Navy, AA Champs
Local AAA organization Hometown Hockey has built a great reputation for off-season programming with good coaching, hard work and fun. Last weekend, Hometown founders Bernie Knox and Jeff Martin put on their fifth annual Summer Classic at Andover Community Center. The Summer Classic is an eight team event split into two, four team tournaments featuring a fun theme. "So many of these tournaments have so little personality...our goal each year is make it fun for the kids, coaches and parents," said Knox. "The organizers sometimes have more fun than the kids...we love what we're doing."
This year Hometown saluted our country's great servicemen wearing uniforms for Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Each team took the ice to each military branches fight song. My personal favorite was Navy taking the ice to "Anchor's Away."
Besides the pomp and circumstance, there was some great hockey, too. Army took out Navy in a shootout Sunday to win the A tournament (players made up of '06 to '08 skaters). In the AA final, high powered Navy was slowed to only one goal by Air Force, but that was enough for them to win 1-0. The AA kids were '03 to '05 players playing at a very high level of intensity for July hockey.
Evan Williams with a snipe for Navy
Austin Burnevik with one of his 9 goals for AA Army
Army, A Champs