Thanks for taking the time to share the inspiring story of the New Haven Raiders, Rick!

“Hi, I’m Rick Ziegler, I run the New Haven Raiders, we’re a men’s league hockey team that plays out of the Southern Connecticut Hockey League (SCHL). Since our inception in 2010 our team has won two championships, CHL in 2011 and SCHL IN 2012. Following the spring season in 2012, I was forced to disband the team simply because I wasn’t able to hold onto enough players. Players that were like family wanted to move on, and I was ok with that, but I struggled to rebuild for almost 7 years, Finally, on the brink of giving up, I made one last major push to put the Raiders back on the ice, and BOOM!, it all started to fall into place…built a nice roster with a ton of guys I didn’t know and added a few familiar faces as well.”

“In January of 2018 we played in our first game back as the Raiders, dropping a 6-5 OT thriller. That season went on to be bleak – but we had fun with it and only missed the playoffs by one point. At season’s end I lost a few players (that’s how it goes at our level). I started to retool the lineup. I had to make it better and brought in a few more familiar faces, guys from my old Raiders teams, guys I battled with, guys I won with, and we skated the summer season hard, improved our record and goals but fell short in the playoffs; losing in the semifinals.”

“In the fall season, every player agreed to come back – that seldom happens. We knew what we had and what needed to be done to win a championship, we had a pretty good season, finished 8-4-0 and eventually found ourselves playing in the best of three championship series; we lost the series 0-2.

The Raiders haven’t stopped as we are currently coming to the end of our winter 2019 season, tied for third with three games remaining before the playoffs – will this be our year?

You’re going to have to find out and follow us on our journey, we’re on Facebook and Instagram @nhraidershockey.”

“A little about how myself and how the team learned about Boost Oxygen. Well, remember when I said I was trying to rebuild the team from the bottom up? I was looking for sponsors in helping with cutting the costs of all new uniforms so one day I was scrolling along Instagram and the Boost page caught my eye, did a little research and saw they were local to me so I reached out and started asking how we could partner, one thing lead to another.”

“I stopped in the office to purchase a few canisters of Boost and the rest is history (well minus the sponsorship part, couldn’t work out a deal there). But they were all such great, friendly people I wanted to give back to a local company by implementing their products during our games and we have been hooked since! I personally love what Boost does for my stamina, mental focus and recovery between shifts on the ice. I wanted to find a way to further implement Boost into the Raider spotlight so we started doing a Boost Oxygen Player of the Game.”

I have played hockey for the better part of 30 years and I have no idea how I made it through without Boost in my game, glad I found it now! In our region, you can pick up Boost at Olympia Sports locations.”