In a weekend that was straight out of a scene of the Twilight Zone, the Minnesota Blades won the Hockeytown Challenge in Detroit, MI.  The Blades had more trouble with tournament paperwork than they did the top ’02 teams from Eastern North America, beating Little Caesars 7-1.

Joey Miller got the party started by picking off a LC pass and scoring top shelf to give the Blades an early lead. Minutes later, LC took a penalty and the Blades powerplay took advantage, Tournament Defensive MVP Daniel Laatsch got offensive scoring to make it 2-0 Blades.  End of 1, the Blades lead 2-0.

In the second, Carson Bantle got a nice pass from Gunnar Thoreson to give the Blades a huge lead.  At this point in the game, the Blades really started to play confident.  Joey Miller got his second goal of the game on a pretty pass from Luke Kron to give the Blades a 4-0 lead halfway through the game.  Little Caesars changed goalies.  Likely to stem the Blades tide.

And it worked.  LC scores and a minute later got a goal of their own to make it 4-1. But just when you thought the Fighting Pizza’s would make a run, the Blades scoring machine, Luke Kron got a big goal on assist from his D10 buddy, Zach Michaelis to make it 5-1 Blades. End of two, Blades 5, LC 1.

In the third, the Blades got the scoring started when Owen Gallatin from Forest Lake, fired a shot on net and Gunnar Thoreson tipped it in for his second point of the game to give the Blades an insurmountable lead of 6-1. Jonny Meiers would add another goal late to make the game 7-1 and give the Blades the Championship trophy.

Commentary: A great win for the Blades and a statement for how strong this team is and how strong the ’02 class of kids in Minnesota is.  The Blades arguably the best team from Minnesota at this age class, do not represent the only great players from Minnesota this age…there are 30-40 more out there that are extremely talented.  This team represented Minnesota well this weekend.  Congrats Boys!