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By GORDON GLANTZ
The current edition of the Neshaminy ice hockey team came into the season looking for a fresh start.
“We met with the team prior to the season,” said coach Bill Mooney. “We went around the room. We asked each player to give an individual goal and a team goal.
“As a team, we wanted to win the Gannon Cup.”
That immediate goal was achieved on Thanksgiving Eve with a 5-3 win over Pennsbury. While the schools are bitter rivals, money was raised for the Gift of Life Foundation (organ donation).
“All the student bodies from both schools come out,” said Mooney. “They are all cheering on their own teams, but also raising a ton of money for an awesome cause.”
As for the victory itself, it checked off a box before the calendar even flipped to December.
“Pennsbury is always a difficult team to play against,” said Mooney.
Meanwhile, with that win and another over CB West – as well as a nonleague triumph over Conestoga – Neshaminy already has three wins to last season’s one.
The team enters this week’s action – Wednesday against North Penn (8:30, Hatfield Gray) and Thursday against Pennsbury (7:20, Grundy B) – looking for more positivity to take into the holidays.
“As a team, we already attained one of our goals, which was to win the Gannon Cup,” said Mooney. “As we are pushing along now, we are competing for a playoff spot.
“Our goal, as it is every year, is to try and get an invite to the Flyers Cup. We have been invited maybe five of the last seven years.”
Young and Restless
The relatively young team has not given the first-year head coach any reason not to put any limits on what it can achieve.
“It’s going really, really well,” said Mooney, who was an assistant coach for Neshaminy and also the head coach at the middle school level. “They are all playing as a team. Everybody is buying into the system.”
The pipeline appears promising as well.
“We have three new coaches on our bench,” said the coach. “The culture of our locker room is changing. We are moving in the right direction. We are very excited about the future.
“Assuming that some of the kids on the middle school team don’t go off to Holy Ghost Prep or one of the other area Catholic schools, we are going to continue to stay pretty competitive here.”
Like Father, Like Sons
Mooney’s previous role as a varsity assistant since 2017 was to coach the defense.
It should come as no surprise that both of this sons – senior Liam and sophomore Sean – are both rearguards.
“It runs in the blood, from when I was kid,” said Mooney. “I don’t know if I could even teach anyone how to play forward.”
What he is teaching the whole team is that he is able to separate being a coach to being a dad with two sons on the squad.
“It’s not too bad,” Mooney said. “I treat everybody the same. We met at the beginning of the season, and I told the team, ‘Yes, they have the same last name as me, but I am going to treat everybody the same as I would any other player on this team.’ My boys both know that, too. They are both good, hard workers. They are respectful. They respect the game, and they respect all the coaches. I’m very fortunate. I have never had any problems with coaching them, and I coached them at club hockey, too.”
In private moments, like car rides home from practices and games or at the dinner table. Mooney is also careful not to be overbearing.
“We talk hockey all the time. The game itself, afterwards, I try to make a practice of not talking about their individual games on the way home,” the Neshaminy coach said. “We may talk about the team game, about how we should have done better at this or how we should have done better at that, but nothing individually.
“That’s something I have always practiced over the years because we are all going to have rough games now and then. I never want to critique them in the car while on the ride home. It’s either about the whole entire game or about what is going on in school.”
Youth is Served
While Liam Mooney (3 goals, 6 points), Ryan DeMatteo (6 goals, 8 points) and goalie Colin Thurnau (3.94 goals against average, .887 save percentage, 2-2 record) are the team’s only seniors and clear-cut leaders, the supporting cast is doing its job.
“We are a little bit of a younger team,” said Mooney. “My younger guys, my freshmen and my sophomore core, are really picking up the slack.”
The coach sang the praises of junior forwards Angelo Veneziale (6 goals, 11 points) and Anthony DiCostra (4 goals, 5 points).
“(DiCostra) may not show up on the scoresheet all over the place, but he is one of our grinders,” said the coach. “(Veneziale) is working hard. He is really stepping in there and picking up some points.”
Mooney has the depth for three lines but is giving more ice time to the top six until the others get more acclimated to the speed of the varsity game.
In addition to his sons, he has three other defenders at his disposal.
Mooney also singled out underclassmen Carter Lennon (4 goals, 7 points), Tyler Hathaway (2 goals, 4 points) and Eli Kirsh (2 goals, 3 points).
From the blue line, the younger Mooney has three helpers and Brett Fox has added two.
A pleasant surprise has been freshman center Nathan Parker (2 goals, 5 points).
“He’s getting minutes that most freshmen on most varsity teams are not getting,” said the coach. “He’s getting power play time. He’s probably one of our top three forecheckers on the team.
“The kid just has a motor that never seems to end. He works and works and works. He’s also an awesome teammate. He is always cheering on other people and never complains about anything.”
One of the Guys
Backup goalie Gianna Raggio, a sophomore, has made two starts and more than held her own.
“She is very quick,” said Mooney. “She is really good down low. She is an awesome teammate, too. She doesn’t take any crap from the boys, that’s for sure.
“I give her a ton of credit. She is the only female on our team, but none of the guys look at her as like, ‘She’s the girl on the team.’ They all see her as just another teammate.”
And that’s a good thing, because she just might be the team’s goalie of the future.
“She’s a young up-and-coming goalie in our organization,” said Mooney. “We like Gianna a lot.”
Mooney noted that, unlike several other rostered female players in the SHSHL, Raggio also plays with and against boys at the 16U club level.
“I’m almost certain that she is the only girl on that team as well,” said Mooney. “That’s the world she is in. She’s the only girl on the team, but I can’t imagine that she plays any differently there than she does with us.”
“You start getting to that level, you are seeing some pretty hard shots. Some of these guys are almost like full-fledged juniors in college, but she doesn’t shy away.”
Filling It Up
Although Council Rock North was 3-7 through 10 games, the squad features some of the most dangerous threats in the league.
Jason Accardi has 19 goals and 21 points, followed by Ivan Bondra’s 14 goals and 23 points and Dan Maglathin’s 10 goals (four on the power play) and 15 points.
CR North will take on Pennsbury Wednesday (7:20, Grundy B). The Falcons (2-6) are paced by Jacob Sarver (7 goals) and Christopher Sarver (10 assists).
Smoke Signals
In the American Conference, Wissahickon will look to improve to 5-1 when it takes on Abington (0-6) on Wednesday (9 p.m., Hatfield Blue).
The Trojans, winners of four in a row, are led upfront by Benjamin Raebiger (7 goals, 9 points), Logan Honeycutt (6 goals, 7 points), Joe Gambini (5 goals, 6 points) and Jack Raebinger (4 goals, 6 assists).
Aiden Brooks (1 goal, 7 assists) and Logan Dicus (7 assists) lead the defense in front of goalie Fletcher Lynch (.843 save percentage, 3.97 goals against average).
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