The 22 Caribou Cup tourneys were played over the weekend and have a significant inpact on the Twin City areas and arenas.  One hundred and fourty one teams were entered with more than half the teams coming from outside the Twin City area.  Approximately 500 games were scheduled at rinks from Richfield in the southeast to Maple Grove in the northwest.  Average games were ninety minutes.  Nearly $1 million was spent in the Twin Cities on this youth hockey tourney the past three days.  Rolling that by 6X, means the total inpact to the Twin Cities economy was nearly $6 million dollars with the cities whose arenas were available benefiting the most.     

2001 Open Championship: MN Flames beat Acceleration NW 5-2

Two teams from the District 10/District 5 areas of Minnesota hockey tangled in the 2001 championship.  The Flames play out of St. Cloud and the Acceleration NW play out of the Northwest Twin City Suburbs.

In the championship game, the scoring action was all in a five minute interval late in the first period.  It started with Acceleration converting on a 3-on-2 rush.  As AC Northwest forwards crossed the Flames’ blue line, Joel Matthews found Jack Seamans breaking in the center slot area and hit him with a nice pass that Seamans took in stride.  The Acceleration center split the defense and soloed to the left crease area and scored on a neat backhand shot that caught the upper left corner of the Flames goal to put Acceleration up 1-0.  Matthews got the assist.  The Acceleration lead did not last long.

A minute later, Flame’s forward Jaron Smith carried the puck into the Acceleration zone into the left faceoff while locked up with a Flames defender.  Smith leaned into the defense and carried the puck to his side.  He managed to gain a shooting position and backhanded the puck beating the Flame’s goalie to the upper right corner to tie the game 1-1.  It was an unassisted goal.  Forty seconds later the Flames struck again.

This time, the Flames big forward Brandt Pedersen beat the Acceleration defense swinging wide into the Acceleration’s zone left corner and charging the net.  He faked a shot freezing the goalie on the left (short side) and drove right putting the goal into an open net to give the Flames a 2-1 lead.   It was an unassisted goal.

The game settled for the next three minutes.  Both teams had scoring opportunities.    With two minutes to go in the first period, the Flames struck with what turned out to be the winning goal.  This time Caleb Strong ended up with the score to make it a 3-1.  Pederson got the assist.

The next 34 minutes of game play resulted in no score.  The second period was an up and down, teams were making good transitions from offense to defense, but each team was failing to connect on key passes.  Often the pass would hit the breakout forward, but the forward could not control the puck.  The second period ended 3-1.

The third period remained scoreless until the final two minutes.  Acceleration defenseman Jack Kubitz picked off a Flames pass inside the Flames’ blue line, skated to the slot, and beat the goalie to cut the lead to 3-2.  It made the game tense for 30 seconds until the Flames’ Ben Jenson and Talon Lenzen combined to score the insurance goal.  Jenson got the score, Lenzen the assist.  The Flames led 4-2 with ninety seconds left in the game.  Acceleration pulled their goalie, but Donovan Floyd scored the empty netter to end the scoring 5-2.  Adam Harvey added the insurance on an empty netter with 24 seconds left on the clock.

In the 2001 Open Third Place game, the Gophers beat the Ice Edge Black 7-5.  Gophers led 2-1 after the first period; the Ice Edge came back to take a 5-4 lead into the third period, but lost the game in the last two minutes of play.  The Gopher’s Sam Rhode had scored earlier in the third to tie the game 5-5.  Rhode got the winner beating the goalie from the slot.  Adam Harvey added the insurance on an empty netter with 24 seconds left on the clock.  

It was a good game, both the Gophers and the Ice Edge Black played well; the Black showed balanced scoring.  Five players assisted on the five goals the Black scored; ten Black players got one point each.

For the Gophers, Harvey scored twice and had an assist, Rhodes had the two scores, Colton Bauer scored twice, Zach Oelrich had a goal and an assist, and Joe Prouty had two assists.    

2001 Open Championship: Sweet Hockey Selects beat the Machine Orange 4-2

The Sweets took an early 1-0 lead on a goal by Luke Fairchild (with an assist going to Ryan O’Neill) scoring in the opening minute of the first period, took a 3-1 lead into the third period and played a conservative defensive style of hockey in the third to lock up the championship win.

After the opening score, both teams settled down and played a good game of hockey.  The Orange had a size advantage in the forwards and used that size well once inside the Sweet zone; the Sweets would jam at both the Orange and the Sweet blue line; forcing play by bringing the odd man into the action.  That worked well in maintaining puck control in the Orange zone and worked especially well defending at their blue line.  At the six minute mark, 10 scored with assist from 22 to tie the game 1-1. The Sweets’ Jackson Juttings scored in the last minute of the first to put the Sweets up 2-1 going into the second period.  Mason Nevers and Ethan Benz got the assists.

The Orange offense continued to be frustrated on the attack at the Sweet’s blue line.  The defense at the point of the attack would step up and challenge the Orange forward who would tend to turn at the blue line or pass towards an open player in center ice.  That player or the passing lane would be covers by a back checking Sweet forward and the play stymied.  Five minutes into the second period, the Sweet’s scored again when the Sweet’s forward Nathan Warner made a nice weak side pass.  That score put the Sweet up 3-1.  The Orange team starting asserting themselves at the six minute mark of the second period.  It a minute later, the Orange’s Michael Shoemaice scored on a 2-on-1 rush beating the goalie from the left faceoff circle to cut the Sweet lead to 3-2.

The Orange had two good scoring opportunities that they failed to capitalize on.  The first was an open net shot from the left crease that hit the right post and bounced into the crease.  The second was a weird bounce that resulted in the puck rebounding into the net that the ref waived off as the clock ran out in the second period.

The third period, the Sweet played defensive hockey.  They clogged the center zone and sent the puck deep time after time and held onto the single goal lead.  Late in the third period, the Sweet drew a penalty.  The faceoff was held outside the Orange zone.  The Sweet center gained control of the puck on the faceoff and drove the net beating the Orange defense to score the insurance goal shorthanded for the insurance goal.  The Orange never recovered and the game ended with a 4-2 Sweet victory.