Scarsdale Raiders Hockey Team Advances to Semifinals in Stellar Season

The team celebrated victory over Rockland in the quarterfinal.The Scarsdale Hockey team just completed a very successful season, advancing to the league semifinals after defeating Rockland 8-0 in the quarterfinal game on Tuesday February 22, 2022 at Murrays in Tuckahoe.

We caught up with standout skater Brian Nicholas who was on the road to a travel hockey team practice for the New Jersey Avalanche on Tuesday night March 1. A team Captain, along with Freddy Kushnick, Nicholas said that the team had gone farther than they had in the last five years and he was really pleased about the results.

Going into the playoffs, the team’s record was 10-8 and they had a stellar game in the quarterfinals where they were 2-0 at the first quarter, 6-0 at the half and ultimately took the game, shutting Rockland out 8-0.

Here’s how it went down:

Junior and Captain Brian Nicholas: 5 goals and 2 assists
Junior Ian Silberstein: 2 goals and 1 assist
Sophomore Jack Greco: 1 goal and 1 assist
Junior and Co-Captain Freddy Kushnick: 2 assists
Junior Lee Kleinman: 1 assist
Junior Lev Mizukovski : 1 assist
Sophomore Sam Horner: 2 assists

The team’s assistant captains are Sam Horner and Zev Glassman and the team is coached by James Synowiez and John Felix.

Ian Silverstein wins the face off.

After the win over Rockland, the team advanced to the semifinal when they played Suffern on Thursday February 24 at Sport-O-Rama in Ramapo. That proved to be the last game of the season, as the Raiders fell 6-0.

Reflecting on the season, Nicholas said the team received a lot of support as the rink is outdoors and spectators were permitted. However, in December twelve students on the team came down with COVID and the team missed four games. But despite that blow they were able to recover and triumph. In fact, this was the first time they beat rivals Mamaroneck since 2016.

Freddy Kushnick and Kyle Kahn hug Brian Nicholas after he scores his fifth goal of the night.

Nicholas continues to play hockey five days a week with the New Jersey Avalanche and also plays football and golf. However, hockey is clearly his favorite and his plans are already in place for his senior year and college career. He was drafted in the first round last year to the USHL Sioux City Musketeers and he will play full time with Sioux City next year and live there while completing his senior year on line. The next year he is committed to play for University of Michigan.

Commenting on the season, Coach James Synowiez said, "We had a roller-coaster of a season, we ended 11-9 on the year with a couple monumental wins for our program. Our team was able to take down John Jay Cross- River while they were ranked #3 in the state. We also beat Mamaroneck on senior night for the first time since the 2014-2015 season. Beyond that we made it to the section semi-final (first since 2016) and lost to Section 1 champion Suffern who just won the regional championship and will play for the State championship this coming weekend."

Logistically the past two seasons have been very challenging with covid, cancellations, rescheduling etc. For many sports this is difficult, however with hockey and dealing with rinks and ice time it adds another layer to the process.

This was a special group of young men who bought into their roles on the team. They came together to care more about the success of the team than their own. These young men were able to instill a sense of pride in Scarsdale Hockey that we have lacked recently, I am very proud to have had the honor of coaching them.

Most of the boys on the team have been playing together for Scarsdale Youth Hockey since they were Mites (5-6 years old). And while it’s not uncommon for hockey players to move around to different travel teams most of the boys played for SYHA this year and finally arrived to play for their school, which was a long term goal of their youth coaches. Two of the youth hockey coaches who watched these players become stronger and smarter on the ice are the captains’ dads, Scott Kushnick and Steve Nicholas. While the team will miss Brian Nicholas next year, they are only losing four seniors and remaining strong with ten rising seniors looking forward to another successful season together.

Goalie Max Siegel makes a save against North Rockland.

Photos by Jonathan Thaler - see more here: