You might not expect it with a name like “Quakers,” but Orchard Park is one of the most aggressive teams around. Speed is something the team works hard at, and it was evident on Friday morning as the Quakers scrimmaged Kenmore East and Kenmore West and surprised the two teams with their speed.
“It’s an aggressive style from the standpoint that we’re gonna try to skate as hard as we possibly can every shift,” coach Josh Dannecker said. “We’re gonna try to play as fast as possible, and that up-tempo game, I think, is really gonna help our guys.”
Dannecker has been the Quakers’ head coach since about halfway through last season after the previous Orchard Park coach was fired. After a hot start last year, the coaching change threw everyone off, and some of the players feel that they never quite recovered. The season ended with a 2-1 loss to Williamsville North in the large school semifinals.
“We started off real well, and then we kind of got mixed up with our coaches, and it kind of brought us down a little bit,” said Jeff Palczewski, a senior forward this year who was a co-captain last season. “We battled through it. We got farther than the year before that, so I thought we did a lot better than that year.”
But now the team is starting a fresh season with Dannecker firmly established as the head coach and key players such as Palczewski, senior defenseman TJ Maloney, and junior goaltender Tom Held returning.
“A lot of our key scorers are back, so I think that’ll be important for us,” Dannecker said. “Jeff Palczewski, Zach Biasillo up front — those two returning are gonna be really important for us. And then on defense, TJ Maloney and Clayton Galas are back. Our goalie Tommy Held will be back too, so we have a lot of returners in some key spots.”
Mitchell Streety also returns on offense as a center, and Marshall Cappelli, also a center, joins the team as a junior this year. Maloney is also joined by Ryan Riter, a junior in his first year on varsity this year.
Maloney was a co-captain with Palczewski last year, and this year, both expect to have a leadership role once again.
“We’ve both been here for four years, since we were freshmen,” Palczewski explained. “We kind of know the way things work. We are the leaders, sort of. We were the captains last year. We were the co-captains last year, and it’s nice to bring everybody up. We’re always the first ones in the locker room with everybody and everything.”
For Maloney, it’s about the details. Everything has to be done right.
“Really just getting people going for the game,” he said. “You gotta get ready, prepare right. Warmups have to go right. You gotta break a sweat in warmups, and then right from our first shift, we have to be going hard, and if we’re going hard, other people will look at that and then they’ll be going hard, and hopefully it will all come together.”
On Friday, it did. Even Maloney seemed surprised by the speed of the forwards in front of him.
“Up front, our forwards are so fast now,” he said. “What we’re doing on defense to get the puck up, it’s new, but going D to D and getting the puck up real quick, hopefully that picks up real quick. We’ve been trying to implement that in our game, but other than that, our forwards down low — they’re unbelievable down low.”
“We were faster than the other teams,” Palczewski said. “And we moved the puck well, so that was real good. We moved the puck a lot.”
“I like our energy,” Dannecker said Friday. “I think we’ve been playing fast, and that’s kind of the idea. We want to play fast, and we also want to move the puck well, and I think we’ve got a couple of guys that are pretty talented individually, but as a team game and moving the puck, that’s where we’re gonna be successful, so we’re trying to do that too.”
He went on to talk about how moving the puck and playing as a team is so crucial to the team’s success.
“For us, just one of the things that we want to do is play an unselfish game,” Dannecker said. “I think you take a lot of guys that don’t play together year round and try to put them together, I think the idea is that you play that team game to get used to each other, passing the puck and moving the puck. And I think hopefully by the end of the season, it’ll all come together. But I think right now, that’s the key thing we’re working on is moving the puck.”
On the ice, Palczewski contributes to the speed of the offense, but he’s also a physical player who will do anything to keep the puck out of his own net.
“I’m fast,” Palczewski said. “I use the body a lot. I like to block shots also.”
Maloney is a strong defenseman, but this year he’ll play a little more offense as well.
“I’m a solid defenseman, and I do like to get into the rush,” Maloney said. “The last couple of years, I haven’t really been doing that as a role. I’ve been playing just defense, but this year, playing really good tight D in front of Held here, and then also joining the rush and trying to create offense.”
And even Held, though his priority is keeping the puck out of the net, will do what he can to get the puck to his forwards.
“I’m not only just trying to be a goalie on the team, I try to play the puck and keep the puck moving, get it out of our zone as much as I can,” Held said. “It’s nice having TJ and Riter in front of me.”
When asked what what he expected for the team this season, Palczewski was quick to mention speed again.
“I think we’ll be good this year because we got a lot of new guys, and they’re all fast,” he said. “We’re gonna be a real fast team this year. We just gotta keep using our speed, get other teams tired, and then battle through the third period and just use our speed through the third period, just go right around people and win games with that.”
Maloney wants to see the team score more goals so the offense is prepared.
“There have been big changes this year with the coaching — I love the coaching — and then new guys coming in,” Maloney said. “We just gotta go, just skate, get the puck, and we have to find scoring somehow. If we could put up a lot of goals, it would be best for us so when we get to the good teams, we know how to score.”
“I like to do whatever’s best for the team,” added Held. “That’s what comes first for me, and scoring goals and keeping the puck out of the net is the big deal here.”
Dannecker has noticed the school’s other sports teams doing well, and he wants the hockey team to join them.
“I think that when you’re a school like Orchard Park with a lot of history of performing in other sports, you want to compete for titles and compete for divisions,” he said. “So I don’t think that just because we haven’t won in a while that there’s no expectation that we play well. So I think we want to play well. I think we want to try to compete for a division and for a title.”
Orchard Park is scheduled to open its season against Williamsville North on Dec. 5 against Williamsville North at 1 pm at Northtown Center.