With the hockey season officially closed for 2014-2015 school year, the Colonia High School‘s record ended up being a disappointing 5-15-1. Can the Patriots bounce back for a better 2015-2016 season?
The Colonia High/John F. Kennedy Memorial High hockey team will lose two crucial players, Mike Palmisano and Vinny Spino, next season. That leaves a thought of what will become of the team without them. Palmisano’s career stats include 18 assists and 22 points. Spino’s career stats consist of 48 goals, 50 assists, and 98 points. Spino was also named one of NJ.com’s Ice Hockey: Three Stars for Sunday on February 15th after his hat trick lead the Patriots to a 5-3 victory over Marlboro.
This season’s record was better than the 2011-2012 season previously the worst season with a record of 4-12-2 with a win percentage of 22.2% where the 2014-2015 season had win percentage of 23.8% but did worse than last year’s 2013-2014 season with a record of 8-7-2 and a win percentage of 47.1% which is the best season to date according to NJ.com. If the season’s records have been able to change so drastically over the course of two years, then there could possibly be hope for a better record going into next year. One major win was the 10-0 shut out against Morris Hills in the first round of the Bayonne Tournament in late December.
A hope for next year’s Colonia/JFK team would be Timothy Bizub who is making his way to 100 points, so far Timothy has a total of 86 points. 34 points were earned in the 2014-2015season alone and over the course of his three years playing for the Patriots, his point total has increased each year. Hopefully he can continue to increase his point scoring, and if not, he has a brother to take over for him,. Luke practices and trains with his brother, so easily enough, he could become as important of a player as his brother, freshman Luke Bizub has been. Luke Bizub works out with his brother several days of the week to get into better shape for hockey.
Hopefully the team isn’t affected by this year’s record; it would be crucial that they recover from a negative season and work to put more wins together. Varsity Hockey Player, Luke Bizub, said, “I do believe our performance this year will effect next year in the beginning of the season, next year I don’t think we will have confidence in ourselves because of the season we just came out of, but once we start putting the puck in the net we will pick up our game.”
This season the team had the special privilege to train with a former Russian hockey player. The instructor helped train the boys in the fundamentals of the game and further increase their prevalent skills, and for next year will possibly rejoin the effort in improving the team’s skills. Varsity Hockey Coach, Christopher Monticollo stated that he is hoping for next year’s players to train with the Russian instructor again.
