Last Friday, the men’s hockey team (8–9–3; 6–5–3 NESCAC) beat Hamilton College (15–4–1; 11–2–1 NESCAC), currently ranked first in the NESCAC, 7–5 in a dynamic match. The following day, the team went against Amherst College (8–10–2; 5–7–2 NESCAC), earning a 2–1 shootout victory thanks to goals by Gabe Shipper ’26 and Jack Moore ’25 after ending regulation tied 1–1.
Going into the matches with Hamilton and Amherst, the Polar Bears focused on maintaining a consistently high energy level and treating the games as if they were the playoffs.
“The big theme that we had going into the games is to treat [them] like playoff games. We wanted to come in with a lot of high energy and make sure that we were keeping on their forward offensive zone so they were not getting counters going the other way. Those were the big themes that we talked about in practice, and we tried that in the game on Friday night,” Moore said.
While Head Coach Ben Guite was happy with the progress the team has made since the season started, he explained that Bowdoin could still cut down on the number of penalties it receives.
“[We’re] looking to control the game a bit more. I felt like Hamilton played a pretty good game then, but we took a lot of penalties. Anytime you take a lot of penalties, you’re going to fall behind on territorial advantage. That’s where my expectations fell short,” Guite said.
The team’s close dynamic has helped the Polar Bears be competitive this season, according to James Cerepak ’26.
“I think the buy-in from our team has been huge. We don’t have a selfish guy on our team or in the locker room. Everyone’s very predictable and in their spots,” Cerepak said. “I think the culture piece is huge. That’s a big part of why our team is having success down the stretch. Everyone’s just getting along with each other really well, and the culture is translating into the ice.”
Going forward, the team has a clear mindset of constant improvement, especially regarding maintaining control of the puck and spending more time in its offensive zone.
“We’ve had some success over the past few weeks, but I think we still have to keep that mindset of getting better every week, every practice, every game,” Moore said. “Although we had two wins this weekend, I think there’s a lot of things we can improve on, especially with D-zone, making sure we’re not spending as much time defending and we’re getting some more offensive time.”
More broadly, the team has its eyes set on a NESCAC championship.
“I think everyone on our team has that goal of winning the NESCAC championships. That’s something we’ve looked towards all year, and we had that stretch throughout January where things weren’t going our way. I think we all kind of knew it was only a matter of time before things started clicking for us,” Moore said. “Everyone believed that we had the talent and the skill to be able to beat anybody in this league, and we got through that stretch of losses, and I think we’re a better team for it.”
The Polar Bears will play Trinity College (14–5–1; 10–3–1 NESCAC) and Wesleyan College (5–12–3; 4–9–1 NESCAC) this weekend, before taking on Connecticut College (7–12–1; 5–9–0 NESCAC) and Tufts University (8–10–1; 6–8–0 NESCAC) the following weekend.
“Right now, we’re in a position to get a nice advantage in the playoffs.… We have four games left,” Guite said. “We have one against a really, really tough and proven opponent, Trinity, this weekend, on Friday, but then we have three opponents that are fighting for the playoffs, so they’re going to be super desperate. They’re going to be very, very good games.”