The Red Black League sponsored by the Minnesota Magicians concluded its second season Sunday and started its playoffs Monday at Waconia’s Ice Arena.   For the past two months season eight teams, comprised of high school players from all parts of the state, played an 18 game regular season schedule in the league.  Each team was named by color.  The Orange Team won the regular season league championship posting 29 points (14-3-1) edging the Black and White teams in the last week of play.  Orange’s Curt Hansen/Prior Lake won the league’s scoring title with 46 points and tied with Jory McWilliams/Kennedy for the most goals scored (25).  Goalies Nick Wiencek/Eden Prairie, Connor Wagner/New Prague, and Manny Hertel Bauman/Cretin-Derham Hall had good seasons in the nets this fall in the Red Black.

The league game format is two 25 minute periods, stop time.  Goalies usually split the game.  The league restricts hard checking.  No hard physical checks are allowed along the boards.  As a result, the play can become very intense with long periods of up and down action combined with fast puck movement.  The teams that win usually find a way to move the puck with quick passes to find the open play.  The Red Black League has been successful in attracting good players with this format; the league has doubled in size in its two seasons and now plans a spring league (April/May).

Red Black Playoffs

The Red Black playoff is an eight team bracket play, single elimination with a consolation championship and seventh and third place games.  The playoffs are spread over the next two weeks and will culminate with the playoff championship game played on the Minnesota Magicians’ home ice in Richfield November 1.  The game will be played before the Magicians/Janesville NAHL game and will start at 4:15 PM.

Upper Bracket

#1 Orange plays #8 Green-Of the 20 players on the league champion Orange Team roster, 17 played youth hockey for Minnesota Hockey’s District 6 Associations and have moved on to play for their association’s high school team.  Three (Matt Waterloo/St. Thomas Academy, Harrison Klopp/Breck, and Austin Langworthy/Mankato West) play for high schools outside of D6.  Prior Lake has the most players with nine, Edina has three, Eden Prairie and Minnetonka each have two players.  The Orange team is dominated by sophomore players (nine players plus freshman Klopp) and has outstanding goaltending with Wiencek and Drew Scites/Prior Lake in the nets.  Offensively, the team has the league leading scorer in Curt Hansen, but also has Langworthy.  The Mankato West player has been a pleasant offensive surprise this fall posting 21 points/16 goals in the 18 games played.    

The Green Team is junior dominated.  Nine of the 20 players are juniors.  The Green’s defense combines players mostly from Armstrong and Cretin-Derham Hall and has a freshman goalie (Andrew Dietrich/Blake) and a senior goalie (Joey Grillo/Elk River).  Grillo will be in a battle in two weeks for the starting spot on the Elks varsity.  With Elk teammates Jacob Jaremko and Reggie Lutz leading the UMHSEL in scoring this fall, things will get exciting for Grillo and the Elk River varsity when they head north for AMSOIL to play in the Section 7AA semifinals next March.  Offensively, the Green team is led by a Cretin connection that includes Ryan Jowett and a Holy Family connection that includes John Pearson, Matt Runyon, and Jack Rinzel.  Max Rosenfield/Sibley has also had a good fall playing for the Green.

#4 Yellow plays #5 Blue-Both these teams finished the regular season with similar records (Yellow finished fourth posting 20 points (8-6-4 record); Blue finished fifth with 17 points (8-9-1 record).  The Yellow team is dominated by sophomores and juniors.  Five seniors (Derek Daugaard, Tyler Bump, and Joey Schlink from Prior Lake, Steve Heron/Centennial, and Isak Haataja/Litchfield) skated this fall for the Yellow.  Most of the Yellow players played youth hockey in District 6.  Prior Lake (7 players), Edina (2 players), and Burnsville (4 players) are mixed with players from Elk River, Centennial, Benilde/St. Magarets, Duluth East, and Cretin.  The Yellow defense is mostly from Edina (Robbie Hatch and Jack Stanchfield), Duluth East (Marcus Skoog), Benilde (Brian Arnold) and Elk River (John Greniuk).  Hatch had a good fall season at defense for the Yellow.  The defense is anchored by goalies Josh Kenney/Burnsville and Manny Hertel Bauman/Cretin-Derhem Hall.  The Yellow offense is led by a Prior Lake trio of Tyler Bump (26 points/10 goals), Chase Gackle (15 points/8 goals), and Derek Daugaard (18 points/11 goals).

The Blue Team has been pleasantly surprised by the offense generated by Jory McWilliams.  McWilliams, Kennedy’s #4 scorer last season with 24 points/14 goals in 24 games went wild this fall posting 43 points/25 goals for the Blues.  McWilliams is joined by three other Bloomington players (JaVaughn Soretire/Kennedy, Kyle Wendorf/Jefferson, and Erik Engdahl/Jefferson).  Engdahl came out of nowhere this fall to be the league’s #3 scorer (31 points/11 goals).  With Jefferson moving from the South Suburban to the Metro West, Engdahl could make some waves playing for the Jags.  Edina ended up with four players on the Blues, Hopkins had three and Minnehaha Academy had three.  The goaltenders are Kyle Nelson/Hill Murray and Killian Quinn/Hopkins.  The Blue defensive corps is led by seniors Luke Perunovich/Edina and Joe Nelsen/Hopkins.        

Lower Bracket

#2 Black plays #7 Grey-The Black team has 15 players from Lakeville North and South, Apple Valley, Burnsville and Prior Lake on the team making it a South Suburban Conference based team.  Black, the second place finishers in regular season, had an experienced goaltender in Daniel Swail/Lakeville South and Thomas Moschet who skated for the Eden Prairie Bantam AA team last season.  Swail, a senior, posted a 8-17 record for the Cougars’ Varsity last season and is likely Lakeville South's starting goalie this year.

Offensively, junior Tristan Plagge/Apple Valley was the top scorer for the Black in regular season play (20 points/6 goals).  Nick Duda/Burnsville added 18 points/10 goals in regular season play.  The Black defense is mix of players from Lakeville North (Luke Seper and Adam Duchon), Prior Lake (Joe Stathopoulos), Mahtomedi (Vale Benson), Minnehaha Academy (Zach Anderson), and Trevor Woytcke (Mound).   Woytcke is on the Magicians U16 team roster.  Ten players on the Grey go to private schools.  Breck has three players, Tyler Scott, Will Blake, and Josh Strom; Blake has two players, Bennett Hawley and Eric Elftmann, St. Thomas Academy has to players, Josh Hallum and Nick Brzezinski; Holy Family Catholic has two players, Casey Rock and Tyler Rock; and Benild/St. Margaret’s has one player Jesse Johnson.  The Grey Team has a pair of veteran goaltenders in Shauwn Durocher/Eden Prairie and Connor Wagner/New Prague.  Durocher posted a 7-6-1 record for the Eagles varsity last season giving up an average of 2.0 goals a game while stopping 92% of the shots on goal.  This was Durocher second fall season in the Red Black league.  Connor Wagner led New Prague to the Class A quarterfinals before losing to Hermantown 4-2 at the Xcel.     

#6 Teal beats #3 White 7-1

The league playoffs had an early start this week with #3 seeded White playing the #6 seeded Teal at Waconia.  Teal pulled off a first round upset beating White 7 - 1 Monday night. Teal goalies Matt Foss/Northfield and Jack Bernhagen/Orono combined to hold the high scoring White team to a single goal. Teal forwards, Michael Niederer/Mound and Derek Annett/Chaska scored two goals each and Zac Rodeheffer/Chaska set up four goals for the winners. Dan Urbanciz/Chaska had a strong night offensively for the Teal team posting three points (a goal and two assists). Dylan McLaughlin/Anoka scored the single goal for White.

What is Next?

The three remaining quarterfinal games will be played October 23 at the Richfield Arena.  The #1 seed Orange plays the #8 seed Green in the first game and should have the firepower to beat Green’s defense and goaltenders.  The Orange defense and goaltenders should shut down the Green offense.  Orange should win.  The second game October 23 matches the Yellow and Blue teams.  It would be nice to see McWilliams and Engdahl running up a score and a win, but the Yellow defense and goaltending should prevail.

With the Teal pulling off the upset win beating White Monday, the Grey team should pull off another upset.  Behind the goaltending of Wagner and Durocher, the Grey teams shuts down the Black offense and wins

The semifinals are played Saturday, October 25.  These two games are played prior to the Magicians’ NAHL game against Aberdeen.  All three games will be on Richfield’s rink 1 and it will be “pink day” for the Magicians as they “face off in the fight against breast cancer”.  If the predictions hold, Orange will play Yellow and Grey will play Teal in the two semifinal games.  The Orange will struggle against the Yellow defense but eventually wear them down.  The Yellow offense will need to score early to be in the game, but the Orange wins.  The second semifinal should match two sets of good goalies and two offenses trying to beat the goaltenders.  Grey’s goaltending duo of Durocher and Wagner prevail.  Grey advances.

In the Championship game November 1, Orange should play Grey.  The Orange offensive beats down the Grey defense and eventually gets to the Grey goalies.  Orange should be the Champs of the Red Black league this year.