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| July 23, 2004
By Jim Anderson
The Finals Day Seven
|  Thursday, July 22nd, 2004 - Play would start late this morning, 8:30AM, allowing parents, players and staff alike some extra rest.
It would be much needed, as despite a last game scheduled at 11:30PM, the final Pee Wee Quarterfinal would end well past the 1AM mark.
What happened? 4 separate games that went into OT and a shootout to determine the #1/2 seeds in the Pee Wee Gold division added quite a bit of excitement and time into the Mission Rink’s day.
Squirt Gold would start the day off and TMD ’92 and Bloomington Phantoms would move into the quarterfinals before the Mission Snipers struck the first upset with a strong win over the Bordercats and were followed by AMB Yellow shortly later. The St. Louis Snipers would take the first OT contest of the day, a 2-1 win over EPUCK Outlaws and TMD 92 D2 a 1-0 winner over Red Army.
The Snipers, or “Snyyypers” as their fans like to say, would continue on the upset road and defeat the top seeded Snake Eyes in a 3-2OT victory. A big piece of credit to Ted Butler and his Snake Eyes club, they have come a long way since I first saw them in Lexington last year and were well deserving of the #1 seed. AMB Yellow kept the upsets rolling with a win over Hystyk Eagles. Next up was TMD 92 vs. TMD 92 D2. Just think, 28 teams in the division, millions of possible playoff possibilities and you play another team from your organization. Despite not having top billing, the D2’s gave their best and only a late goal by TMD ’92 prevented the upset. St. Louis Snipers would advance to the semifinals, making it 3 of 4 lower seeds to advance into the semifinals.
Stay tuned, because the Semifinals and Championship game on Friday will have some great action and with so many lower seeds advancing, who is the real favorite?
Pee Wee Gold also continued today with the early playoff rounds starting and the seeds went out the window. The Jokers would knock off the #3 seed TMD ’90 and the Buffalo Wings would follow suit by eliminating #4 Multiline Oakville Coyotes. Local Boys and Mission Skeleton Crew would hold off the lower seeds in their games to advance to the quarterfinals before Wild Alpine and Savelson Oakville Coyotes once again swung the momentum to the lower seeds.
In the quarterfinals, we had a shootout just prior to the first game to determine the #1 and # 2 seeds. Both AMB Red and Team Rink Rat were tied with 8 points along with 17gf and 3ga. After 4 shooters apiece, AMB would take the #1 seed with a 2-0 win. The upstarts continued with the #14 Jokers, a good team but with only 6 skaters you had to wonder if they were ever going to tire out, taking out the top seeded AMB Red and #13 Buffalo doing the same to Team Rink Rat in OT. Wild Alpine, #10, continued the upsets with a 6-2 win over Local Boys and Mission Skeleton Crew was the last team to advance and held off Savelson Oakville Coyotes.
Bantam Platinum kicked off today and some early upsets included Hosers scoring with only seconds remaining to knock off the Mission Snipers 5-4. Tour USA 87 was strong in their opening win over Mission Factory Hitmen. Lethbridge Bauer Selects gained a win over the Mission Factory Raiders (who moved into Platinum after 2 strong showings in Gold) AKS Mission Empire 88 also looked good going 2-0 today. Lots of teams going 1-1 today including Hosers, Cincy Shock, Snipers, Tour Internationals, Unknowns, Cobras and TMD ’88 to name a few. Friday will be interesting as teams’ battle for playoff positioning and it could take 5 points or better to make that happen this year.
Bantam Skills Results:
Bantam Division
Fastest Skater
Ryan Antonik
Tour Smoke '88's
Top Goaltender
Justin McArlay
Team Mission Factory
Sniper
Greg Youzwyshyn
Tour Coyotes
Junior Platinum
16 teams didn’t seem like a lot when the schedule was posted, but looking at the teams it was a matter of quality over quantity.
While Detroit Stars and Tour Bordercats would go undefeated (3-0-1), the battle for the playoff positions would be intense with the Nike Buffalo Wings and Team Tour finishing #3/4 with 6 points. After that Mission Factory Habs, Mission Snipers, York Mission Triumph, Team KTEK and Pama Mission Cyclones all finished with 5 points and the Tour Mudcats and Team Dry Ice right behind with 4pts. Do the math, 10 teams .500 or better and only 8 spots.
DMHS would move into the semis with a 4-2 win over KTEK and the Snipers would come back from 3-0 down and 8min to play and take their first lead at 4-3. Jason Ciesleski from Buffalo would have a great shift late in regulation, with a tremendous singular effort to tie it at 4. With fans from both teams stomping on the stands and banging the wall it sounded like a European soccer match. Those who had to watch other games throughout the rink could at least follow along with the noise thanks to the Sniper fans owning air horns. In OT the Snipers would score and move on to a semifinal match up with their nemesis DMHS, whom they haven’t beaten since that legendary game in Atlanta so many years ago.
Tour Bordercats ran away from York early in a 6-1 win to setup a semifinal with Mission Factory Habs who upended Team Tour by a 4-2 game in what must have been a tiring affair with both teams finishing their last round robin games just 30 minutes before the scheduled start.
NARCh PRO:
Mission Helium – great new uniforms, check out the PRO Gallery in the Photos and Videos section if you haven’t seen them yet. They started well defeating the Pirates and Snipers and are in control of their fate with the rest of the games on Friday. The players really seem to like the new Helium skate line as well.
Tour Beemers – also sporting some new uniforms and t-shirts (Beemer Athletics) and would also get off to a 2-0 start today with wins over the Skipjacks and Cyclones. A good start for a team that has had mixed success the past couple of events.
KTEK-Rinkside – An early tie with the Mudcats but a strong team, its great to see the return of Boyd Sutton to NARCh PRO along with some others such as Victor Gervais. Definitely worth watching, they came back and defeated the Slipjacks 5-2 in their later game and with 3 points also should advance.
Tour Mudcats – Always a threat and you have to like the new Tour glove with carbon weave pattern, very sharp. Tied KTEK and then defeated the Pirates to also finish the day with 3 points.
Mission Pama Cyclones – defeated WN Silver Medalist Mission Snipers in the opening game of PRO before falling to the Beemers later that day.
Mission Snipers – had to deal with playing both Jr and PRO at times and need a good performance on Friday to advance into the playoffs after an 0-2 start.
Hyper Pirates – played Mission Helium close in their opener, a 3-2 loss, but need that level each game as the loss to the Mudcats showed.
Hyper Slipjacks – making the jump to PRO after a long time spent at the top of Platinum, they played well in losses to the Beemers and KTEK. Any teams first foray into PRO can be tough though and with some younger players (Tommy Tyler, Brendan McLaughlin) they will get better each game.
A lot more on the docket for Friday with 3 Finals (Squirt/Pee Wee Gold and Junior Platinum) along with our first All Star Game (Junior Platinum) and the conclusion of NARCh PRO round robin. Atom/Squirt and Bantam Platinum continue early round play and last but not least NARCh CUB finally begins as the 11th Annual NARCh Finals roll on here in Cincinnati.
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