Hockey: Batavia's Ian Bain, Fox Valley Hawks have high hopes for season

Ian Bain is ready to take his game to the next level.

Bain, from Batavia, is back for his third season at the varsity level on the Fox Valley Hawks Varsity Black team.

"Last year, I got to look at the leadership of the seniors and tried to learn as much as I could from them,” said Bain, a defenseman. “We have a lot of talent on this team and a lot of speed which will help us win more games this year. Our pros will be our speed and teamwork. We will push each other I think each day to get better. There is very good chemistry on this team this year.”

There is indeed a certain level of expectations with this year's Fox Valley Hawks Varsity Black team this year which had not existed in past years.

Bain is one of 16 seniors on the program's top team with seven of those returning starters from last year’s group which lost in the quarterfinals of the Blackhawk Cup state tournament to eventual champion Waubonsie Valley.

The Hawks program continues to grow even more with two varsity teams and two juniors varsity teams encompassing 71 players.

“Only New Trier has more teams than we do in the state,” said Hawks coach and Director of Hockey Operations Phil Gabrielsen. “We have a good amount of players from each of our schools (St. Charles East, North, Geneva and Batavia)."

Bain said during the offseason he worked on his passing more to make them harder and faster. He also improved on his footwork.

“It was important to me to work on my footwork to be be able to take on forwards in one-on-one situations better,” Bain said. “Working on footwork techniques also will help me with transitional situation when we are are on offense and then have to get back on defense it will be easier for me to do that.”

In addition to Bain, Gabrielsen will look to the likes of senior defenseman Jake Granger from Batavia and senior newcomer Tyler Schneeweis from St. Charles East to hold off opposing teams.

The Hawks will be formidable on offense this season with junior Chris Petri (St. Charles East), senior Blake Connolly (St. Charles East) and senior Tanner Davidson (St. Charles North). Goaltending duties will be handled by junior Joe Widick (St. Charles East) and senior Anthony Chiefari (Geneva).

“We had great retention on the varsity level this year,” Gabrielsen said. “Only two players left the program who could have returned. The rest all came back except for those who graduated. I wanted to make sure our kids had the summer off to rest and re-charge.”

The Hawks will play 35-40 games between the Fox Valley Ice Arena and the Carol Stream Ice Arena. Their only tournament appearance will be at the Stevenson Thanksgiving Tournament in Buffalo Grove.

“That tournament will really show us how good we are as a club and where we need to improve still,” Gabrielsen said. “We just needed to play better competition at tournaments and the Stevenson tournament gives us that.”