The defending national championship FISD hockey team is back in action Thursday against Jesuit with players from across the district taking the ice for the district team.

“It’s really fun because everybody from around the district they are all really good kids and we are a really good team,” junior Andrew Cimino said. “Everybody meshes really well. We’re doing alright. We are getting better as a season goes on; right now we are third. We just go and play and do our best.”

The team won the 2017 USA High School Hockey National Championship, putting Frisco on the map for High School Division Two Hockey.

“It was a great feeling,” head hockey coach Ryan McLean said. “I played hockey for a lot of years and was fortunate enough to get the national place. Never had the professional rank or anything but the ameauter rank. Just to experience this with the boys just was a very unique experience and it was something that we will never forget for the rest of our lives.

Even the team features players from several different Frisco high schools. forming chemistry within the team is not an issue.

“Just being with the guys day in and day out, in the locker room,” junior Cole Enloe said. “We’re a pretty close knit group, so that’s something I really enjoy.”

With a 6-2 record this season, and more than 10 games left on the season, the team hopes to return to nationals.

“Not as good as last year,” McLean said. “It’s going good, no complaints but with a younger group it kind of takes a little bit more time to get divided into positions and get used to my coaching philosophies. It’s taking awhile to get going but we won five out of our last six games. We’ve came a long way in the last three months that we’ve been together.”