Spring Classic Tournament

5/11/09~THD

Waiting for picture

The Hockey Deks Annual spring classic tournament has proven to be one of the premier events for ball hockey. Even with proms , graduations and vacations The Hockey Dek still had 15 teams for its single rink event , that was held on may 16-17.

In a smaller than usual women's division the B division Mass Mutiny team came in with a strong performance against power house A division teams going 1 and 1 in the prelims and eventually losing a hard fought game against perennial power house Team Roadblast.

Team stick tease dropped 2 on saturday to eventual finalists road blast and MPT, both games were one goal games, but they came back strong on sunday as the 5th seed beating the bruisers from new york city. Then with there starting goalie not able to play in the second game of the day , a bright young new comer in Chelsea delodge from orange Massachusetts stepped in and preformed beautifully. Losing 2-1 to the eventual champions MPS.

The women's final was another battle of the titans with Road blast and MPS facing off for the 4th consecutive time. With MPS winning in ot 2-1.

In the Coed division past champions money shot and circus returned along with beach bash 08 champs slightly above average. And a revamped shenanigans also joined in the fun. The coed tournament was a back and forth battle all the way to the finals were last winter classic champs money shot squared off against 2 time winners the circus. With two amazing performances in net by eventual coed mvg mike zambon and circus mvp allesandra ciambria, the finals were a heated 1-1 battle thru 5 full periods. Just into the start of the third ot Boo Bowden took a breakaway pass and moved in and scored on allesandra of the circus. The both of them collapsing after the goal was scored from pure exhaustion. And money shot took home its 2nd consecutive trophy.

The mens division was a heated battle, brimming with frustration and great hockey. The pipers from new york came to the tournament even though they only had 8 players show up . They played with pride and preformed well, then headed strait to the bar as usual and met up with the Dc team that was a combination of death row and the riot. Both of these teams came to the tournament knowing that they were not going to have there full rosters or there usual players. The stepped up for the good of the sport and the tournament circuit and played there hearts out. Past champions in the beach bash, vegas, and tampa tournaments, the sparks, were out with a vengeance to win one on there home rink. After playing very well on saturday, they faced there friends in Malco electric. The game was a back and forth battle and a 1-1 tie going into ot. The over time period was a absolute shoot out with both anthony davis of the sparks and paul Richard's of malco , playing superbly. With 10 seconds left in ot frank cloud jumped off the malco bench, took a pass in the middle, broke in on davis and tucked the ball thru the 5 hole with 7.5 seconds remaining for the Malco victory. Sending them to there 2nd consecutive finals appearance in the only 2 tournaments that they have entered.

In the other semi final game past champions E H T Phantoms and Pure Luck had a HEATED BATTLE thru out the game. In the 3rd period of a 1-1 game the egg harbor team took a few bad penalties causing 3 players to be ejected from the tournament and another from that game, giving the Pure Luck team a 8 minute power play. The pure luck team quickly took advantage on the power play scoring twice and with 3:20 left in the game it all but looked wrapped up for them. But the Phantoms would not go a way quietly scoring quickly then setting up the tying goal on a bad angle deflection with under a minute to play. They went thru a scoreless ot and to a shoot out. Both goalies played brilliantly thru the first 5 shooters each giving up 2 goals. The teams then went in to sudden death and the first shooter for egg harbor roofed a shot glove side high on the pure luck goalie to go ahead 3-2 in the shot out. Sunday scoring power house Joe Paterson stepped up to try and tie the score and keep pure luck in the game but couldn't solve the egg harbor goalie and the Phantoms won there second championship in as many tries.