have made an impression. Their are probably others ready to step in.
Suffern always seems to reload, just this year there seem to be more unknown going into the next year.
Again, easy Rockland conference favorites, and top 5 section team (probably top 3). But I’d rank Mamo and White Plains as section 1 favorites next year especially if they can find adequate replacement goaltending.
Looks like Rye brings back most top players also and if the blog rumors of the goalie transfer are correct, they may be the top team also.
Rye
WP
Mahopac
Top teams next year
Scarsdale
ETB
It would be an absolute shame for the section to eliminate the power leagues. All the work of the coaches and the players through hard work and great games to put section 1 into the heirarchy of state hgh school hockey. Just to save a couple of bucks in transportation fees. which would reduce the section back to the “red headed step child” of the state.
As somebody who has spent his time in the lower leagues, i look forward to bashing every suffern stat anybody throws out next year. I’m sick of hearing, “oh, but they play in L2.” as an excuse to not recognize worthy players. So good luck telling people Jaeger is a great forward, cause all of his points are going to be against Pearl River and Nyack. I suggest the frequent suffern (and the few rye and pac) bloggers to start preparing themselves for that now, because next year players like Oliverio, Gluck, Prunesti, Pesce and whoever is still on ETB are going to get more credit then your guys.
I only wish next years diminished mamo and Pelham teams could go through it to.
League 2 scheduling is different. Please note that again all four teams in the final four of the sectionals were League 1 teams. So those teams have been and are better. There are of course outstanding players in all leagues but the best League 1 teams are clearly better. The last several years prove that
I am still holding a slim hope for keeping the power leagues and if not, at least home rink based geography Conferences. You could move SHI in to Conference IV, since their home ice is at SOR. The Legends would be the best competition for Suffern of all the teams that have home ice in Rockland. Then Rye and RTH could play in Conference II with all the other teams that have home rinks within a 10 mile radius of Playland. That way, you would have the same 8,7,7,6 team split out among four conferences. And only Conference IV would be significantly unbalanced. The only way to balance the Conference IV (Rockland) is to move Suffern to Conference II. A nine team Conference II would not be a bad thing because it would include lots of traditional rivalry games that would likely be booked anyway.
Sleepers- I wouldn’t exactly call ETB a sleeper. Everyone knows they have talent. It just depends on whether it shows up for games or not. Also, their goalies are one year more experienced than last season.
I like the Scarsdale pick for sleeper. Had a nice mid season run before fading down the stretch. Perhaps the mandated shorter season will help teams with a short bench. Gluck can stand on his head. Olivario can skate, but needs a side kick to create space for him like he had with Felix last season. Klein can play that role, but then who plays D?
My rankings for teams next year (depend on a few factors)
1. Mamaroneck
2. Suffern
3. Rye
4. Lakeland/Panas
5. Scarsdale
6. ETB
7. Mahopac
8. Pelham
9. Ossining
10. Brewster
Thats what I would chose if the teams remained exactly the same as they are projected to be, if a few very possible changes occured however I would rank them diffrently.
1. Rye (If goalie transfer does happen)
2. Mamaroneck
3. Suffern
4. Lakeland/Panas
5. Scarsdale
6. Mahopac
7. Ossining
8. Brewster
9. ETB (If Hagan decides to play juniors instead)
10. Pelham (If one or both of Harms and Dzenis goes to prep)
I forgot about Sleepy Hollow, I would acually through them in to around 6th on both of my lists.
I agree with “fanotgame” – Move SH/I to Confernece IV – Rockland.
I would move Rye out of Conference III and in to Conference II. Now Conference II & IV will have 7 games in conference.
top teams-
Scarsdale above Pac and ETB? lol
Not to mention you forgetting WP
Here’s what I think
1. Mamk
2. Suffern
3. WP
4. Rye
5. Pac
6. L/P
7. ETB
8. Pelham
9. Brewster
10. Scarsdale
Ta-Da-If you move Rye, you should also move RTH, since both play home games out of Playland.
hockeyfan- I generally agree with your list. It is interesting that your top 4 teams all have a question mark in goal, usually the most important position. Those 4 teams will each have deep benches, physical Dmen and a few skating snipers. That should mitigate any goalie issues those teams may have. To me, it will be interesting to see how teams like Scarsdale and Pac fare. They both have established golatending (Gluck and Fatone) combined with a skating sniper (Olivario, Mastracola). Didn’t those 4 play on the same Viper team a few years back? Scarsdale and Pac lack the depth of the top 4 listed above, but could cause some trouble.
All section team (14 players)
Forwards-Flory, Willows, Fine, Jackson, Hiller, Shuman, O’Connor
Defense- Hagan, Norwin, McGee, Meany
Goalies- Gabriel, Glaser
Thats what i think. Let me know what everyone else does.
hockeyfan,
You are right I forgot white plains, but remember they dont have any candidates for goalie next year as of now. In addition, Scarsdale is definately better than ETB next year even with hagan. Hagan is better than Oliverio, but Oliverio is still a bigtime scorer and Gluck is the best goalie in the section vs. ETB’s questionable goaltending. Ciotti is also very good, but i would rather have just Gluck than the Ciotti/mediocre goalie combo, after that both teams lack depth. As for Mahopac, it is basically Mastrocola and Fatone vs. Oliverio and Gluck and Oliverio is a little better than Mastracola and while Fatone is good, Gluck is clearly better. Also, is your list taking the likely changes I posted above or is it strictly based on what the teams have now?
league 2,
you are missing 1 more player, for the last spot I would add Bennicasa and also I would take out meany, S. hagan, o’connor and fine and add in ciotti, zweig, A. hagan and burdick/marasco
League 2
I have to add Mamone and Dzenis onto you’re all section list. Mamone was 3rd in scoring in league 1 and is the best passer and probably the best defensive forward in the league. Dzenis is the defensive leader and logged a ton of ice time is a great skater and is Pelhams best Dman.
Sorry but I think Pelham and Mamaroneck deserve a ton of recognition this year.
Rye without the goalie transfer will be very good, but if the transfer does come, watch out. They will own.
with transfer rye can go VERY far
Well Mamaroneck has a lot of kids with playing time coming back, they have a strong sophomore class, biggest thing is replacing Glaser in goal. If you got the time post your returnees, easier to gauge next years top teams.
Returning
Joe Naclerio 6-1 160 Junior F
Dean Chiapparelli 5-9 155 Sophomore F
Robby Gardiner 5-9 165 Sophomore F
Scott Hagan 6-1 175 Sophomore F
Matt Conner 6-1 160 Junior F
Sam Christiansen 6-2 205 Sophomore D
Tim Taussig 5-2 180 Junior D
Top Teams
I have seen both Oliverio and Mastrocola play hockey and
I have to disagree with you about Oliverio being better then Mastrocola. Mastrocola is an all around player while Oliverio is a one way player, also Mastrocola has more stamina then Oliverio and is faster. They are both great hockey player but differnt styles.
League 2- Your list has way too many Rockland players. The 4 Section finals teams were all from Southern Westchester.
Here’s my predictions for the Rockland league next year in the order they will finish:
1 – Suffern – I agree with everything Al said – they lose lots of solid Seniors. They will have to fill goaltending, 2nd line defense, and on the 1st andn2nd lines of offense there will likely be lots of new players.
2 – CN – I feel they have just enough to come in 2nd in this league, mainly because of the current Juniors that had good seasons this year. They will be returning their top 3 Defensemen, and they have a few other solid Juniors from this year that can score. Also, a couple sophomores on the team this year showed they can play and will probably make up the 2nd line of O next year. Goalie will be the issue, but McIndoe’s backup has played travel for years.
3 – CS – returns talent similar to CN (will be a Senior-oriented team). I put them below CN because the CN players have more experience playing against better competition in the upper leagues
4 – North Rockland – loses basically all their big guns – O’Conner, Meany, Nestle, Eberhardt, couple other solid D, etc. There is a HUGE dropoff after this Senios class in terms of points.
Pearl River and Nyack/TZ will probably battle it out for the last two spots.
I have no clue how they will rank the teams next year. If Suffern wins their league with a 10-0 record. and Mamaorneck wins their league (with much stronger competition) with a 8-2 record… will suffern be the #1 seed by record? Or will there be a coaches vote? Or will there be some other objective way to evaluate next years playoff seeding. While the power league structure was not perfect… it is a heck of a lot better than most other ways.
So frustrating that athletic directors ignorantly got their hands on this matter.
Did everyone know that EVERY athletic director got to vote on this? Even ones without hockey programs? Yes Mt. Vernon, Spring Valley, Peekskill, East Ramapo, Nanuet, Yonkers etc. All got to vote on this matter… AND GUESSS HOW THEY VOTED? They all voted to go geographic for hockey. Now how dumb is it that these people get to vote on something they know nothing about, and have no invested interest in it.
off the post,
I’m sure that Suffern will stay play Mamaroneck next year at least once, so that should help decide your hypothetical seeding question, although obviously the bigger question is how they will seed 1-16 with everyone playing such different schedules. I will try to find that out as we go further.
Also, I wouldn’t blame this just on the non-hockey ADs. The fact is there are 40 hockey schools, and only 16 ADs voted against the realignment (I think the total number of schools is around 80) — so even if all 16 came from hockey schools, more than 60 percent of the hockey ADs voted for it. Ask your AD how they voted and I think you’ll be surprised — I know for a fact that some of the biggest hockey schools voted for this plan.
H.G.
Could you try to find out how many conference games each team will play? 1x game in conference or 2x games in conference.
The Tigers had a great season and we’re really proud of them! We felt the Tigers shouldn’t have had all those penalties against Greece/Athena, but it doesn’t take away from one of the greatest group of players in our recent high school history.
Rockland league next year: Admiitedly the weakest of the 4 conferences
1 – Suffern – Still the strongest in RC. Most of the kids who didn’t play last year would be getting significant minutes on all other RC teams. Big question is can they be there usual forcefull self in the section.
It’s a rebuild year for the Mounties, they have only one significant senior returnee. Two years hence they will return to state-wide prominence.
2 – Pearl River – My sleeper pick. Good strong junior forwards returning (Brennen and Conway). But mostly I like their freshmen goaltender (Hunt). This is the weakest position in the whole county next season and he could be the best in RC next season.
3 – North Rockland – I like their depth better than CN or CS. Meigh, D’Alisera, D’Melio, Debellonia, Hoehn, some decent young defensemen. Lots of travel hockey kids from Bear Mountain and Capitals. Goalie ???
4 – CN – This years junior line will carry them through. Kapnick, Cohen, Vela. Byrnes is now the best defensemen in RC. The returning back-up goalie will be more than adequate. Still have the age-old CN problem – NO DEPTH.
5 – CS – Great scoring combo in Jacobs & Myers. Have a respectable senior class returning. Need much better goaltending than they have been receiving.
6 – N/TZ – Coming off a respectable year. Losing John Garcia, one of the most underrated and below-the-radar players in the county. Lose a lot of seniors that provided good size. They had to forfeit a game last season which does not speak well to the numbers on the roster. I guess evrything is a question mark, although they do return one of the top freshmen in the county.
Ta-Da,
We’re still a long way away from knowing anything specifics. THe earliest the leagues will be finalized will be the Spring AD’s meeting next month (it could take even longer), and only then will we able to start figuring out conference scheduling, seeding procedures, etc.
Al – agreed on your thoughts on the Rockland County teams for next year. It looks like besides Suffern, that Conference, while it may be the weakest in talent, could be the most competitive (again, besides Suffern).
I feel the all Junior line for CN – Kapnick, Cohen and Vela – will do very well against Rockland competitors because they have played higher level competition and they all had great seasons this year. They also return two very good defensemen in Byrnes (who besides Suffern’s Norwin, is the best D man in Rockland) and A. Willows. It will be more so in two years (once this year’s Junior class graduates) when CN will experience a huge drop off in talent.
Rockland Hockey,
I agree that CN could finish as high as second in RC. I like the 2 defensemen (and yes, I forgot about Norwin on Suffern). They also will have an experienced goalies, which most teams in the county cannot claim.
The junior forwards need to show right away that they can be forcefull without Willows and Shuman.
Overall, I expect Rockland teams 2 to 5 to be very close.
can we call the clarkstown s pair the “law firm of”
Well, in Spanish the word “and” is “y” so that would make them Jacobs y Meyers. Off by an “s” but close enough in my book.
Coach Chiap taught the Tigers well how to play and how to be good sportsmen. He taught them how to play as a team and we’re proud they made it all the way to the finals. Luckily, lots of teams in Mamaroneck have coach Chiap as coach.
who will be on suffern and clarkstown norths top 2 lines next year?
who will be on the first two lines for suffern and clarkstown north next season?
I can’t believe the tigers have some of the best players ever.