WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A pair of nautical hurricane-warning flags hang above the Hartford High bench at Wendell Barwood Arena. The cautionary display didn’t help the Rutland girls ice hockey team on Saturday, however, the visitors losing, 10-0, during the squads’ season opener.
Madison Barwood scored three times and Braelyn Park twice as the Hurricanes took advantage of a rebuilding opponent with several players learning to skate. Hartford reached the Vermont Division II title game last season before falling to rival Woodstock and lost only three seniors to graduation.
Rutland, fairly competitive in Division I during recent years, returns only four players after a big graduation hit and several other skaters leaving to play in the boarding-school ranks. The visitors were outshot, 17-1, during the first period and trailed, 6-0, at the first intermission before Hartford began to give more time to its third line.
Sophie Trembley, Zoe Zanleoni, Julie McDermid and Ada Acker also scored for the Hurricanes, who were backed by freshman goaltender Nella Bowen during the first two periods and senior Sydney Stillman during the final stanza.
“It was tough to get our girls to stop shooting after the first period, because that’s what we normally emphasize,” said third-year coach Kylie Young, who’s taken the Hurricanes from cellar dwellers to penthouse occupants. “We want to accomplish wins together, so today was great.”
Hartford was 19-4 last season but when its current seniors were freshmen, their lone victory during a 1-19 campaign snapped a 27-game losing streak. Young’s arrival convinced a crop of younger players to join the team and the Hurricanes were 5-5 during her Covid-shortened initial season.
Despite last season’s shiny record, Hartford’s team chemistry was off, the coach said. Cliques and gripes about playing time and line combinations pulled at the team’s social fabric, damage not helped when the Hurricanes surrendered five consecutive goals during their 5-1 finals loss.
Feedback from the returners showed they wanted cohesion and a sense of family in the locker room, said Young, who’s worked to blunt her players’ focus on gaining revenge against the Wasps or having a championship as their lone goal for the season. She believes smaller achievements over a shorter time frame will serve Hartford better in the long run.
“I refocused us,” Young said with a chuckle. “I get that there are a lot of girls who want to beat Woodstock, but it’s other things that will define us.”
To that end, Young has worked to balance her first two lines and moved her daughter, sophomore Morgan Curtis, from center to defense. The switch was not originally greeted with joy, but No. 6 looked comfortable and moved the puck well Saturday, bringing poise to a rearguard that also features eighth-grade Bellows Falls resident Grace Hayes.
“Not only is Morgan getting more ice time but she’s learning to see the game better,” Young said. “She’s struggled to understand defensive positioning the last two weeks, but I’m happy with how she’s come around.”
Notes: The Hurricanes are next in action at Essex on Wednesday, the second of four games against Division I foes to begin the season. Burlington-Colchester and BFA-St. Albans follow on the docket… Hartford’s roster composition makes Young a bit nervous. With six seniors, no juniors and four sophomores, she worries if she’ll have enough experienced players after this winter… Rutland currently has no mascot. Its previous moniker, Raiders, was retired by its school board in September and a successor hasn’t yet been selected. A previous battle produced Ravens as a replacement but that, too, was cast aside… Acker, a Thetford resident who left Hartford’s program to play prep school hockey last winter, has returned for her senior season… Hartford principal Nelson Fogg, a Hurricanes hockey goaltender who grew up skating on an outdoor rink where the campus tennis courts now sit, attended Saturday’s game and recalled the boys varsity losing to Winooski, 28-1, shortly before he joined the program during the 1970s. Three years later, Hartford handed its former tormentors a 4-2 loss.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.