The Ice Hockey team takes a group photo together. They’ve played together the whole season. Photo Courtesy of Reid Baker.

The John Champe Ice Hockey team is not a team to be taken lightly. While the hockey team doesn’t play their games at Champe, watching it is definitely entertaining. Not many people know about the hockey team but there’s so much to learn about the team and hockey.

Ice hockey is a game between two teams competing on an ice rink. Each player wears skates and a team usually has size players. The players wear a helmet, shoulder pads/chest protectors, elbow pads, mouth guard, protective gloves, heavily padded shorts, shin pads, and a neck guard. The goaltenders wear a helmet and have more protection to protect them from many direct hits from the puck. The main objective of the sport is to propel the puck into a net to score a goal which is guarded by goaltenders. Ice hockey is a popular sport because of its speed and frequent physical contact.

Ice hockey is affiliated with independent minor leagues, the various amateur junior and youth leagues, and the high school league. In a High school game, there are 3 periods. Each of those periods consist of 20 minutes of game-time. There is also an 15-minute intermission, allowing for an ice resurface, between each period.

Ice Hockey Players train with a pick and a hockey stick. They’ve trained with these since ice hockey was played in high school. Courtesy of Wonderopolis.

“Ice hockey means a lot to me because it’s been the sport that I’ve cherished the most as a kid and from then to now, I still have a lot of passion for the game,” Champe Ice Hockey player Reid Baker said. “Ice hockey isn’t just a fun sport for me, it’s like family with all my teammates and it makes everything fun when you’re all performing well on the ice and off the ice to get better.”

When the season begins, the team has a lot of night practices that are after tryouts. They normally have practice one to two times a week. When the official regular season starts, the team does not practice too often because there are a lot of travel teams that the high schoolers play for. It gets hard for everyone to gather and get ice time for a weekday to practice. That’s why the team practices the most before the official season.

When the team does practice, they warm up with the pucks and take a few shots at the goalie to get him and the team warmed up. They also work on passing drills, up and down the ice. They then do skating drills with cones to work on their edges and skating for games. They also do a lot of mini-game situations. For example, they’ll do two on ones against the goalie. They finish off with scrimmages.

“The schedule for the hockey team is not too much and not too little, I feel that it’s just right,” Baker said. “I can spend time on hockey, and also spend time on other important things I need to cover in life.”

The team captain of the John Champe Ice hockey team is Mason St Onge. A team captain tends to hold much more responsibility than the players. The team captain’s main responsibilities are to show leadership, be a good citizen to their teammates, and show sportsmanship to their competitors and the school community.

Captains are expected to be leaders on and off the field, stepping up in clutch moments and guiding their team to victory. They must also be able to maintain control under pressure and serve as a model of excellence for their teammates, setting the standard for behavior and performance.

“As the captain, it is my job to make sure the team is ready to play, work hard, and has fun,” Champe Ice Hockey team captain Mason St. Onge said. “The captain is also the go-between for the referees and coaches.”

The John Champe Ice Hockey Team takes on Osbourn Park. They’ve prepared hard for this game. Photo Courtesy of Reid Baker

The John Champe Ice Hockey team plays in the Northern Virginia Scholastic Hockey League (NVSHL). Champe’s hockey team teams up with other schools to play games in forms of 2v2’s. This is because many schools end up partnering with other schools because they don’t have enough players to complete the 20-player roster.

John Champe High School usually plays with Lightridge High School against two different high schools. John Champe High School and Lightridge High School are currently working towards making it to the provisional state championship game.

“The league’s goal is for each school to have its own team. Many schools have to partner with other schools in order to field a team as some schools do not have enough players to have a 20-person roster,” Champe Ice Hockey Coach Rick Harrison said. “My goal would be to have both a Varsity and JV team from John Champe but for now we are a varsity team with a combined school that will hopefully make it to the provisional state championship game.”

There’s still a long way to go for this team. Their hard work and dedication along with teamwork and resilience will be one of their major advantages towards winning a championship.

“I think that our Champe hockey team has a lot of potential this year,” Baker said. “We have a good team and I think we can be strong enough to get ourselves within a spot to win a potential championship.”