Matheson, Lake Forest make school history

Former Central IcePak goalie Andrew Matheson had just finished a math test when he spoke to The Beacon about playing hockey for Lake Forest Academy.

Lake Forest, a prep school in Illinois, competes in the Midwest Prep Hockey League in the West Division. Lake Forest battled its way to a regular-season championship - the first in that school's history - and entered playoffs as the team to beat. After receiving a bye in the first round, Lake Forest defeated Shady Side Academy 4-1 in the quarterfinals. The team played St. Andrew's College, who finished second in the Mideast Division, in the semis, which needed overtime to determine a winner.

In the game, Lake Forest took a 2-0 lead into the second, and held a 4-2 lead into the third. However, St. Andrew's College scored twice to even the game in the final frame, and scored again in the extra frame to advance to the finals.

According to Matheson, who started the game between the pipes for Lake Forest, the pressure of being the defending MPHL champs got to Lake Forest.

"It was a really close game. Our team seems to play better when there's no pressure on us. We play a lot better when there are no expectations and we're just having fun," said Matheson, who turned away 22 of 27 shots in the game. "However, a bunch of the guys won it last year and expectations were high, and the guys felt like we should win it. We battled hard to the end, but things just didn't go our way."

However, Matheson and Lake Forest turned it around in the third-place game against Stanstead College. Lake Forest scored early and often, cruising to an 8-1 win.

Although the team lost a heartbreaker in the semis, Matheson said Lake Forest was able to accomplish a lot throughout the season - and he's glad to say he was a part of it.

"For the first time in our school's history, we won the regular season title, so that was a great accomplishment," he said. "We went undefeated in the round robin, 12-0-1, so that was pretty cool.

"We set a team goal to pretty much just do the best we could because we weren't sure how good we were going to be. We ended up playing really well," added Matheson. "The forwards did a great job, our defencemen worked out great, and Robert (Levin) and me were able to play solid every game we played. The entire team worked well together, and it turned out pretty good."

Although Lake Forest only played 13 games in the MPHL season, it played many more games against other U-18 teams. Overall, the team played more than 50 games, and throughout those games, Matheson and fellow goalie Levin were in a game-for-game rotation. However, during a game against a team from Milwaukee, everything changed.

"I had a really bad concussion and was out for about six weeks," said Matheson. "I was playing a game against Milwaukee...before that Robert and me were just going on a game-for-game rotation. The way I play my game is that I like to play the puck a lot more than most goalies do. I came out of my net to play the puck, got hit, and the back of my head hit the post."

Recently, Matheson competed in the Montreal Meltdown Hockey Tournament on a team comprised of players from Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador. The team was eliminated from the tournament in the round robin.

With the Montreal Canadiens' dramatic NHL playoff run, Matheson said the city of Montreal was electric, and that electricity carried over to the Meltdown.

"It was crazy," he said of the atmosphere in the city. "There were a lot of people watching the tournament, too, which was pretty cool."

Matheson finished the year with Lake Forest with a solid 16-2-1 record. As for his future, he doesn't know for sure where he'll end up playing next season. There are plenty of options, including a possible stint in the Maritime Junior A Hockey League, where his older brother, Ryan, plays for the Amherst Ramblers.

"I'm planning on heading back out east, but I'm keeping my options open. Major junior hockey still interests me, but so does the NCAA college route. I'm on the draft list for the QMJHL, but where I moved down here, it kind of hurt me because I didn't get as much exposure for the Q," said the goaltender. "I'm not too worried about it because if I don't get drafted this year, hopefully I'll get drafted next year. I'm also eligible for the Maritime Junior A Hockey League draft, which is the league my brother plays in, and I'm also looking at the Central Junior Hockey League in Ontario."

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