Local youth teams weekend schedules

By Jim den Hollander

Editor/Publisher

Saukhockey.info

With a visiting tournament taking over at least some hours of ice time in all four Sauk County ice rinks, many teams in the local youth organizations will be hitting the road this weekend. Here is a schedule for all of the competitive teams in our area.

RWD CHEAVERS

Squirt ‘A’ — The 3-2 Squirt ‘A’ Cheavers have another busy weekend scheduled with a pair of games on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday, the locals will be at Bob Suter’s Capitol Ice to play the Middleton Squirt ‘C’ Cardinals at 3:30 p.m. and stopping on the way home to play the Sauk Prairie Squirt ‘A’ Flyers at 6:30 p.m.

On Sunday the Squirts will head to Black River Falls to take on both the ‘A’ (11:30 a.m.) and ‘B’ (2:30 p.m. Squirt Tigers.

Peewee ‘B’ — The Peewee ‘B’ Cheavers will play just once, making the trip to SPARC in Sauk Prairie to play the Peewee ‘B’ Flyers in a 3:30 p.m. contest.

Peewee ‘A’ — The Peewee ‘A’ Cheavers will play at SPARC in Sauk Prairie against the host Peewee ‘A’ Flyers Saturday at 5 p.m. and on Sunday the team heads to Black River Falls for 9:45 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. games against the Peewee ‘A’ Tigers.

Bantam – The Bantam Cheavers will be in West Salem for a 12:30 p.m. contest against the Bantam Panthers

SAUK PRAIRIE FLYERS/MONKEYS

10U ‘B’ Monkeys – Just one game for the 10U Monkeys this weekend who will play at Pierce Park Pavilion in Baraboo against the Lake Country Wildcats and the 10U ‘A’ Monkeys has a weekend off.

Squirt ‘B’ — The 1-3 Squirt ‘B’ Flyers will play host to the Waunakee Squirt ‘C’ Wildcats at SPARC at 8 a.m. Sunday morning.

Squirt ‘A’ — The 3-0 Squirt ‘A’ Flyers play twice on Saturday, traveling to Bob Suter Capitol Ice Arena in Middleton to faceoff against the Squirt Cardinals at 12:15 a.m. and returning home to SPARC to face RWD Squirt ‘A’ Cheavers at 6:30 p.m.

12U ‘B’ White – The 2-1 12U ‘B’ White Monkeys will be in Onalaska Saturday for a pair of games against the Coulee Region Stars at 1:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. The ‘B’ Red team has no games scheduled this weekend.

12U ‘A’ — The 2-1-1 12U ‘A’ Monkeys play on Saturday at Verona Ice Arena against the Madison Mavericks with a 10:30 a.m. puck drop.

Peewee ‘B’ — The 2-0 Peewee ‘B’ Flyers will entertain the RWD Peewee ‘B’ Cheavers at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at SPARC and the Sun Prairie Peewee ‘B’ at 4:15 p.m. on Sunday.

Peewee ‘A’ — The 3-1 Peewee ‘A’ Flyers will begin Saturday in Beloit with an 11:30 a.m. game against the Peewee ‘A’ Raptors and return home to SPARC for a 5 p.m. game against the RWD ‘A’ Cheavers.

14U ‘A’ — The 14U ‘B’ Monkeys have a weekend off while the 0-2 ‘A’ team will travel to Stateline Ice and Community Expo (SLICE) for a 3 p.m. match against the 14U ‘B’ Madison Mavericks at 3 p.m.

Bantam ‘B’ — The 4-0 Bantam ‘B’ Flyers will be busy, playing the Verona ‘A’ Wildcats Saturday at 9 a.m. at SPARC, then hitting the road to Hartmeyer Ice Arena to play the Madison Patriots at 6:45 p.m. On Sunday the team will get a rematch with the Verona ‘B’ squad in Verona.

Bantam ‘A’ — Just one game for the 3-1 Bantam ‘A’ Flyers who will take on the Waunakee Wildcats at 1 p.m. at SPARC.

BARABOO/PORTAGE T-BIRDS

Squirt – The Squirt T-Birds will open its regular season on home ice at the Pierce Park Pavilion Saturday with a 10 a.m. game against the Waunakee ‘C2’ Wildcats.

Peewee and Bantam T-Birds teams will be out of action this weekend.

UT’s Northwoods Showdown in local rinks

By Jim den Hollander

Editor/Publisher

Saukhockey.info

The first major tournament of the season will roll into all four local arenas this weekend as Ultimate Tournaments begins another massive season.

The first tournament in a new era for Ultimate Tournaments, the Northwoods Showdown will feature teams in seven divisions of Mite, Squirt and Peewee teams playing out of the Lake Delton Ice Arena, Reedsburg Area Community Arena (RACA), Sauk Prairie Area Recreation Center (SPARC) and Baraboo’s Pierce Park Pavilion.

In all, 34 teams from Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri and Minnesota will begin play Friday afternoon, with nine championship games highlighting the weekend on Sunday.

The tournament will be the first of two on back-to-back weekends and seven events that will be held in the Sauk County community between now and the end of February.

Ultimate Tournaments also hosts events in St. Louis, Chicago and South Bend, IN.

Locals get College seasons underway

By Jim den Hollander

Editor/Publisher

Saukhockey.info

NCAA Updates

MacDonald debut delayed

The newest local player to make their NCAA Division 3 debut has found it difficult to get on the ice as COVID restrictions have seen five straight games postponed for Jack MacDonald and his St. Michael’s College Purple Knights hockey team.

A graduate of Baraboo High School and a key player on the Baraboo/Portage Thunderbird squad, class of ‘18, MacDonald moved on to play 129 games over three seasons with the Seahawks Hockey Club in Cape Cod, MA, a member of the Eastern Hockey League, last season wearing the ‘C’ as team captain.

MacDonald collected 31 goals and 71 points with the Seahawks and moved on to St. Michael’s in September.

After an unofficial, exhibition match and a 3-0 loss against the SUNY Plattsburgh Cardinals Oct. 23 in Plattsburgh.

MacDonald hit the stats sheet with a two-minute minor penalty and was 3-of-10 in the faceoff dot in his first NCAA test.

Since that unofficial game, the Purple Knights have had five games postponed due to the COVID protocols: Oct. 29-30 against the SUNY Potsdam Bears, a conference game at Post against the Eagles in Waterbury, CT on Nov. 6 and two more road tests at Long Island University against the host Sharks.

Two more will be added as a pair of home conference tilts against the Assumption College Greyhounds have already been postponed this weekend.

St. Michael’s will now kick off the 2021-22 regular season next Friday at Cairns Arena in South Burlington with a Northeast-10 Conference match against the Franklin Pierce Ravens.

O’Connor nearly flawless in sophomore debut

After a successful run with the UW-River Falls Falcons Women’s hockey team in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) last season, Jordan O’Connor, finds herself a part of a solid tandem in goal this season with the Falcons who enter the regular season as the fourth-ranked team in the NCAA.

The Falcons have played and won four games so far, outscoring Lake Forest Foresters (twice), Augsburg Auggies and St. Mary’s University Huskies by a combined total of 21-5.

O’Connor went to the blue paint for the second game of the season and kicked out all but one of 17 shots faced to lead the Falcons past the Foresters by a 5-1 margin on Halloween.

The Falcons head into Stevens Point Friday for its first WIAC Conference contest against the host Pointers, then head home Saturday for another conference meeting against the Northland Lumberjills.

Tough opposition for Teske and Auggies

Julianna Teske also began her sophomore year in the Twin Cities with the Augsburg University Auggies, playing some tough opposition.

The team has hit the ice twice so far, taking the Falcons to overtime before surrendering a 5-4 decision in its first game, last Thursday (Nov. 4) at Ed Saugestad Rink and falling again to the UW-Eau Claire Blugolds 2-1, again on home ice.

As mentioned earlier, the Falcons enter the season as the fourth-ranked D3 team in the nation and the Blugolds ranked third in the same poll.

Teske has yet to hit the score sheet but did pick up some stats, serving a minor penalty in one of the games.

The Auggies will begin the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC), facing the Hamline Pipers at TRIA Arena Friday night with a rematch at Ed Saugestad Rink on Saturday.

Engel sidelined to start Lumberjills’ campaign

The area’s other Sophomore, Kaylee Engel, an all-WIAC and all-American honors student in her first year at Northland University in Ashland, WI underwent off-season surgery to fix a shoulder injury that had hampered her for some time. She will likely be out of the lineup until at least after Christmas.

The Lumberjills opened the season with back-to-back non-conference losses against the Bethel University Pilots at Blaine, MN Oct. 29-30, then dropped two more on home ice against the St. Norbert College Green Knights, both by 4-0 scores on Nov. 5-6.

On Thursday night (Nov. 11), the Lumberjills received a jolt against the nation’s third ranked NCAA Division 3 team, defeated 10-0 by the UW-Eau Claire Blugolds in its WIAC Conference opener in Eau Claire.

The road will stay rough as the Lumberjills move on to play the UW-River Falls Falcons Saturday in River Falls.