St Joseph's Prep Hawks

Wisconsin White 4 Philadelphia 2 2007 Chicago Showcase BENSENVILLE, ILLINOIS - Team Philadelphia entered the 2007 Chicago Showcase with aspirations of winning the Kevin Kodalen C Bracket and advancing to the round of 8 this year. Unfortunately for Germantown Academy Head Coach Gump Whiteside and General Manager Kenny Haas, President of the Suburban High School Hockey League, the area of the Delaware Valley with 141 High School Hockey teams is unable to attract the best players from the Philadelphia area from schools such as Malvern Prep, LaSalle, Holy Ghost Prep, Haverford High and the other premiere programs to participate and even try out for this team. The reasons for which I don’t quite understand, the best players tend to listen to travel coaches, who apparently discourage the participation, which is typical and I know its not from lack of effort to market the program, which is done over all of the 7 League Websites that make up the Flyers Cup program. So with all of that said, Philadelphia needed a victory over Wisconsin White, the 2nd Wisconsin team in the Chicago Showcase, which is a team brought together with players from almost 500 miles of area and really amazing to see kids from Milwaukee to Superior to Madison and all over as a unit of 20. The other remarkable thing is that in all of that area, they do not have nearly the number of High School teams as Philadelphia. As a person who represents Pa Hockey, I am willing to help promote the process of getting the best players here to Chicago on a national stage and challenge the best players in Philadelphia to come experience a great event for themselves. When I first got involved in Team Pittsburgh in 1996, our team was in the C Bracket and after 1997 began the climb the A Brackets, where we have been since 1999 and have not left since. Philadelphia’s plight looked good in the opening period as Wisshickon’s Jayson Ritchey scored to give them a 1-0 lead at 13:04. Wisconsin tied the game on a goal by Vince Hagman at 6:50. The second period saw Philly take the lead again as Justin Krute of the Hill School scored on an assist from Eric DeFelice of Central Bucks West at 6:53 to give the Orange and Black a 2-1 lead. Philadelphia missed a golden opportunity to take a two-goal advantage on a breakaway. Wisconsin White rallied scoring a power play goal by Brody Zebro at 3:43 and then took the lead on a shorthanded goal by Casey Lutz with just :09 left in the period to take a 3-2 lead. The third period was penalty filled and Philadelphia was killing off the majority of them. A late power play gave them a chance to tie the score, but was unsuccessful dashing the hopes of Team Philadelphia advancing to the Quarter-Final round as Wisconsin’s Brody Zebro scored an empty netter with 18 seconds remaining and gave Wisconsin a 4-2 victory outshooting Philly 31-25 in the opener of play on Friday at the 2007 Chicago Showcase.