September brings a chill in the air, fall colors, football and for a youth hockey writer a chance to cover a pre-season game or two that matters.  Well, on paper they don’t matter, but if you go to Velocity and see the rosters for their 3v3 tournaments, they matter.  Last fall, we saw some crazy action at the Bantam (Edina, winner), PeeWee (Edina, winner) and Squirts (Stillwater, winner).

This weekend is the Squirt challenge, which the last couple years has been a great indicator of success at the association level. Last year, Rosemount – Maple Grove – Stillwater all had great seasons last year. All thrived at Velocity last September.

It is a ten team pool this year with arguably the two best teams, White Bear Lake and Maple Grove separated into two separate pools.  There are other teams besides the Bears and Crimson…never count out Edina, they have two teams again at the Squirt level.  Eagan has a few very nice players on their roster this year…they will be dangerous.

Top Pool: Chaska Chan, Eagan, Edina Saints, Maple Grove White, and Stillwater.

Maple Grove will have too much talent and way too much experience in this format on this sheet of ice. Eagan ’02s Jackson Hallum and Jonny Meiers will give every goalie in this tournament nightmares. Charlie Lindberg and Jackson Borst are standouts for the Saints from Edina.  Stillwater is the defending champs, but return a relative unkn0wn roster of players. Chaska Chan brings in a nice team of players, most of which starred at the B level in District 6 last year.  This will be a team to watch later in the year once this group adjusts to the speed of A hockey.

YHH Picks: Maple Grove. A star studded affair, the Crimson return four or five superstars in Faber, Kukkonen, Janicke, Thomas and Elias. Couple these stars with Henry Nelson (another returner to the team from last year’s Squirtacular champs) and newcomer and ’13 Brick Super Novice alum, Brandon Reller, this will be a very tough team to beat.

Bottom Pool: Eden Prairie, Edina Hornets, Maple Grove Black, Minnetonka, and White Bear Lake.

The Bears are the full package for this event. They will be tough to beat all weekend. The Hornets looked to be the tougher of the two Edina teams starting with goalie Mason Wordleman and Brick alum Evan Pahos.  The true sleeper in this event are the EP Eagles.  Top goalie Cooper Czech, and two Brick alums Carter Batchelder and Luke Mittelstadt and the scoring machine Drew Holt and you have a very nice team. Minnetonka and Maple Grove Black round out a very tough pool.

YHH Picks: White Bear has the best goalie in the tournament, Anton Castro.  An all tournament team selection at the Brick, Castro will be the difference for the Bears.  The Bears trot out Leyton Roed and Ryan Sweeney…a great duo. Oh, and the “other” dynamic duo, the Lucius Brothers Chaz and Cruz..all on the same team. The Bears will be tested by Edina and Eden Prairie.

Last year, Stillwater won it’s way into the final, but with no real inspirational wins.  Until they faced Maple Grove.  Their goalies played well and they converted over and over down the stretch to shock Maple Grove (hours prior, MG had shocked Rosemount in a thriller). This year it looks to be two teams on a collision course for the finals.  YHH picked White Bear earlier this week and is staying with it’s pick despite what car guy, Don Rutman, says. This White Bear team has the horses to stay with MG and a great goalie to match the run and gun Crimson.