La Plata ice hockey has its swan song
McKee nets winner in La Plata ice hockey swan song vs. league coaches
The La Plata ice hockey team all but ceased to exist when Randy Smith skated off the Capital Clubhouse ice surface at 7:47 p.m. Friday following a matchup between Warriors’ players and Maryland Student Hockey League Southern Conference coaches.
La Plata, which began play with the 2013-14 season, will most likely fold after graduating nine of its 15 players and losing head coach Joey Martel, who will begin coaching in the Mid-Atlantic Women’s Hockey League in the fall.
“It is [emotional] because it’s been five full seasons, so to sit here and think that La Plata hockey will go away for the indefinite future breaks my heart,” Martel said. “I look up at these rafters and I see the La Plata banners and realize it’s an era that’s pretty much ended. It’s difficult.”
Martel said his favorite moments behind the bench of the team was when it played Huntingtown at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., now called Capital One Arena, in 2014-15 and falling to the Hurricanes in the MSHL Southern Conference’s Chesapeake Cup semifinals this season.
“You can’t ask for a better way to lose the season,” Martel said. “We had a winning season and we did well and we have nothing to be ashamed of.”
La Plata also comprised of players from Chopticon, Great Mills and Calvert high schools and The Calverton School.
“We’re losing our coach and our manager and a lot of people,” said La Plata senior captain Sean Ray, who said his favorite memory was a senior night win over Charles County on Jan. 19. “So it’s definitely sad to see these guys have to find a new team.
Charles head coach Jay Grove said the La Plata situation “is sad, but hopefully somebody will step up over the summer.”
Friday’s swan song featured five ties before Derek McKee scored the game-winning goal moments before the final buzzer.
“It probably already buzzered, but putting it in felt great,” said McKee, who had a team-high 17 assists and tied for the team lead with Smith with 31 points. “[Smith] poked the puck in front, I saw it and put it right behind the goalie.”
Martel beat La Plata goaltender Garrett Cherry short-side to open the scoring but was stymied the rest of the game, including late in the game when he tried — and failed — to put a move on the senior netminder.
“Garrett is a standup goalie and he was not like swiss cheese,” Martel said, referring to a smack-filled email a few days before the game. “I got the first one by him, but after that I couldn’t. He’s an easy Division III goalie, almost a Division II goalie. He’s that good.”
Martel also showed off his muscle when he playfully bumped Ray, who was leaving the ice.
“These are my kids and 10, 15 years from now I’ll see them again probably and they’ll be stronger than me,” Martel
said. “But I had the opportunity at practices to execute the drill and tonight I had a chance to play the drill against them. We were laughing up and down [the ice] and it’s all memories.”
St. Mary’s Ryken II head coach Cameron Beckner had a game-high three goals.
“It was an amazing experience,” said Beckner, who played junior hockey in Michigan. “I have a few of the kids who go to Chopticon with me and it’s fun to talk and joke around with them and play hockey outside of a school setting. It’s been about a year since I had pads on and I’ll tell you I’m out of shape. After the first couple of shifts I was tired.”
“That was a blast but I hadn’t been on the ice in a while in a player capacity,” Grove said. “The first three shifts were a lot of fun, after that my legs got kind of Jello-O and my lungs got smaller so it was really short shifts.”
Former St. Mary’s Ryken I head coach Chris Palombi was shaky as well. In the opening minutes, he inadvertently checked teammate Beckner to the ice, later he whiffed on a one-timer and then dropped the gloves and engaged McKee in a 23-second tussle.
Despite La Plata’s 8-7 victory, the two teams went into shootout mode. The Warriors did their best to stymie the coaches, with McKee and Smith doing a snow angel in some sort of ritual, though it worked as Palombi missed the net.
Later, after La Plata missed three straight shots, the Warriors threw all their sticks in a pile and emulated burning them in an attempt to find their scoring touch.
Later, Cherry and Bowie goaltender Scott Schmidt each skated in but missed their chances, with Cherry being stymied by Palombi.
“It was a lot of fun when you go against your coach who you see every day and the other coaches when you share ice or against them in games,” Ray said. “It was a lot of fun to actually skate against them and see how we stack up.
“It was crazy to play one last time with the boys and against all the coaches we know,” McKee said.