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| July 25, 2003
By Jim Anderson
NARCh Update Day 8
Blast Off
|  St. Louis Tour Blast late game comeback leads to a thrilling OT victory in the Mite Platinum division. We also have the first games of NARCh PRO, featuring the new open format.
First things first, the Mite Platinum Final was a truly thrilling game that one day may be talked about in the same breath as the TSG-Mission Snipers, Goalie’s Den Canucks-TSG, Hosers vs Mission discussions for all the excitementit generated.
The Mite’s would start the day first off with a playoff game for the #4 and #5 seeds, the Tour Rapid Fire Smoke and Las Vegas Tour Rebels. The Smoke would hold off the Rebels in a 7-4 shootout to advance to the semifinals against Nike OC Blades. OC would have the Smoke’s number as they had just too much offensive firepower to contain and they moved on to the Final with the 8-3 win marking the first time in 3 years the two teams wouldn’t be meeting to decide the Championship.
The next semifinal would feature the # 2 St. Louis Tour Blast and LaVerne Marvel X-Men. The Blast would hold on to a slim 2-1 lead with some excellent saves by their goalie, Heath, advancing to the Mite Final.
In the Final, the Blades would open the scoring as Sooth converted off a nifty drop pass by Jennings to take a 1-0 lead just 2:17 into the game. The remainder of the first half would be characterized by quite a few whistles and the game flowed, oftentimes stopping only after Heath made a big save for the Blast to keep OC’s lead at 1. OC would outshoot the Blast by an 11-5 margin in the first half, and the Blast were lucky to escape down by only 1 as they also had to kill off a 4 on 2 as well.
The Blades would jump out in the opening minute of the 2nd half to take a 2-0 lead as Sooth snapped a shot over the goalies’ glove for his 2nd of the game, so in essence it was Sooth 2, Blast 0. Heath would make another huge save for the Blast to keep the deficit manageable with a quick succession of saves off an initial shot and rebound. OC’s goalie would get into the act with a good glove save just 30 seconds later.
The action would flow until OC took their first penalty of the game at the 8:30 mark and it would take the Blast only 51 seconds before Sucher converted a rebound from a shot by Kettler to trim the lead to 2-1. It was the first real sustained pressure the Blast had on OC throughout the game and seemed to energize the squad. They would tie it up with just 1:24 left in the game as Sucher scored his 2nd of the game, now Sooth 2, Sucher 2, off a slapshot to the top corner and we were deadlocked for the first time since the drop of the puck. After taking a timeout, OC would have 2 excellent chances to claim the title but Heath made a point blank save with 25 seconds left before stopping a partial breakaway with only 2.4 seconds left on the clock.
In OT, Nike OC Blades opened up with some of their best passing of the game generating a great scoring chance in the opening minute, but once again Heath would make the save. The Blast would be on their heels in the opening minutes before getting a dangerous, off angle shot.
OC would continue to dominate play with numerous 1 on 1 and 2 on 1 chances. The whole team was playing well, but Rocco was generating offense everytime he touched the puck and was nothing short of amazing.
Then with a few minutes gone by, St. Louis seemed to settle down and started to pass quite a bit better, a lot of the east – west and slower pace that defined their teams back in the beginning of NARCh. OC would get another great chance with 7:18 gone, only to be denied again by Heath and they would get a 2 on 1 off a stop on an OC 2 on 1 chance. The initial shot went wide and went behind the net and bounced out to an Blast player, Barber, who knocked the puck into the net and the Blast would start their celebration as the puck crossed the line.
Mite All Star recap coming in the AM, the skinny is the West jumped out to a commanding 5-0 lead by the end of the first half, paced by a Grimaldi Hat Trick before closing out the East 8-2. I haven’t forgotten about the Atom’s either, just rounding up a bit more information.
Pee Wee started some playoff action today with an opening round playoff game featuring the Hyper Falcons and Tour Rebels. The Falcons would advance with a 5-4 win to move on to the quarterfinals where they would meet the top seeded Nike OC Blades ’88, who would defeat them 5-2.
The Hosers ’88 would have the first upset of the day as they eliminated the AKS Empire ’88 in OT by a 2-1 margin. The St. Louis Tour Blast would then hold off the suprising Alexander Steel Thunder, who played impressively this weekend and opened some eyes of people who thought they’d go 1-3 or 0-4, by a 4-2 score. Notching the final semifinal spot was the Tour Blast ‘88’s who defeated the Detroit Bulldogs, 3-1, in a game that was decidedly mostly by the play of the their goalie who was magnificent in the 3-2 loss to OC and won the Skills competition this week as well.
Tomorrow’s semifinals will match up Nike OC Blades vs Hosers ’88. The 2nd semifinal will feature both Blast teams as the 88’s and 89’s will fight for both a spot in the Final and bragging rights at home.
NARCh Pro started today with the Tour Mudcats opening the division with a 8-0 pasting of the Tour Bandits. The Bauer Hyper Cyclones would then defeat Tour-Labeda 9-3 in the first surprise in the division. Rinkrat would make their Finals debut a strong one with an 8-0 win over the Arizona Stallions, a new team to the PRO division as well. The best PRO game of the day would feature the Mission Snipers and Mission DNA, featuring quite a few players from the D1 group, and the teams would battle to a 3-3 tie as the Snipers battled back for a big point. In another matchup of teams making their PRO debut, the Mission Hyper Pirates would defeat Team NIKE 6-4 in what was a big first game for both teams as it had definite playoff implications. The Detroit Mission Hyper Stars would then close out Team Rinkside 6-4 to finish the PRO division for the opening day. The games will start early tomorrow with the Tour Mudcats and Mission Hyper Pirates start play at 10:50AM. A big matchup will be Labeda-Tour vs Mission Snipers, a loss will severely damage the Labeda Tour playoff hopes.
Squirt Platinum saw Nike OC Blades continue to play well along with the Mission Marvel Silver Surfers as they continue to be the teams to beat. Tomorrow will help sort out the rest of the teams, but the first year Sudden Death team played strong against Nike OC despite dropping their contest.
For the Bantams, the Mission Snipers fell to the Marvel Black Panthers, 2-1 as they just didn’t have the flow going in their game and need to play well tomorrow to save a good playoff seed. Then again, last year they reached the Final as the #7 seed. Team Tour defeated the OC Blades to show themselves as a contender with a 4-1 win and Tour Black Ice looked good in a hard fought 4-3 win over the ever tough Tour Mavericks. What could be the sleeper team of the division, Team Skatezone, showed the confidence gained from a tough loss to OC yesterday in their 6-2 win over the Oakville Coyotes 85’s.
The Senior Division would also get underway and the Middletown Mudcats would get off to a good start against the Mission D2’s with a 6-1 win, although the D2’s were playing with a very short bench. Cyberweld Wolves, would hold off Team Smart Hockey (UK), by a 3-2 score and Team Hyper would beat the Goodsports Sharks by the same score. A big surprise was the play of the RinkRat Bombers, they won the NJ Regional so we knew they were good, in their 9-3 win over the Nike Buffalo Wings in what appeared to be a much closer matchup on paper.
That’s it for today, keep watching the webcasts and checking out NARCh.com for updates and the Pee Wee Platinum Final and All Stars tomorrow on NARCh.com, along with a recap of the 35 & Over games that started today as I can get a better look at some of the teams and see who has the key players.
See the Latest News section for Jim's past articles on the 2003 Finals.
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