The Prep Hockey team at Lake Forest Academy provides its athletes with an opportunity to develop as individuals while preparing them for the next level of hockey after high school. The players are challenged to achieve academic success alongside improvement on the ice both as individuals and as a unit. The team practices five days a week or so beginning in the fall through playoffs in February. The amount of time that the team spends together forges strong bonds among the players. One of the team’s captains, Will Soloway, said his favorite part about being on Prep this year has “definitely been how close our team is.” He commented how the team is “all very committed” and how “this feels like one of the closest groups I’ve been a part of in my entire hockey career.”
Lake Forest Academy is a member of the Midwest Prep Hockey League, or “MPHL”, with LFA being the only team in Illinois. The other schools in the MPHL are located in Vermont, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Canada. League games are played over weekends when three or four teams meet at one school to play three or more games at a time. The team typically travels nine or ten weekends a season. Speaking about what it is like being on the road, Soloway said, “I’ve never been a part of a team that travels together as we do, whether on the same flight or the same bus.” Soloway emphasized that “there are just some bonding moments you don’t get anywhere else.” Mathieu Fehr, another of the Prep captains, echoed Soloway’s sentiment; “being able to travel as a team and being able to experience that brotherly bond is unique.”
In addition to the unique on-ice bonds, Prep Hockey players at LFA are asked to be leaders of the school off the ice as well. Prep Hockey players have been School Prefects, members of Co-ax (the student rock band), and the school newspaper. The team regularly attends other LFA events as a group to cheer on their classmates as well as to show support for all athletics at LFA. Further, in the spring, all Prep team players play one other team sport. Players are expected to follow all school rules and are held to the highest standards off the ice and on.
~Connor Drobny ’23, Prep Hockey Defenseman
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