The leopards are teaming up with the panthers as the school’s first varsity hockey team pairs up with neighboring school, Plano East High School. Leopard hockey players have been cooling off on the ice and gearing up to accommodate new changes to their sport this summer. The team has begun their first season, with games held on Thursday nights from May 7 to July 16 at the Dr. Pepper Star Center rink in McKinney.
In the spring, Leopard hockey coaches, Robbie Lopes and Travis Black, decided to merge their non-varsity team with the non-varsity team at Plano East Senior High School to create one varsity team composed of 26 players.
“The coaches and parents had been discussing [merging teams] for a while and everyone had different opinion,” rising junior Cole Egger said. “The players were happy because it was something we wanted to try in order to play varsity.”
While joining a completely new group of players was daunting, most of the athletes were ecstatic to have the opportunity to play in a more challenging pool of teams. This was a goal for the players well before the merger, so backing down to the challenge wasn’t an option.
“Bringing the two teams together was definitely a process,” rising senior Michael Kline said. “After trivial logistical issues kept us from being varsity last year, the seniors and upperclassmen of the team resolved ourselves to the fact that we were going to play varsity and go along with whatever that entailed.”
Center hockey player, Michael Kline, is one of the many rising seniors getting the opportunity to play varsity on the new Plano East/Lovejoy hockey team.
With the logistics of the new team addressed, the brand new group is determined to perform just as well as more established teams.
“The Lovejoy coaches took over the team and we have one coach for offense and one coach for defense,” Egger said. “And our team is just like any other, we just have new players and an undecided name.”
To accompany the multitude of changes, players had to jump right into a summer season. With eight games already played, the athletes are confident they can finish out the last two games of the season strong.
“These last two games will be important to gear up for a possible playoff run,” rising senior Hunter Long said. “We play the number one team the last games of the season, so that will be a good measuring stick to see where we are at.”
Playing with brand new players could have posed a challenge, but the athletes have accommodated and embraced the alterations with ease.
“A lot of the players have either played with or against each other through club teams,” Long said. “So we were already familiar with each other to some degree. Now it’s a matter of really getting to know each other as teammates instead of simply other hockey players.
The original, single, junior varsity team has now been divided to form the combo team with Plano East and the Leopard only non-varsity team. Some players from the original junior varsity team were picked to play with the team from Plano East, while others stayed to compose the junior varsity team.
Rising junior, Noah Harmon, glides past his McKinney High School opponent. Harmon is one of the many varsity hockey players also playing on the Leopards junior varsity team.
“When those that were called up to play varsity got word, I think ecstatic would be the best adjective to describe the reactions of those involved.” Kline said. “This year is the first time since the inception of the team that Lovejoy will have a capacity for varsity hockey, and we are definitely wanting to go far in the fall.”
The new varsity hockey team hopes to revitalize interest in the Leopard hockey program.
“We may have broken the student body’s hearts or merely not won them over due to the losing the championship game two seasons in a row,” Kline said. “However this season is bound to be different and we would love to have any people looking for something to do on a Thursday night to stop by and see the new team in action.”
