By Taylor Nyman, Intern
Souderton Area High School
After a strong win over the Souderton Indians in their first game, the North Penn Knights did a 180. The Knights lost two consecutive games to William Tennet and Central Bucks East. They were out scored 13-1 in the two games.
“Quite frankly, the effort wasn’t there. We weren’t working hard, doing the little things that we practiced all year,” North Penn’s head coach, Kevin Vaitis said of his team’s play in the back-to-back losses.
Coach Vaitis just wanted the team to “get back to the way we practiced.” In North Penn’s next game, played October 29, they did just that. They won 5-2 over Central Bucks South.
One Knight that came to play was senior captain Jimmy McKelvie, who scored all five of the Knights’ goals. After only scoring one goal in the previous three games, Mckelvie came out fighting.“I expected him and some of the other guys to come out and have a strong game,” Vaitis said. “I didn’t expect him to come out and score five goals though.”
McKelvie is a second-year captain for the Knights and in four games he has a total of 11 points which leads the team. He has been on the varsity squad since tenth grade and stood out to his coach as a leader of the team.
“There’s your vocal captains and the ones that lead by example on the ice,” coach Vaitis explained. “Jimmy actually falls into the category where he has both qualities, where he’s not afraid to speak up and speak his mind, and he does it where all the guys respect him. But then he also goes out there during the game and works hard on the ice.”
“It’s my duty every game to step up and be a leader on and off the ice,” McKelvie says of his captaincy. “This game, it wasn’t that I needed to step up, I just knew we had to put the puck in the net, and I just happened to do it.”
Jimmy McKelvie started playing hockey when he was four and played a little bit of roller hockey and then got into ice hockey. He played for a short time with the Junior Flyers when he was 12 and now he plays for the 18AA Ice Dogs team.
From being captain for two years, McKelvie has learned how to be a captain and lead his team.
“I’ve learned that there is a way to go about things. Different players respond differently to different things,” McKelvie explains. “If you want to try to pick up a guy on your team, you know, some people respond to getting in their face and other people respond just like ‘hey, come on, we got this’.”
McKelvie doesn’t just lead the team he also helps the younger guys on the team. With only three returning varsity players last year, the young North Penn team needed to learn the pace of the game.
“I would tell them, ‘Just don’t be scared out there, it’s okay to make mistakes, and keep your head up,” McKelvie said of his inspiring words for the young guys on the team.
Just like any other teenager, McKelvie enjoys hanging out with his friends and his girlfriend. He also “loves hanging out with family.” He plays and umpires baseball and has a job.
After graduation, McKelvie plans to go to college to become a sports broadcaster and would like to play college hockey.
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