Alliance Comes up Big at Bauer Invitational The program’s Bantam Minor AAA team dominates, wins division title


By Chris Errington


Halloween was downright scary. Playing in the Bauer International Invite tourna-


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ment Nov. 4-6, the Alliance skated in seven games in just over two full days and came back to Florida champions of their division. The Alliance topped the North York (Ont.) Knights, 4-0, in the championship final. “Before we even went up there, I knew we would be able to compete,” said Alliance co-head coach Tad O’Had. “I knew we had a good team. We’d been gelling and that weekend, we definitely brought our A-game.” The Alliance offense exploded for 38 goals in the


seven games and goalies CJ Boothe and Charlie Marino combined allowed just goals. “We came to play,” said O’Had. “Our first game went to overtime and we took care of business. That first game, we struggled a bit to get going and maybe that was due to the travel or nerves or what- ever, but we played well. That win opened the gates and we were off and running.” Forward Jesse Richards was the tournament


he way the Florida Alliance Bantam Minor AAA team performed in Chicago the weekend after


MVP, leading the team with seven goals over the weekend, including the game-winner in the semi-fi- nals in double-overtime versus the Soo (Ont.) Grey- hounds.


O’Had said that after the opening game, finding a


nervous player on the team would have been pretty much impossible. “When we made it to the semi-finals, the kids


were fine,” said O’Had. “The parents were the ones that had all the nerves. The kids believed at that point that they could win it and (co-head coach) Jake Laime and I said to each other on the bench that you could really feel the energy. For a lot of our kids, this was their first experience playing in a tournament of this magnitude, but you’d never know it from the way they played.”


The semi-


finals out of the way, the Alli- ance turned right around and jumped


Toros show well at Bauer Invite By Bob Miller


national Invite tournament went intending to serve notice that a team from Miami could compete with any opponents regardless of their geographic region. Ripping through pool play in the tourney’s opening


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rounds, the Toros opened with a trio of lopsided vic- tories, earning them a berth in the tourney’s “Sweet 16” playoff round. By the time they were finished, the Toros had proven themselves with wins taking them all the way to the finals, where they suffered a very tight one-goal loss in the tournament finals to the Long Island Royals “Our overall team performance was amazing,” said


Toros coach Paul Healey. “It was a grueling tourna- ment in which we ended up playing a total of seven


he Miami Toros Pee Wee AA squad that traveled to Chicago in early November for the Bauer Inter-


right into the title game. Again, nerves were non-existent for the players. “We went into that championship game knowing we could win,” O’Had said. “The kids were jacked up for the championship game and you would have never known it was our third game of the day. “I’ve been down here three years and our teams


always seem to do well (at the Bauer Invite), but we’ve never won. We can’t say that anymore. “This is a special team and we’re moving up the national rankings, but these kids don’t worry too much about that. This is just a great group of kids.”


The Florida Alliance Bantam Minor AAA team celebrates its championship at the Bauer International Invite tournament Nov. 6 in suburban Chicago. Photo/Michael Boothe


games in just three days.” Two of those games were on Friday (Nov. 4), two


more on Saturday, and three more on Sunday taking them right to the brink of a championship. The opportunity to get out of their geographic


region and comfort zone proved exhilarating and ben- eficial for the Toros, both as a team and individually. “We feel we have a good team to compete in Florida, but we wanted to see how we would do against teams outside of our state,” said Toros’ defen- seman Ben Tartakovsky. “The Bauer tournament gave us an opportunity to compete against some of the top AA and AAA teams that we normally would never face. Having beaten some of the AAA teams and even losing to the Royals in a close game made us realize we can compete against AAA competition. This experience will make us a better team and help us achieve our goals.


“I am sure other teams took us lightly considering Miami and Florida is not known for its hockey, but we always felt confident we could compete and have success. The satisfaction was knowing that there were 30 other teams from Canada and the U.S. who would have loved to trade places with us.”


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