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| July 29, 2002
By Jim Anderson
Live from St.Paul, its NARCh.com.
|  NARCh Update, Day 3
Today was truly a day of first's for
NARCh, its players and fans.
First off, we went live via our webcast
for over 3 hours this afternoon and
evening.
Beginning with the Atom Gold
Championship which had the Brea
Oilers facing off against the Iowa
Spirit. The # 3 seeded Spirit pulled
off a mild upset with a hard fought
3-1 victory against the top seeded
Oilers. Keeping with tradition, each
player was brought out onto the floor
via the spotlight and onto the floor.
After the awards ceremony, individual
award winners will be updated
shortly, we held our Opening
Ceremonies for the Gold Division
and this also was part of our live
webcast. To begin, we had Brianna
from the CPH Vixens sing the Star
Spangled Banner which was
followed by our own Mike Patton
singing Oh Canada. Jeff Mason, a
founder of NARCh, then spoke briefly
and was followed by NARCh Hockey
Director, Daryn Goodwin. Next up
was the Mayor of St.Paul and finally
the man who helped bring it all
together, Bob Naegele who is a
co-owner of the Minnesota Wild
along with Mission Hockey. The
2002 NARCh movie followed, 13
minutes of the best footage from the
'01 Finals and then finally we had a
sighting of the NARCh Bear who
came out from Siberia and hats,
t-shirts, specially printed wheels and
more were being flung into the
awaiting crowd.
The last, but certainly not least, part
of the webcast was the Women's
Final. The top seeded Fancy Pants
were up against the CPH Vixens who
advanced to the Championship
game by defeating Team Excalibur
earlier in the day by a 2-0 score. The
championship was a hard fought
game that in keeping with the tight
scores throughout the tournament,
was won by Fancy Pants by a 1-0
margin. The level of play in the
women's division continues to
improve by leaps and bounds each
year and if you saw the game in
person or via our webcast, you will
undoubtedly agree.
Squirt playoffs began continued on
today with the Rush and Tour
Flames avoiding defeat to move onto
the Championship game on
Tuesday. The Rush have been the
top seeded team throughout the
event. However the Tour Flames look
like they may have found their stride
as they took control early in their
seminfinal and could be peaking at
just the right time, and listening to
the coaches doesn't hurt either!
Division 1 was focused on the
quarterfinals this evening. The #1
seeded Tour Predators narrowly
avoided an early upset by beating
Team Tour in OT by a 4-3 score.
Team Tour had to win a play-in
game just to advance to the
quarterfinals. Mission Empire
Snipers, the #2 seed, moved on to
the semifinals and #6 seeded Pama
Cyclones and #5 Toronto Tour Tigers
will be joining them as both teams
played higher than their seed to earn
the remaining spots in the
semifinals.
Quarterfinal action was on the docket
for the Senior's this evening. In a
rematch of last year's semifinal, the
Madhatters extracted a measure of
revenge on the St.Louis Stars with an
7-5 victory. A note, all 5 goals the
Stars scored were on the power play.
The Chicago Magic pulled the only
upset of the day as they stunned the
Cobras by a 2-1 score. Tour
Xplosion won a close battle against
Greasy Joe's and Good N Plenty,
who needed OT to finally eliminate
Michigan Performance Hockey 6-5,
also advance to tomorrow's action.
If divisions are coming to a close,
new one's must be starting. Today
we saw the start of Pee Wee, Mite,
Bantam and Junior divisions.
For the mite's CPH Quest and Nike
Rinkside Rockets both started off 2-0
as they try for the top seed in the
playoffs as 19 teams try to qualify for
only 10 available spots.
The Chula Vista Golden Eagles are
looking strong in the Pee Wee
division with many teams awaiting to
play their 2nd game. We'll be able to
pass on more information for these
players once a few more games
have been played.
Bantam and Junior's are currently
playing their opening games and
have so far provided a large amount
of excitement. End to end rushes,
intense battles in the corners for
posession along with the pride
involved has kept many of the fans
on the edge of their seats.
The stands are still packed here in
St.Paul, as there seems to be a
strong amount of people who have
seen the local promotion done by the
Xcel Energy Center and have come
to see what its all about. As one
member of the rink staff says "come
for one hour, and you wind up staying
for 3", and that's exactly what's
happening as fans of our frozen
cousin check out the game of
rollerhockey at the elite level for the
first time in the life.
We've received quite a bit of inquiries
with regards to when the rosters for
the Division 1 All Stars will be posted
both at the rink and online. Due to
the low # of ballots turned in by
teams in Division 1, it has taken us
longer to finalize the rosters than
usual. Check back in the morning for
more information.
In addition to Championship games
tomorrow in the Sr, Division 1 and
Squirt divisions, we also have
NARCh Skills for the Bantam, Mite
and Junior divisions. Stay tuned to
NARCh.com for more updates,
webcasts and information from the
largest hockey tournament ever held,
NARCh.
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