Did you know that Torrington High School has an ice hockey team? Many don’t due to the very small team and of that team only two players are from THS. To answer all of our unknown hockey questions we reached out to Iain Verbickas, a player on Housatonic Mountaineers, the name of team our students play for.
Iain says his love for hockey started at just nine years old, but he was disappointed that there wasn’t a team in Torrington to join. He started through a program in Watertown.
“Watertown Youth Hockey had a program called Learn to Skate,” Iain explained, “and so I went to Taft each week to learn.”
Iain explained that hockey is a family activity. “We love hockey in my family, but actually being on the ice playing it was much more fun!”
Iain is currently out for injury but has hopes for a quick recovery to gain more playing time due to the small team. He is not the only Torrington team member. Senior Joey Wooten also plays for the Mountaineers.
The Mountaineers have a wide variety of players from different schools. “We are a co-op consisting of players from Housatonic, Northwestern, Wamogo, Torrington, & Oliver Wolcot,” Iain explained.
Practices happen at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville/Salisbury, Connecticut.
Is the location of the practices a reason that more students don’t play? Iain also suggested the reason is that hockey is a highly demanding sport and a very rough sport.
“It’s a tough sport, with great physical demand, and I understand why a lot of people wouldn’t step on the ice for that.”
Even with multiple teams, the Co-op has trouble keeping a full roster of players. Dean Diamond, the coach, told CT Insider that the small numbers have caused game postponements.
“I do wish that more people from THS were interested in hockey; the team, as I said, is sort of small this year, and it’s usually better to have a few more members of the team to rotate shifts and share the load of a hockey game.”
