[ot-caption title=”Senior Nicholas Becker is one of four PC students on the Eastside Mutts.” url=”https://pcpawprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/hockey-final.jpg”]

They are big. They are bad. They are Pine Crest’s best kept secret.

They are the Eastside Mutts, the closest thing to Pine Crest’s very own ice hockey team.

Contrary to popular belief, Pine Crest once had its own hockey team, the Pine Crest Panthers. The team’s origins can be traced as far back as 1998, the inaugural season of the Florida Scholastic Hockey League, which was founded by a former Pine Crest parent. Currently, the FSHL is home to eighteen teams, from Broward, Miami Dade, and Palm Beach counties. Pine Crest had a team in the FSHL for a number of years, but PC hockey players began to graduate and move on to college, and no longer was there a sufficient amount of interested hockey players to support a team.

Fast forward 11 years, and Pine Crest parent Doug Shamon began to coach the Eastside Mutts, a composite team made up of players from Calvary Christian High School, Monarch High School, Pompano Beach High School, and of course Pine Crest.

“We formed the [Eastside] Mutts four years ago, and this is my fifth year coaching and my fifth year with the Mutts…because the number of hockey players has dropped off, we’ve now created a composite team, made up of Pine Crest and some other schools, so that we would have enough players to form a team, and the [Florida Scholastic Hockey League] has changed its rules to allow for composite teams now,” explained Pine Crest parent and Mutts’ Head Coach Doug Shamon.

Four Pine Crest students are currently a part of the Eastside Mutts, senior Nicholas Becker, senior Cody Shamon, junior Ian Schneider, and freshman Michael Blyer. Both Becker and Shamon led the team as co-captains last season, and believe that it is time that Pine Crest knew about the Eastside Mutts.

“This season, we are a more well-rounded team, and we actually have a shot at going somewhere. We’re more of a team this year, and we are bringing it together and playing hard,” said Becker.

Finishing sixth out of eight teams in Division I last season and just one game shy of the playoffs, all four Pine Crest players have some high expectations for this season.

“I think that this year, we can definitely make the playoffs, and we’re good enough to maybe even go to the State Championships for composite high schools teams. We have a lot of returning players this year and we’ve added a few freshmen, and new players that have transferred, so I think that we should be able to make a pretty good run this year,” said Shamon.

The Eastside Mutts will open the 2014-2015 season on Monday, October 27th at 8:20pm against Miami Dade at the Saveology.com Iceplex in Coral Springs. The team plays majority of its games at the Saveology.com Iceplex, but will showcase its skills against Stoneman Douglas on Thursday, October 30th at the BB&T Center, home to the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers. Be sure to come out and support Pine Crest’s very own on the Eastside Mutts this season!