Parks boys hockey played their sections game against Benilde St. Margaret’s Feb. 20. Park suffered a loss of 2-7, but overall ended their season with a 16-9 record. The game marks the end of the hockey season at Park, and the final game for Park’s 2025 graduating senior class. Park boys hockey season highlights included wins against Bloomington-Jefferson (8-0), New Prague (5-1), Chanhassen (5-3) and Chaska (7-0).
Head coach Tyler Broderson said the team worked hard to prepare for going up against a team they expected to be very competitive.
“Our preparation was good. We were in a good spot as a team and we’ve been playing pretty good hockey leading up to it, but we also knew that Benilde was one of the top ten teams in the state and that was gonna be a really tough game either way,” Broderson said.
Senior Trey Janssen said he felt good going into the game because he knew there would be a big crowd to bring the energy. He said he hopes to see more Park students in the stands at games for years to come.
“I felt pretty confident, I was excited. I knew there was gonna be a lot of people there,” Janssen said. “It’s really cool that the students come out and hopefully that keeps going for coming years, (they bring) a lot of energy.”
Senior Lathan Harmston said the season had some highlights, specifically the games against Benilde because of the exciting environment and high stakes.
“This season had a couple of highlights. One of my personal favorites was the first Benilde game because we were really in it. We played really competitively, and it was just a fun atmosphere overall,” Harmston said. “The highlight was definitely the sections game that we just played because of the atmosphere and the stakes of the game were a lot higher.”
Broderson said the team worked hard to better their defense and passing. He said a big highlight for him was the team’s ability to come together and put on a great season.
“For me the highlight is just the way they came together as a group and had a better season than last year, even though a lot of people didn’t believe that was possible for us,” Broderson said. “Our passing improved a lot as the year went on and we just got really good systematically in our defensive zone.”
According to Janssen, his assist to senior Ryan Moran stood out to him because it got them their first goal of the game.
“(A play that stuck out to me was) probably my assist to Ryan Moran, it was a nice pass to him and there was a pretty open net for him to shoot and score,” Janssen said.
Broderson said Moran played an important role in the team’s offense. He said senior Max Cherevatenko showed a lot of strength in keeping the team in the game as their goalie.
“Ryan Moran was fantastic last night. He brought a ton of energy and created a ton of offensive opportunities. We didn’t have a lot as a group, but most of them that we did have, involved Ryan,” Broderson said. “Then I thought Max Cherevatenko played really, really well and kept us in the game for as long as he could.”
Harmston said ending the night off was emotional because he has played with many of his teammates for a long time and he is grateful for all of the time they spent together.
“It was kind of sad. I’ve been playing hockey with a lot of my teammates for the last 10 years. We’ve gone through a lot together, so it was really emotional to finally have that end,” Harmston said. “I feel like we all found what we wanted, and I’m glad that I got to experience the last 10 years with all the people around me.”
