Rick Gedney Quotations

We started this right after our first year because we knew, if we were going to sustain the sport in our town, we needed to attract more players.

This win will definitely go a long ways toward putting a positive approach to the game among our players. Simsbury has always had one of the premier programs in the state. When you beat them, you feel like you've accomplished something special.

We've been very fortunate over the years to get good goalies and our coaching in that area has always been strong. Chelsea has been one of the backbones of this team all season long.

When you're playing against Simsbury, with its reputation in girls' hockey, you know that you're in for a battle right up to the end of the game. Nothing is ever final against a team like that until you hear the final horn.

With the athletes I have and our skating ability we should be winning. I'll take the blame for that. I should be able to get us over the hump. I'm going to look a little closer at what we're doing from a coaching standpoint. We've got to make better decisions. The girls left everything that they had on the ice. The next place that it has to improve is with the coaching.

We have a deep bench this year and that is playing into our favor. But, as you can see by the scoring, we never wore them down. It was close all the way.

They (Darien) scored on a power play and on a breakaway where Chelsea made a save and got beat on the rebound shot. She played very well, only getting beat on two good plays by Darien.

These three teams are among the five toughest in our league. Coming in off of these wins (the other being a 6-1 victory over West Haven last Wednesday) should give us the boost that we need.

It's really an important time to play well with the tournament coming up. We appear to be getting all three phases of our game working. Chelsea has done an excellent job in goal. Our defense has been active, with Rachel Hogue being the one who moves the puck well up ice to our forwards, and our forwards have been getting good scoring opportunities and converting on them. What we need now is a good finish.

Anytime you get that many shots, it tells you one of two things. Either the goalies that you're facing are very good, and I've seen the level improve in each of the eight years that I've coached, or you better get more accurate shots.

You can pretty much break our season down into two parts. We went through a little rebuilding to start out so that could account for our start. Now that we've gotten through that, we're playing our best hockey. We've been able to lengthen our bench and give more kids ice team. That's always good because it's insures our future.