Girls hockey: Woodstock falls to Spaulding/Northfield in home opener

By ALEX CERVANTES

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 12-16-2024 4:49 PM

WOODSTOCK — As the ice resurfacer scraped Union Arena’s rink one final time, the Saturday night crowd having long filtered out, Woodstock girls ice hockey coach Ian Coates pointed toward the banners hanging from the corner of the arena’s rafters.

“We’re in a rebuilding phase of our program,” Coates said following the Wasps’ season-opening 10-0 defeat to Spaulding/Northfield.

Coates knows he has a young squad. His players are cognizant of that reality, too.

Woodstock, which won two consecutive VPA Division II state titles in 2022 and 2023, lost six players from last season’s 10-7-3 squad, five to graduation and one to a prep school. Coates’ current roster of 17 features just four upperclassmen. Several players only started skating last season, including sophomore netminder Pippa Shaw, who is now shouldering the team’s goaltending responsibilities following multi-year goalie Meridian Bremel’s departure. A few other Wasps began skating this year.

This team’s youth — both in age and ability — is apparent, Coates said. So the early-season lumps are going to come, just like they did against Spaulding.

Shaw was able to make a couple of saves before the first-period onslaught commenced on Saturday. In a span of 3 minutes, 15 seconds, the Crimson Tide put five shots past the newly-minted goalie. Spaulding tacked on a sixth goal with a shade over 10 seconds remaining in the frame, claiming a 6-0 advantage heading into the first intermission.

The Crimson Tide’s opening barrage, a 15-minute sequence in which the puck rarely escaped Woodstock’s zone, saw the visitors put 24 shots on goal. The Wasps didn’t put a shot on frame.

Spaulding cruised to a double-digit victory, adding four goals to its tally in the second and third stanzas. Woodstock registered its only shot on goal with just under 5 minutes remaining in the game.

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In spite of the scoreline, Shaw felt like the team improved vastly over the game’s three periods. She was also proud of how the team doesn’t attempt to single out individuals for mistakes during games, instead opting “to pick each other back up.”

“It was a pretty good game for our first one,” said Shaw, who attended goaltending camps at Middlebury Academy and with the Boston Bruins in the offseason to improve her own skillset between the pipes.

“We have so many new players, including me. I mean, I haven’t even been a goalie for a year. But it’s a really awesome team. (It’s important) to just get everyone the most amount of ice time they can get each game, just to get the experience.”

The primary takeaway from Saturday’s contest for Coates? He wants his team to “anticipate more.”

In the two weeks of practices before the season opener, the Wasps’ boss spent time reinforcing the fundamentals, but it took some time to get the “train on the tracks” against the Crimson Tide, he said. Once his team settled in during the final two periods, Coates felt that the group began to dissect the game better.

Woodstock is going to be a defense-first squad out of necessity, which both Coates and Shaw acknowledged postgame.

“You can see that we have a lot of work to do,” Coates said. “Part of it is we’re just not moving our feet well enough because we don’t have enough mileage under our skates to be able to handle that workload against a really good team. Positioning is big, it’s our first thing in the defensive zone, and then we’re just going to grow out of there…

“We’re going to be stuck in our defensive zone, so we might as well be the best at that.”

The Wasps are right at the beginning of their developmental process, according to Coates.

Setting small, attainable goals throughout the course of the season — and reaching those marks — is his main objective. He maintains that the team will improve as the season continues. The stickhandling, passing, skating and positioning on the ice will all be refined over the course of this winter.

It’s a game-by-game process, and it’ll take time. The hope, however, is that the individual and collective work pays off as the seasons continue to stack with this young group.

“You take it one shift at a time,” Coates said. “(Players) come out and they’re like, ‘OK, I did a little bit better, maybe next shift I’m going to do better.’ So you’ve just got to take it one step at a time.”

Said Shaw: “It’s a building year, so we’re hoping to get as good as we can.”

Alex Cervantes can be reached at acervantes@vnews.com or 603-727-7302.