Hamilton co-op gives township competitive team – Trentonian

It has been a very impressive season for the co-op of Hamilton, Nottingham and Steinert as it is 3-2-1 and playing every game to the final whistle.

They have been off a few days and were back on the ice on Wednesday night against Freehold Township and there’s no doubt they will be ready.

“The players know that we have a good team but it wasn’t until the game against Princeton that they really knew just how good we could be,’’ said coach John Patterson. “Now our message is to keep up the intensity and mental focus period by period, shift by shift.’’

It wasn’t until the final minutes of the game Princeton got the game winner to take a 5-4 win over Hamilton.

Possessing one of the premier goalies in the area in Troy Callahan (205 saves)  one of the concerns facing Patterson was the overall depth of the team.

“Even though we only lost one senior to graduation (Ryan Thornton), he played an important role anchoring our defense,’’ said Patterson. “Luckily, we had two good freshmen (Colin Doan, Camille Ritter) join us this year and they’ve both stepped right in. We had a couple of key players out last year with injuries and now everyone is back. We had to feel out the right mix but we’ve got two really solid lines now along with a third line of checkers so we’re as deep as we’ve ever been.’’

Another player that has come along for Hamilton has been Brendan Colantoni, who four goals in the last three games.

“Brendan has always been a good team player,’’ stated Patterson. “Last year we had to convert a forward to D-man and he stepped up and filled that role. This year we’ve been able to use him as a forward and he’s doing a great job finding loose pucks and creating time and space for himself.’’

The Hamilton Co-op seems ready to create some space between them and the rest of the Valley Division.

Welcome Back Pennington

It was just about a month holiday hiatus for Pennington as it played Haverford on December 12th and then it wasn’t until January 9th when the Red Hawks took the ice again.

It hasn’t been the most joyous return, however, as they fell to Haverford 1-0 and then on Tuesday they were blanked by crosstown rival Hopewell Valley/Montgomery, 4-0.

Irish Not So Lucky

If it wasn’t for bad luck, Notre Dame wouldn’t have any at all.

Mike McVey knew it was going to be a young Irish team, but one that had some solid returning players.

Then ND (1-7) lost five players for the season and that on top of…