Harford County Ice Hockey Team faces tough start to season, students have high hopes for future of team

The HARCO Ice Hockey team is a club team that takes players from all Harford County schools that don’t have a team and creates one team with those players. It is not associated with any individual school, it’s a county-wide team.

     “The start of the season for the team has been quite rocky but overall good,” expressed by junior Cole Younger, member of the ice hockey team. The team has played in three games, with a tie to the first game, a tough loss for the second game, but faced redemption with a win in their third game. With a win of 6-0 against Archbishop Spalding.

     The team practices Monday and Fridays from 4:30pm to 6:30pm at Ice World Indoor Skating Rink located in Edgewood, Maryland. Freshman Brady Huber describes the season as “it’s going good, I enjoy after a game when everyone comes together, and the adrenaline is still running high from the game.”

     Ice Hockey is ranked one of the most expensive youth sports according to the Aspen Institute website, Younger agrees, explaining “in general, I have spent around 2,000 to 3,000 dollars on ice hockey, it’s around a thousand dollars per season.” Huber adds to that, explaining that over his years playing the sport he has spent, “over 8,000 to 9,000 dollars on ice hockey, especially because tuition itself is around a thousand dollars.”

     There are a variety of different aged high school students from many different Harford County schools. They play games against other teams like Archbishop Spalding, Kent Island, and Easton. The head coach of the team is Jim Karrenbauer, with assistant coaches Jim McBee, Lee Hoch, and Dave Jones. The season starts in November and ends towards the end of January to the beginning of February.

     Younger explains “the hardest part of ice hockey is skating, I’ve taken skating lessons before, but the balancing part is very difficult.” Younger has had multiple injuries during his time playing ice hockey but he recently received a dirty hit on him and now can’t turn his neck all the way to the right.

     Huber adds that “the hardest part would definitely be taking checks during the game because it affects the play.” Checks in ice hockey are when a defensive player crashes into the opponent who’s handling the puck. Huber has gotten hurt recently as well by a slap shot to his head during the first game of the season.