The Prep Hockey Conference is an elite league consisting of 6 of the top prep schools in North America. Northwood, South Kent, Shattuck St. Mary’s, Mount Saint Charles, Saint Andrews College, and Culver Academy make up this league. Northwood had quite a record last season, but as we head into the second year of the Conference’s life, let’s see how things are standing.
Northwood has had a rough start to their league play this season. Playing a top-ranked Mount St. Charles two weeks into the season, the chemistry wasn’t built enough for us to overtake them, resulting in a saddening 0-2 league record. Though the games against Mount didn’t go as we hoped, it was still early on, so the team had time to find its game.
Just last weekend, the Huskies had two more games at home against South Kent, a team that the Huskies were able to beat at the South Kent Fall Classic. Two games that went right down to the wire resulted in 3-2 shootout losses.
As of now, this puts the Prep team 0-4 in the PHC, not the desired record, but as Coach Morris says, “you are either winning or learning.” Encouraging words for the team to not dwell on the losses, but rather look for things that will help the team grow.
Only the PHC East have played league games throughout the rest of the league. The East consists of South Kent, Northwood, and Mount Saint Charles. Both South Kent and Mount have 2-0 records, all games played against Northwood. As for the PHC West, we have yet to see how they will do, but we can expect Shattuck to be strong as they usually are. Coming up in a couple of weeks, hosted at Mount will be a league crossover. All the teams in the PHC East will play all the teams in the PHC West. This will be an important test for Northwood because they need to prove that they are a top team in the Conference. As league wins are important throughout the year, the games that really matter are the playoffs that end the season. Every team from the PHC makes the playoffs and has the opportunity of being league champions. The playoffs are still a long way off, so Northwood has plenty of time to build up to their prime, constantly learning from the games they play.
As I have covered, Northwood hasn’t had the league start they would’ve wished, but the critical aspect is that they continue to grow to their full potential. As they go this weekend to play in the Beantown Classic, the team will have more opportunities to show their might. Win or lose, the most important thing is to build the Northwood identity of being a hard team to play against.
Northwood wishes the boys luck on their journey to reaching their potential and this weekend in Boston. As always, Go Huskies!
