Sports

Bears Win Hockey Championship

From the time the first puck dropped until they captured the championship, fun and teamwork have been the name of the game for the East Brunswick Bears hockey team.

In May, they were just a bunch of kids who liked to play hockey, and usually had to travel one or more towns away to play it.

Things couldn’t have gone better for the team. The squad went 8-0 and dominated their two playoff games, defeating a team from Woodbridge 7-3 (they outshot them 40 to 10) to win the championship.

“It went very well,” said coach Joe Gural. “It was really, really nice to see a group of kids that had never played together come together as a team, and they were extremely supportive of each other since the drop of the first puck, which was great to see.”

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The team was formed in May after players and parents decided that, after years of playing for travel teams in Princeton, Hamilton, Somerset, Woodbridge and South Brunswick, they wanted to do something closer to home and represent East Brunswick.

Not only did the team find enough players to fill out a middle school aged team, but they found enough talent to compete with older athletes. While many of the teams they played against are made up of fifth through eighth-graders, the East Brunswick squad has just three seventh-graders and even one skater who in third grade.

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“The kids were excited,” said Gural. “They truly seemed to enjoy not only the season, but they had big smiles on their faces when accepting their first place medals.”

Gural said he and the players are looking forward do doing it again next spring, when everyone’s fall season concludes.  He said Paul Losik, hockey manager at the Arenas at Woodbridge, is determined to continue the league and to make it more competitive.

“I’d love to get this team back together and compete again,” said Gural. “For me, it’s more off season ice for the kids and getting the kids able to play not only with their peers in East Brunswick, but kids that play for other organizations.”


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