Wareham Hockey kicks off season of ‘rebuilding’
Wareham Captain Olivia Sontag goes after the puck. Photo courtesy: Caitlyn Tobin
Goalie and team captain Ryker King at the game. Photo courtesy: Caitlyn Tobin
Wareham’s Braden McCarthy follows an ORR team member. Photo courtesy: Caitlyn Tobin
A team huddle. Photo courtesy: Melissa Cannon
Wareham Captain Olivia Sontag goes after the puck. Photo courtesy: Caitlyn Tobin
Goalie and team captain Ryker King at the game. Photo courtesy: Caitlyn Tobin
Wareham’s Braden McCarthy follows an ORR team member. Photo courtesy: Caitlyn Tobin
A team huddle. Photo courtesy: Melissa Cannon
When the Wareham Vikings took on the Old Rochester Regional hockey team on Sunday, Dec. 12, the game didn’t exactly go the Vikings’ way.
Wareham ultimately lost the game 10-1, but Coach Rich Valatkevicz said it just means there’s room for further improvement this season.
“It was a tough start,” Valatkevicz said of the loss.
He said Wareham’s team was particularly inexperienced this season.
“I’ve got a very young team this year,” he said. “A lot of young kids.”
Valatkevicz said he has a lot of eighth and ninth graders on the team, and he described this year as “a bit of a rebuilding season.”
He said that he’s been coaching the team for six years and the Vikings have made the tournament three of those six years.
“You go through it,” he said. “It’s going to be a situation where you graduate a lot of seniors and then you start building again — you go through rebuilding seasons.”
That youth and inexperience leaves room for growth, according to Valatkevicz.
“You just gotta keep moving forward,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll just keep improving as the season goes by.”
The Wareham Viking Varsity Hockey team will take on Upper Cape Regional at Gallo Ice Arena at 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 15. Then, on Wednesday, Dec. 22, at 8 p.m., they’ll go head-to-head with Bourne at Gallo Ice Arena.
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