By Jim den Hollander
Editor/Publisher
Saukhockey.info
It is surprising how long the hockey season is, even at the local level.
This has been a crazy couple years for everything and as hockey fans, we have gone from not being able to watch our heroes on television to seasons ending at crazy times. We should be halfway through the opening round of the opening round of the post season – at least in a normal year we would be. Instead, we are about a month from the start of a post season that will carry us into July.
If the 2021-22 regular season begins on a normal schedule, the teams playing in the Stanley Cup will have 5-6 weeks off before returning for training camps for what will be another long season with a break in February 2022 for the Winter Olympics which NHL players will be participating in.
Locally, the final event was Ice Wars, a unique event at Lake Delton Ice Arena that brought together players from across the Midwest as well as a solid contingent of locals.
Aaron Kirby, owner of Lake Delton Ice was the organizer of the event that saw individuals at the squirt and peewee level signing up. However, several others have continued playing, with the Blue Devils AAA squad, out of Tomah, the Wisconsin Junior Stars out of the Madison area and the Janesville Jr. Jets.
Local players also played in the peewee Kohlman Cup tournaments recently, representing WAHA Region 4.
Articles on all of these events will appear in this space over the next few week as well as updates on the Dells Ducks junior hockey team, and some looks back at the 2020-21 varsity seasons for RWD, Baraboo/Portage, Sauk Prairie Eagles and the Badger Lightning, as well as a look back on the college seasons for local players.
Also, a summer of research and compilation will see much more statistical information and points of interest for the varsity and junior teams in the season ahead.
I recently made a connection that should see my varsity stuff get a lot more views and I am excited about that.
This past season I took saukhockey.info to a new level and it became recognized across the county. I am looking forward to the off season allowing me to get set for this fall a more organized and wider blanket coverage on all hockey in Sauk.
I am also dusting off another website/facebook page I had sort of shelved to dedicate more time to Sauk Hockey so it should be a fun summer.
Tag: Ice Wars
Ice War at Lake Delton Ice Arena this weekend
By Jim den Hollander
Publisher/Editor
Saukhockey.info.
The Lake Delton Ice Arena will be ground zero for a unique eight-way battle beginning Friday night.
The first ‘Ice Wars’ will provide local squirt and peewee players a chance to test their wares with and against players from across the Dairy State.
The brainchild of Lake Delton Ice Arena General Manager, Aaron Kirby, the Ice Wars is a unique tournament which did not involve team, but individual registrations. The tournament is a success before the first puck is dropped with the maximum 60 players and goaltenders reached in both age brackets.
Friday night will see the players put through the paces beginning at 5 p.m. with Evaluation phases. Players will be watched by coaches during their evaluations and then ‘Drafted’ onto one of four teams immediately after – those four teams will go under the names ‘Army,’ ‘Navy,’ ‘Air Force,’ and ‘Marines.’.
There will be four sessions Friday as players take part based on last name – Squirt’s A to M hitting the ice first at 5 p.m. followed at 5:40 p.m. by Squirts N to Z.
The draft will take place at 6:30 with the two peewee sessions starting at 7:15 p.m. and followed up by the draft at 8:30 p.m.
Teams have a chance to play four times on the weekend. The first three being round-robin games with the top two teams in each age group returning for Championship games Sunday at 2 and 3:30 p.m.
Sauk Hockey 