Friday, May. 16, 2008

State Title May Affect Next Season

CHHS Hockey

By John English

Contributing Writer

If winning a Silver Division city championship was not enough for Colleyville Heritage hockey fans, the Panthers brought home a state title for their encore.

As the summer hockey season approaches, the team that Northwest hockey coach Wes Rose calls the "most dominant program in the Silver Division," has set the bar pretty high for next fall.

"This is the first time they had a state championship for the Silver Division," Colleyville Heritage coach Sean Brady said. "I know that in the Gold division, the city champion was not also the state champion, so we really kind of peaked at the right time there."

Colleyville Heritage defeated Frisco to win the city championship and Birdville to win state.

Brady said he is not sure how the championships will affect the team’s positioning in terms of whether they move up to the Gold division next season, and said a couple of factors could determine that.

"That all depends on what the board wants," Brady said. "We do have a young team. We’re going to lose four seniors, and I don’t know if some of the younger players are going to play travel hockey; that may affect their high school hockey."

Brady said he thinks several things contributed to the team’s success this year.

"I just think there was a real balance of talent," Brady said. "We had good forwards, defenders and strong goal-tending. We had two real good goaltenders, and I think with us, we just had a little bit more depth than a lot of the teams out there, and our guys just went out there and got it done."

Colleyville’s two goalies were Ryan Koontz, a senior who was named to the league all-star team and was selected as the most valuable player of the state tournament, and Michael Warner, a freshman, who will be returning next season.

Mason Miller was also selected as a Silver Division all-star, and Grady Graham was named most valuable player of the state championship game, having scored both of the Panthers’ goals in the contest.

Brady will not be coaching the summer team, but said the goal for the season is to keep the players sharp and to get a look at guys that have not played that much at the varsity level.

"It’s a little more laid-back in the summer," Brady said. "The objective is to get some of the players who have not had as much ice time to be put into some key situations and see how they react … we have the ability to have a strong core back for next season, but it just depends on whether or not they have commitments outside of the high school hockey."

Brady said he does believe his team can repeat upon the success it had this past season next fall.

"We hope to have a lot of the core guys back, and they are going to be that much stronger next year," Brady said. "We are definitely looking to repeat."