27.0°F  Website Login | Mount ClemensAugust 18, 2010The next step
By Brad D. Bates
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Photo by Patricia O’Blenes |
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MAC hockey teams look to further success in playoffs
MOUNT CLEMENS — As the Macomb Area Conference looks to prove itself as a hockey league, there is one surefire way to make its name — win in the MHSAA postseason.
In the league’s five-year history, only three programs have won a regional title — Macomb Dakota, Utica Eisenhower and St. Clair Shores Unified — and only once have two teams won a regional crown in the same year, as Shores and Eisenhower did to end the 2005-06 season.
But with a growing number of players coming from the travel hockey ranks to join its teams, the time may be right for the MAC to make its mark.
“In my three years, the league has really grown,” Eisenhower coach Bob Hall said. “The quality and caliber of players has really grown, and if that goes on, the MAC will be one of the top leagues in the state.”
Dakota was the last MAC squad to take home a regional championship at the end of the 2007-08 season, and part of what made that team a success was its chemistry.
“Two years ago, it all started; there was a brotherhood,” Dakota senior Matt Demers said. “We had 12 seniors, and they showed us how to build team chemistry and passed it on. And this year, we brought it back again, and we’re hoping it will help us win it again.”
Dakota coach Dave Koons saw some similarities between his 2007-08 squad and those teams that routinely win in the playoffs.
“A lot of it is how their programs are set up,” Koons said of the perennial state-title contenders. “They follow a plan, and their kids buy into it. That’s why they’re successful.”
Koons said the benefit of having seniors who were with his program for multiple years was the driving force behind the Cougars’ regional title.
“They had a lot of experience and senior leadership, similar to what we have now,” Koons said. “The only difference is a bunch of those seniors were in the program for three to four years, and this year, only a couple have been around.”
One way that the MAC programs are looking to get their players well versed in their programs is through growing the league’s JV teams.
“We have a good, strong JV system with a pool of people ready to come in,” Hall said. “We put a system in place where we’re going to have strong senior leadership, but our younger talent is developing.”
Key in the development of the JV programs is letting players and their parents know that they can grow their game at the JV level.
“You’ve got to talk to kids, talk to parents, and get them out there to practice with you, so they can tell you know what you’re talking about and sell your program,” Koons said.
“We set our program up, and we explain things — why we do things. Kids don’t always like it, but that’s what we do.”
While the Cougars’ system may shock players at first, once they get to know it and the coaches, they tend to come around.
“We try to give them opportunities to be themselves and be better student-athletes,” Koons said. “So 99 percent of the kids buy into it.”
Dakota’s commitment to its philosophies has made its program attractive to incoming players and older players, such as Dakota senior captain Will Stawinski.
“I came out because I wanted to play with my buddies,” said Stawinski, who is in his first year playing in high school after playing AAA travel hockey.
“I knew I would have a good time, and the coaching wasn’t that much different. I knew I could come out, play hockey and advance.”
Dakota’s not the only program enjoying an influx of travel talent young and old.
A leaguewide increase in experienced players has created more depth and competition within the league, which might be the final piece of the MAC’s playoff puzzle.
“We have to show up every game,” Stawinski said of the MAC’s competitive nature. “We’ll be more comfortable with how the intensity will be in the playoffs because we’ve played with that intensity all year.”
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