Quad Cities Blues hockey is a local high school team that consists of people from Illinois and Iowa such as Moline, Davenport, Bettendorf, and Pleasant Valley. It is a part of the Midwest Hockey League, which contains teams from all over the midwest.

“It’s just a high school team in general.They been around for a long time,” fine arts teacher Mark Sade said. It’s an avenue for kids that want to play hockey, to continue their hockey career instead of going to Chicago … and just to stay closer to home.” 

When Sade isn’t teaching computer design classes, he is an announcer for the Quad Cities Blues Hockey team. He joined the team as an announcer as a recommendation from another teacher, Dean Patten, who suggested to setup a YouTube channel to stream hockey games.

“I said ‘sure, why not?’ and it was really nice. Last year I did it and it was fun,” Sade said. “I just love it.”

The YouTube channel, Quad Cities Blues, which has about 319 subscribers, is where streams of the previous hockey games and can be found with live broadcasting from Sade during the game.

“Last year Dean came to me and said ‘Hey I want to do a stream, are you interested in broadcasting it ?’ I was like  ‘I’ll be the color commentator. I’ll help somebody else do the broadcast, and he was like ‘Nope, you are going to do it.’ So I jumped on board and the rest was history,” Sade said

Freshman Jack James joined the team through tryouts that were held in August. He became a member of the main team by building himself up in the ranks and age brackets. James felt it was natural due to him playing hockey for all of his life.

“When I was younger, my dad signed me up for it, so that is how I got into it,” James said.

Both teams, varsity and JV, have had success this season. Though they both did lose the first round in a couple of intense matches, the varsity team did win 12 games in a row.

“We did better than anticipated for both teams,” senior Joshua DeYoung said.

DeYoung said that the team prepared for the season by practicing every Tuesday and Thursday during the season, while also doing some addition training in strength and conditioning early in the season. Even though the season is over, the team is planning on doing one more activity later this year.

“The only thing that is coming up is the sports banquet, and that’s the end of the season. But then hockey will start back up in October,” Sade said.

Sade said that a highlight of the season was the varsity team’s winning streak and the news coverage from KWQC about the game and the benefit games that they do.

“They have what is called a benefit game every year and that raises money for Genesis and every year they raise anywhere between $10,000 and $15,000 dollars for the charity,” Sade said.

DeYoung said that his favorite part of being on the team is  the comradery he has with his teammates, stating that he has too many favorite moments with them to pick just one. Sade and James share similar sentiments with James saying that road trips to places like Waterloo and City Rapids for competitions are his favorite moments.

“The road trips are really fun. I get to be with friends and family members,” James said.