This season, when the New Albany High School boys ice hockey team takes the ice, it does so as a fully sanctioned varsity program.
For the first time, the team is participating in the Blue Division of the Capital Hockey Conference.
The road to get here hasn’t been easy, but the growth has been substantial. This year, 35 boys tried out for spots on the junior varsity and varsity teams at the Chiller Easton, which is also where the team plays its home games.
“The first year, we only had 12 guys come out to play,” says Associate Head Coach Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre, a New Albany resident and former Columbus Blue Jackets player.
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Photos courtesy of the NAHS boys’ ice hockey team
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Colin Parson
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The team meets with the coaches prior to the game against Parma Senior High School on Nov. 13.
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Dom Vinceguerra
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Grand-Pierre is joined by Coach Joe Kola, the only head coach New Albany ice hockey has ever known. Both have been part of the program since it began three years ago as a junior varsity club team.
As such, the team wasn’t sanctioned by the Ohio High School Athletic Association. This allowed the players and the coaching staff to take the small steps necessary to form a worthwhile foundation. In retrospect, says Kola, it turned out as well as they could have hoped.
“That was actually the perfect scenario. It let us grow,” Kola says.
Posting a 40-2-4 record as a junior varsity club squad last year, moving up to a new classification this year as a varsity team, and returning with many important players, the team has high expectations for itself this year.
One might assume that those expectations are for on-ice success, but the team and the coaching staff see it differently.
“We expect our young men to be kind and to represent New Albany and all it stands for,” says Kola.
Adds Grand-Pierre, “It’s really about the people more than our play. One of the things that both Joe and I are very strict on, and we want to make sure we get the message across, is that we want nice people.”
It’s clear that this message has been received and embraced by the players too.
Junior Ryan Sellars sums up his team’s objectives.
“Our goal this year is to have fun, to work hard and to be the best we can be,” Sellars says.
Sellars was selected by his teammates as an assistant captain this year along with fellow assistant captain Tanner Hays and captain Dom Vinciguerra, who vouches for his team’s overall strength.
“I think we’ve got a really good group of guys,” Vinciguerra says.
He knows it won’t be easy, but Vinciguerra thinks the right focus is key.
“I think we should look to be successful but, at the same time, improve,” he says.
The team doesn’t have a true rival yet, but chances are that won’t last for long. With the rest of the league looking at New Albany as the newcomers, the players want to make sure they show their opponents that New Albany belongs as a varsity squad in the highest division.
“This year there’s going to be a lot more pressure on us. We want to prove everyone wrong since we’re a first-year team,” says Vinciguerra.
Adds Sellars, “We know we’re kind of the underdogs as the new guys in the league, and everyone expects us not to be that good, to be a .500 team. So we’re going to work a lot harder.”
For their part, the coaches believe in their players and expect to surprise some people.
“I think by the end of this season, we will definitely have some rivalries out there,” says Kola.
There are also some traditions forming around the team, a concept that both the coaches and players want to cultivate. One of the traditions involves a white hard hat with the New Albany logo on it. The coaches give it to a player after the first game, and the next game, that player chooses another worthy player to wear the hat. This goes on for the entire season. The hard hat doesn’t go to the player who had the most goals or the best game. Rather, it is given to the player who best represented New Albany hockey ideals, or worked the hardest, or accomplished most notable feat during the game.
The idea of tradition extends to the legacy the team and its coaches have set out to build.
“We want these kids to love this program and to lead this program. I hope that the alumni we create not only go out and do great things, but want to stick around and do good things for New Albany hockey and New Albany in general,” says Kola.
Beginning this season, one former player, Grant Reader, is doing exactly that. Reader was a senior and a captain on the team last season and, after graduating from New Albany High School this past spring, he took the job as head coach of the junior varsity team. It’s clear that Kola and Grand-Pierre are thrilled about having Coach Reader on board.
“He’s a great leader, a great kid,” says Kola.
If all goes according to plan, the seeds for the long-term success and expectations of this program will be sown this year, and New Albany kids who haven’t yet laced up their first pair of skates will one day be the beneficiaries.
“Now that we’re a varsity program, we hope that word gets around, and not only do more people come and support us, but more kids come out and want to play,” says Sellars.
Kola agrees.
“This year, more than ever because we are stepping into a new league, we want our players when they walk in the rink to leave everything at the door except for what makes them a better teammate, what makes them a better example for New Albany. This is the team for the New Albany community, and we want to set the best example,” he says.
Bob Valasek is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at ssole@cityscenemediagroup.com.
