BRICK TOWNSHIP — A canceled high school hockey game led to an opportunity for Brick’s special needs team, which took to the Ice Palace Friday for a friendly game against the Brick High School varsity team.
The Brick Stars Challenger team hit the ice Friday evening, playing against the Brick High School varsity team, made up of students from both Brick Memorial and Brick Township high schools. The game was won by the Stars in a shootout.
Brick High School varsity hockey coach James Murphy explained that the varsity team played the impromptu game against the Challenger team after a hole was left in the high school team’s schedule for Jan. 3. He said that this is not the first meeting of the two Brick-based teams.
“We played against the Stars for the first time last year,” said Murphy. “They play against a lot of teams in the Shore Conference, which is great. It helps the kids get connected with the Challenger team.”
Murphy said that the founder of the Brick Stars Challenger team was his hockey coach when he was a member of the Brick Hockey Club.
“We’re so lucky that we’re able to do this. I have a good connection with Alex (DePalma) from playing for him when I was a kid,” he said. “He played at Brick Township High School, he coached at Point Borough High School for a while; he’s just always been involved in all types of hockey community initiatives.”
DePalma, coach and founder of the Brick Stars Challenger hockey program alongside managing director Dina Crepaldi, said that the program is open to kids and young adults aged five to 21 with developmental disabilities.
“It’s a special needs hockey program,” he said. “We welcome any child with a developmental disability that prevents them from playing typical hockey.”
He explained how, in 2008, the idea for the Brick Stars Challenger program came about.
“I was coaching director for the Brick Hockey Club at the time,” DePalma said. “We needed to fill some ice space. I had a friend of mine in Lake Placid, who said, ‘Hey, someday you should start a special hockey program down in Brick.’ I said, ‘We don’t have the ice;’ two years later, we had the ice.”
“There were some parents within the hockey club that had children that could play in the program, one of them being Dina Crepaldi,” he said, referencing his co-founder. I spoke to her and we got the program started off with six kids. I think at our peak, we were up to 60-some-odd kids. We have two teams: one team plays games, like the kids here, and with the second group, it’s a lot of one-on-one time with kids that are a little more developmentally challenged.”
Before the team took to the ice, DePalma also told The Ocean Star about why he believes the program to be of benefit not just to the Stars, but also for the students playing on Brick’s varsity team.
“It benefits them tremendously, because it’s giving them a chance to go out there and play in a game against kids that they look up to at the high school level,” he said. “The thing that we found is that it is not only good for our kids, but for the high school players in the middle of their season.”
“We can’t even fit in all the high school teams that want to play us,” said DePalma. “And it gives them a break during their season. I used to teach at Point Borough High School, so I know what it’s like; the kids are striving to be at the top of their division, then they’re striving to get into the playoffs and win those playoffs. So it’s always serious, always pushing. They come out on a Sunday morning, they’re relaxed, they’re having fun…And you see the character in the high school kids. So, it’s benefiting them as much as it’s benefiting our kids.”
This is an excerpt of the print article. For more on this story, read The Ocean Star—on newsstands Friday or online in our e-Edition.
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