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| April 29, 2008
Irvine Cool Down.
|  A quick recap of the great tourney this past weekend in Irvine.
Wow was it ever hot this weekend. With 165 games in 2 ½ days I didn’t have time to check out the news, but it had to be record-breaking temperature.
Let’s talk divisions. Atoms had 4 teams and it was great to see the little guys and girls in action. 949 Anarchy defeated the Arizona Stars for the championship after losing to them in round robin play. The Revision Mustangs came down from Nor Cal and beat the San Diego Rockets, a brand new team out of SD. The Rockets still left the event feeling good since they did win a game, and it was against the 949 Anarchy who won it all. So as you can see the division was upside down and sideways and all teams had fun, which is what should be stressed at this age.
8 teams competed in mites and the division was split after two games into two divisions of 4. 949 Anarchy defeated the San Diego Rockets for the gold title and the Devil Dogs took care of the Hyper Western Capitals for the platinum title. I honestly thought the OC Blades 98 would be the team to beat, but they were not prepared for the fight that the Capitals gave them in the semi-final, dropping the game in overtime.
Squirts saw the OC Blades 95’s run away with the division. Out of their 4 games, the only one that they were remotely challenged in was the championship against the Mission Mulisha. They have to be one of the favorites going into the Finals. In the gold division championship it was an Arizona showdown between the Mission Arizona Stars and Yuma Blaze Black. The Stars prevailed 4-3 in a great game.
17 teams battled in the peewee division that saw the Mission Raiders defeat the Tour OC Blades 94’s for the top honors 3-2. In the gold division championship the San Diego Selects defeated the Western Capitals 3-2. In silver the Mission Arizona Stars defeated the Revision Devil Dogs 4-3 in overtime. Every championship game in this division was a one-goal game!
23 teams battled in the bantam division. Bantams are sure to be the largest divisions of the Finals this summer. The Outcast 91’s took on the Mission Habs in the top division and defeated them 5-2. For gold, the Young Guns defeated the Devil Dogs 5-2 and the Western Capitals Black beat the Sin City Snipers for the silver title. This division was incredible and definitely full of surprising outcomes.
Midgets saw the Hyper Western Capitals and Las Vegas Rebels 89’s battle for the title and the Caps pulled out the victory, 3-2. In gold the Mission Raiders and AKS 90’s had a great game that came down to a last minute goal by AKS to take the title. It was the only goal of the game!
Mission Militia is now the Revision Vanquish. The name of the team may have changed, but the team is certainly not any weaker. They looked very impressive this weekend and were only truly challenged by the AKS 88’s. These are two great teams that are always contenders, in both junior platinum and the Pro Division!
The Men’s Division was more of a tourney to keep the pro players sharp. The Chupacabraz bolstered their roster with a few of the Vanquish players and ended up in the championship against the AKS 88’s who defeated them in the round robin. It was a different story in the championship though, as the Chupacabraz came out on top for the title. Probably the biggest surprise in this division is that the Pama Cyclones were not in the championship.
The one thing that truly stands out when running a tournament in California is the parity. People will probably be shocked when they see the seeds by the limited amount of platinum seeds given at such a huge event. There will probably be more platinum teams in West Covina, but our goal is to get teams in the division in which they will be most competitive for the NARCh Finals.
If there was not such parity, I’m sure we wouldn’t be seeing divisions with 17 peewees, 23 bantams, and 16 midgets due to the fact that a lot of the better kids would be cherry picked to the top couple of teams. It’s great to see that this hasn’t happened and the exact opposite has. By more talented players being spread through so many teams it gives all teams a chance to compete at a competitive level, even though it may not be the very top level.
I take my hat off to all of the organizers, coaches, and rinks for getting the sport to this point in this market. It may be more by accident than design, but the travel aspect of the sport is truly awesome right now in So Cal.
One last note of appreciation goes out to those coaches and teams that haven’t had a ton of success in tournaments lately, but continue to compete and have a positive attitude. The program that comes to mind from this weekend is April Riffey and the Bandits. This program has been playing NARCh for about 3 years and have done well in some events, and certainly taken their lumps in others. This weekend they honestly got thumped a bit, but the attitude of the whole organization is to just have fun. I commend them for that.
The West Covina Regional, which is May 30th-June 1st is already shaping up to be a great event. If you had fun this weekend and want to stay sharp and get some great competition, give us a call soon to get registered for that event.
Thanks for playing NARCh, The World’s Greatest Roller Hockey.
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