Last Sunday at the Eagan Ice Arena was quiet compared to the raucous NAHL Magicians game played the night before.  It was after all, a game played between pre-high school/high school players, not Junior Tier II hockey.  But it showed the breath of the sport in Minnesota and the expanded number of opportunities for bantam to Seniors to play hockey in the fall in the state.

Sunday at the Eagan Ice Arena, for three games, the younger players went at each other.  Two EPDL games were played in the early morning.  The So. Minn team (a team based in Rochester) beat the West (players mostly from the Twin Cities west suburbs) 9-4 in one game; Northwest (Northwest Minnesota) beat Northeast (Northeast Minnesota) 6-2 and the Metro Southwest beat Metro Southeast 3-2.

Some good hockey was played by players from all over the state at Eagan on Sunday.

The So. Minn team scored three first period goals (two within 30 seconds of each other at the 9 minute mark) to take a 3-0 lead into the second period.  They added three more goals in the second period to take a 6-1 lead into the third.  Each team scored three times in the third period to end the scoring 9-4.

So. Minn’s Hayden Ashworth and Jake Roth (both top goal scorers for Rochester Century last season) each scored twice.  Ashworth added two assists to have a four point day.  Patrick Haug, a sophomore on Edina’s Class AA championship team last March, scored twice for the West.

The Northeast team scored first to take a 1-0 lead on a goal by Jason Koehn/Grand Rapids three minutes into the opening period.  Northwest’s Jacob Leitner/Bemidji scored 6 minutes later to tie the game 1-1.  At the end of the first period the game was a 1-1 tie.

Northwest scored a quick goal in the first 30 seconds of the second period and added three more goals to take a 5-1 lead.  The Black’s Taylor Lantz/Greenway scored late in the second period to cut the Northwest lead to 5-2.  Northwest added an early third period goal to its total winning 6-2.

Metro Southwest took a 2-0 lead on first period goals by William Rooney/Cooper and Brady Schoo/Eden Prairie.  Myles Cunningham/Blake assisted on both, Joey Luedtke/Orono (and a YHH top peewee A pick from the 2009-2010 season) assisted on Rooney’s score.  Edina’s Garrett Wait scored the game halfway through the second period to put Southwest up 3-0.  Brendan Skarda/Minnetonka got the assist.

Southeast came back with second period goal by Sasha Choporov/Woodbury with Hugh Burke/Eden Prairie and Mikey Junker/Hastings getting the assist.  A late third period goal Jared Markeson/Woodbury cut Southwest’s lead to 3-2.  Jason Smallidge/Eagan got the assist.  The game ended 3-2 Southwest.

This coming weekend, an EPDL select team will play two UMHSEL games (against Great Plains and Team North) at New Hope.  Sixteen of the players selected for the team come from 16 different high school/association programs.  The team will be listed in the UMHSEL league standings as the MNEPDL team.

Each year, the EPDL hosts a tourney that attracts teams from different parts of the country.  The ages are geared to high school hockey not USA Hockey.  Shattuck’s AAA Midget team lost to Team Michigan 5-4 in the championship game last year.  This year, Team Michigan and Shattuck return along with teams from Massachusetts, North Dakota, Manitoba, and the Hill Academy out of Vaughan Ontario (just north of Toronto).  These six teams will join two selected EPDL teams to form an eight team bracket play tourney.