Last year, Sweet Home was a young team but boasted of experience with a group of sophomores and juniors that had already played a year or two of varsity hockey. The Panthers doubled their win total from six to 12 (8-7-1-0 in league play last season).
The season ended with a disappointing loss to Williamsville South in prequarterfinals, but the Panthers only lost four seniors to graduation last year. Seniors Jeff Czyz and Matt Gademske have both been part of the team since freshman year and are captains for the second year in a row.
The Panthers’ hope is that all of the experience they’ve gained over the past two years has built up to this season.
“We’ve kinda been building on this now for two years,” coach Brian Turner said. “This is year three with kids that were 14 years old playing at a varsity level, so we’re pretty excited about this year. Really good kids, quality kids. They’re student athletes, do well in school.”
“Going into last year, we had sophomore year to build, so we went in with some confidence,” said Gademske. “We knew that we could compete with every team, and we had some success. Went out in the first round of the playoffs, which isn’t something that we anticipated happening, but just gotta deal with it. But we definitely are looking to make a change this year and compete with every single team, win a lot of games, and make an impact in the playoffs for sure.”
“I thought we did pretty good starting out last year, first couple games there, and then we kinda started to slow down a little bit, and I just wanna keep up that momentum this year,” added Czyz.
Czyz and Gademske are just two of this year’s key returners. Junior Tyler Edholm led last year’s team with 11 goals. He also had eight assists. Czyz had nine goals and four assists, and Gademske had three goals and 10 assists. Czyz’s brother, junior defenseman Andrew Czyz, led the team in points with 20 (six goals, 14 assists).
“I thought I did pretty good,” Jeff Czyz said. “I wanna get more points and more goals this year. I wanna help lead this team to go farther this year. I really like to play physical, and I like skating the puck too.”
“I bring speed and skill,” said Gademske. “I work hard on both ends of the ice — offensively, defensively, it doesn’t really matter. I’m out there going 110 percent every time I hit the ice.”
Gademske and Czyz bring leadership to this year’s team as well, and both captains had just one word to describe their leadership: motivation.
“Motivative,” said Gademske. “I’m always pushing guys. If someone does something wrong, it might hurt the team, but I’m gonna let them know what they can do to make a difference when they go back out there for the next shift.”
“I try to motivate other players to do better — and myself too,” said Czyz. “I’m always pushing guys to go hard every shift, even in practice.”
When asked about this year’s strengths, Czyz and Gademske mentioned both offense and defense.
“I think we have one new body on defense, but our offense is really gonna be an impact for us, Gademske said. “We just gotta get the pucks deep and get on pucks quickly. Last year, we didn’t really have a problem scoring goals. When we worked the offense that Turner and Gerspach were teaching us, we had positive things happen on the ice. I think offense is gonna be a big key this year.”
“I think our defense is looking pretty good this year, but I also like our forwards,” said Czyz. “I like the way we’re playing right now, but it’ll be interesting to see how we do the first couple games of the season.”
Turner summed it up well.
“I think all the way around, we have depth for the first time in a while,” Turner said. “We have three lines and six D. So that’s the first thing. Usually we’re trying to play against these teams that have schools with a ton of hockey players that come out. We’re usually trying to play against their teams with 10 to 12 players. This year, we’re able to play with nine forwards and six D who can all contribute. We’ve got a couple of freshmen that are gonna be able to come right up and play this year, and then the majority of our lineup, we have 10 juniors and we only have three starting seniors. Goaltending is strong, so all the way around we feel like this is kind of our year to get back to try to win the league.”
Sweet Home has traditionally adjusted its game plan and style of play based on the opponent. This year, the Panthers will do the same, but Turner wants to make sure his team is having fun too.
“The players have more fun in our games that we’re scoring in, so we will look to oftentimes have a strong offensive attack and put up a lot of goals if possible,” he said. “There are a few games where there’s some dangerous teams — we have to play a more tight checking game, and that’s more of a defensive system, try to keep it low-scoring. But for the most part, we’re gonna try to let them out there and have some fun and put the puck in the net.”
Gademske expects the team to be fast and physical this year, especially now that they’re a bit older and a bit bigger.
“We got a couple more bodies this year,” he said. “We’re not the biggest team in the league, but we’re one of the older teams now. We have a lot of juniors and a couple seniors, so we’re looking to be that upperclassman team that comes in and works hard, hustles to every single puck, makes a difference.”
Turner believes that the increase in experience will lead to an increase in confidence and knowledge of the game, including what Turner and coach Dave Gerspach expect. Gademske wants to see that confidence every game, regardless of the situation; he believes it will be key to Sweet Home’s success this year.
“Last year, I feel like when we got down, we kept our heads down for a while,” Gademske said. “We just wanna stay positive, we wanna have fun. It’s the big thing. This is my senior year — I’m really trying to live it up and have some fun with these guys.”
He and Czyz can hardly believe that they’re already seniors looking to their final season of high school hockey.
“It’s crazy that these past four years have just flown right by,” Czyz said. “I can’t believe this is my last year, so I really wanna come out strong this year and finish on a good note.”
“I remember when me and Jeff were freshmen on this team, and we’re seniors now,” Gademske said. “It’s honestly surreal. It’s pretty crazy to even talk about it, so I’m hoping time slows down for me. I’m just gonna take literally every shift like it’s my last, and I’m just gonna have fun with these guys because who knows when I’ll ever see ’em again after this year.”
Gademske doesn’t have any personal goals set for this season. He’s honest in his self-assessment, and he’s never been more excited for a Sweet Home hockey season.
“I just wanna get some points for the team,” he said. “Any point for me is a point for the team. I’ve never been a player on this team since I was a freshman who put up big numbers. I have been in like the top three, but this is a team game, and I’m just really excited to see what we can do together.”
Sweet Home opens its season Dec. 1 against Kenmore West at Northtown Center. Puck drop is scheduled for 9 pm.