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Author
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Topic: Season's over!!!
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NewFan
Vet
Member # 6070
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posted 30 March 2010 19:07
    
Some degree of parity seems to have arrived in T III Junior A. The Monarchs didn’t get a repeat. The EJHL didn’t take the championship. Indeed, the winner and new champion is St. Louis out of the Central States HL, and they had to beat both entries from EJHL to get it done. Both victories were one-goal affairs.
CSHL did well, with their second entry (Dubuque) losing to the Monarchs by only one and posting a win over the Bighorns, going 2-1 overall. Helena, for its part, tied the Monarchs, last year’s champion and this year’s #1 seed out of the EJH and beat the 2-seed out of Western States. Despite winning the championship, St. Lou lost their first game, and went 4-1, and Dubuque posted a 2-1 record for a total of 6-2, but took home the cup.
When all was done, the Eastern took 2 losses and a tie, which is not the dominance that they showed in previous years. It was interesting as to the makeup of the various entries and seeds. The EJHL sent South Shore #2 and the Monarchs #1 seed, but the Hitmen were arguably as good as either of them and stayed home. The Monarchs went downward fast. 1st game, won big. 2nd game beat Dubuque by only one. 3rd game, tied Helena. 4th game, lost to St. Louis by 1. Good thing they didn’t have a 5th game or they might have lost big, just for the sake of symmetry. South Shore, their 2-seed blew out their opponents during the round robin, won their semi, but lost to the Blues for the championship. As a league, they posted 6-2-1 record.
MnJHL sent the Rochester Ice Hawks, who did fairly well, and the Northern Lights, who was third in the season rankings. Second during the season went to Granite City (Lumberjacks), but they didn’t make it out of Minnesota to the championships, losing out in the playoffs. The Ice Hawks made it to the final 4, with their 2-1, but ended at 2-2. The Jacks got a tie and no victories. So the league total was 2-4-1 for the tourney.
Norpac sent their best from Helena, and the Best of the Pacific Division, Seattle. The Totes didn’t get blown out, but again went 0-fer. The format set this as we have talked before. Helena had a good tourney, going 1-1-1 with only the game they won being less than close. The tie with New Hampshire was a pleasant happening. The total for the league was 1-4-1.
WSHL sent their winner and runner up to the tourney. The winner was the Polar Bears, who had only been 3rd in their division during the regular season. Their #2 seed was Boulder, who was #2 in their division during the season. So, 3 teams that were arguably superior, all failed to succeed at the tourney, so didn’t get to go to nationals. The two that went scored 0-5-1 for their 6 games – the worst showing of any of the leagues.
Lastly, the AJHL sent the NY Bobcats as #1 and the Walpole Express as #2 – both getting a 2-1 record for a total of 4-2. Another league that probably didn’t send their very best, as the Northern Cyclones had a much better record than the Express during the season.
Still, when all was said and done, only the WSHL didn’t post a win. The Boulder Bison ( which had about 10 former NorPac players, mostly from Puget and Billings, failed to get a win and scored only 2 goals in 3 games – but it was their inaugural season, so they shouldn’t feel too bad getting to nationals in their first year of existence.
As for the Best of the Rest tourney going on simultaneously, Norpac did well enough there, going 2-2 for the third best record of the 6 leagues. The mighty Eastern was down the list from there. I can see the rational for holding these together, as it would get more players a look from the scouts. At the same time, it diminishes the honor of making nationals for the 12 teams that did it. In the end, I don’t know if I like this new setup, or not.
Season is over, I guess. We can all go back to sleep (those of us who were awake).
 -------------------- Them boys shore do chase them little rubber blobs around, don't they?
Posts: 498 | From: Western Washington | Registered: Mar 2007 | IP: Logged
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