By Mike Gurnis
After a long nearly nine-month long wait, the 2025-26 high school hockey season is finally here.
This season marks the eighth season of the Morris-Sussex Hockey Report, and I’m very excited to get everything going. Some things are going to look a bit different on the site this season, and I wanted to take a moment and explain them.
I’m going to be scaling back some things. Make no mistake, this site isn’t going anywhere this year, but the daily things I was doing in past years just became too much. As you saw, I did not do the individual team previews in preseason like I usually do. The daily roundups will also be scaled back.
What’s not going to change, is I will still be looking to cover at least one or two games per week in person, with a full article afterwards. It’ll mostly be Friday nights/Saturdays, because I live a bit too far from Mennen Arena to make the trek out there on weeknights. But, we’ll still have some game coverage, I’m still going to have a weekly Three Stars of the Week, as well as our weekly area rankings. In lieu of the daily roundups, I’ll be doing a weekly notebook which should hit on all of the big newsworthy items that went on in the area over the previous week. It’s my goal to try to cover as many different teams as possible throughout the year with my game coverage.
Also, I will be updating my MCSSIHL standings page daily, which remains the only place you can find the most up-to-date standings (with points)!
— Speaking of game coverage, this week I’m headed to Mennen on Friday night for a Mennen Division showdown between Morristown-Beard and Chatham at 5:45 p.m. It’s already going to be Morristown-Beard’s second divisional game, after it dispatched Morris Knolls-Hills, 8-1 at Twin Oaks on Wednesday. If you tuned into Big State Sports’ “Stayin’ Frosty with Zack and Dave” preseason preview show on Tuesday night, all four of us spoke very highly of Morristown-Beard. This team has the potential to be an absolute machine this year, and it brings back one of the best goalies in New Jersey in Mason Hriczov.
This game is also a rematch of last year’s Mennen Cup final, which Morristown-Beard won, 5-2. Chatham got there by virtue of a 2-1 overtime upset win over Randolph in the semifinals, which was a 41-save performance from Snowden Lange. Lange is back this year, along with some talented players in Owen Young, Kieran Brendle, Luke Brendle, Charlie Dunn, and Nate Crowley. Chatham has some solid potential this year, as always.
— As I’m typing this, I just happened to catch the third period of West Morris’ 6-5 win over Madison. This game was as wild as it sounds. I turned it on in the third period with Madison leading 5-3, and West Morris rallied to score three straight, highlighted by Rhone Armijo’s shorthanded goal late in the game to put the Wolfpack ahead. I picked West Morris to win the Halvorsen regular season title during the Big State Sports preview podcast, but all of us agreed- the Halvorsen Division is as wide-open as it’s been in recent memory, and this game gave a bit of a glimpse as to how tight these teams all might be.
— My predictions for the regular season division winners on that podcast: Morristown-Beard (Mennen), West Morris (Halvorsen), and Parsippany Regional (Haas-Charette).
— If I were to give out an area Preseason Player of the Year award, I think it’d have to be Braydon Sisco of KJS United. He was unbelievable last season, was named the Mennen Division MVP as a sophomore, which is unheard of. He had 50 goals and 22 assists, and in the state tournament, there was just nobody even close to his level in the Public Co-Op bracket. He had 17 goals and four assists in five state tournament games, including two goals and an assist in the 4-3 win over Marlboro-Holmdel in the Public Co-Op final at Prudential Center. He’s back for his junior season, and KJS figures to be right in the mix once again the Co-Op bracket if it can stay healthy.
KJS opens with Randolph on Friday at 4:40 p.m. at Skylands Ice World.
— There were a couple of coaching changes this offseason. Jason Block takes over for Anthony Iannone at Montville, while Greg Kreha was promoted to the head coach at West Morris after the tragic and untimely passing of Dave Hansen, who passed away shortly after finishing his first season leading the Wolfpack.
On the girls side, Todd Drevitch takes over for Chatham-Millburn-Livingston (Livingston added this season), after a couple of years where Kayla Meneghin led the program. Drevitch brings a wide array of experience, and had stints as head coach of the boys teams at Dayton, Pope John, and Mountain Lakes, and has been involved with the Pingry girls team and Montclair State.
— On the girls hockey side of things, Morristown is making the jump to varsity after several years as a JV only program. Angelo Rosena is the head coach there, and the team will compete in the NJIIHL-Annis Division, with Cranford, Randolph, Princeton, East Side, and Hoboken-Weehawken-Secaucus.
E-mail Mike Gurnis at michaelgurnis@gmail.com
Morris-Sussex Hockey Report 