In Gold Pool play after Friday’s games, the Irish had four points, Andover and OMG each had two points, and Chaska with two losses was out of the championship round.  Andover had a shot at the wild card but needed to get some goals against a tough Chaska/Chanhassen team.  The Huskies took the ice in the first game Saturday morning.  Other peewee games would follow.  Andover broke open a 3-3 tie game scoring twice in the third period to take a 5-3 lead over the Hawks only to lose the lead in the last minutes of play and end up with a 5-5 tie eliminating them from Sunday’s championship round.

Rosemount played OMG in the other Gold Pool game and were “snake bitten” by poor referring.  The Irish were leading 1-0 with six minutes left in the opening period when they drew two successive penalties.  Playing 5-on-3, the Irish defense was holding their own in the Rosemount zone  when OMG launched an attack on the Rosemount net that ended up with the puck popping in a short arc in front of the weak side of the net right.  An OMG forward attacked the puck and with his body checked the puck into the net.  The refs ruled it an unassisted score.  OMG had tied the game 1-1.

Five minutes later, the Irish attacked the OMG goal on a power play with the puck bouncing into the area at the top of the crease.  A Rosemount forward beat the OMG defense to the puck and angled a shot upward beating OMG’s goalie over the left shoulder and hitting the flat part of the net well inside the crossbar.  The puck took an immediate bounce downward towards the ice surface, hit the goal line and bounced out of the crease area.  No goal, the game played on.  Instead of leading 2-0 at this point in the game, the Irish were tied 1-1 and went on to lose 4-1 when OMG scored twice in the first half of the second period and added a goal late in the third period.  To make matters worse, at least two Rosemount 2-on-1 rushes after the no goal call were negated by OMG’s defense impeding (hooking) the open weak side rusher from behind before Rosemount forward got to the puck.  No penalty calls were made.

Despite the misfortune the Irish felt, OMG came to play the game.  They wanted to win and as the third period progressed, they began to control play, playing defensively.  Holding all the advantages in the last round of pool play was not enough for the Irish.  They lost the pool championship and lost the wild card.  Going +3 in their first two games was not enough to gain a seed into the semifinal games Sunday.  OMG started pool play with losing to Andover 4-2 and at that point, the Crimson knew they had to win their next two games against two tough teams Chaska and Rosemount.  They beat Chaska/Chanhassen Friday and Rosemount Saturday.  As the Gold Pool champion, they will play Minneapolis in one semifinal game Sunday.  OMG played well.

The Green Pool went as predicted, but Edina had a scare in their game against White Bear Lake Friday.  The Bears were leading 2-1 in the second period with Edina on the power play.  The Hornets got a “lucky call” from the refs when a shot from the right blue line area was heading well over the crossbar until it was high sticked downward into the net over the Bear goalie’s shoulder.  One of three sticks (two were Edina players) caused the deflection.  The goal tied the game 2-2 and took some steam out of White Bear Lake.  A minute later, Edina’s Mark Overman picked up a puck in the faceoff circle to the left of the White Bear Lake net, drove to the slot, and with two White Bear defensemen trying to pinch him got off a hard shot beating the Bears goalie Collin Rooney to put the Hornets up 3-2.  White Bear sagged after that score, tried to come back with a strong opening third period but couldn’t score.  The Bears gave up two more goals losing 5-2.  Wayzata beat Centennial Friday 6-3 setting up an Edina/Wayzata pool championship game won by Edina 6-0.  The Trojans forwards had come out of the locker room flying in their win over White Bear Lake Thursday and played steady in their 6-3 win over Centennial Friday.  But the Edina defense would let them get rolling.  Wayzata put 75 shots on net in winning their first two games, but could only put 12 shots on net against the Hornets.  The Hornets, with a +13 goal differential, advance as the #1 seed playing the wild card team, Blaine.  White Bear Lake beat Centennial 5-0 in the second Green Pool game played Saturday morning.

In game played Friday in the White Pool, Minneapolis and Blaine took care of business.  Minneapolis was trailing Stillwater late in the second period when a hard shot rebounded off a Storm forward in the right slot and caught the inside edge of the right pipe to tie the game 2-2.  The Storm put tremendous pressure on the Stillwater’s goalie Logan Bies who had an outstanding game.  Bies stopped 14 of 15 second period shots.  The Storm continued pounding the Stillwater goal in the third period.  They dominated the net but couldn’t score until puck ended up loose in the crease and Minneapolis forward Ben Murray’s shot drove the puck and the Stillwater goalie into the net.  Maxie Zabinski and Charlie Warner got the assists.  The Storm’s forward Joe Miller beat the Stillwater defense a minute later popping a hard shot off the inside roof of the net to put the Storm up 4-2.  Minneapolis, knowing they would need one more goal to beat Edina in goal differential, hammered the Stillwater goal in the last minutes of the third period,  but could not score.  Blaine rolled past Eastview 6-1.  The Bengals took a quick early lead against the Lightning.  Eastview’s goalie, Even Stolpa, started for the Lightning and after giving up some early scores on long hard shots, settled down to play a good game.

In the second White Pool game Saturday morning, Eastview’s Joshua Eernisse and Ryan Quaintance combined to score all three Lightning goals in Eastview’s 3-2 win over Stillwater.  These two teams are contesting for the D2/D8 title this year along with Rosemount.  Eernsse scored the three goals for the hat trick, Quaintance assisted on all three goals.  Lightning goalie Bennett Weestrand stopped 35 of 37 Pony shots on net.

Sunday’s Championship Round

Minneapolis plays Osseo/Maple Grove at 7:45 AM and Edina plays Blaine at 9:15 AM Sunday morning.  Both games are played at Braemar’s South Rink.

Note: Below are four pictures in sequence of the no-goal call against Rosemount in Saturday's White Pool showdown with OMG.  The pictures from 1-4 represent approximately one second of time.