As we get into November, autumn sports come to a close, and winter sports start to pick up. The hockey season starts earlier than any other sport, and they have already had some intense preseason practices on the ice. Many key players on the team graduated last year and only three seniors are playing this year, but Brady Crawford (27’) is not worried.

“I know we have a lot of players who can and will step up,” Crawford said. “We have three junior captains who were already showing signs of being leaders last year.”

Although they have a relatively young team, the upperclassmen are ready to step in as the new leaders for their players.

“I’d like to step up a little bit, but I’ll probably mainly leave it to other players, like Sobie(Nathan Sobiechowski) and Webby(Luke Webster),” Keegan McDonald(‘25) said. “I believe they have the influence to fill these roles, and the hope to guide our team to become stronger.”

Having these new leaders has been beneficial to the team, yet there are still some discrepancies with effort in the off-season.

“Out of 50% of the team, I see great effort,” Lucas Milne (‘26) said. “They’re playing hockey in the off-season, and they’re staying in shape. But the other half is not that good, we could step it up.”

In hopes of increasing the team’s winning chances, assistant captain Jacob Brant (‘26) has begun to put pressure on the bulldogs to work harder on and off of the ice.

“I plan to push the team to do the little things, like being on time for practice,” Brant said. “I plan to lead by example, I’m going to work hard and push my teammates in practice so we are ready for the season when it comes.”

Although preseason effort is reportedly low, team morale is still strong, which is evident in Milne’s season predictions.

“I think we’re gonna have a winning record like we always do,” Milne said. “We’re probably gonna win our SEC too, we just need to have confidence going in, and we’re gonna try to win as many as we can.”