The Oak Park River Forest High School Varsity Hockey Club opens their regular season at home on Sunday, Sept. 14 at Ridgeland Commons. It is the first of four home games in the month of September. Will the Huskies be able to top their extraordinary season from a year ago? They finished second in the Illinois West Conference to Maine Hockey and would like to jump that final spot this year. As Coach Mike Murphy said, “I think this might be the last year that the Illinois West exists as it currently is, so we’d like to win it this year.”
Leadership in hockey matters because it provides direction, inspires trust and creates a positive team culture. The captains for the 2025-26 season are seniors Liam Moroney and Sebastian Robinson, while the alternatives are seniors Jackson Schott and Oliver Puntillo.
Murphy explained his choices for the leadership roles: “Sebastian and Liam are my two super positive, mature, well-rounded leaders that understand how important it is to pick up the bottom of the team, the guys that are on the fourth line, the guys that maybe don’t even play every single game.”
Murphy praised Schott’s work ethic. “Obviously, he’s the hardest working player. He’ll do anything: he will work both ends, he’ll block shots. He’ll do a lot of like the grinding hard stuff that people might shy away from. Oliver is awesome too…fun and friendly.”
Moroney scored nine goals and seven assists in 51 games last season. While serving as an alternate last year, Robinson had an outstanding season. He scored 19 goals, which made him the team leader in the fall. He also chipped in nine assists. Schott scored 12 goals and had 14 assists in his first year on the team in 52 games, which made him number four in points on the team. Puntillo scored four goals, nine assists in 52 games.
In speaking with Robinson and Schott, both made clear they want to strive to be better players and leaders. Robinson said, “ It’s setting it up for the years to come… but you want to make sure that the guys who are going to be there when you’re not have a good foundation to build off of.”
With any hockey team, they only go as far as the goaltending takes them. Seniors Parker and Trevor Moen are the guys manning the net this year. This will be the first year that Trevor is the starting goalie on varsity. Last season he was the backup, compiling a record of 7-8-2 with a 90.4% save percentage. While Parker was the starter goalie on junior varsity, he had a 89.59% save percentage. Now they are both on varsity, but Trevor will be the initial starter with Parker backing up while competing for additional playing time.
