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Sports

Still Looking for Varsity Status, Club Hockey All-Stars Shine

NVSHL players and coaches produce high-quality product without school, district support

The Northern Virginia Scholastic Hockey League played its All-Star game Feb. 16 in Ashburn. The Norris-Smythe All-Stars defeated their counterparts from the Adams-Patrick team 7-3. It looked like a high school hockey All-Star Game should, with top players from Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William Counties putting on a good show. But one thing, according to some players and coaches, was missing: varsity status as recognized by the county school systems.

Herndon parent Joe O’Bryan, whose son Patrick was a defenseman on the winning squad, said he thinks ice hockey ought to be recognized by the schools in the same way traditional sports like track, wrestling, football and basketball are.

“They’re finally getting recognized in the yearbook,” O’Bryan said while watching the goals and hits from along the boards. “But varsity would be huge, especially for college transcripts. It’s a competition these days and these kids have put a ton of time into the sport.”

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O’Bryan said some of the smaller sports, like crew, have attained varsity status in some schools, so it doesn’t seem impossible that a sport like hockey, whose popularity is gaining among young athletes thanks to the recent success of the Washington Capitals, would gain that recognition, too.

“It can be done,” he said. “Somebody’s just got to do it.”

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Justin Nicholls, a senior forward from Madison who will be graduating this spring, said he would love to come back to campus some day and see a state championship trophy displayed in the Warhawks’ display case.

“That would be something else, I tell you what. I wish it was a varsity sport,” he said. “We’re just a regular team. Nobody knows about us. We have to (get the word out) through Facebook or tell friends to tell their friends. But with varsity football, everybody knows about it.”

And that’s one thing most of the coaches and players in attendance could agree on. They would like to be able to promote their sport on campus, via announcements in the morning and by creating banners and signs to post in the school hallways. But Grey Bullen, the league’s Loudoun-based commissioner, explained the NVSHL would have to trade some of its freedom if it went for the varsity status.

“I don’t know if we want to exactly follow all of their rules,” he said during the intermission between the second and third periods, after Norris-Smythe had responded to a 2-0 deficit with four straight goals. “There’s a lot of ones that can’t apply in the hockey environment. It’s a little touchy about how close we want to get. Are we as close as we want to get right now? Probably not.”

Bullen said he would love for all the players to get the same level of recognition bestowed upon those students who play basketball and football, but “you don’t want [the school system] to start controlling when you can play and when you can’t play, and who can play.”

John Sherlock, who coaches McLean’s team and also was directing the Adams-Patrick squad, said there would be two problems for getting approval from the county. First, the cost of ice time — the teams play upward of 20 games — and equipment for just the Highlanders is close to $15,000. Second, since there aren’t very many rinks in the area, ice time is limited. So unlike the other winter sports that can start practicing in early November and play their first games in December, hockey needs to start earlier.

“I don’t know that you can develop kids with one or 1.5 practices a week without starting that soon,” Sherlock said.

Chris Howland of Chantilly, a junior who scored two goals in the game and earned MVP honors for the winning squad, said he’d be happy to walk the halls at school next to a star basketball player like 6-foot-10 John Manning and be lauded for his hockey skills.

“It’d be cool but it’s not needed,” he said, clutching his glass MVP trophy. “I still get the enjoyment of playing [but] it would be an added bonus. A lot of my friends know I’m the hockey kid, but kids that I don’t know probably wouldn’t know that.”

At Oakton, defenseman Sean Miller says the Cougars wear suits to school on game days, so classmates know there’s a game. But one thing is missing: a varsity letter.

“That’s a big thing for some of the guys,” he said.

Regardless of the label you put on the NVSHL, one thing is for certain: It’s a good night out for the players and the fans. Sherlock put it simply: “We’ve got 20 kids who are not getting in trouble on Friday nights, so that’s a good thing.”

Bullen said the atmosphere at playoff games, like Friday night’s championship game between McLean and Stone Bridge at the Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, is tremendous — on par with what you’d get at a varsity sport.

“Most of the schools in this area pull in 4 or 500 kids every time they play. So those schools play and you’re looking at a thousand or 1,200 kids, which is great for hockey. On a Friday night, it’s a very energetic crowd.”

And there’s no doubt, based on the quality of players at the All-Star Game, the league is worthy of the varsity label.

“These kids out here are as capable and confident as the varsity athletes in any sport at any school,” Sherlock said.

“It’s great out there,” Nicholls said. “Everybody out here is flawless.”

Miller said it should not matter how good the other teams are for fans to come out and cheer for Oakton.

“Watch your classmates play. It doesn’t matter about the opponents,” he said.

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