While some students struggle to wake up early enough for school, others struggle with getting to their 5 a.m. practice on time.

The Biddeford Girl’s Ice Hockey varsity team practices for an hour every Tuesday morning, and the Boy’s team practices for an hour and a half every Monday and Friday before school, leaving their afternoon practice-free.

Most students dread the thought of going to practice then doing their homework after, and maybe even going to work. But with practice in the morning they get much more time, which is an advantage for most students.

“Yeah, it sucks getting up that early, but it depends because either you’re fine getting up in the morning and then you get the whole afternoon off, or you get to sleep in another hour or so,”  Freshman Varsity player, Paige Boudreau said.

Even though the athletes need to wake up earlier for practice, they won’t need to stress about it later after school and they get more time for homework.

“You have free time after school, but it’s not great getting up,” Freshman, Evan Paquette said.

Although they’re exhausted and it makes their day drags on it shows how committed they are to their sport.

“I would feel more awake [in the morning] but then I would be tired towards the end of the day,” Boudreau said.

The only advantage with waking up earlier for practice is being more awake for their first class but with the downfall of being tired for the rest of the day.

“There wasn’t anything bad with morning practices, I just didn’t like getting up that early,” Boudreau said.

Instead of going to their practice right after school and feeling rushed, the players get some time to either do school work, hang out with friends and work if they have a job.

“I would do my homework and watch T.V., basically I’d do whatever I wanted to,” said Paquette. “It was alot easier to get my homework done with.”

Their after school practices varied from starting at  2:40 p.m. or 3:15 p.m. being an hour and a half long.

“When our practices were at 2:40 p.m. after school I definitely felt rushed,” Paquette said.

Getting the afternoon off isn’t the only thing students like about morning practices.

“They were only varsity practices so I feel like we got to do more things, like working with our line and getting to know each other better,” said Boudreau. “So I think it benefited us.”

The players think the morning practices better, but health teacher Theresa Schang thinks they’re not beneficial.

“I don’t know how beneficial they are for teenagers because they need more sleep than the average person,” said Schang. “To me morning practices may not put them to their best ability.”

 Many students already have trouble focusing in class and practicing in the morning doesn’t help with that issue.

“I think they’ll maybe be alert for the first part of that day but lose that focus as the day goes on because they’ll get tired,” Shang said.

Being tired throughout the day isn’t that bad for the students, as long as they can make the most of their practices its all worth it to them.