Players have already taken the ice and have begun to make their mark on the 2024 hockey season. With the Flyers Cup only two months away, there’s plenty of league play left for teams to make a run and secure a spot in the highly coveted tournament.

In APAC play, the La Salle Explorers picked up right where the team left off last season. The defending APAC Founder’s Cup, 2023 3A Flyers Cup and 3A Pennsylvania State champions currently sit atop of APAC standing with 15 points and an unblemished 5-0 league record. La Salle opened its season on Wednesday, Nov. 15 against Philadelphia Catholic League rival St. Joseph’s Prep, securing a 3-1 victory. The Explorers also handily defeated Malvern Prep 4-1 on Nov. 22 and The Hun School 6-0 on Dec. 6. With three league games remaining against Malvern Prep (1/17), The Hun School (1/31) and St. Joseph’s Prep (2/14) and a non-league slate against The Haverford School, don’t be surprised if the Explorers enter the APAC semifinals on Wednesday, Feb. 21 with a goose egg in the loss column.

Malvern Prep and St. Joseph’s Prep each boast a 2-2 APAC records, followed by Holy Ghost Prep at 1-3 and The Hun School at 0-3.

In the ICHSL-PCL division, Salesianum, the 2023 ICSHL-PCL champions, leads the standings with an 8-2-1 record with 17 points. Last season, the Sallies defeated Father Judge 4-3 in OT to win the championship and have remained dominant. Salesianum opened its season on Oct. 27th, defeating Devon Prep 5-2. The Sallies followed with another close 5-4 win against Father Judge on Oct. 30th. The Crusaders are currently close behind in second place with a 7-3-1 record, also boasting 17 points. The 3-3 tie for the Crusaders was against Salesianum on Nov. 17th.  Devon Prep sits in third at 7-5 and the combined team of Archbishop Carroll and Pope John Paul holds a record of 3-10. In fifth is the combined Shanahan-Coatesville squad (1-11).

There are five additional Philadelphia Catholic League teams that compete in the ICSHL-D2 division. Archbishop Ryan is currently in second place (10-3) followed by Cardinal O’Hara (9-4) who won the 2022 ICHSL-PCL title. Bux-Mont Catholic, which is a team compiled of players from Lansdale Catholic and Archbishop Wood, is in fourth place at 9-4 with 18 points. Roman Catholic holds a 3-8 record in sixth place and another combined team of Methacton-Conwell-Egan sits in eighth place at 0-12.

Lots of hockey is left to be played. Let’s take a look at some key December match-ups.

By: Morgan Killian-Moseley

COLMAR, Pa.- The defending AAA-level state champion La Salle College High School Explorers struck early and came up strong defensively for all 51 minutes, especially when they were a man down, earning a 3-1 win over the Holy Ghost Prep Firebirds at Hatfield Ice on Dec. 11, pushing their record to 8-1 overall and 4-0 in the Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference.

This flipped the advantage in numbers and gave Holy Ghost their first power play, which became a two-man advantage when Slook came out of the box 27 seconds later.  Late in the power play the Firebirds did get one past La Salle goalie Jake Rossi- but not the goalie’s best friend. The shot rang off the post, and the Explorers went on to successfully kill off the five-on-three. Ghost’s Joe Kauffman did get a breakaway chance a few minutes later, but LCH’s defense closed off any chance he had of getting a shot away, and the Explorer defense held things there to finish the first period with a 1-0 lead.

La Salle would get their next power play chance about five minutes into the second period as Holy Ghost’s Andrew Morgan received a tripping minor; and they would deliver as Kelly set up Dean Carvalho for a well-placed rip from the slot past a well-screened Bothoff to give the Explorers a 2-0 advantage.  Grant LaGreca, who provided the screen, was also credited with the secondary assist on Carvalho’s goal, Carvalho’s fifth of the season.

Things would get a little bit chippy at times, especially near the crease. Holy Ghost’s Anthony Valeriote would be extra aggressive on loose pucks near Rossi. This, of course, would draw the ire of the Explorers; particularly Michael Zarzycki who would get called for a crosscheck to the head, which would result in a five-minute major and a game misconduct with just over three and a half minutes remaining.

“We have a lot of new pieces, so we’re switching up the lines trying to see what works,” said Kelly, “And we’re just trying to... get more goals against these teams. We’re putting a lot of pressure on them and not getting enough goals.”

“I think we did a nice job pressuring the puck when we had the opportunity,” La Salle head coach Wally Muehlbronner said of the Explorer PK. “We were able to get the clears, and we did a nice job of putting the pressure on them once we cleared the puck as well. We didn’t make it easy in their zone, which was a big part of the kill.”

“I don’t think [our offense] was the strongest part of our game tonight,” Muehlbronner added. “We’d been generating a lot more quality opportunities in past games, and part of that was the way Ghost played us. We need to get back to work, simplify things, and hopefully create better opportunities.”

“This team is young, they’re still learning,” said Holy Ghost head coach John Ritchie. “I think we’re better now than we were a month ago, but ultimately it comes down to finishing opportunities. We had some pretty good shots in front of the net, we just didn’t... bury those chances.”

“Power play is an ongoing [issue],” Ritchie added. “They’re so many new guys- we graduated ten seniors- so some of this comes down to chemistry. Plus, our coaching staff is together for the first time, so they’re learning our style, we’re still learning some of their tendencies.” Ritchie went on to add that he believed the younger Firebirds would improve as they become better adjusted to Ghost’s coaching scheme and as they got more ice time.

By: Morgan Killian-Moseley

NORTHEAST PHILADELPHIA- The Archbishop Carroll Patriots, who joined forces with the Pope John Paul II Golden Panthers, could only dress ten players in their Dec. 15th matchup at the Northeast Skate Zone against the Father Judge Crusaders.

The matchup went exactly how you might expect, with Judge scoring three goals in the first two minutes and not looking back; winning by mercy rule 10-0 after two periods.

Owen Myers led the way for the Crusaders with five points- a hat trick and two assists, while Zach Michel added two goals and nearly completed his own hat trick late in the second period. Carlos Rowland and George Whitfield also had a goal and two assists each, with Jason Smaron and Leo Reilly both adding a goal and an assist of their own. Joe Mullen lit the lamp once, assisted by Shawn Miller and Kevin Knecht, and Anthony Casper and Jake Proud chipped in two helpers as well.

“They play good hockey as a unit every time they’re out there,” said Judge assistant coach Steve Meade about the Crusaders’ effort both that night and throughout the season. “Every single person on this team has contributed [to the team’s success] in a significant way already.”

As for what improvements the team can make as the season goes on, “I think we could be a little bit better at moving the puck faster,” Meade said. “We have the right ideas about where to move the puck and how to move it, we just don’t do it at high enough speed.”

The Patriots could only get five shots on net, and Judge netminder Christian McDonald had little trouble stopping them all for the shutout. Meanwhile, Carroll goalie Landon King had to face a 50-shot bombardment from Judge, and the fact that he hung in and made 40 saves speaks to the resiliency of the Carroll/PJP squad.

“We might be outmatched at times, as we were tonight, but bottom line is these boys come out to fight,” said Carroll-PJP head coach Tom Puhl. “Whether you’re on the right side or the wrong side of it, showing up is the biggest thing. I’m always proud of them for [showing up].”

By: Morgan Killian-Moseley

BRISTOL, PA- The Holy Ghost Prep Firebirds had something to prove at Grundy Ice Arena on December 19, and they may have flipped some Flyers Cup ranking committee opinions with their 3-2 win against the St. Joe’s Prep Hawks.

“We saw the Flyers Cup rankings come out and [they had us ranked 8th]”, said Firebirds captain Pat Slook, who scored the first goal of the game. “We don’t think we deserved that at all... we had close games against [higher-ranked teams], and I think we took that personal and we went out there and showed that we could beat the 2-seed.”

That lead would hold through the rest of the first period and most of the second as well, until St. Joe’s Prep got themselves an equalizer on a power play breakaway from Cole Gargon. Jack Lynch got the assist on the outlet pass that sprung Gargon for his fourth goal of the campaign for the Hawks.

But Ghost would regain the lead on- what else? - a power play goal. This time it was Joe Kaufmann who buried a rebound from McCaw for his third goal of the season for the Firebirds.

The final 17 minutes saw both teams play a much tighter, cleaner defensive game. The teams had combined for 11 penalties in the first two periods, but each committed only one in the final stanza. However, Ghost’s penalty came with 20 seconds left while Prep had Aranda pulled for the extra attacker. The Hawks did everything they could to get the game to overtime, but the Firebird D came up huge with two blocks in front of Botthof to preserve the 3-2 win.

“I think we need to keep playing as we just did, and not worry about outside stuff,” Slook said regarding how the Firebirds can continue to rise back up the rankings. He also added that the team would like to continue to execute on the power play while cutting down on committing penalties themselves.

“When our morale was down, we were able to push back,” said Winata. “We were in it until the very end... We weren’t expecting [Ghost] to push back [as hard as they did], but one thing we did well was keep going. Even though we had a bad start we were able to lift ourselves off the ground and keep ourselves in the game.”

“I think our lack of maturity showed up tonight, where we took some ill-advised penalties which really hurt us. We were playing from behind for the majority of the game,” said St. Joe’s Prep head coach Dave Giacomin. “That’s not to take anything away from Ghost, because they’re a pretty good skating team. But when you put yourself in the box as many times as we did, giving up two power play goals, that was the difference in the game.”

Both teams scored twice on the man advantage with Ghost drawing seven opportunities to Prep’s six. The Hawks outshot the Firebirds 32-30, though Ghost had the advantage after the first 17 minutes. Botthof made 30 saves in the win for the Firebirds, while Aranda made 27 stops in the losing effort for the Hawks.

On December 22nd the St. Joseph's Prep Hawks hosted Springfield at UPenn in their annual “Pink the Rink” game winning 7-2.

The second period couldn’t have been more opposite, as no goal were scored.

The Hawks picked up their offensive momentum in the third with Tristan Winata, Patrick Sweeney, Robert McGinn and Short all scoring to make the final score 7-2.