The Wake

“The Dynasty Begins.” This was the inscription on a sign held by Thomas Vanek and Tyler Hirsch of the Gophers men’s hockey team, who attended the men’s hockey intramural championship game at Ridder Arena. Along with Vanek and Hirsch, nearly 30 spectators witnessed the youngest hockey intramural team ever to win a championship, intramural supervisor Steve Schreader said.

The Sanford All-Stars, comprised of 10 freshmen and two sophomores, outlasted the Perenium Falcons for a 2-1 victory and the championship. The championship game proved to be more of a struggle for the All-Stars than they may have expected seeing as how they steamrolled their competition through the majority of the regular-and-post-season games.

The Falcons held a 1-0 lead throughout the majority of the game. The All-Stars waited roughly 35 minutes get on the board but Jeff Hammerston ended the drought with a third-period goal. Then with a little over one minute to play, Mount Eddy, one of two players from Wisconsin, followed trend by deflecting a shot off of Hammerston’s stick into the net for the game-winning goal.

Many intramural hockey teams have a hard time coming together and playing like a team in five regular-season games, Schreader said. But this team, despite losing its first game, gelled quickly and responded to get on the winning track.

“We played as a team by not being selfish and moving the puck quickly around the ice,” freshman and Hopkins native Erik Magnuson said.

Along with an unselfish style of offense, the All-Stars had an intimidating defense anchored by Magnuson and teammate Chris Morgan, both about 6-foot-4-inches and 215 pounds. They formed a stonewall-like defensive presence that only allowed 6 goals throughout the entire season.

Their size and defensive prowess was needed more than ever in the third game of the year when their goalie, Blake Hogan, had some equipment issues.

“Our goalie kept his equipment in the hallway (of his dorm) because it smelled so bad and his skates got stolen,” Morgan said. “He got to the rink and didn’t have his skates…”

Like most freshmen in college do, the All-Stars adjusted and put Ryan Katzfey, a ‘Sconny whose only goalie experience was in roller hockey, in net. Katzfey played the entire first period and then the All-Stars decided to play without a goalie for the second period until Hogan returned from his skate-hunting expedition. They wound up winning the game 7-5which became a part of the eight-game winning streak the team compiled throughout the rest of the season.

“It’s unheard of for a freshman team to win the majority of its games or a championship,” Schreader said.

Morgan believes the All-Stars’ were so successful because the majority of the players just got done playing high-school hockey which has a more competitive atmosphere. Whereas many of the teams in the league have played intramurals for a couple of years and haven’t faced intensely competitive teams for awhile.

Along with having a competitive edge, the All-Stars were a well-conditioned team that got an early start on the spring season. The All-Stars got together during the winter break to skate and play together to try and form the cohesiveness that any team desires.

This conditioning helped when they went from the regular-sized sheet of ice in Ridder to the Olympic-size sheet in Mariucci Arena. Magnuson believes about 70 percent of the team’s goals were scored in the third period when opposing teams began to wear down.

The All-Stars already are looking toward next season realizing that staying on top is sometimes harder than getting there the first time. Kyle Gallus is in charge of recruiting and the team has three perspective seniors from Bloomington-Jefferson high school who look forward to being a part of a championship club next spring.

The other teams must serve notice that while the Sanford All-Stars are primarily out to have fun, they have a will to win.

“We set a high goal to win this year,” Magnuson said. “And now our goal is to go undefeated every year from now on.”

Sounds something like a dynasty doesn’t it?