Both Grand Island and Sweet Home have an abundance of sophomores that are carrying much of the workload this season and in the years to come. On Thursday night, with Sweet Home at the top of Division 4 and Grand Island trailing a few teams in Division 3, the two young teams met on the Olympic Rink at Northtown Center.
“Looking at our record and their record and looking at all their results of the game and our results of the game, we knew it was gonna be a tough game,” Grand Island coach Bob Simpson said. “Like all their games are one-goal games, and most of our games are one-goal games. And there’s really a lot of parity in this league in Division 3 and 4, so we knew one way or the other, it was gonna be close. And we got out there and we jumped on them early and got a couple goals right away, and it was successful for us. We were really happy about that.”
“We knew they were number one in their division, so we knew we had to come out strong,” Grand Island sophomore Colin Bellinger said. “So we had to rethink everything, and it being the Olympic ice, we had to rearrange everything. We were supposed to stay in the dots to keep it like regulation, so we could play our normal game and just move our feet and take it wide when we could.”
Bellinger scored the first goal in what ended in a 4-2 Grand Island win.
Grand Island coaches Don Pray and Bob Simpson focus on keeping their young players calm through whatever game situations they might face. While the two have contrasting personalities — Pray is the calmer one while Simpson gets the players fired up when he needs to — both understand the importance of keeping their young team calm through adversity.
“I’m more the animator out there,” Simpson said. “Coach and I have a good balance; he’s a very calming influence and I’m kind of the ‘rah rah rah’ guy. It’s worked well for us, but just with this young team — I don’t want to say we go easy on them, but we know where they are. We know where they are in their development, and we know by just yelling at these guys, they’re not gonna respond, so we really try to focus on staying calm when you face adversity and when you do, it’s how you come out after that that matters.”
With Grand Island on a two-game win streak after Thursday’s win, the calm approach seems to be working. And that’s not the only thing working for the Vikings — their power play has been lethal with two power play goals on Tuesday and two more on Thursday, with only two power play opportunities in the most recent game.
“We’re just really working on movement — moving the puck, moving your feet,” Simpson said. “If you’re standing still, you’re doing something wrong because they’re just setting up, so we really wanted to work it from low to high today. Because of the size of the rink and the size behind the net, we thought that we can exploit their team low and use that net and then hit some guys coming in. Didn’t quite work the way we wanted to, but we did have a lot of great movement on that and then a couple good goals and even one behind the net, so there you go.”
Bellinger’s goal was an even strength goal just 1:19 into the second to give the Vikings a 1-0 lead. Though neither team was able to score in the first period, Grand Island’s fast start was key in the second.
“I was coming out of our end, and it got chipped out to center ice, and I just moved past the defenseman, put it blocker side,” Bellinger explained his goal. “So that was kinda nice to get the goals going and get that lead.”
Another sophomore, Thomas Cecere, added to the lead just before the six-minute mark in the second, with Bellinger picking up the assist. Just over 30 seconds later, Grand Island went on its first power play of the game, and Brandon Snyder, another sophomore, put the Vikings up 3-0. Senior Drew Callen added another power play goal with less than three minutes to go in the period, and Grand Island ended the second with a 4-0 lead.
It was Callen’s first game back from injury, and a goal was quite a way to make his return.
“It was my first game back from a separated shoulder, so I wanted to get back into it a little bit, and I saw his pad was off the post, so I shot it off his pad and in,” Callen said. “I was kinda nervous the first couple shifts, getting back into the hang of the games and stuff. I’ve only done three practices since the Lew-Port game. It was good to be back. It was good to get back out there with the team.”
And Callen felt that the four-goal lead gave the Vikings the calmness they strive for as they went into the third period.
“It was good to get out to a big lead to start the game, and it helped calm us down, and we stayed calm the rest of the game,” Callen said.
Bellinger thought maybe they were too comfortable with the big lead, and when Sweet Home scored twice in the second half of the third period, he was slightly nervous.
“Coming in with a big lead like that, it’s kind of scary because everyone’s cocky and they think it’s over,” Bellinger said. “So after they scored, we kinda had to get back in the mental state of, the game’s not over.”
Sweet Home senior Daniel Richeal scored his first varsity goal 7:47 into the third, and sophomore Daniel Lund scored with just 3:12 left.
But Callen wasn’t worried.
“I knew we were gonna close it out,” Callen said.
The Vikings did close it out, and the win locked them into a fourth-place tie with St. Francis. Grand Island defeated St. Francis Tuesday night and is scheduled to play them again on Monday.
“Definitely making a statement on beating the number one in their division, so good to get the points and beat a big team,” Bellinger said.
“We got two in a row now, so we’re looking to get a push for the playoffs, get a good seeding, and hope to go far,” Callen said.
“It’s two in a row now, so that’s good,” Simpson said. “We lost three in a row — three one-goal losses, and now we have two in a row, and we have a chance to put some wins together here, where it gives us a little better seeding at the end, and we might not see one of the top tier teams until a little bit later in the playoffs, and you never know. It just takes one game.”