The season for the Junior Varsity and Varsity hockey teams kicked off way back in September, and they only have a couple games left in the regular season until playoffs start at the beginning of February. Although they’re only a club sport, Bingham’s hockey team takes themselves as seriously as if they were an official sport–and they want the whole school to know it.

Why don’t enough students know about Bingham’s hockey team? It certainly isn’t because they’re substandard. Last season, they ended up in division two alongside five other teams. There, Bingham’s team got a record of 5-6-0, the best of all five teams, said team manager Courtney Allen. Because they moved up into a tougher division this season, they expected this year to be more challenging.

Gavin Allen says that it’s hard for people to come and support the team because of a lack of insight, and the number of people who don’t even know there’s a team here. He also says that their games are usually far away and go late into the night. However, that’s a reason students should cheer them on at their games. The team spends so much of their time and energy into playing these long, faraway games, so it’s important to encourage and support their hard work.

Winning every game isn’t what the team should aspire to, however, says team Captain Conner Allen. “The takeaway from last night’s game was how no one on that ice gave up,” Courtney Allen wrote on Bingham Hockey’s FaceBook page about the team’s ups and downs throughout the season, “[The team] will not win every game, and this season has tested them, but they will grow from it if they allow it.”

They definitely have learned from such losses, so far they’ve won all of their games ever since the start of the year. Once the regular season ends, the team will go to playoffs, which could last up to the end of March or April.

Hockey is a club sport, not an official sport at the school, which is why not many students know about it. And unlike other teams at Bingham, they aren’t run by members of the school faculty–Marcus Telford, a parent of two hockey players, has coached the team for years. Although this isn’t an excuse for members of the team such as Conner Allen, who says that the hockey team works just as hard as official teams, and that they barely get anyone to go to their games.

However, Gavin Allen says he doesn’t necessarily wish for Bingham to have a new perspective on the team. “We love all the support we can get… We had the SBOs come to our game on Monday and it was cool to see them all there. Everyone gets super hyped like at a football game, and it’s awesome to see that support coming from our school that we wouldn’t regularly see.”

Courtney Allen runs the social media for the team, recapping events of the season and announcing games in advance to try and get the word out there. Plus, the games are free!

Bingham is lucky to have such an incredible hockey team, so go root for them and show up at their games! You will not regret it.