With most of the focus on the many other sports which students play at Magnet, there are a few of us who play hockey.Although it may still be a small sport in South Carolina, it continues to grow every year. In Charleston, there are two main ways to play hockey. There are various levels of travel hockey which is organized by age group and there is a South Carolina High School league which has two different Charleston teams which are separated by the area where you live. One team is predominantly made up of those who live East of highway I-26 and the other team is made up of those west of the highway and Summerville. I believe currently there are 3 students that I know, including me, who participate on one of these teams(or both).

Mackay Collins(Me):

I am the only Senior hockey player at Magnet this year and I think it is very important for me to try and spread the game. I have been playing hockey for around 12 years and was originally introduced to the sport through my dad. He was born in Toronto, Canada and played hockey for the majority of his childhood. For many years he was an assistant coach on all of my teams. I now play on the East Charleston High School Team and the 18u Jr. Stingrays Travel Team. I would say my best attributes would be speed and hockey IQ.

High School Stats:

18u Stats:

Cooper Mitchell: 

Cooper is a junior at Magnet, and is also on both of my teams this year. He has also played for many years and is an avid Pittsburgh Penguins fan. He is very versatile as he can play as any position on the ice, however he primarily plays as a left-winger. He loves to make a good hit and trash talk the player after. He is well renowned for his extravagant celebrations following a goal. His stats for 18u are shown above.

High School Stats:

Boris Pekar:

Boris is also a junior at magnet and has been playing hockey for 3.5 years. We played together last year, but unfortunately he is not old enough to play for the 18u travel team and instead plays on a 16u team. When asking him what his best attributes were, he responded by saying, “[his] top tier skill and elite hockey IQ.” Unfortunately I do not  have any stats of him this year, as he is just coming off a serious injury to the nerves in his hand.

Interview:

I was able to ask both Cooper and Boris(and a special guest) whether they believed Magnet should have their own hockey team. Unfortunately Cooper declined to comment. However, Boris gave a detailed response as to why he believes we should have one here at magnet. He went on to say, “In my humble opinion although our schools primary focus is on academics it is my belief that magnet should have a hockey team. The sheer skill that is found on this campus is too great to be left untouched, or shared with our rivals such as Wando. Adding a varsity sports team would increase school spirit and grow the sport of hockey as a whole. It is disappointing to see elite players such as Cooper Mitchell waste away on poor teams. I am certain that there are many hidden talents waiting to be unearthed within our student population. Implementing a Magnet hockey team would be bound to discover potential NHL superstars that may never realize their potential.”

I was also able to ask Gus Dickinson(Senior) his opinion on this question. He often tells me that if there was a Magnet team, he would be more than willing to join. Although he has very limited experience with hockey, he has an un-matched love for what he likes to call “stick and puck.” His response to my question was, “I think that Canadians and Canadian culture are grossly unrepresented at the magnet and the addition of a raptor hockey team would help significantly to increase the Canadian representation.”

I hope that with reading this article some people on the fence about playing or that are just interested will go out and try it for the first time.