Presque Isle Wildcats High School Hockey
Congratulations & Good Luck
Wildcat hockey team ready for post-season
Presque Isle squad playing best hockey lately, hopes for deep playoff run
By Kevin Sjoberg
Sports Reporter
Coach Carl Flynn’s Presque Isle varsity hockey team has picked a good time to get hot.
Heading into their final regular season game Monday (at home against Brewer), the Wildcats were winners of five in a row and nine of their last 12.
Presque Isle owned an 11-5-1 mark and the No. 2 position in the Eastern Maine Class B standings and is now preparing for the playoffs.
PI is currently in a battle with Waterville for the No. 2 spot in the Heal Point standings, behind clear-cut No. 1 Messalonskee. As division runners up, the Wildcats would get a bye into the semifinal round of the tournament.
“For the most part this season has been all up and very little down,” Flynn said. “We were concerned with some of our personnel losses [from 2012-13] at the start of the season but we have had some players assume additional responsibility and everything has worked out.”
The Wildcats’ first offensive line includes a pair of 100-point career point scorers in senior Tyler Seeley and junior Alex Michaud along with sophomore playmaker Cooper Madore.
Seeley relies on his size and brute strength and “his determination is second to none,” Flynn said of his leading goal scorer (27) and point scorer (46) through the first 17 games.
Michaud’s strength is “the ability to see plays developing as he is always a step ahead of everyone else,” according to Flynn.
Michaud has 18 goals and a team-leading 26 assists on the campaign.
Madore has put together a steady season with five goals and 15 assists.
Defensively, PI is led by the combination of Andrew Michaud (23 points) and Mikey Michaud (15).
“They are playing exceptional defense and together are averaging a goal a game,” Flynn said. “They both have had several highlight reel-quality goals this season.”
Senior Trevor Levesque played forward the last two seasons and has been exceptional in the move to defenseman,” according to the coach. Freshman Denny Young and sophomore Reece McDougall round out the remainder of the defensive corps.
Flynn calls his line of Ryder Soucy (10 points), Daniel Boucher (6) and Joseph Patenaude (19) “probably the best second line in the league.”
“They truly wear down the other team’s top players and are a constant scoring threat,” Flynn said.
Soucy, a senior, has seen his game grow tremendously and Boucher has a deceptively strong shot and has had some big goals. Patenaude may be the fastest skater in EM Class B, according to the coach.
The goalie chores have been divided by sophomores Jillian Flynn and Oliver Gerrish, with Flynn getting a majority of the playing time.
“Both have been solid, have made some key saves and are very supportive of one another,” said coach Flynn.
Freshmen Craig Schiff, Alex Brewer and Austin Bouchard are the other members of the team who have seen their minutes increase, especially during the team’s frequent doubleheader weekends. 
Flynn said that staying out of the penalty box will be one of the keys heading into the playoffs.
“We lost one if not two games because we have been overly aggressive and paid for it. They were valuable learning points and in the end haven’t hurt us in the standings,” he said.
He’d love a rematch with Messalonskee if the team’s meet again in the EM finals. PI gave the Eagles one of their closest games back in late December.
“We’d be heavy underdogs but anything is possible,” he said, “but we need to take it one game at a time and not get ahead of ourselves.”
