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| August 2, 2002
By Jim Anderson
Day 6 Wrap Up: Overtime!!
Thursday is a marathon day at Finals
|  3:30AM on Friday morning and the rinks are finally clear of players, fans and all but one NARCh employee.
The Pee Wee Gold division provided
what was so far the highlight game
of the tournament.
After the ProJoy Mission Gulls
defeated the top seeded Cobras 4-1
in the first semifinal and the Irvine
Raiders 87 eliminated Laverne
Empire 88 Black by a 3-0 score the
stage was set.
The final was a back and forth affair
with both teams trying to stamp their
style of play on the game. The teams
were tied 2-2 at the end of regulation
and we were on to overtime. Despite
playing one full 12 minute period,
neither team was able to find the
back of the net so it was on to a 2nd
overtime period. At this point the
Gulls couldn't kill off another penalty
(they took 4 in OT) and at 9:24, after
nearly 40 minutes of championship
game action, #16 from the Irvine
Raiders finally broke the tie and led
his team to the title.
In the Bantam division, the ProJoy
Roadrunners won the championship
by defeating Chula Vista Golden
Eagles 8-0. Probably the most
impressive part of this was that a
large number of players on the
Roadrunners had just played a Jr
Semifinal vs the ProJoy Mission
Gulls and lost that game in OT after
coming from a 3-1 deficit in the final
3 minutes of regulation. Essentially
they lost a heartbreaker in OT, skated
from Rink 2 to the Arena and were
able to push the loss behind and
focus on the game at hand, not an
easy task. Chula Vista had a strong
run to the championship game,
upsetting #1 seed Tour Blast Red in
a very well played 2-1 win in the
semifinals.
As explained above, the Junior
division also had its share of OT in
the semifinal with ProJoy Mission
Gulls advancing to the Final, where
they would face #1 seed CPH Black
who eliminated the Arizona Groove
5-3 in the first semifinal. CPH took
control early and led 3-0 until the
Gulls scored with just over 4 minutes
remaining. Despite outshooting
CPH by a 22-14 margin, the Gulls
just were unable to get on the board
early enough to mount a comeback.
The Mite's also finished up today and
the final saw the CPH Quest and
NorCal Dragons meet up for the
championship. CPH had advanced
by beating Tour Corona Edge Black
2-1 in the semi's and NorCal won the
offensive juggernaut against the
Mission Empire Snipers in a 10-5
thriller. When was the last time you
saw 15 goals scored in a mite game,
let alone a semifinal?
At the end, the Dragons offensive
attack was just too much for CPH to
handle and they rolled to a 6-2
victory.
Platinum Division Begins:
The Pee Wee's started first with
Winternationals champion Hyper
Empire 87 starting off with 2 victories,
scoring 16 goals in the process.
AMB and DMHS both looked good in
their first games and the Bad Apples
from NJ could be a sleeper if they
can avoid some round robin pitfalls.
Next up was the Junior's. DMHS
opened up strong against the Tour
Xplosion before having to overcome
a tougher than expected Mission
Hotskates team, escaping with a 2-1
win. Winternationals champs,
Mission Empire Snipers, won 2
games each by a 5-2 score. Also
winning 2 games today were the
Bauer Pythons, AMB 83 and Mission
Cooler Selects. The upset of the day
goes to the Annandale Maple Leafs,
a team that had made the finals of 2
NJ regionals this year, upset the
Tour Predators 5-4 in a game that
went down to the wire. Of course, the
Preds have played quite a bit of
hockey so far with div 1 and sr,
however a win is a win and
Annandale gets 2 points that not
many people expected them to earn.
Center Circle Scorpions looked good
against Buffalo Wings, yet face a
good test vs Team Tour in a couple
hours.
The senior's also kicked off platinum
division play today. Winternationals
Champions Hyper Slipjacks won
their first game 5-3 vs
Sportsplexbc.com, but were tripped
up by Winnipeg Blue Devils who
broke open a 3-2 game en route to a
8-3 victory and followed that up with a
5-4 win over the Tour Predators to
close out the evening 2-0. They are
joined by the Buffalo Wings as the
only 2-0 teams at the moment.
There will be some very meaningful
games tomorrow night as the 7
teams battle for the 4 semifinal
spots.
To cap off the start of Platinum, we
also had the beginning of 35&Over.
The CCM Old Hosers and Tour
Powerhouse Blast seemed to be the
early favorites before play started.
The Old Hosers held true to form and
won their 2 games by a combined
13-1 score. The Border Patrol
Geezers scored the upset vs the
Tour Powerhouse Blast, winning 6-3.
The Blast lost the services of Greg
Gawrys to a leg injury, but they do get
former St.Louis Blues standout Perry
Turnbull beginning tomorrow. FLI
played the Tour Powerhouse Blast
tough, but couldn't get enough
offense going in their 5-2 loss.
Tomorrow, well in a couple hours,
we are going to be broadcasting on
the web starting at 1:00 PM, CDT.
Check out the kickoff as we'll have a
special guest joining our announcing
team.
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