Bracket #2
Banff (Alberta)
Ice (Whitefish/Kalispell)
Herald Hounds (Lethbridge, AB)
Storm (Kalispell)

Start Time Home Visitors

Friday March 23, 2012
5:30 p.m. Woodpeckers VS. Fog
7:00 p.m. Storm VS. Herald Hounds
8:30 p.m. Beerwolves VS. Used Guys
10:00 p.m. Ice VS. Banff

Saturday March 24, 2012
10:00 a.m. Fog VS. Beerwolves
11:30 a.m. Used Guys VS. Woodpeckers
1:00 p.m. Herald Hounds VS. Ice
2:30 p.m. Banff VS. Storm
3:30 p.m. Ice Maintenance
5:00 p.m. Woodpeckers VS. Beerwolves
6:30 p.m. Fog VS. Used Guys
8:00 p.m. Banff VS. Herald Hounds
9:30 p.m. Storm VS. Ice

Sunday March 25, 2012
Consolation game
10:00 a.m.
Championship game
11:30 a.m.

Marc Nastase Hoists the Trophy

The Storm jerseys have another star on their sleeve.  This weekend a team organized by Jim Barone and Marc Nastase played the Copper City Classic in Butte Montana. With St. Patrick’s day falling on a Saturday, and Butte being the biggest Irish celebration in the state–plus a hockey tourney played on the same weekend–beverages were going to be running scared all weekend.  With such a perfect combination, it should have been easy to pack a deep bench from the Flathead.  But in the last 48 hours before puck-drop, 5 players pulled out of the tourney, and the Storm would only have 9 skaters facing one of the toughest lineups of teams in the state.

Teams flocked to Butte from Bozeman, Missoula, Idaho Falls, Helena, Billings, Miles City as well as the Storm from Kalispell & Whitefish.  In the opening game on Friday night, the Storm beat the Miles City Royals 5-1.  The Missoula Woodpeckers tied the Bozeman Flying Zambonies 6-6, the Butte Chiefs beat the Helena Caps, and the Idaho Falls Budmen beat the Billings Renegades 3-0.  This left only three teams with a win going into Saturday.

Saturday morning the Storm took on the defending champs, the Budmen, who are a well known opponent of the Storm.  Storm players Kyle and Travis Hackett are both former Budmen, and Budmen players Ron “Shamus” Demmer and Avon Horne played on the Storm team that won the Flying Mules tournament in Missoula in January.  The Budmen jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and things looked pretty grim.  But the Storm got one late in the first, the teams traded goals in the second, and in the third period the Storm took charge.  Kyle Hackett tied the game early in the period, and with 4:40 to play, center Marc Nastase hit Nate Cochrain for a turnaround shot that put the Storm in the lead for good.

After an afternoon filled mostly with napping, the Storm faced a young Butte team with a 16-17 players, that had won their first two games.  It was a tall order with only three defensemen and two forward lines.  The Chiefs attacked, used their legs and their lines to wear down the Storm players, but goalie Josh Gesler was too strong.  He shut the chiefs out for 48 minutes, and the Storm led 3-0 with six minutes to go.  Just when it looked like game was over the Chiefs scored a wrap-around goal, and then a minute later netted a quick shot off a rebound, and the game turned into a battle.  The refs called more than 10 penalties in the game, and the final minutes were no less chippy.  When the final horn sounded, the Storm had held their ground, and won the game 3-2.

The Copper City Classic Champs

With the only 3-0 record in the tournament the Storm had locked down the #1 seed.  It appeared on paper as though their opponent the following day would be the same Butte team, but late Saturday night the tide turned when the Billings Renegades beat the Helena Caps 4-0.  The Billings goalie had stood on his head since Friday, shutting out consecutive teams, and with only 3 goals allowed in the tournament, the Renegades made the finals by placing first in the goals against tiebreaker.

As is often the case on travel hockey tournaments, Sunday games are won on Saturday night.  With a Saturday night in Butte on St. Patrick’s day, it was impossible to tell how strong anyone would feel on Sunday.  A finals birth meant the Storm could sleep in until noon, and the team stuck to an agreed curfew of 3:00am.  Everyone made it to the game in decent shape, and the Storm was able to add a couple of friends to reach 11 skaters.  The extra legs would help, but the finals were as they almost always are, a knock-down dragout brawl.

Billings scored on the first shift of the game on a fluke deflection through Gesler’s pads.  The Renegades goalie showed early he was going to stop any straight-forward shot, but the Storm were able to get him down, and found the net twice in the resulting chaos, on goals by Nate Cochrain and Jamie Schefter. Billings snuck another one past Gesler and the period ended 2-2.  The two teams traded goals in the 2nd, and when the Zamboni came out the score was deadlocked at 3 apiece.

In the third, all questions were answered.  Gesler again stood on his head and gave up nothing.  Travis Hackett scored the leading goal with about 10 minutes to go, and four minutes later Bob Purvis connected with Kyle Hackett in the neutral zone, who placed the puck in the dead center of Marc Nastase’s stick. The pass left him with a 6 foot lead on the last defenseman and despite being hooked all the way in Marc buried the dagger, and sealed the game with a 5-3 lead.

The tournament win was the second for co-captain Jim Barone this year, the first ever for co-captain Marc Nastase.  Kyle Hackett was the only other Storm player on both this team and the Flying Mules team, making he and Jim the only Flathead players to win two tournaments this year.  It was also the first tournament win for goalie Josh Gesler, who has seen a number of finals but had never won it all.

By all accounts it was a great tournament weekend in Whitefish. The annual smash ‘n bash came and went, 10 teams competed for the cup. For the first year in a long time, the elite players of the Flathead only entered one full team in the competition; however local players joined onto four of the visiting teams.

All teams played on Friday night, with the Missoula Cutthroats, Whitefish, Missoula Express and the Sparwood Chiefs all recording wins. Colorado earned a tie against Calgary. Looking at the formula it was clear it would take three wins to make the finals.

By 1:30pm on Saturday, there were only three left standing, as Whitefish handed the Chiefs a 4-1 loss. Whitefish had looked strong in both games, but had not earned the 5 goals or shutout that would ensure max points. The Cutthroats won early against Calgary, the Express beat the Blackhawks, and the Cutthroats won again at 4:30pm against Colorado, setting up a must-win for Whitefish against the 0-2 Fernie team. The Express had only scored 2 goals in their win over the defending champ Blackhawks, but they were expected to win in the late game against Big Sky.

The 7:30pm game for Whitefish vs Fernie was one for the ages. 2-0 vs 0-2 mean nothing when Fernie defenseman #55 buried two slap shots from the blue line in the first period. Whitefish answered both within a minute, and had the lead in the 3rd period 4-3. But Fenie got two more unanswered, the last with only 20 seconds to go. The walls and stands were lined with disappointed fans, but it was no choke. They outshot Fernie 39-13 and did everything they could except score one more goal. Fernie’s goalie played an amazing game, and the bounces just didn’t go Whitefish’s way.

The Missoula Express—a team that included locals Keith Ridgeway, and Heath Root, as well as long time Whitefish resident Jamie Schefter—solidified their seat in the finals with a 7-2 win over the Big Sky Lumberjacks in the late-late game. The stands were packed with fans and players of the Whitefish team, rooting against the Express, but the only locals to represent Stumptown in the finals would be on the Express.

Sunday morning Whitefish played in the 3rd place game against the MN-Duluth squad. The game was hard fought, tied 2-2 in the final minutes when Geoff Sanderson crossed the blue line two-on-one, scored through the five hole and put Whitefish up for the duration. An empty-netter ended the scoring 4-2.

In the finals the two Missoula squads squared off. The cutthroats came out of the gates amazingly strong—placing 9 of the game’s first 10 shots—and jumping out to a 2-0 lead at the end of the first. But the Express came to life. Heat Root beat a Cutthroat defenseman to bury a highlight-reel goal to tie the game 2-2 midway through the 2nd. When the Express connected on a 1-timer with 3 minutes to go in the 2nd the shots were even 16-16. They simply would not be denied. Root wasn’t finished, scoring the dagger with seconds to go in the 2nd. The shot went in over the goalie, banked off the top post and in. The Cutty’s were stunned.

The third period was a blur, with 26 of the fastest players in the state of Montana trying to gain the advantage. But the puck never saw the net again, and the game ended 4-2.  Both teams placed 25 shots on net.

The event was a great one, with teams from 9 cities bringing over 110 players to enjoy the festivities of the Winter Carnival weekend.

2012 Whitefish Smash n Bash Roster

Kyle Archer, Neal Buffington, Lou Buria, Rod Buskas, Cory Chopp, Leif Haugen, Marc Nastase, Joan Opatz, Nate Powell, Bob Purvis, Jason Rascoe, Geoff Sanderson, Gerry Sanderson, Ryan Ulvin

Teams:
Whitefish
Chiefs (Sparwood)
Blackhawks (Bawlf, AB (Calgary))
Cutthroats (Missoula)
Team Rocky Mountain(Colorado)
Calgary
Fernie
Big Sky Lumberjacks (Helena)
Garden City Express (Missoula)
MN-Duluth

Friday February 3, 2012

1 - 5:15 p.m.  Cutthroats vs. Fernie
2 - 6:45 p.m.  Calgary vs. Colorado
3 - 8:15 p.m.  Whitefish vs. Blackhawks
4 - 9:45 p.m.  MN-Duluth vs. Express
5 - 11:15 p.m. Lumberjacks vs. Chiefs

Saturday February 4, 2012

6 - 9:00 a.m. Calgary vs. Cutthroats
7 - 10:30 a.m. Fernie vs. Colorado
8 - 12:00 p.m. Chiefs vs. Whitefish
9 - 1:30 p.m. Blackhawks vs. Express
10 - 3:00 p.m. Lumberjacks vs. MN-Duluth
11 - 4:30 p.m. Colorado vs. Cutthroats
12 - 6:00 p.m. Chiefs vs. Calgary
13 - 7:30 p.m. Whitefish vs. Fernie
14 - 9:00 p.m. Blackhawks vs. MN-Duluth
15 - 10:30 p.m. Express vs. Lumberjacks

Sunday February 5, 2012

3rd place game 9:30 a.m. - TBA
Championship 11:00 a.m. - TBA

In ‘A’ league, defending champ Lou Buria came back as a captain to defend his title.  He was joined in the draft room by first time captains Nate Powell, Heath Root and Bobby Purvis.  This was our 14th ‘A’ draft since the inception of league and for the first time we didn’t see Murray Craven or Leif Haugen selected as the number 1 overall draft pick.  Both Murray and Leif are nursing injuries or have other obligations.  You’ll be missed fellas!

‘B’ league expanded from 4 to 5 teams this session.  Henry Roberts returned as captain of the ‘B’ league champion Space Invaders and managed to draft 4 players from his winning fall team.  Dale Crosby and Kasey Steele were captains for the first time but were not intimidated by the charts, graphs, stats and projections that Henry had at his disposal.  Ray Brown and Gerry Friesen completed the ‘B’ league draft night.

The ‘C’ league draft is often the most confusing because of all the new names joining our hockey fraternity.  However, Dean Nyberb, Sarah Lundstrum, Matt Daniels, Ross Pickert, and Martha Rendahl did a great job of evenly distributing the wealth of hockey talent in ‘C’ league.

The teams and schedules are posted here on the website.  I will be updating the stats and standings every week.

The league substitution policy is as follows: Any ‘A’ league captain may call up any ‘B’ player for his team.  He can not call up the same player on successive weeks.  ’B’ captain may only call up a player from their ‘C’ league affiliate.  The Space Invaders get the Pounders .  The Mad Hatters get the Red Wings.  Serranos get the Profits.  The Yetis minor league team is the Paddlers.  And finally, the Steel Panthers must take players from the Howlers.  ‘C’ league captains can only use a player from the ‘C’ league team that has a bye.

As always, there were 4 or 5 knuckleheads who called me the day after the draft who forgot to write their name on the sign-up list.  The list was posted for 49 days!  What the heck!!  I promise to get you all onto teams, if not by the first week for sure by the second week but you must suffer public humiliation.  Knuckleheads are:  Kevin Barrows (A), Scott Jones (B), Brian Murchie (C), and Bill Cubbage (C).

Good luck to all.

Commissioner Andy

But it was quickly apparent Whitefish would need some luck after the first night was in the books. The opening game in the intermediate featured the Kalispell Storm vs. the Whitefish Ice. The game ended in a 2-2 tie, and set a tone for the rest of the day. All in all, the Whitefish Fog (men’s Intermediate), Whitefish Wailers (Women’s A/B), Whitefish Mudpuppies (Women’s C) as well as the Ice & Storm posted ties in their first contests. The ‘Flathead’ Open team lost their first game, and losses became the trend that followed next.

By mid-day Saturday, Flathead teams had zero wins, four losses and five ties. The first glimmer of hope came when the Storm took on the Busdrivers from McCall, Idaho, and squeaked out a 3-2 victory. The Mudpuppies won next, the Ice tied again and the Fog won their later game. The Storm then caught fire and destroyed the Billings Hooligans 9-1, and became the first team to qualify for a championship game.

A secondary theme of the weekend became the battle of attrition. In game one for the Fog, Mike Carey took a nasty high stick to the nose, resulting in a cut and black eye. He was able to continue. The Open team was not so lucky. Bobby Purvis suffered a concussion in their second game when thrown to the ground by an opposing forward. Jason Rascoe missed a game with a pulled groin, and the team lost a third player when Joe went hard into the board and tweaked his ankle. Other teams lost numerous players to “flu-like symptoms”. As the night wore on, entire games were lost to “flu-like symptoms”.

When the dust cleared, two teams, the Storm, and the Wailers had made the finals in their respective brackets.

Sunday’s action started at 7:00am. The Ice were awarded a forfeit against McCall, who had only three players there at game time (the rest of the team was either suffering from flu-like symptoms, or arrest). The Open team lost their forth game of their weekend at 9:00am. The Mudpuppies lost their third place game to McCall. The Fog were up 3-1 with four minutes to go, but gave up three unnaswered and lost the third place game to the Billings Hooligans. Then finally the Wailers lost the Women’s A/B Championship game to the Missoula Icy Hot. But there had to be a bright spot somewhere on the horizon, or why would I be writing this article?

The bright spot arrived at 2:45pm, when the Kalispell Storm took on the Missoula Woodpeckers in the intermediate division finals. To understand the significance of this game, you’d have to look at the history between the Woodpeckers and the collective Flathead Valley teams. The Woodpeckers were on a 3-0 run, when meeting Flathead teams in the finals. At the Halloween tournament in Missoula in 2010, the magnificent team, “Le Pamplemousse!?”, a team that included Storm captain Jim Barone, the Woodpeckers overcame a 4-2 third period deficit to win 7-4. The following spring at the Garden City Shootout, the Woodpeckers faced the Whitefish Ice in the finals. Jim Barone was also playing with the Ice, who hung with the Woodpeckers all the way through, forcing them to double overtime, before succombing to a wrap-around goal that ended the game with the Woodpeckers on top. Then this past Halloween, Barone’s Storm team did not make the finals, but Le Pamplemousse?! once again played for the title against the Peckers, and lost 4-2, despite once again leading in the 3rd period. In short, the Woodpeckers had OWNED the Flathead Valley in important games.

It should be said that Jim Barone had also never won a tournament. In the past few years he brought or played on teams in three annual tournaments in Missoula, as well as tournaments in Butte, Helena, Bozeman, Whitefish and Great Falls. Barone has been a tireless worker for our hockey community since he climbed his way up through the ranks of C league in 2008. The Storm team he brought Missoula was one of the best he’s assembled. They are young, fast, physical and simply wear teams out. Many or most of the players are self taught pond-hockey style players that did not grow up skating circles for coaches. The team truly fits the Intermediate bracket. Intermediate teams are allowed three “A” level players (defined as having Junior, college or professional experience). Barone’s squad had only one true “A”, Whitefish’s own Kyle Hackett. The Woodpeckers squad by comparison had arguably 5 or 6 players who should be considered “A” level, and have no problem with shortening their bench to wage late game heroics.

The game lived up to expectations. The scoreboard read 1-1 after the first period, 1-1 after the second. Storm goalie Nathan Tillinghast traded save after save with the Woodpecker’s goalie. As the third period wore on, the Woodpeckers big guns seemed to spend more and more time on the ice. Every time it looked like they were going to take charge, a Storm player would get that last poke check, or do just enough to keep the high percentage shots away. The Woodpeckers were baffled over and over again. Then, a few minutes into the third a Storm slap-shot was tipped into the net, and the Storm were in control. For the rest of the way in, every time the Woodpeckers upped the intensity, the Storm answered. Inside the last minute the Woodpeckers loaded up, pulled their goalie, and then promptly let Randy Schmeusser get free to close the door with an open-netter. The game ended 3-1 the Storm on top.

They came home with the Golden Stick. This is the second year in a row that one of the Stumptown Ice Den’s home teams have brought home the Golden Stick in the Intermediate division at the Flying Mules. The Fog won it all last year. Whitefish men’s or women’s teams have won at least one division in each of the last six years of the tourney.

Final Results:

The Flathead teams will return to the Flying Mules again next year.

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Minnesota Wild sign 51-year-old backup;

Great story out of Minnesota on Wednesday, as the Minnesota Wild found themselves without a backup goalie the morning of their game versus the Nashville Predators. With Niklas Backstrom(notes) out for undisclosed personal reasons, Josh Harding(notes) got the start, and Houston Aeros’ netminder Matt Hackett(notes) was called up to back him up.