SANFORD — The Sanford High hockey team has been on the wrong end of more than few tough decisions through recent years.

Now the Redskins are locked in a battle they can’t afford to lose.

Not that a championship is at stake, but their survival is.

Having axed the school’s hockey program in early March due to severe budgetary conditions, the Sanford School Committee left the coffin lid slightly ajar, allowing for public comment in support during a 90-minute meeting Monday at the Sanford Town Hall.

And there was plenty of comment offered, from parents, grandparents, from students, from players. Virtually all of it in support the idea of finding some way to keep hockey on the ice.

“It’s not just a team you’re cutting,” said Redskins’ senior defenseman Ben Gagnon, addressing the committee. “You’re cutting a group of friends. During the winter, I didn’t hang around with my football friends, or baseball friends. I hung around with my team. It was a lot of fun, this year.”

The fun had little to do with on ice success. But even though Sanford won just one game during the 2009-10 season, and just four in the past three years, wins and losses were hardly the point.

“I think it’s very sad that we’re talking about cutting a high school hockey team,” said senior forward Simon Lardner, an exchange student from Sweden and the Redskins’ top scorer. “It’s been very, very good to play on this team this year. We spent a lot of time together. Not just on the bus. We had good games, too. Even if we didn’t win that many games, I think we were a lot closer in a lot of games.”

Still, the tough sledding on the ice, and the lack of a rink or a youth hockey program in Sanford, has made the high school program especially vulnerable during tough economic times.

Looking at a total cost of $25,000 (including coaches’ salaries) to keep the team on the ice for next year, the school board instead had opted to cut the sport.

Rich Dudzisz, President of the Sanford Hockey Boosters and an assistant coach with the team, however, said that the boosters would raise the entire budget, if forced to.

“We’re willing to continue to work with this program,” he said. “We just want to figure out what options are open to us. We’ll pay the whole way, if we have to.”

Whether they’ll get the chance to do so is still up in the air. Committee chairman Mark Lucier said that a final decision will be made in a few days.

Meanwhile, the club’s supporters, and the Redskins themselves, can only wait and hope.

“We might not have had the best record,” said junior defenseman Eli Desrochers. “But we never give up. Never quit.

Taking away hockey for my senior year would be devastating.”

— Contact Staff Writer Dan Hickling at dhickling@journaltribune.com.