Twelve games were played Saturday at the Velocity 3v3…with lots of surprises. The big surprise tournament wide is the play of Waconia.  It’s no secret that many of the kids on this team are not Waconia residents, but nonetheless their performance has been impressive.  Beating two stacked teams Edina and Minnetonka by large margins (22-11 and 28-9) got a lot of attention from the hockey experts. Another nice surprise was St. Michael winning three games Saturday, the most impressive was a 19-12 over Eden Prairie on Saturday am. The Knights advanced to the third place game (second place teams from each pool), likely against Minnetonka.

No surprise from Elk River.  They had a great day winning impressively over Chaska/Chan and Eden Prairie.  One surprise this weekend has been the play of Jax Murray. Always one of the big stars for the Elks, but this weekend he has been a scoring machine. There were shifts today where he would have a goal and an assist or two goals.  The kid had more goals than Twitter followers by the end of the day!  All joking aside, his points came in all shapes and sizes.  Pretty passes, pretty moves, rebound goals, snipers, etc.  Visitors to Velocity definitely noted who number 4 was.  But the most astute hockey minds would also note his some of his teammates, Max Michaelis, Logan Gacke, Jensen Zerban and squirt sized second year Bantam Nate Horn.  Horn is a YHH favorite (and I am sure the ER coaching staff, too). Horn mixes it up, makes plays, and is always in the right place at the right time.

The Elks advanced to Sunday’s final versus “Waconia” in what appears to be a great game.  The Elks look to be the favorite, if for no other reason than their age. The Elks are littered with ’98 birth year kids and they have the tourney’s best goalie Ben Meyers. Waconia is composed of all ’99 birth year kids and one ’00.  Very young, but very talented. They have a great goalie too, Reid Waszczenko (say that three times…or worse spell it once!). Should be a fun game.