It has been a season of highs and some lows for the 2010-2011 Bethel-Brookfield-Danbury Ice Cats hockey team. After graduating nine seniors from the team last year, everyone was unsure whether this team would be able to measure up to last season’s success. “I anticipated that we would not do as well this year because of who we lost last year,” said BBD assistant coach Ned Costanzo. In spite of this, the Ice Cats came out hard and strong to prove all doubts wrong.

From the first game against Sheehan, it was easy to see that this new team was going to be a threat. With only eight upperclassmen and the rest freshmen and sophomores, the Ice Cats won their season opener three to two and followed up with another dominating six to one against Housatonic four days later. BBD then suited up for a highly competitive tournament in Maine during Christmas break adding another two wins under their belt and only one loss.

January brought a month of success for BBD as they rallied up four wins and a second loss against Hall-Southington. One of the most important wins was the overtime defeat of the Newtown Nighthawks on January 29th, as the Ice Cats were proud to beat their local opponents.

BBD also skated relatively easily through February, racking up seven wins and two more losses. One of the wins was against last year’s rival, the Masuk Panthers, which BBD faced off with to win last year’s SWC title. The two losses late in February hit the team pretty hard as the St Bernard-Bacon-NFA team won by only one goal and the Milford co-op slashed BBD six to three.

March was the heartbreak month. BBD started off strong as they beat Masuk for a second time and came out on top over Joel Barlow during the SWC Semi-Final. But last Saturday’s SWC Final was a sad night for the promising new Ice Cats. Watertown-Pomperaug hit hard with a crushing six to one over BBD to win this year’s SWC title. Coming off this stinging blow, BBD had two byes for the State tournament and played Northwest Catholic in the Quarterfinal on Thursday. Unfortunately, BBD just couldn’t pull ahead of the Indians and fell five to two. “We just didn’t show up to play and do what it takes to win,” says Coach Costanzo of Thursday’s loss. “Its sounds cliché but Northwest Catholic wanted it more.”

Despite the heartbreak of the last two weeks, the BBD Ice Cats finished their season with an astounding record of seventeen wins and only six losses. Coach Costanzo concludes, “They preformed well beyond my expectations and I think those of the coaching staff as well.” The Ice Cats played hard and are sure to have many more ice rink victories to come.