Oh What a Night!

Just after 12:00 AM here in Taylor the longest day of our 2013 Nationals is coming to a close.  Attempting to recap every amazing game today isn't even an option since there were so many of them, but there are some players and teams that truly deserve a mention here from us.  

First of all, I'd like to thank Jami Yoder and the KIHA Warrior program yet again for making the trip in from Hawaii.  The majority of their teams started this afternoon, and the electricity that their teams and fans bring to every single game that they are in is simply amazing.  

I'd also like to thank the 2 Colombian teams that are participating in the North event this year, Karibes Hockey Club and Rinos Na-Palm.  It's great as a true fan of the sport to be able to have these teams at our tournament, it adds a great spark to our schedule!

In game action today, we crowned 11 National Champions from 6 and under to Pro, and a good amount of those games went into OT to decide a winner.  In my personal favorite division, CUB, we got to see an amazing amount of future stars playing for the Mission Bauer Honeybaked Rollin' Hogs.  Dakota Rheaume was amazing in net all weekend, Michael Hillock, Joy Dunne, Liam Storch, and Jack Edwards were all great over the course of the event as well.  They were able to defeat Alkali Arsenal in the Championship game to bring home the Gold.  

We handed out hardware in 3 Atom divisions today as well with the Mission Bauer Bordercats led by Lucas Deeb, Alkali Arsenal led by Jack Ohanisin, and Reebok Michigan led by Chase Ben-Ezera all winning their respective divisions.  Other players in that division that were standouts were Landon Kooker and Tyler Dale of Mission Farm Tough!  Peter Dale has a great program there, and I expect those players to be major impacts over the next few years.  

Other Champions today include London Fury in Bantam A, Mission Black Ice in Squirt A, Reebok 2001 in PeeWee A, Tour Roadrunners in Midget A (great job to one of my favorite TORHS2Hot4Ice players Lenny Schwartz!) and Revision Vanquish captained by Tyler Walser in Pro Tier 2.  

We had a ton of standout players in Pro this week including Travis Noe of Alkali RPD, Nathan Sigmund of Mission Labeda Snipers, Garrett Ross of Alkali FTB who was the top scorer in the division, and in my opinion the most valuable of all Chris Kirk of Infamous. Chris won top goalie in both D1 earlier this week and in Pro Tier 2, and really stole the show in every game he played.  That kid was the talk of the tournament, with more than one team asking who he was and where he came from.  Chris has been an up and coming talent here in Detroit, but finally was given an opportunity to shine at the highest level and grabbed it.  

Congrats to all our winners so far, and I'm looking forward to the Junior AAA playoffs tomorrow.  A ton of players from the Pro division are still here playing in this one, and every single playoff game should be great!  

Until tomorrow....