Friday, Jul. 25, 2008

Practiceless, Nearly Perfect

Dragons Hockey Looking Strong Despite Little Ice Time This Summer

By Zach Warner

Staff Writer

The Carroll hockey team continues to enjoy an impressive summer, averaging 4.63 goals per game, while boasting the second-best offense and third-best defense in its division.

All this from a team that doesn’t even practice during the summer season.

The Dragons (5-1-2) have played well enough to find themselves in second place in the AT&T Metroplex High School Hockey League Varsity Gold division standings through eight games. But those once-a-week games against other Varsity Gold opponents have been Carroll’s only time on the ice.

"It’s kind of fun, because we decide right before the game how we’re going to do things," said Dragons hockey coach Tom Yockey, whose team wraps up the regular schedule of the summer season at 6:15 p.m. Thursday at the Farmers Branch StarCenter against Coppell (6-2-0). "We put the line together, and it’s kind of trial by fire."

So far, the limited time together on the ice hasn’t slowed Carroll at all. The Dragons played Marcus Red (8-0-0), a team that has the top offense, defense and is first in the standings, earlier this week. A possible city championship game preview in the summer league playoffs, Carroll lost to Marcus Red the first time they met in June by a 4-3 score in a game that was decided in overtime.

The level of play Yockey has seen from his team is encouraging after the Dragons suffered through a hapless fall season that saw them finish with a 2-21-1 record.

"It definitely shows the light at the end of the tunnel that we can put it all together here," he said. "We’re not having any team practice or talking about plans and concepts. … So the [fall] season looks very promising."

The same is true for the Carroll JV team. Even without practice, the JV Dragons are perfect with a 6-0-0 record to lead their division. Combined, the two Carroll teams have a .786 winning percentage.

One reason for the success is the influx of returning players who played travel hockey with teams other than Carroll last fall. Several players on the JV this summer have already proven good enough to make the varsity cut this coming fall season, creating what is expected to be a solid Varsity Gold team that begins regular competition in just over two months.

The team members of both the varsity and JV teams have already proven their talent through their production and numbers this summer, but to put it all together as a team and enjoy a high level of success without regular practice puts them in a whole other class, Yockey said.

"I can’t speak about other teams and what they’re doing, whether or not they’re getting practice time on the ice, but we aren’t," he said. "Our numbers are really strong for our top two teams. People will need to really play well to keep their spots."

In the fall, the teams will have two practices a week, play one regular varsity or JV game each week and play one or two additional travel hockey games on the weekends, Yockey said. Although players on the team have looked impressive at times this summer, they should look many times sharper in the fall, he said.

"By the first or second week of November, we should be hitting our stride," Yockey said. "We should be in better shape and getting our timing down. If we put our minds to it, I think we’ll be on the right path."