The 2022/2023 SESHL Championship weekend will take place on March 31st – April 2nd in Charleston, SC . Carolina will face the Southern Division for the first time this season as they will play the Orlando Sled Bears, Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Space Coast Blast to finish out the regular season. Unfortunately no matter the outcome of the final three games Carolina can not qualify for the SESHL playoffs.

Carolina has not had the season they had hoped for. The team has yet to play a single game with all of its players and will still not have all of its players for this final SESHL weekend. Regardless Carolina is looking to finish strong as they gear up for the USA Hockey Disabled Festival in April.

Charleston Tournament Shows the Love

The second tournament of the young SESHL season saw Carolina entering with heavy hearts as just a few days prior long-time player Angela “Cash” Mooney shed her sled and skated to heaven. The love and support shown to the team by the Charleston Warriors and Queen City will never be forgotten. Every player at the tournament sported “AM” stickers on their helmets in Angela’s honor. In a very special beautiful moment, all three times came together at center ice to share some kind words and to have a moment of silence. The moment of silence was broken by everyone on the ice chanting at the top of their lungs “1, 2, 3, CASH MOONEY”. Angela’s number will be retired and another player will never wear #11 for Carolina again.

Carolina struggled again this tournament as they lost to Queen City in a one-sided tilt that ended in a 5-0 defeat. Next up was the Charleston Warriors which was a back-and-forth very competitive match-up but ultimately saw Carolina on the wrong side of a 2-0 defeat.

Carolina will be back in action on home turf as they will be hosting a tournament at the Garner Ice House on Saturday, January 14th. Before the games begin there will be an All-Star type skills competition that will have all teams on the ice at the same time

First Divisional Tournament is in the Books

The Carolina Sled Hockey team traveled to Charlotte, NC for their first divisional tournament of the 2022/2023 SESHL season. The team did not have the outcome that they had hoped for losing to both Queen City and the Charleston Warriors. However, it was bittersweet as it was such a huge honor to be a part of Queen City’s first-ever game.

The team is in somewhat of a rebuild after losing 3 key players from the roster from the previous season. Two players went to Queen City and one player was lost to retirement. Some players will definitely need to step up to fill those roles.

Humberto Reyna was the lone goal scorer from the weekend for Carolina Sled Hockey.

The 2022/2023 season is finally here. Carolina Sled Hockey hit the ice this past weekend with a couple of hard skating practices. With the first SESHL weekend coming up in less than a month in Charlotte, the team needs to get in all the work they can to be ready to face off against Queen city and the Charleston Warriors. The Warriors are a familiar foe over the past few seasons whereas this will be the inaugural season for Queen City when it comes to league play. But Queen City are no strangers as they will have 3 former Carolina Sled Hockey players in their lineup, (Jereme Gilbert, Brooke Powell, and Cam Gross).

In addition to participating in the South East Sled Hockey League, Carolina Sled Hockey will also be participating in the 2023 USA Hockey Disabled Festival in St. Louis.

“We are the Champions, my friend. We’ll keep on fighting till the end.”

-Queen

It seems like it has been a long time coming for the Carolina Sled Hockey team. As the 20/21 season approached the team was ready to put in the work to claim what they felt was theirs. They did not want a repeat of the 19/20 season posting a stellar record of 8-2-2, they were heavily favored to take the crown going into the playoffs. But the hockey gods had other plans, Carolina was ousted in the 1st rd by the Nashville Sled Preds.

The team was determined to take the crown this year as they worked and pushed themselves in practice after practice, all during a global pandemic mind you. All the hard work showed during the regular season as the team finished undefeated without ever allowing a single goal. I guess goalie Odell Lambeth deserves a little credit for that. When the playoffs came around this year, the team was ready and took nothing for granted. The championship game had Carolina facing off against last season’s champs, The Charleston Warriors. It was a constant back and forth battle between the two goalies as neither wanted to give an inch. That is until late in the third when Gary Smith had enough and decided it was time to put this game to bed and ripped a shot from the left circle and hit the back of the net. The team went crazy. With just a few minutes left in the game, we knew we had to be a defensive fortress as the Warriors were giving us everything they had. It was a good fight but this time the day belonged to Carolina and the cup was coming home!