St Joseph's Prep Hawks

Thomas Jefferson 7 Greensburg Salem 2 Greensburg – After spending the early part of Thursday evening watching my first Open Division game of the season between Hempfield and Somerset with Chief O’Hara and Ms. O’Hara [Name and Address withheld for purposes of avoiding Villon(ess) repercussions]. If you stay tuned to Pa Hockey within the next few weeks there will be PART 1 to a solution to the mess of the Open Division and will revitalize hockey in Western Pennsylvania and bring back the competitiveness in Class AAA, AA and A. The bottom line after watching these two teams is that Hempfield and Somerset are only kidding themselves playing in a glorified Varsity/Junior Varsity Division convoluted with a bunch of misfit teams [meaning in the wrong division for al you who are oversensitive]. Hempfield could have been celebrating a Class AAA East Division championship, but will play for the Chuck E Cheese tokens starting March 1st and Somerset, should be playing in Class A, where they would definitely be vying for one of the top 4 teams, but the Villans have a vendetta against the Somerset organization because Chief ran for President against Mr. Freeze and with lack of qualified people to count the votes, Vice President Shame slipped Mr. Freeze, the Riddler and the Archer in for two more years of destroying High School Hockey. What I like most about the Interscholastic Hockey Community most is the scores of terrific people, who I have met and continue to build relationships with covering games and carrying out the mission of Pa Hockey, which is to promote the goodness of the efforts of families and young people, in spite of the cartoon characters aforementioned, who continued to deter any progress of hockey and are attempting suicide for a sport, which has done pretty well over 37 years despite limited school support and lack of sanctioning from school districts, who get out the ten foot pool when hockey is mentioned and would rather fund Lacrosse, Bowling and Rifle, which are certainly major sports on the landscape of youth, interscholastic, collegiate and professional activities. 44 States across this country played for State Championships in hockey, that will culminate with the Pennsylvania High School Hockey Championships on April 7th at the Ice Works in Aston, Pa. The Wall of Champions for 2007 kicked off last weekend as South Anchorage edged Dimond for the 2007 Alaska State Championship in Wasilla, Alaska before a record 1,600-plus fans stomping bleachers, blowing bugles and screaming hockey eloquence inside Menard Memorial Arena. And people in this Western Pennsylvania Hockey Community still think I have a vendetta because they listen to people like Cat Woman and Ma Snaggletooth Parker, because they are too busy talking on their cell phones, when they should be paying attention to rosters, so they aren’t hammered by the Villans with penalties in the fineum, suspendedum and extortum world of the PIHL. If you don’t believe me ask one of tonight’s combatant Greensburg Salem [forfeit two games], plus Groovy Harry and Brother Stu’s Vikings - CC [forfeit two games] and I dream of Jeannie’s Tigers – NA [forfeit one games] all who should be enjoying or competing for first round byes and fill victim to rules infractions for Freshman players [Freshman Hockey should be 6th – 8th grade like in other parts of the country], who have little or no impact on their respective teams success, but will be key factor’s in the upcoming playoffs in who EARNS byes and home ice advantage. Whhhhhhhhhh….now I can take a deep breath and tell you what I really like about HS Hockey……where was I ? Oh…. As I mentioned, before I was rudly interrupted, by myself, was about the great and unheralded people of Interscholastic Hockey. Back in about 1978 after the closing of the Alpine, Sewickley Arena forced us to drive 45 minutes to Kirk Nevin for a 8:30 practice, a gentleman by the name of Dan Sheehy, who was my high school coach and taught me some great principles and really understood building hockey programs and development started a tremendous learn to play hockey program at Kirk Nevin. Out of that program, came people like former long-time coaches Greensburg Central Catholic’s Butch Marietta, Hempfield’s Bruce Cameron, Latrobe’s Bill Cesarski and Greensburg Salem’s Dave Small. These people fueled and guided the hockey programs out of Greensburg and current Golden Lion head coach Anthony DeFazio was a product of that program and is now following the blueprint he was a part of with the leadership of hockey enthusiast and former Golden Lion President Rick Versaw, who in my opinion led Greensburg Salem out of the doldrums of extinction and the Open Division back into competitive hockey of Class AA. Greensburg Salem’s program has been there and back and will compete in the upcoming playoffs trying to nail down a home berth over West Allegheny. About the time I got back involved in Interscholastic Hockey after a ten-year layoff, I started the Pa Hockey Yearbook, Pa Hockey History and the Pa Hockey Scholastic Showcase and had great support from many people. I can tell you that one gentleman who jumped in was Thomas Jefferson Head Coach Don Powell, who was in the process at that time of continuing tradition with the TJ program of winning and building a Jaguar run of three straight Pennsylvania State Class AA championships. On of the Jaguar offspring and leaders was a kid name John Zeiler, who I ran into working out at Ralph and Alf’s Castle last March and played in his 1st National Hockey League Game this week to become # 5 from Western Pa Hockey to get there. Zeiler is a great Player with tremendous personality, work ethic and character exemplified by his HS Coach. The ‘Dean of AA’ has coached some great teams and great players and their undisputed leader for the 2007 version is Brock Heinauer and trust me the apple does not fall far from the tree because his parents Melinda and Mark have been very instrumental with their leadership of TJ Hockey and coach Powell over the past ten years and will be sorely missed as a part of this hockey community when Brock graduates in the spring. The Jaguars will miss the unreal production, which is believed to be unparalleled in TJ History [which is being tabulated out of the Archives at the request of Mom, which is the least I could do for two super people who I will share this with over a pop or beer to to review the history]. Knowing the TJ run for 2007 will end in some type of tears of joy or sadness in March, I had to take one last chance to bust the chops of Mark and Melinda. For those of you who think the Jaguars have little or no chance to win the Class AA title because of goaltending, I really believe Spencer Neel can and will rise to the occasion similar to Matt Mitchell and Joe Essey did for the 1998, 1999 and 2000 championship teams of coach Powell and they are a sentimental choice for many reasons aforementioned. The Jaguars were looking tonight to nail down home ice advantage and the # 3 seed for the upcoming Class AA tournament. TJ came out smoking in the opening 15 minutes as they seized the lead at 12:08 courtesy of Patrick LaFrankie for a 1-0 lead. At 8:24, Dan Jantzi gave the Jags a 2-0 advantage on a quick shot. Greensburg Salem got on the board at 7:40 as Eric Yurenko beat Spencer Neel on the glove side to make it 2-1. The game took on a new look after that goal as the Golden Lions were back in the game. The backbreaker came with just : 04 left in the period as Dan Nath roofed wrist shot under the crossbar to give Thomas Jefferson a 3-1 lead. The second period was an avalanche on the Golden Lions as with 5:57 to go Brock Heinauer snuck wrister past Shane Talarico to make it 4-1 and with 2:21 remaining in the middle period, it was Brock Heinauer again beating Talarico on the forehand to make it 5-1 as the Jaguars took control of the hockey game as the shots were 29-12 thru 2 periods in favor of TJ. Thomas Jefferson expanded their lead at 12:47 as Dan Jantzi scored his 2nd goal to make it a rout 6-1. Greensburg Salem scored at 10:30 as Shane Davis lit the lamp and the Jaguars closed out the scoring at 1:54 as Dan Jantzi completed the hat trick to give TJ a 7-2 victory. Final shots were 37 – 24 Jaguars in a very impressive win to lock down the # 3 seed, a bye and home ice advantage in round two of the playoffs. After the lights went down and most of the people left the Kirk Nevin Arena, the Thomas Jefferson quietly celebrated on the Kirk Nevin ice for pictures of their division with their 2nd division championship trophy in four years, which they clinched two weeks ago and was delivered by Louie the Lilac this afternoon. Whether they enjoy another celebration this season will be an interesting subplot to what should be a very entertaining Class AA playoffs over the next month.