Upon the boys’ hockey teams first loss with a score of 1-8 versus the Minnetonka Skippers, making Park’s record 3-1, senior Tim Collins said despite the loss the game was a learning experience.

“I think we competed well, obviously not the end result that we wanted but we can learn a lot from this game going forward,” Collins said.

Assistant coach Chris Dahlin said Park challenged Minnetonka considering it is the best team in the state.

“I don’t think anything necessarily went wrong, we were playing a really good team. Maybe at times we gave them too much space and respect but other than that our guys competed and pushed Minnetonka to play their best game,” Dhalin said.

Collins said the main faults in the game occured when the team wasn’t fully competing or focusing enough on what’s important.

“I think the little things like the mental game we have to work on — competing all three periods and staying mentally tough,” Collins said.

Junior Robert Doss said the team started to fix the little things in the third period.

“We came out into the third after a good talk with our coach and we got a goal which was big for us even though they scored right after. We still had that energy and we started playing to the body and breaking out quicker,” Doss said.

Collins said an upside to the game was the teams ability to maintain a tie during the third period.

“The score for the third period was 1-1, so I think we brought all that we had left in the tank, even though we had a short benech because we were missing a few guys,” Collins said.

Dhalin said the Minnetonka coach complimented his team for their dedication to play through the whole game.

“We never quit, that’s something their coach said our team did well, we played and we didn’t give up,” Dhalin said.

The next boys’ hockey game will take place against Wayzata at 7 p.m. Dec 13 at the Rec Center.