Spring Lake Park Peewee A Tourney

Last season, the Spring Lake Park tourney was a predictor of teams that would make Minnesota Hockey’s Peewee A State Tourney played in Crookston.  Three of the teams entered in the 2013 Panther Tourney ended up playing at Crookston (Mahtomedi, Armstrong, and Spring Lake Park).  This year, all three teams were back for the 2014 Panther tourney.  They were joined in this year’s tourney by Mound Westonka, Minneapolis Storm A, Delano, Inver Grove Heights, and Prior Lake.

Mahtomedi won the peewee A title this past weekend beating Mound Westonka 8-4. The prediction here is that five of this year’s Panther Tourney entrants have a good shot at making the state tourney this year (Mahtomedi, Armstrong, Minneapolis Storm A, Prior Lake A, and Mound Westonka).  The problem is that Armstrong, the Storm, and Mound Westonka all play in District 3’s peewee A league.  District 3 this year is in the West Regional with District 6 (Prior Lake, Edina, New Prague) and District 5 (River Lakes, Sartell, and Litchfield/Dassel/Cokato).  District 6 gets only two seeds to the West Regional this season, Districts 3 and 5 each get three seeds; but only two teams can advance from the West Regional to the state tourney played at Lakeville’s Ames Arena this year.      

Seventh Place: Delano Edges Inver Grove Heights 2-0

Both teams found the tourney rough going in the quarterfinals.  Inver Grove Heights lost to Armstrong 7-0 in the quarterfinals, Delano was edged by Spring Lake Park 3-2.  In the consolation semifinals, Inver Grove Heights was edged by Minneapolis Storm A 2-1 and Delano lost to Prior Lake A 6-1.  In the seventh place game Sunday morning, both teams battled through most of two periods of rugged play.  Then with two minutes left in the second period, IGH drew two minor penalties.  With less than one minute left in the second period, they drew a third penalty.  Delano scored twice in the last minute of play.  Kory Dunnigan got the winning goal to put the Tiger’s up 1-0 with 24 seconds left on the clock; Duncan Bistodeau and Gavin Leaver got the assists.  With less than a second left in the second period, Delano’s Mark Halonen scored the insurance goal.  Adam Brown got the assist.

Delano’s goalie, Cade Lommel stopped 17 shots in the Tiger’s opening loss to Spring Lake Park.  Mark Halonen, Duncan Bistodeau, and Gavin Leaver played well for the Tigers.  Inver Grove Heights has size and skills but was set back by a strong Armstrong in the tourney opener managing only three shots on net.  They will improve.

Consolation Championship: Minneapolis Storm A beat Prior Lake A 6-3

The Storm simply got stronger as the tourney progressed.  They lost the opener to a good Mahtomedi team 6-0, came back to edge Inver Grove Heights 2-1, and beat the Lakers in the consolation championship 6-3 after falling behind 3-0 halfway through the game.  The Lakers took a 2-0 lead after the opening period on goals by Paul Kaehler.  Three minutes into the game, Kaehler split the Laker defense at the Prior Lake blue line and soloed in on Storm goalie Aksel Reid beating Reid mid-height right above the right leg pad to put the Lakers up 2-0.

After giving up a third goal to Prior Lake halfway through the second period, the Storm came back to tie the game on three late second period goals.  Peter Forseth broke the ice with a goal at the seven minute mark, Trey Gustafson scored a minute later to cut the lead to 3-2, and Porter Ball scored with two minutes left in the period to tie the game 3-3.  Ball’s goal was unassisted.  With seven minutes left in the second period, the Storm’s Simon Weed scored the game winner.  Weed’s goal was unassisted and the Storm led 4-3.  Ball scored the insurance goal with two minutes left on the clock to put the Storm up 5-3; Henry Evenson scored with a minute left to end the scoring 6-3.  The Storm’s last four goals were unassisted.

Both the Lakers and the Storm will get better as the season progresses and both will likely challenge for a district seed to the West Regional.  The Lakers will have the harder path since District 6 will get only two seeds to the West this season.  Paul Kaehler and Andrew Strom had good tourneys for the Lakers; Kaehler scored three unassisted goals in the three games.  For Minneapolis, Porter Ball and Henry Evenson had good tourneys.  Askel Reid had a good tourney in the nets for the Storm.  

Third Place: Armstrong thumps Spring Lake Park 10-4

In the third place game, Armstrong beat Spring Lake Park 10-4.  The two teams were tied 1-1 with a minute to go in the first period when the Spartans scored twice to take a 3-1 lead.  Teddy Campion (one of four Campions on this year’s team) banged the puck into the net from the top of the crease scoring a power play goal to put the Spartans up 2-1 with just under a minute left in the period.  Twenty seconds later Charlie Deterding scored his second goal of the period giving Armstrong a 3-1 lead at the end of the first period.  Spring Lake Park’s Adam Johnson got the lone Panther goal in the first period.

Armstrong scored twice in the first ninety seconds of the second period.  Matt Campion and Mike Berns got the goals to put the Spartans up 5-1.  The Panthers rallied behind two goals by Brock Larsen to cut the lead to 5-3 only to give two goals at the end of the second period.  Matt Campion and Jack Campion scored.  Armstrong led 7-3 at the end of two.  Spring Lake Park scored in the opening minute of the third period.  Blake Friedman got the goal.  Larsen got the assist; he ended the game scoring two goals and assisting on the other two goals scored.  Jack Campion, Ben Anderson, and Matt Campion all scored third period Spartan goals ending the game 10-4.  Spring Lake Park’s goalie faced 40 shots on net in the 36 minute game.  The Spartans beat Inver Grove Heights 7-1 in the opening game of the tourney Friday and lost to Mahotmedi 3-1 in the semifinals to get to the third place game.  Spring Lake Park edged Delano Area 3-2 in the quarterfinals and lost to Mound Westonka 8-1 in the semifinals.

Armstrong is a strong team again this year led by the Campions.  Collectively the four (Teddy, Matt, Jack, and Joe) scored 17 points/10 goals in the three games.  Armstrong is a team with a lot of potential this season.  If the Spartans develop (and mature physically) as they did last season, they could end being one of the two teams to come out of the West Regional.  Spring Lake Park had their moments in the tourney, but struggled.  The Panthers have to get through a tough District 10 playoff this year to get this year (13 teams in the league) just to get to the East Regional.  If they do, they will likely face Mahtomedi.

Championship: Mahtomedi beats Mound/Westonka 8-4

It was as good as a peewee A game gets…for the first half.  Mound/Westonka opened the game by taking a 3-1 one lead at the end of the first period behind the play of Adam Nobs.  Two minutes into the opening period and Nobs scored on a breakaway unassisted.  He beat the Zephyr defense on the left, skated to the left side, and caught the Mahotmedi goalie to moving right.  He top shelved the puck into the left side of the net.  The White Hawks led 1-0.  Mahotmedi’s Colin Hagstrom tied the game 1-1 a minute later on a rebound shot from the slot.  Then Nobs went to work again.

This time he beat the Zephyr defense going right, cleared himself for a shot from the right faceoff dot, and buried the puck to put Mound/Westonka up 2-1.  With under a minute left in the first period, Nobs scored again on a play identical to the second goal.  At the end of the first period, the White Hawks led 3-1.  But both teams were skating and moving the puck well.

Mahtomedi turned up their game in the second period and score twice in the opening minutes of the second period.  Nikolai Klingbeil scored from the lower right side to cut Tonka’s lead to 3-2; Grant Kwaick tied the game 3-3 with a goal breaking down the slot and scoring from the left crease area.  Less than a minute later, Nobs set up Lou Timberg breaking in the slot.  Timberg got off a diving shot that beat Mahtomedi’s goalie to break the tie 4-3.

At that point, the Mound/Westonka team started to struggle, in part because they stopped passing.  The game play quickly became dominated by the Zephyrs.  They scored twice at the end of the second period to take a 5-4 lead.  Timothy Bruner and Hagstrom scored the goals and went on to add three more in the third period.  What had started as good game, turned into a game dominated by the Zephyrs.

Mahtomedi plays in District 2 and District 2 is in the East Regional along with District 10 and District 11 (Duluth Area).  District 2 will have three seeds to the East Regional.  This season, District 8 and District 2 have a combined league for regular season play, but each plays their district playoffs.  The Zephyrs are favored to make the East Regional.  Mound/Westonka should make it to the West Regional, but at the West, things will get tough for the White Hawks.

What is next?

The press made a visit to Minnesota Hockey this weekend because of Patrick Schoonover’s death on the ice.  They were at the arenas.  To this corner of YHH, the press wanted to report a story that would sell, not just the facts of a tragic death.  The way the Schoonover’s handled that pressure was amazing and when the family said that Patrick died playing the game he loved, it changed the press.  The press seemed perplexed and confused that there was “a Minnesota Hockey Family”, people who loved the sport.  “How can that be” more than one of the media asked?

At Spring Lake Park, in the quarterfinal game of the peewee B game, host Spring Lake Park and MAML teams locked in a scoreless battle 0-0 that was sent into overtime.  Both goalies had played very well and shortly after start of the overtime, a Spring Lake Park forward skated into the right faceoff and scored the winning goal.  MAML’s goalie just missed the puck.  It just cleared his glove before going into the net.  Then the drama played out.  MAML’s goalie stayed on the ice and struggled after giving up the winning goal remaining prone on the ice while the victorious Spring Lake Park team celebrated in front of him.  All those watching the scene playing out on the ice were pulling for the goalie to overcome his emotions and stand.  Then to everyone surprise his teammates descended on him.  It was unexpected.  Instead of being upset, they piled on the goalie in the crease.  It was the MAML team and the team coach’s way of saying “it is all right, well played”.

A local television station was at that game.  Their camera had been taken down; most likely a deadline had to be met.  The media were facing the stands and they missed the drama unfolding on the ice.

For all the kids on the ice at that game, those images became a part of a shared memory of a larger family.  Like parents looking at video or a picture album of their kids at 12, now grown, everyone watching the drama between the two teams suddenly became part of an extended family.  Like parents looking at an album, the coaches, parents, players, tournament organizers, and refs will trot out that memory of the MAML players piling on their goalie and feel better.  And that is what makes a Minnesota Hockey Family.