The puck has dropped on the District 20 hockey season in a climactic game against Rampart High School, which was the first league game of the season held on November 29th at Clune Arena.

The game did not start out awful for the Air Academy Kadets. Although Rampart won the initial face-off, AAHS was able to get the first shot off on goal. Yet, this momentum would not last, after the first goal of the game was achieved by Rampart. However, the game was not as melancholy as it seemed since AAHS was able to tie things up with a goal in the first period.

As the second period started and the adrenalin began pumping, this caused a lapse of judgment on both sides where penalties were flying. Rampart got 2 penalties back to back. AAHS not wanting to be outdone, unfourtantley, received their own penalty. Then tragedy struck and Rampart scored making the score 2-1 and then one after the other Rampart scored, again and again, making the final score for the second period 6-1.

Going into the 3rd period the mood for the AAHS Kadets was extremely demoralized and exhausting, but a glimmer of hope appeared before them when within the first 3 minutes of the period since a goal was scored against Rampart. From this sensation, maybe the team would be able to achieve a greater comeback than the Miricle on Ice. But as all good things seem to do, that last-ditch offensive seemed to come to an end and Rampart scored twice before it seemed the exhaustion caught up to AAHS. Both teams appeared to just be playing to run out the clock, therefore ending the game with a score of 8-2.

The first game of the season often helps show teams what they need to do to improve and the first game against Rampart helped show AAHS, how and what they need most to improve.

“The biggest thing we need to work on is defense,” senior Ben Roy stated.

Whereas Roy’s teammate, senior Carson Witt had a different idea for how the Kadets could improve.

“We took a lot of dumb penalties, I think that that’s something we need to work on as a team,” Witt responded.

Sometimes the best thing that a team can do is look at other teams and see what they can do better. This aspect is no exception for AAHS and in the debut game of the season, Rampart showed the Kadets how some crucial components help a team play efficiently, as well as effectively.

“They were good, they were more cohesive than we were,” Roy exclaimed.

Air Academy now having had more time to get to know each other and learn how to work effectively as a team, it will enable them to demonstrate how much their cohesion has improved. But with hard work and teamwork finally found, AAHS can give hopefully give Rampart a loss.