Blake boys make return trip to state hockey tournament
By Eric Durkin
3/5/2007 8:07:00 PM
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Try as she might, not even mother nature could stop the Blake Bears.
While the rest of the state was at a virtual stand still because of a major snow storm, Parade Ice Arena was open for business hosting the Section 5A boys hockey final.
Blake (16-10-1) played the Totino Grace Eagles (18-9-0), with the winner going on to represent Section 5 in the Class A state hockey tournament.
Blake was coming off an offensive shootout with Spring Lake Park in the semifinals, which it eventually won 8-6.
The Eagles' semifinal game was a high scoring game with Mahtomedi, which they won 5-3. The Bears had beaten the Eagles 4-3 in their only other meeting this season.
The Bears took control of the first period utilizing their physical style of play and skilled passing.
Blake took 15 shots on Eagles senior goaltender Jack Ries, but was unable to score during the period.
Meanwhile, Bears junior goaltender Peter Johnson was left virtually untested facing only four shots.
The Eagles took the ice following the intermission looking to establish the momentum early in the second period.
The Eagles were able to control much of the first half of the period and were rewarded when junior Bears defenseman Sean McMahon took a holding penalty six minutes into the period.
Just before the penalty expired, Eagles junior forward Mike Schlagel tipped a shot from the point past Johnson for the game's first goal.
Blake nearly evened the score with five minutes left in the period when junior forward Jack Barnes had a goal waved off.
The shot appeared to hit the left post of the net and come back into the goaltender's jersey. One official made a motion that appeared to be a sign for a goal and the game was stopped. As the Blake players and fans alike celebrated, the referees conferred and waved the goal off.
"We respect the officials' call. It's their call to make," Bears' head coach John Hamre said. "We trust that they're making the right calls and we keep playing."
Following the second period Hamre didn't go into the locker room. Instead, he relied on the team itself to pull together.
"We've got a tight team ... we all rallied together," forward Jack Barnes said. "We stayed focused and calm. We knew we were going to get it."
The Eagles controlled the start of the third period, but that momentum was quickly deflated when Bears' sophomore forward Josh Birkholz took a long pass from the Blake zone for a breakaway on Ries.
Birkholz fired a high shot past Ries on the glove side to tie the game at one.
Five minutes later Barnes and line mate Jordan Seivold broke into the Eagles' zone on a two on one.
Seivold was able to draw the defensemen to him and fed Barnes a pass. Barnes fired the puck past a sprawling Ries for what would ultimately be the game-winning goal.
From there, Blake was able to withstand the Eagles' attack. Totino-Grace pulled Ries late in the game to add the extra skater, but the Blake defense proved to be too much. The game ended with Blake taking home a 2-1 victory.
State tournament preview
The Bears will make their fourth state tournament appearance in school history this week at the Xcel Energy Center.
This year's tournament is experimenting with a seeding process that seeds the top four teams and places the other four teams in the bracket randomly.
The Bears did not receive one of the top four seeds and will face third-seeded Duluth Marshall in one quarterfinal on Wednesday, March 7 at 1 p.m.
Reprinted with permission LakeShore News
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