“…The players were always totally behind each other. Club teams are great, but there’s nothing more important than playing for your school” -- John Poisal, first head varsity coach of the Long Reach Lightning hockey program.
The First Season
As a sophomore at Long Reach, Nicole Modeen went to see a friend play for Oakland Mills. She knew nothing about hockey, but she immediately fell in love with the game. She asked about her own high school’s team, but was told there was none. Nicole went to work.
The first thing she did was to talk to members of the athletic department who told her that hockey is not a sanctioned sport in Howard County. They doubted there was enough interest to start a team at Long Reach, but Nicole wasn’t about to give up. She canvassed the halls of Long Reach, posting fliers about an organizational meeting and looking for interest. For players at the school, rumors began to fly about a possible team. At the first organizational meeting, Nicole confidently stated that there was going to be hockey team at Long Reach and asked who wanted to help. That day, she not only gathered enough players to start the team, she also gained the help of a number of parents.
While the parents worked on the legal and tax side of setting up the organization, Nicole approached area businesses and the Maryland Scholastic Hockey League (MSHL). By the summer of 2001, most of what was needed for a team was in place, with the exception of a head coach. “That’s the one point where I began to get discouraged” Nicole said. “We couldn’t find a coach and I didn’t know where to turn”. In desperation, Nicole sought help from the MSHL, which advertised the opening on its website. As luck would have it, John Poisal was checking the site. Poisal was the coach of Mount St. Joseph’s standout Tier II team and had won thee state championships with the St. Joe JV team, but the ad caught his eye. Excited by the challenge of building a new program, Poisal met with Modeen. Nicole shared her philosophy with him and hoped he would agree that everyone who wanted to play hockey for Long Reach could. Poisal was already impressed that so much of the work of starting a new team had been accomplished, but when she interviewed him, he was even more impressed. Poisal signed up, bringing his entire Mount St. Joseph coaching staff with him, including his own coaching mentor, Tom Farrell, who became assistant head varsity coach. The first major hurdle had been cleared.
From the very beginning, Nicole set a standard for leadership. The team has been blessed with student leadership ever since. Nicole recruited other students to help her as student manager and follow in her footsteps. Each year, the student managers handle important tasks ranging from equipment management to league reporting and school announcements. Encouraging students to develop leadership and management skills has been a key ingredient of Long Reach Hockey from the very beginning. One of the first-year players, Jay Chancellor, gave his ideas to professional designers, who in turn created the team’s distinctive jerseys and logo. Another player, Ryan Woroniecki, inspired the annual JV Ryan Award. His overwhelming desire to learn the game and help the team set the tone of the JV experience for future players.
On November 19th of 2001, the Lightning took to the ice for their first game against Glenelg at the Columbia Ice Rink. The first-ever Lighting goal was scored by freshman Ethan Rosenthal. However, given its level of experience, the team lost 10-6. The closest the Lightning came to winning was on January 14th in an 8-6 loss to Oakland Mills. The team went 0-10 that year, but the camaraderie and program development went well beyond the team’s record. Large numbers of enthusiastic fans from the school turned up at each game and the players never sank into self-doubt or in-fighting. To thank Modeen for the opportunity to play for their school, the team presented her with her own jersey (#1). A banner commemorating Nicole and the only jersey number ever retired by the team hangs in the Columbia Ice Rink.
At the end of that first season, Nicole gave an interview to the Baltimore Sun about the team’s first year. She commented that she hoped to one day have the Howard County School system sanction hockey as a varsity sport. “Our athletic director tells me I’m about to run into a brick wall”, she said. “That doesn’t bother me. Just give me a few steps and I’ll get over it.” Some years later during 2006, Nicole and the Long Reach Hockey team led the effort to have the school system acknowledge the high school hockey teams and give them access to the schools as fully recognized club athletic teams, a historic first since high school hockey began in Howard County schools in 1988.
“The joy of being is the direct result of the pain of becoming” – Quote from Tom Farrell, first assistant head varsity coach.
Although the Lightning finished 0-10 in that first season, the team improved to 3-6-1 in the second season. The first win ever was over the same team that had handed Long Reach its first loss, Glenelg. By that season of 2002-2003, the team had expanded to 20 players and the Junior Varsity team was started. Once again, Long Reach Hockey’s work ethic, level of organization, team spirit and great fan support set the team apart from other high school hockey programs in the County.
By contrast, coaches Poisal and Farrell had also coached the Tier II Mt. St. Joseph varsity to the MSHL Private School State Championship that year. Despite such great success at a known high school hockey powerhouse, both coaches decided to give up the St. Joe team at the end of the 2002-2003 season and focus solely on Long Reach Hockey. The reasons they gave were the great parental support and player attitudes at Long Reach and the potential for something “really special”.
After two seasons of progress, most of the ingredients for modest success were in place and there were high hopes for the 2003-2004 season. At the annual Lasagna Dinner just before league play started, Coach Poisal said, “I’m so excited about this team’s prospects that I wish I could just fast forward to February to see how it all turns out!”. The team did not disappoint, making the State Tournament for the first time. During that exciting season, Long Reach tied a very good Centennial squad and played Howard close (it was 4-3 in the final minute before Howard scored an empty-net goal). The playoff clincher came in a 3-2 victory over Hammond, when the Lightning scored the winning goal scored in the final minute after having trailed 2-0 entering the third period. “It was like the seventh game of the Stanley Cup. The locker room was ecstatic,” said Coach Poisal. In the State Tournament, the Lightning defeated Easton 4-1 before falling to eventual Public School State Champion Sherwood, but Poisal declared the season a success. “To go from the doormat of the league to advancing through the first round really says something.”
For taking the team to the playoffs in only its third year, John Poisal was named Coach of the Year by the Washington Post (in its year end review of high school winter sports in Howard County). A banner, signed on the back by all the players of the 2003-2004 season, hangs in the Columbia Ice Rink to commemorate that season.
The 2004-2005 season saw Long Reach field one of the strongest teams in its history. This was also the year in which the annual Alumni game was initiated. The seniors that year had been freshmen during the first season when the club went 0-10. Long Reach Hockey finished 8-2 in regular season play (losing only to Howard and Glenelg) and captured the A Division Championship. Long Reach was ranked as high as fourth in the state and qualified for the State Tournament with a 5-1 “payback” victory over Glenelg in the second game of their season series. In the playoffs, the Lightning dominated a very good Damascus team (5-1) to make it to the “Elite Eight” before losing (9-0) to the top seeded and eventual State runner-up Churchill. Long Reach Hockey finished 9-3-0 overall. Although an injury-depleted Long Reach lost to River Hill 6-3 in the Howard Cup tournament played to determine the County Champ that year, it was generally agreed that the season was truly memorable. A banner hangs in the Columbia Ice Rink to commemorate the 2004-2005 season.
Change and Growth – the season of 2005-2006
At the start of the fifth (2005-2006) season, Coach Poisal had to make a difficult decision. Having earned a promotion at work, he could no longer devote the amount of time to the team that he felt is required of a head coach. The team interviewed and picked a number of new coaches to assist that season, including Ray Byrne, Dan Nash, Matt Currie, Kalail Rizvi and Andy Lopresto, a former Lightning varsity player.
After the first few practices and a couple of league games, Coach Poisal turned over the reins of the team to a new head coach, Ray Byrne. Coach Byrne had been a standout high school player at Mt. St. Joseph and brought a new and different approach to the head coaching position. Byrne would depart from the defensive system the team had played for its entire short history and add a greater emphasis on developing “hockey sense” and offensive systems. The 2005-2006 version of Lightning Hockey was more explosive, but just as exciting as the old versions. After a slow start, the lessons of the new coaching staff paid off. The team squeezed into the playoffs with a dramatic 2-1 victory over Howard in the final game of the season. The Lightning’s first playoff round foe was once again Damascus. The game was decided in a shootout, with Long Reach moving on after sending Damascus down to defeat. In another replay of the previous State Tournament, we faced and lost to Churchill in the second round of the playoffs as they went on to win the public school title.
The Tale of Two Seasons 2006-2007
Last year, the Lightning got off to a swift start by winning our division in the pre-season Frederick Tournament, but lost to Archbishop Curley in the championship game. Then, due to injuries the team struggled in the first half of the regular season. The second half saw the team reach its potential with very strong games against Glenelg and Centennial and victories over River Hill and Howard, but the first half deficit was too much to overcome and the team missed the playoff cut.
Summary
After six seasons, however, the impact of Long Reach Hockey goes well beyond the number of playoffs made and games won. Many young men and women at Long Reach have participated as managers or players and many agree that hockey was central to their enjoyment of the high school experience. The annual Alumni game regularly draws an eager group of players back to Columbia Ice Rink to renew the positive memories of their playing days. Since 2004, the team has sponsored a free after-school program, called Long Reach Learn to Skate, which teaches skating and hockey skills to interested youth from the area around the school. Over 30 young skaters have participated in this program.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Long Reach Hockey has made a deep impression on the sport of hockey in Howard County. Since Long Reach joined the Howard Conference in 2001, other teams have copied our organization methods, fan outreach efforts and upgraded their logos and jerseys. This is often described by other coaches and managers of “wanting to see the same success that Long Reach has had in building a hockey program”.
Lastly, due to the leadership of Nicole Modeen and Long Reach players, fans and parents, the Howard County Public Schools agreed to recognize hockey as a club (not varsity) sport in 2006. Long Reach freely shared its experience of maintaining good relationships within the school. At this writing, many of the the other conference teams have recruited student managers and staff sponsors, regularly submit announcements of games and hold meetings and banquets inside their schools, just as the Lightning have done since inception.
