Youth hockey is like a horse race, only instead of three year old horses entered, each race groups players by birth year.  Every year from age six to high school the race goes on.  Instead of each race lasting two minutes, each race lasts 12-14 years.  The 1999 borne race has been running for more than half of those years.  For the 1999 borne players at St. Cloud, this camp has been one marker in that long horse race.

And the players are just hitting the end of the backstretch.  The simple truth is that the 102 St. Cloud attendees are the first of the "1999 Minnesota horses" to hit the corner at the top of the back stretch.  The top 20 are the first to make the turn; the others at St. Cloud are trailing them by a short distance; and yet others not at St. Cloud will be "running hard" to catch the top 102.  The kids are maturing, becoming players, and are continuing to develop.  The race is coming down the stretch over the next 4-5 years, Minnesota youth hockey fans will see the lead "horses" changing often.  Such is youth hockey.

Wednesday's Games Recap

Three games were played Wednesday at St. Cloud and there was some excitement at the team level.  The Red Team had won its first four games and had a spot in the Championship game locked up before Wednesday’s round of games were played.  The Reds' had a great offensive set of forwards, but their defense was lazed at times.  It showed in Thursday's nightcap game.  The Red had to hold on to beat the Gold 7-5 to go undefeated in the first five games.

The real drama was in the Green/Royal Blue game played earlier in the day.  That game ended in a last minute 3-3 tie.  If Green held on to their lead late in the game, their win would have turned second place into a five team tie for second.  Each of the five teams would have ended with a 2-3 record.  The tie salvaged second for the Royals.

The Red and the Royals were in the Championship Game Thursday at 9:45 AM.  Green played the Royal Blue team for third place and the Gold played the White for Fifth place in 8:00 AM Thursday's games for fifth place.

Wednesday’s Games

White beat the Light Blues 7-2 in Wednesday's first game.  Mason Lovich/Hastings, Light Blue goalie, had tough opening five minutes of the first half.  He came up big on two tough White attacks stopping multiple shots on net from close-in each time.  Still the Whites' managed to two scores.  On the first, the White forwards simply powered the puck through Lovich's pads out of a melee.  The second goal was scored by the Whites' Seth Benson/Moorhead on a shot from behind the goal line that ended up caroming off a Light Blue defender into the net.  Benson got the shot off on his knees and ended up on his back after a blue check.

Late in the period, the Whites' Dylan Mills/Hill-Murray carried the puck wide left into the Blues' zone and took a tough angled shot low in the outside edge of the faceoff circle.  The puck caromed off of Lovick's right shoulder and caught the upper right corner of the net for the Whites' third score.  White led 3-0 at the half and went on to win 7-2.

Whites' Alex Verbout/Roseau had a good first half and a better second half.  The eighth grader from Roseau was instrumental is setting up of the Whites' three second half scores.  Verbout's line of Nick Putnam/STMA and Dylan Samberg/Hermantown had a good game and often brought pressure on the Light Blues defense.  Putnam has improved his overall play.  On the White defense, Tyler Dingmann/Wayzata has grown and played a strong physical defense; but  Matt Anderson/Holy Catholic Family (and Shakopee) was the best defenseman on the ice until a late major penalty sent him to the box.

For the Light Blues, as the game wore on, the Edina duo of Clayton Phillips and Ben Copeland started to dominate on their shifts, but the real surprise was the speed of Carter Perry/Anoka on the wing.  Perry simply beat the White defense coming down the boards a number of times.  Patrick Redden/Holy Family showed similar speed.

The second game Wednesday afternoon was a wide open affair in the first half that saw both goalies making a number of key stops.  YHH count had Green's goalie Jake Begley/St. Thomas Academy stopping 14 shots on goal and Royal's goalie Matt Fitzgerald/Bemidji stopping 13.  In this game, Sam Hentges/Totino Grace proved the playmaker for the Green and Soren Frakie/MNVA continued to aggresively attack the net; but the surprise was Nick Behrend/Luverne.  Behrend was a relentless skater on his shifts, back checked well, and made some nice passing plays.    Behrend should fit well Luverne varsity players Chas Smedsrud and Jaxon Nelson on a potential return trip to the Xcel.

Royal's defense was flat.  Their offense had Hayden Brickner/Centennial as a play maker and Scott Reedy/Shattuck as a wing looking for scoring opportunites.  Reedy played a strong game with confidence.

The final game Wednesday started at 8:00 PM.  The Red beat the Gold 7-5.  It was a game where Red would build a lead and Gold would come back to make the game close.  Red would build the lead again and Gold would close.  It was the second wide open game matching Ryan Poehling from Lakeville North's State Class AA runner-ups and Tommy Klans from Lakeville Association’s North Bantam AA team, and two players from Shattuck's U14 National Championship team, Austin Pratt and Grant Mishmash.  All four players generated the bulk of the offense, but Kyler Yeo/Hill-Murray, scoring a hat trick late in the game, sealed the win for the Red.  Yeo's last score to put Red up 7-5 after Golds' Klans and Willie Reim/St. Thomas Academy had cut the score to 6-5 half way through the second half.

Thursday's Morning Games

The rain overnight continued through most of the morning.  The fifth and third place games were played at the St. Cloud State arena.  The fifth place game between the Gold and White was played on the main sheet of ice; the third place game between the Green and Light Blue was played on the practice sheet adjacent to the main ice.

The teams looked tired when they took the ice.  They should be tired playing their sixth game in six days.  But physical endurance is part of the camp and by Thursday morning, most of the players have an idea on who will take the next step.  Still Thursday games can still influence the final results.

After the White team's Luke LaMaster/Duluth East tied the game 1-1 with 8 minutes left on the clock, the Gold team rolled behind the Lakeville North duo of Poehling and Klans, scoring three goals in the last two minutes to take a 5-1 halftime lead.  White cut the lead to 5-2 in the opening five minutes of the second half, but the Gold offense continued on its roll winning 8-4.  Poehling got the hat trick scoring the eighth Gold goal on a breakaway late in the game.

The Green and Light Blue third place game was a defensive game.  The Light Blue team took a first half lead 1-0, but the Green came back to score three times in the second half to win the game 3-1.  The Phillips/Copeland line dominated the game on most of their shifts, but could not beat the Green defense low.  Green defensemen, Reid Hill/Duluth East, Jack Harris/Prior Lake, and Zachary Cadalbert/White Bear Lake all had good games.

The Championship game turned into a real battle.  The Royal Blue were the underdogs facing a Red team that had beaten them 5-2 three days earlier.  Red scored an early goal to take a 1-0 lead, but the Royals came back to tie the game on a neat pass from Sam Walker/Edina to Nate Horn/Elk River.  Walker skipped a pass through the top of the crease on a 2-on-1 rush to hit Horn closing on the weak side.  The first half ended in a 1-1 tie.  Both goals were power play goals.

The Blue’s top line was Walker centering Lucas Erickson/Woodbury and Scott Reedy; their second line had Brickner centering Behrend and Joshua Baker/Bemidji; their third line out was Noah Cates/Stillwater centering Horn and Peter Johnson/Fergus Falls.  The Red countered by splitting their big guns (Mishmash, Yeo, Isaac Johnson/Anoka and Pratt) among the three lines.

The Championship game turned into a real battle.  The Royal Blue were the underdogs facing a Red team that had beaten them 5-2 three days earlier.  Red scored an early goal to take a 1-0 lead, but the Royals came back to tie the game on a neat pass from Sam Walker/Edina to Nate Horn/Elk River.  Walker skipped a pass through the top of the crease on a 2-on-1 rush to hit Horn closing on the weak side.  The first half ended in a 1-1 tie.  Both goals were power play goals.

The Blue’s top line was Walker centering Lucas Erickson/Woodbury and Scott Reedy; their second line was Brickner, Behrend, and Joshua Baker/Bemidji; their third line out was Noah Cates/Stillwater centering Horn and Peter Johnson/Fergus Falls.  The Red countered by splitting their big guns (Mishmash, Yeo, Isaac Johnson/Anoka and Pratt).

The Royal Blue dominated the Red in the opening eight minutes of the second half.  All three Blue lines brought pressure on the Red defense; but the Royal’s line of Cates, Horn, and Peter Johnson/Fergus Falls gave the Red’s defense fits in the second half.  That line jammed a puck into the Red goal at the 8 minute mark to take a 2-1.  On the next faceoff, the Red loaded Yeo, Mishmash, and Pratt on a single line that dominated the next minute of play with Mishmash scoring on a shot from inside the top of the crease on off a slashing rush down the goal line.  That tied the game, but despite having two power plays in late in the second period, the Reds big guns could not score.  Regulation ended in a 2-2 tie.  The Royals won the three player shootout that followed.  Ess and Walker scored the first two shootout goals for the Blue; Yeo and Johnson’s shootout shots were stopped.  Royal Blue upset the Red in the championship game winning 3-2.

A Perspective of The 22 Players Selected

Goal Tenders

This corner of YHH saw only two days of on-ice action so what follows take with a grain of salt.  The camp evaluators spent a full week with the players both on and off the ice.  The goaltending was even.  If one applied the bell shaped statistics to all the 1999 borne goalies in the state, the twelve at the camp would be at the upper end with minor differences to apply in trying to determine who should go.  The two  chosen, Jake Begley and Ryan Bischel, are not surprises.  But choosing Matt Fitzgerald/Bemidji or Bryce Cowley/Blaine or Jack Robbel/Holy Angels would not have been a surprise either.  The camp had 12 solid goal tenders this year making any selection difficult.

Defensemen

Before leaving the rink Thursday morning, this corner had two impressions of the defensive play on the ice, it was not as strong as in past years and there were three strong defenders that should make the final selection; Matt Anderson/Holy Catholic Family, Nate Knoepke/Lakeville South, and Jack Harris/Prior Lake.  But after those three, there was not a lot to distinguish the rest from each other.  The evaluators went with seven defense adding Michael Anderson/Hill-Murray, Josh Ess/Lakeville South, Carson Kosobud/Moorhead, and Connor Mayer/Benilde-St. Margaret’s to the list.

Forwards

The forwards were strong in the two days spent watching the games.  The evaluators ended up picking 13 forwards for the trip.  They could have picked more and faced some difficult choices.  First the surprises in the 13 players picked.

It starts with the Johnson’s.  Isaac Johnson/Anoka centered a Red team line and really showed all around skills and play.  He was an easy pick because he played so well but was a surprised.  YHH saw the talent at Anoka over the past years and it is good to finally see the Anoka Association getting some recognition.  Peter Johnson/Fergus Falls was harder to find because he played behind the shadow of the more well-known names on the Royal Blue team.  Johnson has a good physical presence on the ice and played sound hockey especially in the championship game.

Another pleasant surprise was the selection of the Light Blue’s Chase Brand/Park Rapids-Walker.  Brand had a good game Wednesday against the White despite the team losing.  The fourth surprise was Tommy Klans.  Klans had a good game against the Red team on Wednesday.

Then there were players picked that were expected.  Reedy, Poehling, Mishmash, Pratt, and Yeo all combine skills, good size, and good game awareness and all should have been easy selections for the evaluators.   Dylan Mills’ game on ice got this corner of YHH to notice him; in the end he was no surprise.  Nor was Edina’s Ben Copeland; he played the same aggressive style that he has over the years in for Edina Association’s youth teams.

Sam Walker/Edina turned in a solid game against the Red in the Royal’s 3-2 championship win and scored the clinching shootout goal.  Walker, when he is on his game, is a tough player.  Marko Reifenberger/Hill-Murray via Hastings just played a persistent game both fore checking and back checking to earn his spot on the final 22 players taken this year.  Congratulations to all.

Other Players

Roseau’s Alex Verbout had an exceptional game Wednesday especially in the second half in the White team’s 7-2 win.  In Thursday’s game against the Gold, he struggled.  A younger player, Verbout is one player to watch in the future especially if he ends up on the Ram’s varsity.

Clayton Phillips played solid hockey in the Wednesday and Thursday games.  Teamed with Copeland, Phillips’ line dominated play in both games.  The ice is flat, not slanted; the Light Blue team set up often with Phillips’ line on the ice in their opponent’s zone and scored.

The #1 surprise at St. Cloud to this corner of YHH was Noah Cates/Stillwater.  His play was aggressive and he was a tireless skater playing in his fifth and sixth games in six days.  After watching Cates play on Stillwater Association’s youth teams, he was always good.  But he is getting stronger and made a big step up at St. Cloud.  It would not be surprising if he plays at the Xcel next March.

Another player that is headed for the Xcel is Nick Behrend/Luverne.  Luverne’s varsity made the trip to the Xcel last March and lost to Totino Grace in the Class A consolation game.  With the varsity’s current crop of players next fall, the Cardinals will be heavy favorites to repeat as Section 3A champs.  Behrend should be on the varsity team.

Nate Horn and Max Michaelis from Elk River are on the verge of making things happen.  Both players had good games Wednesday and Thursday, especially Horn.  Michaelis was frustrated on a solo rush on the Blue net late in the first half of the championship game.  Blue goalie Jaxson Stauber made a great stop.  Nolan Sullivan/Eden Prairie and Aaron Grounds/White Bear Lake struggled at times.  Both players are talented.  Sullivan is a solid wing for the White team and ended up on the alternate list.  Grounds, a lanker player on the Gold line, showed his offensive talent and will improve over the next year.

The private schools had a good camp.   Five Hill-Murray players are in the final 22 selected, Benilde-St. Margaret had two players picked, and Shattuck had three players picked.  Three of the five Hill-Murray players came from District 8 team; the remaining two came from the District 2 team.  The Red team ended up with eight players on its camp roster making the final 22, the Royal Blue and White teams each placed four players and the Light Blue, Green, and Gold teams each placed two players.  Of the eighteen District 8 players that went to St. Cloud, nine are moving on to Blaine and New York.

What is Next?

The 22 players will meet at the Super Rink in Blaine in two weeks attending a pre-national camp session to get familiar with USA Hockey’s national camp format.  After that, it is on to New York.