Team Wisconsin won the High Performance Hockey League Showcase Tournament played as part of the NAHL Showcase at the Super Rink in Blaine this past weekend.

The Badgers swept their pool play beating two top Minnesota teams, the Minnesota Elite D 4-1 and the Minnesota Blades 2-1.  Team Wisconsin won all four pool games.  They beat the Fairbanks Artic Lions 6-1 and Little Caesars 5-2.

In Sunday’s semifinal game they beat Honeybaked 3-2 and rolled over the Chicago Mission 6-3 to win the Championship.

In the Championship Game, Wisconsin’s Sam McCormick scored the first goal five minutes into the first period to put the Badger team up 1-0.  Kevin Conley added a second Badger goal scoring unassisted on a power play four minutes later to put Wisconsin up 2-0 at the end of the first period.

The Mission came back in the second period to cut the lead to 2-1 on an unassisted power play goal scored by Jason Dhooghe.

Ty Pelton-Byce goal in the opening minute of the third period put the Badgers up again by two 3-1.  The Mission stormed back two minutes later to cut the lead to 3-2 on a goal by Dominick Mersch.

For the next ten minutes both teams battled to get the next goal.  With six minutes left in the game, the Badgers Bret Schwengler scored the game winner, putting Wisconsin ahead 4-2.  The Mission scored with two minutes left in the game to cut the lead to 4-3; Kip Hoffman got the score.  Chicago pulled their goalie only to have the Badger team score two empty netters (Ty Pelton-Byce and Cole Paskus scoring) to end the game 6-3.

The two Minnesota teams in the tourney struggled in pool play.  Each team won only one game.  Each beat the same team, the Artic Lions.

After losing 4-1 to Team Wisconsin in the opener, the Elite D team came back to beat the Arctic Lions 4-2 and then lost two tough pool games to Honeybaked 4-3 and to Team Illinois 6-5.  Against Team Illinois they gave up four power play goals.

William Duda/Benilde-St. Margaret’s and Dylan McDonald/St. Thomas Academy were the top point “getters” for the Elite team.  Goalie Thomas Hanson/Minnetonka played three games in the net for the Elites, posting a 1-2 record saving 88% of the shots on goal.  Sean Wendlant/Hill-Murray lost his only start saving 81% of the shots on goal.

The Minnesota Blades opened the tourney with an impressive 6-1 over the Artic Lions, played Team Wisconsin close before losing 2-1, and then faded on Saturday losing 4-2 to the Chicago Mission and 5-1 to the Chicago Young Americans.

Cade Gleekel/Minneapolis, MN and Casey Dornbach/Edina, Mn led the team in scoring.  Goalies Dayton Rasmussen and Daniel Swail split the four pool games.  Rasmussen, YHH peewee player of the year in 2011-2012, went 1-1 and stopped 80% of the shots on net.  Swail went 0-2 and stopped 88% of the shots on net.

Top two goal scorers for the tourney were Jason Dhooghe (Chicago Mission) with 6 goals in 6 games and Adam Marsh (Chicago Young Americans) with 5 goals in 6 games.  Team Wisconsin’s Henry Cutting was the tourney’s top goalie posting a 3-0 record while stopping 93% of the shots on goal.
Teammate Walker Smith was ranked third at the tourney.  Smith also posted a 3-0 record while stopping 90% of the shots on goal.

Next weekend, the Badger team will take on the “last team standing” in the U16 Tier I field this year when they play Shattuck-St. Mary’s in a three game series in Green Bay, WI.  Sunday, in Faribault, the Shattuck U16’s beat the Thunder Bay Kings 5-4 in their third game of their opening series of the 2013-2014 season.