Pirate Ice Hockey Enjoys Alumni Night

Pirate ice hockey has been around for close to 20 years now, and the annual alumni night has been going strong for about a decade.

This year’s alumni night, held on Wednesday at the Flyers Skate Zone in Pennsauken, saw the alums take it to the current team by a score of 14-2.

Cindy Binnig, the club’s president, has been running the alumni nights for the previous four years as the president.

“I wanted to be involved with the kids and it was a good way for me to know who my son (Joe) is hanging out with,” Binning said. “It’s a great club and we’re a small club. We fluctuate between 23 and 28 families. This year we had to pick up kids from the middle school since they no longer have a program.”

The players on the team have built a family within the club, one that serves the community well each year.

“We do wear the school colors and we play in a high school league,” Binning said. “One of the better things we do is community service. We ran a canned food drive before Christmas and we adopted a family from Burlington for Christmas. I like the fact that the kids get involved in community service. They watch out for each other in and out of school as well.”

The number of alums from the program has grown so much over the past years that there is a second alumni night on Jan. 7, 2012. That game will be alumni versus alumni.

“We have players that come back from 10 or 15 years ago that still want to play,” Binnig said. “That’s a testament to the club that they want to come back and participate. All of our coaches are alumni and none of them have sons involved in the program.”

Mark Monte, one of this year’s seniors, has been with the program for six years, beginning with middle school.

“We have a good coaching staff, the game is fun to play, and the league is very competitive,” Monte said. “Alumni night brings back a lot of memories from previous years with friends coming back to play.”

A couple of the assistant coaches have senior sons on the team who have grown up in the program over the past six or seven years.

“Not only my son, but all of them, they have come a long way,” assistant coach Tom Gault said. “Being around the kids really makes you feel young again. The kids give us a lot of respect and they play hard.”

Head coach Anthony Mottola is an alum of the program (2003), who spent four years with the club while in school.

“I played on the high school team for three of the alumni nights and played on the alumni team for the remainder of them,” Mottola said. “Just having fun tonight, the coaches versus the players, all the talk that happens before the game is fun.”

Doug McConnell, an alum of the , donates time to the program by running the team’s website and Facebook page with the help of Frank Angelone, a soccer alum. McConnell also took part in the game.

“It was lopsided last year. I think the alums won 11-4 or something like that. It should be fun tonight,” McConnell said.

The team’s senior captain, Sean Gault, has been playing with the club since freshman year. He played with the middle school club beginning in sixth grade.

“Playing with your friends and learning a lot from the coaches,” Gault said. “We lost a lot of guys last year and this year the guys have really proven a lot to me. I’ve learned to trust your teammates.”

Coach Mottola had last year’s seniors get together to vote on who would become the captain for this year’s team.

“I like it a lot. It’s not something I ever would have thought of but it’s a great idea. As an alum you can still make sure the program is in good hands,” Gault said.