TRENTON – After a week off from play due to the MHSAA dead period, local high school ice hockey teams were back in action at the Kennedy Recreation Center for week three of the annual summer league on Thursday.
It was a night where three of the programs playing across the slate of three games featured co-op programs representing 12 different schools.
One rink featured a showdown between Divine Child and Riverview-Cabrini United, while the practice rink played home to Downriver Unified and New Boston United.
It was a night of high-scoring between the squads as the four teams combined for double-digit goals in both games when you added all the scoring together.
Each roster featured a variety of ages, ranging from up-and-coming freshmen to players entering their senior year. And the coaching staffs for each are similar in that regard
For New Boston, longtime coach Bob Murray is back for another year. Over at Riverview, Mike Windhurst and his crew return for their second season. And on the Downriver bench is Garret Presnell, who takes over for veteran coach Rick Butler.
No stranger to the sport himself, Presnell played hockey in high school and some time in the juniors before coaching both his son’s teams and the prep team in Southgate. He expressed a lot of eagerness to continue building the program.
“It keeps me young,” Presnell said. “I love the sport and I want the kids to love it, too. Hockey is hockey for me. It’s a year-round thing, a passion.
“If I get the kids on the ice as much as I can, get them improving, and make it a better program than the year before, we’ll keep on striving,” he said. “Me and coach Rick have been friends for a long time and I’ll try to fill those shoes the best I can.”
On the opposite bench, Murray was also thrilled to have a chance for his team to stay on top of their skills.
“You get to see the new kids and the younger kids coming up,” he said about the summer league. “It’s an opportunity for you to sell your program and I think it’s a great thing that we do. I’m glad that the high school association allows us to play and it’s a great competition.”
A year ago, both New Boston Unified and Riverview-Cabrini struggled in their respective seasons, each coming away with just two wins. Heading into the 2025-26 season, both programs are optimistic for the future.
For New Boston, it will be another young squad with plenty of fresh faces.
“We have some kids coming back,” Murray said. “We have six to seven new kids, but five to six of those are incoming freshmen. That’s good to perpetuate the program, but it’s also a young team. We’ll have maybe four seniors, three or four juniors and the rest underclassmen.”
From the other rink, Riverview-Cabrini only graduated four players and are looking forward to moving past the rough outing last winter.
Windhurst already has been encouraged with what he has seen this summer, compared to that a year ago.
The Riverview-Cabrini United ice hockey team, white jerseys, battled Dearborn Divine Child in a summer league game at Kennedy Rec Center in Trenton on July 10, 2025. (SAMANTHA ELLIOTT — For MediaNews Group)
“It’s exciting with the incoming freshmen and seeing them play,” Windhurst said. “Right now the team has a lot of chemistry. We had a rough season, but our summer season has been a lot better
“The roller coasters of high school hockey, right?”
While they had their struggles, RCU last season did boast two standout players in Maverick Markham and Trevor Turkowski, both of whom will be seniors next school year.
Markham on Thursday scored four goals for RCU.
Windhurst is excited to see their respective high school swan songs after combining for 71 of the team’s 84 goals scored last season.
“Everyone knows we struggled throughout the season, but we still managed to have two phenomenal players in this region that deserved a lot of recognition,” Windhurst said. “They’ll probably do even better this year as seniors. We expect them to be top goal-scorers and point-guys in our region.
“I’m just excited,” he said. “It’s a great group of kids, especially this new senior group that I have. They’re phenomenal leaders and they’re going to help teach what I instilled last season since I took over to the new, incoming group.”
While Windhurst only has two schools to deal with, each of the other teams has five apiece.
Murray’s co-op is led by New Boston Huron and also houses players from Dearborn Heights Crestwood, Carleton Airport, and Garden City. Another school, Flat Rock, is formally part of the program, although they currently do not have a player on the roster.
For Presnell, Downriver Unified is made up of players from the host school Southgate Anderson as well as Dearborn High, Dearborn Edsel Ford, Monroe High, and Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central.
Rival programs Downriver Unified, black jerseys, and New Boston United squared off in a summer league contest at Kennedy Rec Center in Trenton on July 10, 2025. (SAMANTHA ELLIOTT — For MediaNews Group)
Presnell said all of the athletic directors have been wonderful about assisting him with reaching out to each school to ensure the hockey players within the district know that there is a team, as well as a spring and summer program.
One could easily think that players from five different schools could make for a difficult time, but neither Presnell nor Murray said it isn’t an issue.
“I always tell the kids ‘we’re here to play hockey,’” Presnell said. “If you’re a decent hockey player, you can go out and it could be all strangers at the beginning of a game and the next thing you know, you guys are passing, making plays together, and you’re playing the game.
“The gelling thing, it comes pretty easy I think.”
Murray echoed a lot of his Downriver counterpart’s thoughts.
“A lot of these kids know each other prior to going to different schools,” he said. They know the situation we’re in. We’re a program that’s staying alive based on kids wanting to play hockey, kids who love hockey.”
Murray said despite the many schools within the program, the dynamics of his team are really no different than any standalone program.
“You have a couple kids that chirp a little bit here and there,” Murray said. “Then you have a bunch of quiet kids, some kids that give 100 percent 100 percent of the time, and kids that lack confidence. The schools have nothing to do with it. It’s just harder for us as a staff to go to 10 different schools and do all the logistics behind the scenes.
“But once we get in the locker room, it’s no different.”
Originally Published: July 11, 2025 at 11:15 AM EDT