The Royal Oak Ravens Varsity Hockey team opened its 2012-2013 season with two games this past weekend against Shrine High School and Bloomfield High.  The Ravens played strong, in spite of coming out of the weekend with a 5-1 loss and a 2-2 tie, respectively.

The Ravens Varsity squad is under a new coaching staff for this season, led by head coach Craig Ward. When asked to comment on the performance of the team in the Shrine game, he offered:  “Being our first game under a new coach and new system I believe the team played hard, but we are learning how to adapt to the game.  I believe Shrine played well and it was a good battle [and] our goaltending was solid despite the results.”

With the Shrine lessons from Friday night fresh in their minds, the Ravens made a few adjustments and delivered an even stronger performance against Bloomfield on Saturday. “We came out very strong and simplified the game to our strengths.  I thought that we had a ton of chances and our defense played very well,” Ward said after the game.

Over all, Coach Ward was satisfied with the effort the Ravens put forth over the weekend adding that, “We will continue to focus on simplifying the game.  I was very happy with the effort and discipline that we instituted.”

The Ravens next home game will be at Royal Oak’s Lindell Arena on Wednesday, November 28^th vs. Athens High School. For more information, go to www.royaloakravens.com or follow the Ravens on Facebook here: www.Facebook.com/royaloakhighschoolvarsityhockeyteam.