At the Katy’s Courage fund-raiser at the Buckskill Winter Club in February, Bryan Wish, who coached the Peconic Hockey Foundation’s U-12 hockey team to a 5-2 win over its Dix Hills peers that night, said he intended to enter a freshman team in Suffolk County’s high school hockey league come the fall, and, indeed, that has come to pass.
Chris Minardi reported the news this week in an email, saying that “the team consists of seventh, eighth, and ninth graders from East Hampton, Sag Harbor, and Southampton and is playing in a 15-team division. . . . Moving forward, we intend to field junior varsity and varsity teams, and, honestly, when the present seventh and eighth graders are older, this team will make a solid run at a state championship. There’s a ton of talent.”
The new entry is to be known as the Whalers; the logos on the players’ jerseys will be like those worn by the former Hartford Whalers. The jerseys were unveiled last Thursday at a party held at the Southampton Ice Rink that Wish, the Whalers’ coach, manages.
The Whalers’ first game — all games are at The Rinx in Hauppauge — was to have been played Wednesday evening versus the East Islip Chiefs.
There are eight East Hamptoners on the 20-man roster, namely Hunter Harrington, Cam Minardi, Bakeland Peterson, Enzo Magnotta, Mateo Vergara, Merrit Emptage, Teddy Teriazos, and Stefano McCourt.
Seven players are from Sag Harbor: Grady Craig, Anthony Cappiello, Max Goldstein, Keegan Reilly, Quinley Rieley, Sunny Perello, and Aidan D’Angelo. Four — Luca Pisano, Trey Armusewicz, Andrew Wetter, and Mike Kessler — are from Southampton.
