The family vacation might be over, but the season isn’t.
Last weekend, Hamburg took a trip to Cicero, New York for the Fayetteville-Manlius Pride Tournament. The Bulldogs came home champions for the third consecutive year, but that was just the icing on the cake.
They spent the trip growing closer as a team, and by the end no one was calling it a road trip or a tournament — it was a “family vacation.” They hoped to bring that closeness back to Buffalo and into the rest of the regular season with them.
It started Friday night with Kenmore East at HarborCenter, and Hamburg limited the other Bulldogs to nine shots on goal in a 5-0 win. Five different Hamburg players scored goals, and goaltender Griffin Coppola earned his first varsity shutout, which had been a long time coming.
Hamburg coach John McFall said that last weekend’s tournament win gave his team “bushel loads of confidence.”
“The whole idea with scheduling something out of town was to develop that family feeling, develop that comeraderie,” he continued. “It just added to our confidence. We purposely look early in the season to have something. The whole idea is to develop that teamwork, that comeraderie, which was evidenced with that family feeling. Winning is secondary, but it’s also infectious. One win leads to another to another to another. We’ve gotta keep playing well and ride this out as best as we can.”
“It was really a confidence boost for the whole season,” said forward Jake Hangen. “It got us together as a team, on the bus and everything. Just a fun time to start the season.”
Hangen scored Hamburg’s first goal Friday night with 4:21 left in the first period. He’d scored a goal in last weekend’s tournament, but Friday night’s goal was his first in league play this season. Neil Dake picked up the assist.
“Dake just beat the guy wide, and I was just going to the net,” Hangen said. “He just made a beautiful play and got it to me in front, and I just tapped it in. It was all him. It was nice going back to the bench and getting congratulated and everything. It was good.”
Although Hamburg outshot Kenmore East 17-5 through the first two periods, Kenmore East goalie Chase Ford kept his team in the game as long as he could. Hamburg didn’t score its second goal until there were less than two minutes left in the second period. It was Chris Damiani’s first Fed goal.
The third period scoring started with Colin Bartoo’s second goal of the season, which has been a pleasant surprise to McFall, who said before the season that he’d be happy with two points from Bartoo and another defenseman combined this year. Bartoo’s consistent defensive play is expected; the goal scoring is new.
“Bartoo, I’m sure, will not let me stop hearing the fact that he’s already got his two goals four games in, so good job Bartoo!” McFall said. “Just seeing that smile on his face is a family feeling.”
“It just came out to me, and I just tried not to get blocked, get it on net, and it just happened to go top corner — I didn’t really see it go in,” Bartoo said. “Coach didn’t really expect very many goals out of me. He expected more out of [Owen] Gonter, but I’m sure Gonter’s will come pretty soon. Just whatever I can do to help offensively and stay solid defensively.”
“He’s a gunslinger,” Coppola said of Bartoo.
Jason Delmont scored his second of the season a few minutes later, and Gonter sealed the 5-0 win with a buzzer beater at the end of the game. It was Gonter’s first goal in league play, which doesn’t include the three he scored in last weekend’s tournament.
Late in the game, with the lead secured, McFall was able to give some of his younger players more ice time. But everyone had the same focus: get Coppola the shutout.
“He’s such a good goaltender, I assumed he had a shutout in the past,” McFall said. “I thought that was pretty special. A lot of firsts this year, and a lot of reasons to celebrate some of those things, and that’s why these kids play and why they love playing it, so it was good to get that for Griff and to hear the chatter on the bench of, ‘We’ve gotta do this for Griff. We have to do this for Griff.'”
“Pretty simple game, if you ask me,” Coppola said. “I didn’t really get a lot of shots. I tried to stay in the game as much as I could with my voice, tried to let them know what was going on. I don’t know if that helps at all, but you just do whatever you gotta do. If I didn’t get any shots, I’d stay square, try to take every shot one by one.”
It was only Hamburg’s second league game. In the first game against Timon, the Bulldogs gave up a late lead and ended up losing in overtime. Friday night’s team finished stronger and showed strong signs of every player learning his role.
“We don’t have any superstars,” McFall said. “We have a solid lineup, top to bottom. I think they’re learning what their roles are and how to play together as a group. We’re still only four games in, but I like what I see. There’s aspects of the game we haven’t even touched on in practice yet, but they’re good smart hockey players. They know how to figure those out on the spot, so we trust them with their hockey abilities and their hockey knowledge.”
He liked the way Hamburg played its “trademark” game Friday night while staying disciplined.
“The 5-0 score is great, but I look at the score sheet and I love seeing only two penalties,” McFall said. “I’m happy to see that we played that disciplined type of hockey. Strong, physical. That’s kind of the trademark of our game. We have some physical players. They’re taking the body. They’re playing physical and not taking penalties, which is smart hockey. They’ve learned situational play, and do the right thing at the right time in the right place.”
Friday’s win increased Hamburg’s confidence even more, and the Bulldogs hope that three wins lead to another as they look ahead to Monday night’s game against Clarence.
“Let’s bring it into Monday,” said Coppola. “We got Clarence. They’re a good team. Just trying to keep this rolling throughout the whole year. If we can play like that, I’ll be the happiest goalie in the league.”
“Stay sound, play solid hockey,” said Bartoo. “We know Clarence is a good team. Play hard, play fast.”
“Score goals,” Coppola reminded him.
“Score goals,” Bartoo agreed with a smile.