{"id":189,"date":"2015-11-25T22:32:59","date_gmt":"2015-11-26T03:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.wpengine.com\/?p=189"},"modified":"2015-12-03T15:48:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T20:48:25","slug":"hockey-team-fights-injuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=189","title":{"rendered":"Hockey team fights injuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Danielle Lockhart<\/strong>
\nScriptor
\nWylie E Groves HS
\n1st Place
\nDivision 3, News Writing
\nSports News Story<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Seaholm senior captain Luke Braun smashed into the boards of the hockey rink and came down with a thud. Braun lay motionless on the ice while athletic trainer Kelly Falcur and the Birmingham Unified Kings coach, John Chateau, rushed to him. The crowd went silent as they watched the scene. After four minutes, Braun stirred a bit and staggered as he stood up. The crowd clapped as he rose, but Braun was too injured to return to the game. He stumbled to the locker room and didn\u2019t return.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coaches took me to the locker room, but my eyes were cloudy, and I didn\u2019t understand what was going on. After they sent me to the hospital, I found out I had a bad concussion and had to sit the games out for two weeks,\u201d Braun said.<\/p>\n

After losing Braun in the second period in the game against\u00a0Clarkston, on January 11, the Kings lost 4-9.<\/p>\n

Braun wasn\u2019t the only one injured during a game. Several other players were injured this season, including his senior co-captain Jordan Agnew. A Utica Eisenhower player hit Agnew from behind, separating his shoulder on January 9. Chateau described what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Jordan Agnew got hit and his shoulder was separated, Kelly Falcur sped out there to look at him. I also tended to him and knew he needed immediate attention,\u201d Chateau said.<\/p>\n

With the loss of such key players, senior defenseman Kevin Talty worried about the team\u2019s chances for a successful season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get into these slumps, but then eventually we pick ourselves up. They\u2019re not an excuse, obviously\u2014injuries\u2014they happen to all the teams, but once they do happen, we\u2019re not used to losing that player and we have to work twice as hard to win. It definitely put us at a disadvantage,\u201d Talty said.<\/p>\n

Three other instrumental players were also injured this season, including senior captain and center Tommy McLeod, junior center Jack Stempien, and junior forward Matthieu Flamand,<\/p>\n

Talty explained that the team needed to rotate and double shift players during each absence. Double shifting often fatigues players from their waist down.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the time they get off the ice, they\u2019re gasping for breath,\u201d Talty said.<\/p>\n

There are moments on the ice when the action goes deep into the forward zone where defensemen can breathe, but Talty explained that the reprieve only lasts for two to three seconds. What the players really need, he said, is the minute when they get off the ice and their shift ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose games we had to double shift, especially in the first thirty seconds, I got my energy up. I\u2019m just going. After the first thirty seconds, I realized, oh crap I\u2019m gonna be out here for another minute. As my legs start burning, I\u2019m like, oh maybe I need to slow it down a little bit, and then I go hard when I need to. I choose my time to make a quick burst of energy and just make that count,\u201d Talty said.<\/p>\n

Double shifting worked for the Kings temporarily, but after a while they realized that they needed a permanent fill in for those injured players. Any time that the Kings started a game without all the players, they had to implement new players. To solve this dilemma, Chateau pulled up players from junior varsity. Since the new players had much to learn, they would have had to spend extensive time practicing at the varsity level. Junior forward Jack Stempien was one player who agreed to move up to up to varsity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty tough moving up to varsity. Varsity is a lot faster game than JV. However, since JV has a really good program, it helped me in the end, so the transition wasn\u2019t that bad. After a few games I kind of got the sync of it,\u201d Stempien said.<\/p>\n

Although the speed of the game surprised the new players initially, Chateau thought the challenge itself helped them improve quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the guys who came up to varsity played well. I think they learned a ton that will definitely benefit them in the future. They worked their tails off, and they came in ready to play,\u201d Chateau said.<\/p>\n

Braun added that the JV players, even those who didn\u2019t know their varsity teammates, added to the Kings\u2019 sense of camaraderie.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a really close group, like a family. In our second game I was playing with Lewis [Parris] and Matthieu [Flamand]. I didn\u2019t really know them at that point, and I got cheap-shotted after the whistle. Matthieu came over and knocked the kid over as\u00a0protection. So we, no matter who we were, we all really cared for one another,\u201d Braun said.<\/p>\n

Despite the loss of key varsity players and the fatigue of double shifting, the new JV players also helped the Kings score victories. One memorable victory was against longtime rival Plymouth Canton.<\/p>\n

The large audience devoured free slices of pizza as they watched the game against on Canton on December 14. The BU Kings were leading the game 4-2 when Canton rushed in and scored two goals, taking the lead. With only three minutes left in the game, the Kings shot the puck into the opponent\u2019s goal, tying the game. The crowd went crazy. With only sixteen seconds left in the game, Seaholm junior defenseman Mark Flamand scored the winning goal. The crowd rejoiced, and the building erupted with cheers and shouts.<\/p>\n

Although Flamand relished the team\u2019s victory that night, he wished the season itself had been more victorious than their 7-15-2 finish this year.<\/p>\n

Despite the disappointment of losing the opportunity of victory due to injury, Chateau was proud of the Knight\u2019s season and predicts a much different outcome next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think something really characterized our season this year,\u201d Chateau said. \u201cWe have a never-give-up attitude, and that shows the maturity of the team that we had this year. No matter what the score was, we never looked at the situation as being we\u2019re out of the game or we\u2019re just going to mail it in and finish the game. Instead, every game, we gave it our best. I know that our former JV players are going to carry that through the upcoming season as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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