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| May 26, 2009
Memorial Day recap from Joe Dumars
|  We finish up with some more great hockey and fantastic games!
Memorial Day began with our first championship games in the bantam division. 16 teams would compete this weekend as we seeded both gold and platinum, teams had a bit of a trek to go before advancing into the finals. Within the gold division, Our quarterfinal match ups had the Detroit Mission Stars ’93 meeting the Revision RBK Buffalo Wings Purple, The Motor City Moose and Detroit Little Caesars, Revision RBK Buffalo Wings Black and the Tour Excitement 93’s and the Pittsburgh Tour Bandits and Adrenaline. The Stars advanced shutting out the Wings, 3 – 0, while Little Caesar’s and the Moose battled to a 2 – 1 finish in which Little Caesar’s moved forward. Obviously Tour Excitement and the Wings Black liked that score so much, they replicated it with a 2 – 1, Tour win. Adrenaline then beat the Bandits, 3 – 2, in a division which featured tremendous parity in the quarter finals. As we headed to the semi – finals, The Mission Stars would meet Little Caesar’s and the Excitement would take on Adrenaline. The Excitement had to work hard to narrowly edge Adrenaline 5 – 3, while the Mission Stars got by Little Caesar’s 4 – 1. As we looked forward to the championship game, we saw the floor set for the Detroit Mission Stars to meet the Tour Excitement 93’s.
As the puck was dropped, it took Brendon Benson of the Excitement exactly fifty one seconds to bury the first goal of the game. The Stars, though took solace in the fact that they fell behind and immediately answered with three straight goals as Austin Stewart and Christian Hershey combined for four points. Not wanting to be outdone, Benson answered back for the Excitement again to finish the first half, Stars 3, Excitement 2. The Excitement awoke in the second half and scored four unanswered goals as the “Zach’s” took over as in Zac Witte and Zach Zaepfel as they contributed to three of the four goals. With less than twenty seconds to play, Adam Ottinger added an empty netter to seal the game, Excitement 6, Stars 3.
As the platinum division whittled down it’s quarter finals, once again we were besieged with games that went down to the last few minutes or last goal. Team Tour St. Louis had trouble with the Valken Patriots, getting by them 4 – 2. Second seeded Hyper Butcher’s were eliminated by Hooter’s Force ‘93’s. The US Hawks continued the upsets as they knocked off Team Advanced Care 3 – 2. The Detroit Mission Stars then had a tough time with the Can Am Stars. As the winning teams advanced, we had teams pushed out with some more dominance as both the Can Am Stars and Team Tour outworked their opponents, the Force and the Hawks. As the Stars and Team Tour met in the finals, it was all about who would score more goals in this shootout. Fourteen goals were scored before we would have a winner. Tyler Velger for Can Am had three points and Tj Sherman added a pair of goals for Team Tour St. Louis. Final score, Can Am 8, Team Tour St. Louis 6.
With the day almost three quarters done, the midgets got into their championship games as the gold division featured the match up between the Texas Terror who had traveled over 20 hours to get here and the Shyte Show. Both teams had received byes in the first round as the Pittsburgh Mission Fusion defeated the RBK Buffalo Wings Purple and the Inbetweeners knocked out the Detroit Mission Stars. Texas layed some smack down on the Inbetweeners with a late goal to win 5 – 4. While, the Shyte show took down Pittsburgh 7 – 4. In the championship game between the Lone Star state and the show ended up with Texas outworking and playing the show 4 – 2.
As the midget platinum championship game would begin, both teams had a chance to reflect back on how they got to the finals. The Revision RBK Buffalo Wings Black had gotten their by beating the Oakville Coyotes and the Can Am Stars by winning a much closer game 3 – 1 over the Tour Excitement 91’s. Both the Coyotes and Stars had respectively beaten their quarter final matchups, the Grand Valley Lakers and the Tour Excitement 90’s. For the last championship game of the day, we had a good sized crowd watch the Wings and the Can Am Stars. The Stars broke out of the gate and never looked back on their way to a 7 – 4 victory.
The bronze adult division had the RBK Buffalo Wings and South Korea match up in the championship game after their game last night almost wasn’t played because of a conflicting schedule. Both teams were to face each other again and the game was played with Buffalo tieing it up 3 – 3 with a minute and five seconds to play. Right after the tying goal, South Korea would answer back with 11.9 seconds on the clock to score on a disputed goal, which the officials on the floor conferred and agreed was good. As Buffalo valiantly tried to tie the score, they thought they did so at the buzzer when a deflected slapshot ended up in the back of the net. The officials immediately told both teams the buzzer had sounded and there was no goal. With the intensity on the floor still felt from the hard fought battle, both teams ended up in a bench clearing brawl that had the Dumars staff and NARCh staff working to help restore order with the on floor officials. The ensuing fights were quickly broken up thanks to the quick action of referees, NARCh management and the Dumars staff at the facility.
With the adult silver matchup, both the Slingshots and Hurricane lane had won their semi final games over their opponents, the KG Monsters and Labeda Six feet under. Both teams met in the championship game. In the first half the Sling Shots jumped out to a three goal lead on the play of Joel Fenkel and Nate Sawinski. In the second half, Hurricane Lane got on the board to make it 4 – 2, but Joel Fenkel would add the back breaker to finish the game 5 – 2 in favor of the Slingshots.
With the pro division, teams competed to see who would be the only two to enter into the championship game. After round robin was completed, it would be the Revision RBK Buffalo Wings and the Detroit Mission Stars meeting in the finals. Surprisingly, the Syndicate and Eschelon Reflexion didn’t make an appearance but not due to lack of effort. The Motor City Assault keeps continuing to better themselves each time we see them. The Wings had the addition of both the second leading scorer in the OHL for the Plymouth Whalers, Chris Terry and JP Beilstein. Carrying a heavy scoring punch and attack, it would be determined if the Mission Stars could shut down the big guns and do what it takes to win the hockey game. The game remained knotted at 2 – 2 for a short while until the Wings hit oil and went on to win the game 8 – 4. Chris Terry and Cory Conacher would again lead the Wings with their scoring talents as they once again combined for twelve points and goaltender Richie Latowa was equally as sharp in the victory. Brad Zarem added a goal and an assist for the Stars.
Don't forget,you can still qualify for the NARCh finals as we have two more tournaments in the area!
We hit Buffalo, New York at the Pepsi center the first weekend in June and also the following weekend in Mississauga, at the home of the NARCh 2009 Finals, the Hershey Center. Email Daryn at the NARCh office to reserve your spot today Daryn@narch.com
Thank you again to Matt, Kelly, John, Frank, Bob, Lance and Evil for all their help this past weekend!
See you at either Buffalo or Toronto!!!
 
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