When the Atlantic Prep Athletic Conference was launched in the fall of 2018 it was unique in the realm of Philadelphia-area interscholastic hockey; a hockey-only conference comprised of schools where hockey was a full-fledged varsity sport, overseen and supervised by administrators at each member institution; Holy Ghost Prep, Hun School, La Salle, Malvern Prep and St. Joseph’s Prep.
Hun School joined the APAC following its second season, the other four institutions have been part of the conference since it was founded.
As the APAC concludes its eighth season this week, with the Class AAA Flyers Cup final on Tuesday between Holy Ghost Prep and La Salle, with the state title hame to follow on Saturday, what was something of an experiment has proven to be an unqualified success, a successful melding of academic, athletic, and spiritual components.
Steve Mackell is in his second season as the Commissioner of the APAC, having succeeded Jim Britt, who had served in the commissioner’s post from the time the alliance was founded.
Mackell, who has had a long career in amateur hockey as a coach and administrator, cited the keys to the APAC’s success.
“I’m honored to be in the shoes of Jim Britt,” he said. “I think that the level of people we’re dealing with, the coaches, understand the game, they understand what they want to do with the kids, to make them men.
“I think it’s a combination of the academic environment and the athletic environment, which puts the APAC at really the echelon of hockey in this area.”
Mackell stresses the importance of the hockey programs at each conference school being a full-fledged varsity under direct institutional supervision.
“I think it’s the key to our conference,” he said, “that this is a varsity sport. The schools all fully back the sport. The student bodies there, the athletic directors there. The principals have been to many of the games and we’re very fortunate to have the support of the schools in our league.
”I think that’s what makes it real easy to deal with them because they can deal with a lot of stuff from an expectation standpoint before they even come into the rink.
{The players and coaches} know what they’re dealing with because they have to answer to people at school as well.”
Mackell is proud of the APAC’s success in helping its student athletes strike a balance among the various components of their lives and achieve success on and off the ice.
“All hockey players have a lot going on.” he said. I think the level of academics, what they need to do to stay in good standing at their schools from an academic standpoint, the spiritual world, and also the athletic side, to play at that level of hockey.
“There’s a lot of juggling that goes on between their club teams, their high-school teams, between their academic lives and their spiritual lives. I think that you see motivated young men that are all looking to move on to the next level, whether it’s in college, whether it’s in {junior hockey}, whether it’s in a different sport, whether it’s no sport, or academics, they understand their high schools are very important to where they are and I think they’re all striving for that.”
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