Colorado Shines at Silver Stick Regional Arvada, Jr. Pioneers, Hawks, RoughRiders all celebrate titles


By Adam Dunivan S


teve Gustafson is no stranger to the tradi- tion of the International Silver Stick youth


hockey tournament, which is nearing 60 years as one of North America’s premier annual com- petitions. So when his Arvada Hockey Association


Midget Major AA team managed to win the regional at the Ice Centre at the Promenade in Westminster late last month, the feeling was almost overwhelming. “There was no stopping them,” Gustafson


said of his club. “It was something that a lot of the kids had for a goal. A lot of kids who played on the Minor AA team last year won Silver Stick and were hoping to get back, and we had quite a few seniors that played in the Major AA cham- pionship and got beat. We had both ends of the spectrum last year, so they all really wanted it this time around. “I think there’s only


three other teams from Arvada to have moved onto Silver Stick by win- ning the western region, and they wanted to be one of them.” Thirty-nine teams


competed in four divi- sions over the weekend, according to tournament co-director Todd Ben- ton, with the winners of each division automati- cally qualifying for the January finals in various locations throughout the Great Lakes Region and Canada. Several out-of-state


teams competed at the festival - Hyland Hills played host as the main facility, with the Arvada Hockey Association and Boulder Hockey Club also showcasing games - but it was all Colorado squads who came out on top when the weekend was finished. In addition to Gustafson’s Midget Major AA


Although it won’t able to compete in January’s International Silver Stick finals, the Littleton Hawks’ 16U AA team went 5-0-1 at the Colorado-hosted event to capture the regional championship in its division. Photo/Bill Kaufman


“There were two empty-netters in the end,


team representing Arvada, the Rocky Mountain RoughRiders (Bantam), University of Denver Jr. Pioneers (Pee Wee) and Littleton Hawks (Midg- et Minor AA) all forged their way to champion- ships and received invitations to advance. What was different this year, Benton said,


was that the regional directors were able to extend invitations to each team who made the championship game. That’s given Arvada’s Midget Minor AA, Foothills’ Midget Major AA and Boulder’s Pee Wee AA and Bantam teams the chance to keep on competing. “In the past, we’ve only had the ability to


call up Silver Stick and ask them to consider a really strong second team, and they’d pick a few extra teams to come out,” said Benton. “This is the first year we’ve been able to extend the bids


16 magazine


but we went into the third down 2-1 and just came out fired up and put the foot to the gas pedal,” said Gustafson. The line of Chris Lupinski, Casey Ricca-


tone and Darius Maes played well the whole tournament, said the coach. “We had a couple of ties and were a little


worried if we’d even make it into the semis, but the boys played their hearts out,” Gustafson added. Gustafson’s team will travel to Sarnia,


Ontario, where the chance to compete against teams from Canada is something he hopes his team will embrace. In Midget Minor bracket, the Hawks went


5-0-1 and outscored their opponents, 31-7. They finished off their remarkable run with a 2-0 win against the Arvada team, with Jackson Goodreau and Tyler Seltenreich netting the goals and Michael Tantillo securing the


to both teams, first and second place. “By winning this, you not only get to play a


lot of good local talent, but you get the opportu- nity to play some of the best teams in the coun- try. Every team that won here in Colorado, their team name gets put on the Silver Stick wall at the Hockey Hall of Fame (in Toronto); these kids will get to see their team name up there, so that’s a neat little bonus.” Gustafson said he was pretty impressed with


his squad’s run on the weekend. It culminated in a big-time rally in the championship game, in which they were down 2-1 entering the third and ended up scoring four goals in the final frame to pull out the victory. The game was a lot closer than the 5-2 score


indicated, however.


shutout. The Hawks will be unable to compete in


the international round, Benton said, as they declined invitation for another tournament. Arvada’s 16U AA team, which went 5-1-0, will travel to Sarnia in place of Littleton. Because they were a AAA team competing at


a AA tournament - essentially playing up a level - the RoughRiders’ Bantam team also won’t be able to move onto international competition. Regardless, head coach Jamie O’Leary was grateful for the tournament directors allowing the team to enter the event, as was he stoked about the results. The RoughRiders rallied from goal deficits in


every game they played, and the team was very opportunistic when it came to the champion- ship contest against Boulder; they only had 13 shots on goal, but scored five times for a 5-2 victory. “We’re thrilled to


have gone out and won,” O’Leary said. “Our players are a year younger than the majority of the kids they competed against, and the fact that these kids won it giving up four, five inches in height and some pounds, that’s a remarkable achievement for the boys. “There’s so much


history to the Silver Stick tournament; I’d highly encourage future AAA coaches to go ahead and play up. It’s great that the directors accept the younger boys, and the games


couldn’t have been more competitive.”


The RoughRiders would have traveled to


Port Huron, Mich. - the same destination as the Jr. Pioneers’ Pee Wee team. Coach John Kop- perud guided his club to a 6-1 mark in DU’s division, with a tightly contested 2-1 champion- ship win against Boulder. Brian King scored the game-winner as the Jr. Pioneers fought back from a 0-1 deficit to win. Qualifying for the Silver Stick isn’t done. The


Hyland Cup, coming up at the end of November also at the Ice Centre, will feature about 61 teams in a number of divisions and age groups. The tournament will encompass mostly A- and B-level teams. “It’s a well-respected, well-attended tour-


nament,” Benton said. “Our regional was the fourth-largest last year and, in the last couple of years, there’s been teams that have come out of it to win the whole thing. The Rocky Moun- tain region is starting to hold its own a little bit.”


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