Wick Hockey

Coaches

Ron VanBelle, head coach; Mike Kennedy, Steve Mandes

How long have you been coaching?

It's my eighth year as varsity head coach.

Team captains

Gryphon Richardson and Peter Khoury

What key players did you lose from last year's team?

Luke Esposito (committed to Harvard) and Kevin Duane (committed to Boston University)

Who are your key returning players?

Goalie captain Richardson, defense captain Khoury, senior defenseman Andre Masse, junior forward Harry Clifford and junior forwards Steph Seeger and Sebbi Foster

Who needs to have an impact season for you to be successful?

Richardson needs to keep doing what he has been doing for us the past few years, which is give us a chance to win by keeping the puck out of the net -- something he is very talented at doing. We also need to figure out how to get some goal production from our forwards with the graduation last year of our two leading scorers, Esposito and Duane. 

What are your team's biggest strengths? Weaknesses?

Our biggest strength is our raw talent in our forwards; we have a number of very skilled, young players who will continue to improve and have bigger and bigger impacts as the season progresses. Another strength is our group of veteran defensemen who play a very steady, conservative game.

Our biggest opportunity for development is our offensive threat... without obvious "natural goal scorers" on the roster, we will have to figure out ways to manufacture goals.

Key meets/matchups?

Westminster on Jan. 4, Choate on Jan. 7 and Salisbury on Jan. 28 are all games we have circled on our schedule, since we are probably considered the underdog in each of these contests. 

What is your outlook for the season?

We have been the seventh seed in the post-season tournament each of the past two years -- if we stay healthy, we have the potential to have another strong season and hopefully make the post-season for the third consecutive season.