Team Wisconsin won the Chicago Showcase this past weekend, defeating Team Michigan in the semifinals by a score of 2-0, and beating Team Minnesota 5-2 in the final. It was a pretty good year for Wisconsin high school hockey, with Team Wisconsin finishing a surprising second during the Midwest Elite League season, and then Team Wisconsin winning it all in Chicago.
The leading scorer for the tournament was Team Philadelphia's Jayson Ritchey who played for Wissahickon High School, which has to be the greatest high school name ever. Ritchey is listed at 6'1" 205 lbs. He scored 88 points in 21 games this season for Wissahickon, despite missing a few games with a broken hand.
Minnesota's JT Brown had a nice tournament, scoring 9 points in 6 games. Wisconsin forwards Gavin Hartzog, Jefferson Dahl, and Casey Kirley all had nice weekends statistically. Team Michigan's leading scorer was the state's Mr. Hockey winner Josh Miller of Trenton. Miller has signed a tender to play for the Traverse City Stars of the NAHL next season. Wisconsin's Joshua Lehr was the top goalie at the tournament, stopping 57 of 58 shots faced.
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8 comments:
Wisconsin hockey is on the rise.
perhaps at the hs level, but not at the aaa level
remember that WI allows comitted players to play in this tourney and MN doesn't. that has A LOT to do with the results.
saying wisconsin hockey is on the rise based on this tournament is like saying WI football is on the rise after the Packers beat up on Notre Dame. Wisconsin has a unique system that allows their high schoolers to play just enough club hockey (to maintain eligibility for USA hockey AAA tournaments) but not so much that they cannot also play for their hs. In Illinois, you have to choose between the two. And for the last several years, the best Illinois MM teams (usually TI) have consistently beat WI teams. The Minnesota and Illinois teams are not fielding the best from their states. This tournament is supposed to be about showcasing talent that hasn't ALREADY been discovered, not having committed players hogging the spotlight.
Remember there are only 2 committed players playing for Wisc. Yeah that's a huge difference(sarcasm). All the other WI committed Seniors finished their seasons in the USHL and thus were unavailable.
You are reaching.
"Wisconsin has a unique system that allows their high schoolers to play just enough club hockey (to maintain eligibility for USA hockey AAA tournaments) but not so much that they cannot also play for their hs"
You are an idiot. You really need to get your facts straight before you post. There's only one AAA teaam that does this and it is Team Wisconsin. It is a before and after hs team that plays in the Elite league and plays in nationals. Top Minnesota HS players also play in this league so they must have this "UNIQUE" system as well. If you play for any other of the AAA teams like the Capitols, Jr. Admirols, Jr. Gamblers you CANNOT play HS hockey period. There is no hs player that plays AAA hockey during the hs season.
I don't know if things have changed, but when I was playing hs hockey 10 years ago Illinois was one of the only states that allowed AAA players to play for their high schools DURING the season. I remember playing in a tournament and a couple of players from Naperville North were gone playing with Team Illinois. I remember an article about this too about how problematic it had become for Illinois hs coaches because of this. So maybe it has changed I don't know.
Also AAA hockey in WI is not very good so I don't know what you are getting at. In fact more top young talent from Southeast Wisc. are going to play for Chicago Mission, Team Illinois, CYA, etc.
"Remember there are only 2 committed players playing for Wisc"
There's actually only 1, yes 1 !! committed player on Wisconsin. Nate Condon As the above poster noted the other 3 or 4 Seniors finished out their season in the USHL.
So other states can only add one committed player to their teams? Lets throw calabrese onto team Illinois and either Ness or Gardiner onto team MN and lets see if that helps at all. Plus the fact that a lot of kids from other states chose not to play in this tourny (most of wisco's top players were on their team while i don't think any MN Mr. Hockey finalists or the AAA players from Illinois played)
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