This week marks the beginning of an expanded high school ice hockey experience for many players in the Central Pennsylvania region. Several schoolboys will represent northern Blair County on a team comprised of players from local high schools that are not sponsoring their own individual teams. The Central Pennsylvania team will include players who attend schools in Bellwood and Tyrone as well as Bedford, Chestnut Ridge, Huntingdon, Spring Cove, and State College. The team also includes one player who is home-schooled. The league includes three divisions-varsity, junior varsity, and freshmen.
\nCentral PA Coach Ed Ehrlichman said the new league\u201dopens the door up for (the kids) to play a fairly high level of scholastic hockey. It\u2019s a great opportunity.\u201d
\nEhrlichman said hockey is a \u201cfast-moving, intense game\u201d that is \u201cperfect\u201d for young people.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s something about hockey,\u201d he said. \u201cIt involves the commitment the kids have to make–both financial and time-wise. On a Saturday morning in the summer, these kids are on the ice at 7 a.m. for practice. Most athletes who play hockey love it.\u201d
\nChris White, a senior at Bellwood, plays center. White started playing roller hockey seven years ago in Altoona. He then commuted to State College to play ice hockey, and later played on the Tracker team in Altoona after Galactic Ice was built. White said hockey is the \u201call-around sport. It combines skill, physicality, and teamwork. There\u2019s no sport like it.\u201d
\nLarry Hunter, a senior at Tyrone, plays wing. Hunter had played in Lancaster three years ago. When his family moved to this area, he played in an adult league in State College. Hunter said he \u201chas never liked any other sport better. Even when I was bad at it, I had a passion to get better.\u201d
\nHunter said hockey has helped him to \u201crespect the people around me\u201d because of the physical aspect of hockey. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to hit, you\u2019re going to be hit.\u201d
\nFred Dorman, the team\u2019s goalie, is a sophomore from Bellwood. Dorman said he\u2019s been playing street hockey “all my life\u201d and ice hockey for two and a half years. He said the \u201cspeed and competition\u201d make hockey so much fun.
\nEhrlichman said that the Central PA team members, coming from various schools and areas, and having often faced each other as opponents, have had to come together as a team. And that coming together has helped the kids mature faster.
\n\u201cHigh school kids can have a myopic view of things, but these kids are forced to mature in this environment. They got thrown together for a tournament last year. They didn\u2019t evenvknow each other\u2019s names. We\u2019re going to see the team gel. They\u2019re starting to come together as a team. It\u2019s kind of neat to see,\u201d he said.
\nHunter agrees.
\n\u201cI think we\u2019re going to surprise a lot of teams this year. We\u2019ll be in contention,\u201d he said.
\nWith Bishop Guilfoyle fielding a team last year, enthusiasm has grown for expanding the high school program in the local area. Guilfoyle\u2019s team features standout goalie Neil Caldwell of Bellwood. Caldwell also started out playing roller hockey at Sir Skate in Altoona.
\nDave Weaver, whom Ehrlichman called an \u201cambassador for hockey in the area\u201d is a talk show host on Altoona\u2019s WRTA radio station and has been a mover and a shaker in the effort to promote high school hockey in the local area. Weaver coaches the Midget A Major Tracker Hockey Club team which includes 15 to 18 year olds. Weaver has coached most of the players from northern Blair who will play on the Central PA team and also coaches the Altoona Area High School Hockey team and the Penn State Altoona team. Several other players from northern Blair County play on Weaver\u2019s Trackers team. Weaver said the emergence of this new opportunity for local players will help to increase popularity of the sport locally.
\n\u201cIt should be exciting for kids to play for their high schools.\u201d Weaver said fans will see\u201da good level of hockey played by people who love the game.\u201d
\nThe puck drops for Central PA\u2019s junior high team next Friday at 8 p.m. The high school team plays at 10 p.m. next Saturday. Both games will be played in Indiana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week marks the beginning of an expanded high school ice hockey experience for many players in the Central Pennsylvania region. Several schoolboys will represent northern Blair County on a team comprised of players from local high schools that are not sponsoring their own individual teams. The Central Pennsylvania team will include players who attend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}