At the outskirts of the Carriage Club ice skating rink, then-six-year-old Gibbs Morris sat on the bench with his dad, Jeff Morris. As they watched boys and girls skate in circles around the edge of the rink, the pair was waved over by a man.
“Hey, we’re throwing skates on a bunch of these kids,” the man said. “Do you want to put some on him?”
Jeff agreed, “What’s the harm?” he thought. Neither knew then that the man, Joe Zwillenberg, would be Gibbs’s hockey coach for the next 12 years.
Seniors Jackson Jacobs (JJ), Barrett McKee, Spencer Newton, Blake Sowden and Travers Wong began playing hockey at Carriage Club together around the same year Gibbs did.
The boys spent the first few years in the U8 league (eight and under), followed by Squirt (ten and under), Peewee (12 and under) and Bantam (14 and under). Through all of these leagues, the boys were coached by Joe, and Barrett and Blake’s dads, Aaron McKee and Peter Sowden.
The most basic yet crucial skill required to learn how to play hockey — skating — didn’t necessarily come easy for a bunch of first graders.
“We were just completely eating the ground all the time,” now senior Gibbs said. “Ice in the face constantly.”
The first few years were all about simply getting the hang of things, whether it was learning how to pass the puck, move on the ice or simply gaining the courage to let go of the wall.
“Not every kid loves hockey the first time they do it,” JJ said. “Your skates don’t fit and your helmet is too tight, but eventually it all works out and you grow to really like it.”
The hockey season is almost six months long and there’s not much competition close to home, so the boys spend a lot of time on the road heading to neighboring cities including St. Louis and Omaha, Neb. for games and tournaments — but only once they’d mastered meeting their stick with the puck.
“When we got to go on those trips, the boys would swim in the pool, they’d play hotel tag, they’d get to hang out with their buddies in the hotel room,” Peter said. “They loved that aspect of it and it set up some really close friendships among them.”
While not all of the boys attended the same elementary school, hockey practice at Carriage Club was a place for them to kick around on the ice and hangout with boys they don’t get to see everyday at recess.
“The boys just had that common bond,” Aaron said. “Not a lot of people play hockey in Kansas City, so not everyone else understood why they loved it so much. But they did.”
Barrett, Spencer, Blake and Travers all attended the same elementary and middle school — Briarwood and then Indian Hills, respectively — while both JJ and Gibbs attended Pembroke Hill. As they’ve been friends through hockey since childhood, each of the boys were excited when JJ came to East as a freshman, with Gibbs following halfway through sophomore year.
Once in high school, the boys moved up to the junior varsity and varsity Carriage Club teams, coached by Joe and former Kansas University hockey players Mike Weinberger and Jack Hallbrook. Because they’d moved up to the higher stake teams, they were at the point of their training to play rivalry games and championship tournaments.
On the varsity team, the boys practice for about two hours three days a week, and usually have anywhere from one to four games per weekend. Practices start in late October and are held at Silverstein Eye Center in Independence, Mo. at first, before moving to the Carriage Club ice rink in the beginning of December after the ice has been laid.
Knowing that this is their final year to play hockey together, the boys have made it a goal to attend every practice and make sure that they grow as much as they can by the end of the season — and the coaches are always eager to remind them of this as well.
“The one challenge that I always have with seniors is getting them to understand that they only have 22 games left in their career,” Joe said. “And a lot of seniors don’t want to hear that because it’s emotional. But if you can get them to buy into that, and understand that, and make sure they give it their all, you can have a pretty special season.”
The boy’s friendship reflects positively on the team, according to Mike, showing the younger boys the bond he hopes every senior group can have in the future.
“The Shawnee Mission East boys really are the heart of the team,” Mike said.