Monday Morning Quarterback: New Hartford Boys' Hockey

After a disappointing end to last year, the New Hartford Spartans are going back to the drawing board to change the atmosphere of a program. And that's just what this group of Spartans are determined to do. It may be one of the hardest things to do in sports. Change the atmosphere of a program and create a winning attitude. "We had sort of a sour finish last year, locker room wise, chemistry wise, attitude wise. So we initiated some steps to bring the kids together in the off season, do more off season workouts and things like that, try to build up some chemistry, try to build up a little momentum before we even got to the ice in November. " Not only did this team come together before the season they've continue to build chemistry not only on the ice but off as well. "Like before games we have team dinners, we'll all go to someone's house eat dinner and I think it brings us closer together because they feel that we accept them as a team." The off ice workouts have paid off but the Spartans still face battles every day. "Most of the struggles we had this year is we don't have many older guys, we only have 5 seniors, we have 11 eight and ninth graders. So we're very young were limited as far as our seniority goes. And a lot of other teams are just build a little stronger up on top than we are." Currently the Spartans hold the final sectional playoff spot and that's a huge step in taking the program to the next level. "Because a lot of teams don't take us a serious because we are a young team and we don't have a great record like other teams but we've actually come a long ways and we've surprised a lot of teams already." "So we want to make playoffs this year and if we make playoffs we can go all the way."