LoHud Hockey Blog

Not much doing today, so I’m keeping an eye on the weather. I think we might be in trouble over the weekend. There’s a problem whenever the weather people stick that Nor’easter label in the five-day forecast. If we get too many cancellations it’s an issue because there isn’t enough time or ice left to squeeze in multiple games prior to the seeding meeting.

If you weren’t following along on Twitter last night, you missed some news.

Michael Benincasa was in street clothes again last night and revealed after Rye survived a late scare and beat Scarsdale that he’s done for the season. The back issue he’s been dealing with turned out to be two fractured vertebrae. That makes what he was doing earlier in the season even more impressive, putting up POTY numbers despite constant pain.

“The pain just became unbearable,” Benincasa said.

And now the Garnets are moving ahead without a top scoring threat.

“We didn’t want to lose Michael, that’s for sure, but I think the timing of it is kind of serving us well because kids we need to get some experience and kids we need to move into an upper-level role are getting a chance to do that before we get to something really important,” Rye coach Jason Friesen said. “There’s a little bit less pressure, and they’re able to flourish and bloom, but we still need time. We need some practice and if we get Pelham, we still have three more games to play and that will serve them well.”

They might very well get Pelham as the game that was postponed last week might be played on Tuesday, although details are still being worked out.

“Both teams are taking a chance, but the kids really want to play the game,” Friesen said.

For the record, Scarsdale is 0-4-1 with me in attendance this season. Perhaps it’s time for the parents to take up a collection … kidding, kidding, kidding.

And this deserves a mention – Rose Rather scored five goals, including her school-record 105th, to lead the Rye Country Day girls hockey team to an 8-2 win over Summit, N.J., on Tuesday. She passed Larchmont resident Elizabeth Wulf, who scored 104 goals in two seasons at the school before moving up the competitive ladder and transferring to Hotchkiss.

Feb. 6
Sleepy Hollow/Irvington/Dobbs Ferry vs. Nyack/Tappan Zee, 5:45 p.m. at Palisades
Kingswood-Oxford vs. Harvey, 4 p.m. at Harvey
RCDS vs. King, 4:30 p.m. at Twin Rinks
Iona Prep vs. Notre Dame of West Haven, 6 p.m.

Feb. 5
Rye 6, Scarsdale 5
New Rochelle 5, Pawling 0
RTH 2, Greeley 1