Gary Defina
Gary Defina
expected gifted happened knew leadership learn next position skills talent took top ups year
His skills are top shelf. He's a gifted player. He's got that God-given talent that you can't teach. This year, he took on more of a leadership role. He knew that was expected of him. Obviously, he had his ups and downs, but he's going to learn from what happened to him this year and be in a better position next year.
gotten high played school stronger sure
He had never really played high school hockey, and then he was our No. 1 guy, so he was a little rattled, and I'm sure a little nervous. But he's gotten stronger and stronger.
growing knew momentum playing
It's huge. Like we said, we started off slow. We knew we were going to have some growing pains, but we're peaking at the right time. We're right where we want to be. We have some momentum and we're playing well.
beginning behind good team
It's kind of the same as the beginning of the year. It's a young team with jitters at the beginning of the playoffs. They don't have a lot of experience. But it's good to get that one behind us.
goal kids shift
That's the way kids will think when you are down like that. You try to tell them to take it one shift at a time, one goal at time, but, you know, we didn't get it done.
gave goal great hands left night rebounds seconds shift
He usually swallows his rebounds or hands it off to the defense. The other night (against Rampart) he gave up a goal with 50 seconds left in the game, and it went into overtime. In the first shift of overtime, he made a great save, and we went back down and scored.
crushed good kids liberty played rivalry solid terribly
We played terribly that weekend. We've always had a solid rivalry with them. The kids have always had a good rivalry with them. We're going to come out to play, for sure. They've played well. They crushed Liberty (Friday), 7-1. The kids know they have to play better than today.
coaches coming excited good group strong super work
We're all excited to be back as coaches to work with this group. We know we have some real good Bantams coming up, so the tryouts are going to be super competitive. The whole group comes back and this is going to be that much more of a strong team.