Thanksgiving time and all the stores this year are talking about black sales days, some are touting a black sales month and some are touting Black Monday sales, and some are touting Black Thursday sales.

For years, the Burnsville’s Scott Benedict Memorial Thanksgiving Day Tourney has started with games played on Wednesday night, Thanksgiving eve. The Burnsville Tourney field, year to year, has been constant with usually two 12 team tourneys and one 8 team tourney.

For turkey day 2012, Burnsville Association hosts a 12 team bantam A tourney, a 12 team peewee A tourney, and an 8 team Squirt A tourney. At the Burnsville Ice Arena Wednesday night, all three Burnsville teams (Squirt A, Peewee AA, and Bantam AA) played their opening pool games. On the second sheet of ice, Farmington Squirt A’s played Eastview, Chaska played Eastview in a bantam AA/A pool game, and the Minneapolis Strom played Minnetonka in peewee AA/A pool game.

The Burnsville Squirt A team played Apple Valley in the first game of the Squirt A tourney. These two teams are in a pool with Lakeville North and Prior Lake/Savage. The Blaze Squirts jumped out to a 2-0 lead but let Apple Valley back in the game on a penalty shot that tied the score 2-2. The Blaze came back a minute later to score on a rebound shot to take the lead for good and won the game 5-2.

Farmington has a solid line and they played well against Eastview leading the Tigers to a 5-2 win. Farmington led 4-1 late in the third period and drew a penalty. Eastview scored a power play goal to cut the lead to 4-2 and pressured the Tigers the rest of the third period. They pulled their goalie but were unable to score. The Tigers got a power play goal with 6 seconds left on the clock to win 5-2.

In pool play, Farmington took 10 of the potential 13 points in a game under a modified silver stick scoring system Burnsville has used for years. The scoring system gives 2 points for winning each period, 6 points for a victory, three points for a tie and one point for a shutout. Farmington won two periods and the game for 10 points. Eastview won 2 points for winning a period. Burnsville took 11 points winning two periods, tying one period and winning the game. Apple Valley took 1 point.

The Burnsville peewee AA team has struggled in the opening month of the season. They played Hastings in the tourney opener last night. Burnsville lost big to Minnetonka and Edina and then lost 4-0 to Prior Lake in their D6 opening games. Burnsville also lost to Farmington 4-0 this past week. Their offense has yet to get going. Hastings peewee AA team took a northern swing last weekend beating Grand Rapids 4-3, losing to Hermantown 8-2 and played Virginia and Hibbing. The Raiders will not play a District 8 game until the end of November.

Hastings scored within the first two minutes of the opening period. A pass from the end boards behind the Burnsville net to a Hastings forward on the edge of the left crease resulted in the puck beating the Blaze goalie through the 5-hole. Hasting s added another first period goal to go up 2-0 and never looked back winning 7-0. The Raiders took all 13 points for the game in pool play. The Blaze are still looking for their first goal.

Burnsville Bantam AA team played the Mpls Storm in their opening tourney game. The Blaze team is one of the top ranked bantam AA/A teams in the state this year. They have a 5-3-1 record (1-2 in D6). The Blaze’s lone D6 win to date was over Edina 7-6 a week ago. The Storm are 4-3-2 on the season. They lost to D10 Andover early this week 5-3 and have early season losses to Prior Lake and a team from Hamburg NY. They tied Mound/Westonka 6-6 in their only D3 game.

The play was intense in the opening minutes of the first period and it resulted in a Storm goal in the first two minutes of play, but a minute later, #20 broke down the Storm defense with a rush on the right side that resulted in a goal to tie the game 1-1. Less than 4 minutes into the first period, the Blaze drew a penalty and scored a shorthanded goal to go up on the Storm 2-1.

At the 4 minute mark of the first, the Blaze drew a 5 minute major (and a 10 misconduct) to put themselves on the defensive. Or so the Blaze fans thought. Two minutes into the major penalty, the Blaze broke through the Storm defense two on none. They scored easily on a nice three pass rush pulling the goalie out of position on the second pass and opening the right side of the net for an easy goal.

A minute later, the Blaze scored again to take a 4-1 lead. It was their third shorthanded goal of the opening period. The Blaze went on to beat the Storm 7-2.

Eastview played Chaska in their first game in the bantam AA/A tourney. Eastview lost their only D8 game played this year to Rosemount 6-3. They also lost to Prior Lake 6-0. Chaska has an 8-3 record, but lost their last two D6 games to Prior Lake 3-2 and Edina 6-3.

After a scoreless opening period, Eastview fell behind on two Chaska goals early in the second period. The Lightning came back to tie the game 3-3 in the third period and came close twice in the last minute of the third to winning the game. The game ended in a 3-3 tie with each team gaining 6 points in pool play.

The two teams had a three man shootout for a 13th point that would act as a tie breaker in determining Sunday’s Championship field. It took four shooters for Eastview to break the tie. Eastview won the 13th point.

Minnetonka Blue is the Skippers peewee A team. They came into this tourney with a 5-3 record (4-0 in D6 play). The Skippers three losses were to D3 teams (Wayzata Gold 4-1, St. Louis Park 2-1, and Mound/Westonka 6-2). They played another D3 team, the Mpls Storm in the tourney opener.

The Storm are 6-1-1 on the season. Their only loss on the year was to Osseo/Maple Grove AA team in D3 play. The Minneapolis Storm beat rival St. Louis Park 5-1 in a D3 game last week.

In the game Wednesday night, the Storm showed that they are an impressive peewee A team. They have size and skill and dominated the Skipper’s A team. Still, Minnetonka kept the game close by playing defensively and at the halfway point came close to tying the game 1-1 on a breakaway. They failed to score. The Storm went on to win 5-1 and look tough this year.

Tournament action resumes at the Burnsville Ice Arena Friday morning when two top ranked peewee AA/A teams play at 7:00 AM; Lakeville South and Eastview. Two D8 peewee AA/A teams play on the second rink, Cottage Grove and Farmington. Action will be continuous all day on both rinks ending at 10 pm.