Saugus subcommittee votes on hockey changes

SAUGUS – The School Committee Athletic Subcommittee voted Monday to recommend ending the middle-school hockey program in favor of a high school junior varsity (JV) team, while keeping high school hockey cheerleading.Athletic Director Mike Nelson said middle-school students who still want to play hockey can play for the JV team by obtaining a waiver.?(Middle school hockey) did what we wanted it to,” said Nelson. “We wanted to get the participation back at the high school level and we used the middle-school kids to generate the interest and help out the high school program. It was a nice little feeder system. Middle school kids could still play hockey for us, but it wouldn?t be just a Belmonte Middle School team.”Nelson said now that there are close to 40 kids interested in playing varsity hockey, it makes sense to have a JV team instead of cutting up to 20 kids at the high school level.Middle school players currently pay a $250 user fee for hockey, but will have to pay the high school rate of $350 if they make the JV team.In a 180-degree turn from discussions at a previous meeting, subcommittee members voted to keep high school hockey cheerleading instead of doing away with the program for budgetary reasons as discussed on Sept. 7.There will, however, be some changes to the program. The hockey cheerleading team, which has around 16 students, will only cheer at home games and the school will pay for transportation to just two cheerleading competitions, the Northeast Conference?s and the state competition.Because of a statewide lack of interest in hockey cheerleading (there are only six teams), the subcommittee will look into ending the program or combining it with basketball cheerleading next year.?If it?s not going to cost you money, and if before transportation was the issue and now it isn?t, it might be better to ease into it next year than to do it this year,” said subcommittee member Richie Fioravanti.Hockey cheerleaders currently pay a $250 user fee, which covers the cost of the coach, but not bus transportation. The subcommittee voted to use the school vans for transportation to competitions instead of full buses, which cost around $150 to use.The full School Committee will vote on these recommendation at its meeting next Thursday.Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter @MattTempesta.