27.0°F  Website Login | Madison HeightsOctober 13, 2010Headed in the right direction
By Mike Moore
|
|
Photo by David Schrieber
Players from the Bishop Foley Unified hockey team, from left, James Piec, Devin Smith and Joe Finazzo, celebrate a goal scored by Smith during a recent game. With numbers and interest up this season, the future of the program seems bright. |
After nearly folding, Foley Unified hockey squad is building respectability
By Mike Moore
C & G Sports Writer
MADISON HEIGHTS — Joe Finazzo will never forget this past offseason, which was preoccupied with thoughts that he would never lace up his skates again for the school he loves.
Now, he couldn’t be more proud of what he and 16 other guys are doing, resurrecting a near-folded hockey program and slowly but surely bringing it back to respectability.
For each of the past two years, the end of the hockey season at Madison Heights Bishop Foley has opened the door for the possibility of closing the struggling program.
Numbers were way down, and interest was constantly questioned.
Not anymore.
“We’re getting there,” Finazzo, a junior forward from Macomb said last week about the Foley squad, which is now unified with Sterling Heights Parkway Christian. “We’re a very young team, and we’re definitely in a rebuilding mode, but the drive and the focus to build this thing back up is there.”
In just the nick of time, too.
A year ago, Foley struggled to field a full squad. With injuries and a lack of interest, it played with a roster of “12, sometimes 13 guys if we were lucky,” coach Joe Gallant explained.
The year before was even less.
“With the addition of four guys from Parkway, we’re up to 17, including two goalies, and it’s terrific,” he added. “We were even planning on having a few more guys that backed out for one reason or another. Either way, the interest is here. The schools are supporting us, and we believe we’re here to stay.”
Right now, however, they’re here to build, and everyone knows that’s not an easy process. At press time, Foley had won just one of its 13 games. Some have been close, others, well, have not. But the guys understand, and although difficult, have come to accept what’s happening.
“We want to win games, who doesn’t? But right now, our focus is on winning small battles here and there,” said Foley junior goalie and Troy resident Patrick Gumbleton. “We’re an extremely young team that is learning on the fly. To be honest, we’ve been able to hold our own quite a few times already.”
Youth is something Foley certainly has plenty of, which is a good thing for the continued growth of the program.
Of the 17 guys on the current roster, 11 are freshmen or sophomores; Cody Sucaet is the team’s lone senior.
“There’s a ton of hope here for the future,” Gallant boasted. “Uniting with Parkway let people know we were serious about keeping this going, and in the next two to three years, we plan on having a junior varsity team. Who would have thought that possible not too long ago?”
When asked about the lone win, Gallant shrugged it off.
“Our focus is on improving this team and improving this program,” he said. “We’re not worried about wins and losses right now. We’re trying to build this up, so the fear of closing the program is never a concern again.”
“It’s crazy, because before this year began, I wondered if I would ever play again in high school,” Finazzo said. “It was tough. It was scary to think about. Now I look at us and I’m so excited. This program is headed in the right direction, and I know in a few years, I’ll be able to come back and watch a team we help bring back.”
|
|
Tweet |
