Class AA

Eden Prairie and Duluth East both showed whey they are the two best teams in the state, both beating top ten teams in their first games of the season. Benilde St. Margaret's had a great weekend beating Duluth Marshall and Grand Rapids in successive days on the road, they will likely shoot into the top 5. Wayzata gets my pick for toughest early schedule - they went north and played #2AA Duluth East and #1A Hermantown. Both losses were tight and a good learning experience for this talented team.

Game of the Week: Bemidji hosts Moorhead in Section 8 seeding game...likely a preview of state play-in game come February.

Class A

Hermantown may be the best team in Minnesota, three talented lines and some unbelievable defenseman. Wyatt Aamodt is the best senior defenseman in the state. Hard to imagine the hockey gods messing up their title run this year! SPA had a big win down in Luverne Saturday - despite missing star forward Devlin McCabe. Thief River Falls beats Roseau and Blake in the same week, not surprised at how fast the Prowlers have gotten out of the gate.

Game of the Week: #3 Mahtomed vs. #5 SPA (can be seen live stream on YHH)

What can you say, Eden Prairie had a great run last weekend. They won their pool and then beat Sibley in an epic semifinal. Scoring with 37 seconds left to tie and then winning in triple overtime. They then beat undefeated and No. 1AA ranked Minnetonka to win their home tournament Sunday...wow! 

The story of the weekend has to be Prior Lake "A". They were unranked heading into the weekend and they won the Rosemount AA/A tournament. Think about this for a minute. Prior Lake "A" beat No. 1A Spring Lake Park who beat No. 10AA Rosemount, who beat No. 7AA Eden Prairie two weeks ago (who just beat No. 1AA Minnetonka).

Osseo Maple Grove lost in the Big Pumpkin title game this year to Edina. Four weeks later they were hoping to get a shot at the Hornets again. After blistering through pool play and the semifinals they found another District 6 team in their path at the Eden Prairie tournament, host Eden Prairie. The Eagles found the right ingredients Sunday to knock off the No. 1AA  Hornets. Jake Casey scored with 1:46 left to lift the Eagles to the championship game. After beating Eden Prairie 8-2 earlier in the season, OMG brought more of the same against the Eagles Sunday. They beat EP 8-0, Kyle Kukkonen had a hat trick and Chris Kernan and Brock Faber poured in two goals to lift the Leafbirds to the title.

Entering the season, Osseo Maple Grove appeared to be the best team coming into the season, but sometimes looks are deceiving. We had seen Rosemount previously and they were phenomenal.

A matchup Sunday, showed that OMG is just a step or two ahead. The Leafbirds beat the Irish 4-1 in the semifinals and then beat Woodbury (who beat Rosemount in a shootout Saturday in pool play) to win the title. Landen Gunderson was the best player, contributing on both offense and defense all weekend. On Sunday, he helped his team keep Irish super star William Whitelaw scoreless for an entire game (see definition of blue moon sighting).  

Edina White beat Farmington on some late game heroics to win the Mounds View Super Rink title Sunday. And Chaska Chan Gold beat Rosemount Blue in the Park Cottage Grove in overtime. Rosemount tied the game with 17 seconds left to tie the game!

Other Squirt Winners:

Forest Lake SQA: Andover
Hopkins SQA: STMA
Mounds View SQB: Wayzata
North Metro SQB: North Metro
Wishbone Classic SQB: Prior Lake Navy

Peyton Hemp, Gabby Krause and Sara Kaiser AKA "Murderer's Row" each scored Sunday to lift Andover to a 3-1 win over Edina to win the Cake Eater Classic in Edina. Hemp and Krause finished the tournament with a combined 27 points as the No. 1 team in Minnesota showed why they are ranked so high.

The Eden Prairie U10A team ran the gauntlet after an opening game tie with Minnetonka to win the Cake Eater Classic Sunday. Paige Holt and Taylor Koeppl each scored to lead the Eagles to a 2-1 win over Andover. Koeppl and Sydney Jackel lead the Eagles with a combined 18 points in five games.

The Hemp sisters from Andover, Josie (10A) and Peyton (12A) lead the tournament in scoring...YHH has learned that their mother was a great athlete in her day.