It seems like it’s been an unfathomable length of time since the Greenfield hockey group won the state title last March.
The Green Wave vanquished Lunenburg for the 3A State Title — the principal ever in program history — yet only two days after the triumph, the world came to end. Greenfield was one of the solitary schools to really win a state title during the 2019-20 winter season, as numerous different competitions were all the while progressing when the pandemic shut everything down.
Having a secondary school hockey season this time around was open to question for some time, however the Greenfield School Committee passed a movement to favor rivalries, insofar as state rules haven’t changed for athletic rivalry before the finish of January. The Wave took to the ice at Collins-Moylan Arena Monday unexpectedly as a group since that triumph over Lunenburg, and they’re planned to play their first game Jan. 30 against Chicopee.
“We’re extremely energized,” Greenfield lead trainer Adam Bouchard said. “Each mentor and understudy competitor is energized for the chance to play. We were fortunate to play in the competition a year ago, at that point the world got closed down on us two days after the fact.”
There won’t be any postseason competitions this season, so Greenfield won’t get an opportunity to rehash this season. All things considered, the Wave are only glad to have the option to take the ice, especially with the whole group partaking.
Each neighborhood school that is in the program’s center is at present back, which means understudies from Athol, Franklin Tech, Frontier, Mahar, Mohawk Trail, Pioneer and Turners Falls are completely permitted to rehearse with the group, however a few players are sitting tight for their separate educational committees to cast a ballot whether they’ll be permitted to take an interest in games.
“Getting the entire program back together methods significantly something other than playing hockey,” Bouchard said. “We’re one major Green Wave hockey family, so if a few of us couldn’t play it would have been hard to take an interest without a portion of our family.”
Greenfield has been rehearsing face to face the entire week, getting ready to play its first game on Jan. 30. So far everything has worked out in a good way, and certainty stays high that a season will occur.
“The practices have been separated due to the quantity of messes with you can have on the ice at one time,” Greenfield athletic chief Mike Kuchieski said. “Everything has been going easily. We’ve told the children on the off chance that we do things securely, we’ll be having a season. Hockey is one of the games we can do securely, it’s been being messed about here since August, so I believe it’s one that can go.”
A progression of changes have been placed in to make the season as protected as could be expected under the circumstances. One of the more observable interactivity changes will come during faceoffs. Players arranged inverse each other in the circle should be six feet separated and face toward the faceoff area.
Scrums against the sheets this season won’t be equivalent to years past, as just a single hostile player and one cautious player are allowed in any scrum along the edges. A third member in any scrum, from one or the other group, will cause a prompt whistle and stoppage of play.
Players should wear veils consistently, regardless of whether on the ice or on the seat, and a large number of different changes to the pregame and seat zones have been made. Most Greenfield players have just played under similar conventions with their club groups since youth classes started playing again in August. The expectation is that the change won’t be as troublesome, and that players have just acclimated to the better approach for playing.
“The children know the changes,” Kuchieski said. “They’ve just purchased in and they’ve been doing them for some time now. I’m not stressed.”
