Steady ship — that’s a motto spoken on the Lone Star Brahmas bench when something goes wrong during a game.
“Everyone just yells ‘steady ship,’ and it calms everyone down,” said forward Charlie Masek. “A good motto we have is after something bad happens during the game or during the season, we try to move past it. We do a good job of moving on pretty quick from adversity.”
That quick memory helped lift Lone Star to the 2024 Robertson Cup title last season. Now the Brahmas head into the 2024-25 campaign with all eyes on them as the defending champs.
They have been able to deal with that pressure so far.
The Brahmas split a pair of games against the Odessa Jackalopes to open the season in mid-September before going 3-0 in their games at the 50th NAHL Showcase, which took place Sept. 26-28 at the National Sports Center Super Rink in Blaine, Minnesota.
All 35 NAHL teams suited up for three regular-season games at the league’s premier event, dubbed the “Greatest Show on Ice.”
Lone Star is coming off a 44-10-3-3 season with 94 points — the most in the NAHL. The Brahmas capped their season by winning the Robertson Cup for the first time since 2017.
Masek, a 20-year-old from Chicago, said he “can’t really describe it,” when it comes to the celebration of winning the Robertson Cup after a grind of playing 60 games in a season. He added that “there’s no better feeling in the world” than playing with his brothers whom he loves every night.
“It was a crazy season,” said Logan Murphy, the assistant coach for Lone Star. “I tell a lot of people, part of it is a little luck. To stay healthy the whole year, that’s probably a thing a lot of people forget about. But just unbelievable group of players that were willing to put in a lot of extra time to be prepared for any situation, any game. Anything that was thrown at them, they were all there ready for.”
Murphy is in his second season as an assistant under Lone Star head coach Dan Wildfong, but it’s his fifth season coaching in the NAHL. He was previously an assistant coach for the Chippewa Steel and North Iowa Bulls in the NAHL before arriving in Texas last season.
A big part of Lone Star’s success was the high-end talent on the Brahma’s roster, according to Murphy. They had players in roles toward the bottom of their lineup who “ultimately came up big” and helped them throughout the playoffs.
From day one of training camp this season, Murphy said the team talked about how they’ll get the best games from every opponent as Lone Star looks to defend its title.
The Brahmas have a good core group of returning players from last year who they’ll rely on heavily to help establish the culture and lead the way to get back to where they were last year.
“They’ve done a really good job of taking some, not only just the young guys, but new guys to our team, too,” Murphy said. “We have some new core players. So, taking them aside and showing them how everything works here. How hard you have to work every day.”
With such a long season, they also understand the path will not be perfect.
“We’re probably going to have some downs throughout the year that we’ve just got to stick with it and put in extra time as individuals to learn and to grow our game,” Murphy said.
Masek, who’s played three-plus seasons in a Brahmas sweater, scored 14 goals and 27 points in last year’s regular season. He’ll be relied on as one of the team leaders. He has 25 goals and 51 total points in 126 career games with Lone Star.
Forward Owen Kerr recorded 15 goals and 17 assists during last year’s regular season, and forward Anthony Cappello is back, too, after 11 goals and 15 assists. On the blue line, Antti Autere returns with five goals and 32 assists in 113 career games.
“We got a really good core here,” Masek said. “We got a couple three-year guys, a couple two-year guys that have been around a while.”
Murphy and the coaching staff also preach defense and hard work during play when they don’t have the puck. Successful defense was their “bread and butter” last season on the road to the championship.
Even though it’s a new team and a new season, the goal remains the same: Get back to the Robertson Cup Championship.
“Give these young guys an experience to remember,” Masek said. “We got this experience last year, and a lot of our older guys gave us that experience by working hard. Us older guys want to give the younger guys that experience, and we also want to do it for ourselves, too, because we want to go back-to-back.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
