Season Recap: A Rebuilding Year for Boys Hockey

Steve DeBenedictis is smack in the middle of rebuilding process of the Medford boys hockey program. While he’s had success on a smaller level, the head coach is ready to take those small successes and turn them in to big ones.

The Mustangs finished with a 6-13-1 regular season record and, due to the team winning the Greater Boston League crown, they found themselves in the Division 1 North tournament. The tournament showing was quick lived as the Mustangs fell to tournament-tested No. 2 Reading, 6-0, but DeBenedictis was disappointed with the outcome.

“It was a game that I think we could have really competed in if we stuck to the game plan--and we didn’t,” DeBenedictis said. “The whole thing was to get in the third period with a chance, but we weren’t, and that’s on me.”

It’s been difficult at times changing the culture of Medford hockey, the coach admitted. At times he’s had the commitment 100 percent from everyone involved in the program, but other times he said he sees a fading of focus.

The Mustangs won the Greater Boson League championship, which the coach said is the first goal of his every season, but he wants his squad to think beyond the GBL.

“We won the league, which is always s a good thing,” the coach said. “But sometimes, there is too much emphasis put on that.”

The biggest obstacle for DeBenedictis is keeping the most talented kids from Medford in Medford to play hockey.

“At the end of the day unless kids believe in the high school program, believe in the school system in the city and believe they can get a higher education in the city, which they can, then it’s going to be difficult to change,” said the coach.

“We need players,” he added. “We need kids to come to the school. We’ve put a lot of emphasis on the academic part of it.”

That emphasis has seen more than half of the kids in the program finish with honors in DeBenedictis’ first two years. And he has yet to have a kid miss a game or be dismissed due to academic reasons.

All it takes is a couple of classes of what DeBenedictis calls “hockey players," as opposed to "kids who play hockey.” That means, according to the coach, that he needs kids who eat, breathe and live the game together as a unit.

He may have the foundation in place with this recent freshman class.

“The young kids are very good, they get it,” DeBenedictis said. “They understand the dedication that it takes and the passion that it takes to succeed. I’m looking forward to working with those guys going forward.”

That freshman class, which will be a year older and a year stronger next year, consists of players like DJ Galvin, Jared Silva and Will Brennan.

“By the end of the season they were competing," DeBenedictis said. “It wasn’t just running the guys out there and getting experience, they were out there competing at that point.”

This young class could one day be the class that turned around the nature of this program, and if they have success and a few more classes can come in with the same passion, DeBenedictis might just have something.

“In order to build a program you’ve got to put together three solid classes in a row,” he said. “If you can do that then you have stability, and people will follow. But it’s getting those first few groups to believe it, and with this freshman class we did. I’m hoping that we get a decent freshman class next year, because if we do, then now we have stability.”