Baldwin Highlanders - 1975 & 1988 AAA

MT LEBANON ~ Reminiscing as much a part of high school hockey as the game itself and as I broke bread with my old friend Jamie Cummings at Bado’s, the stories flowed about Mr. Cummings senior season at Mt Lebanon, which was the best regular season in 33 years at 19-1-2, the year in which the Blue Devils probably should have won it all and at the time the WPIHL Championship [the Pennsylvania High School hockey championships came the very next year in 1975] was the crowned jewel, but much to the dismay of that team, Mt Lebanon fell to eventual champions Churchill 2-1 in a thriller at the old Alpine, a game which Cummings was the star goaltender for the blue Devils and as a sparky 11 year old, I served as the league rep and public address announcer, so your gonna tell me we need 3 people in the box as League reps ? [Just put Bob Sebastian over there and thats all you need is a PA announcer, some tunes and the clock stopped and started again. The conversation then leads on to the 1976 year, when Mt Lebanon won the State Championship, when after a 14-0-8 [yes Gina Colligan that’s right 14-0-8 record is the only unbeaten Mt Lebanon season in 33 years]. The fuel to that State Championship, was a 3-0 loss in the WPIHL Championship again to the pesky Churchill Chargers at the old Sewickley rink. An the Blue Devils came back to win it all 4-2 at the Civic Arena and if you need to know about that one maybe Chad Uddstrom’s dad Norm will show you the scrapbooks of that one. As we walked down the hill from the parking lot, after being lambasted for blocking the lower parking lot, Mr Cummings began talking about the year after 1977, which brought on probably the centerpiece of the greatest controversy in high school hockey history. You see this is the era when Interscholastic Hockey took a turn for the better, when the SHIHL was formed in 1978 because of the issue of purity [high school teams made up of only players playing on the school that they attend, which is the fiber of Interscholastic sports, let alone hockey], which resulted in NO state championships in 1978. Now, 25 + years later, the PIHL in its twisted wisdom is starting Division II or Co-OP or NON-PURE teams, which will be the death nail of High School Hockey as we know it and is more proof why the current administration is bankrupting the member teams and has to keep coming up with fundraisers like JV playoffs and Co-OP Non-Pure teams to fund their Commissioner’s Office’s $ 100,000 plus salaries. I think this will be the first step for bankrupting the rest of the teams because it will be a political hornet’s nest figuring out who plays for who. Development of High School Hockey programs comes from hard work [not laziness] building from within your own school district with the players you have and making it affordable for ALL and not just a select few! This move alone by the PIHL should be a sign that this administration needs to go and an AUDIT should be conducted to see where nearly a millions dollars a year in going ? The Mt Lebanon Rec Center, which to this day is the BEST place to watch a hockey game in Western Pennsylvania, and home to Blue Devils, who have occupied the building for every year since their last State Championship. Mt Lebanon coach Paul Taibi has quietly built a powerhouse team this season and with a pair of victories over red-hot Central Catholic and archrival Upper St Clair, the Blue Devils can cap off the greatest regular season in Mt Lebanon history. Oh yeah that’s real nice but, what Mt Lebanon really is after, which brings us back to 1974 and Mr Cummings, you see nobody ever remembers the regular season, what they remember [with the exception of a couple of chronies like Mr Cummings and myself] is who won the State Championship and this Mt Lebanon squad understands the process and has been after it ever since the 5-4 loss to Frankin Regional in last years playoffs. Central Catholic knows all about winning the State Championship, they’ve never won one and the closest they came was in 1998 in coach Kevin Zeilmanski’s first season. If you ask the current Viking squad about it, they won it the first game of the season in Meadville. CC has been in a funk ever since that game and it all started the game after Meadville against Shaler in a game the Vikings won 2-1 but really lost that is lost their ability to be a team and not just a group of individuals. The players started exuding this cockiness and went away from the attention to detail which they displayed opening night against Meadville [passing the puck, playing with a physical edge, giving up your body to block shots and most of all playing with passion and hustle] and this has cost the Vikings at times during the season. Needless to say Central has caught fire lately and sports an 18-3-0 record coming into this big matchup with Mt Lebanon. The question I have is will we see Central Catholic playing hockey they are capable of or when times get tough will this be a group of individuals trying to do it all by themselves. A who’s who night at Mt Lebanon Rec Center as the venerable Chuck Kelly was in the house, with USC’s Kip Guenther and half of his team, my sidekick for the night Jamie Cummings, Earl ‘Center Ice’ Bugaile, [later on even Jim ‘Mort’ McVay and Jamie Plunkett showed up] among the cast of characters in a packed house for the big game. After a feeling out process in the opening minutes, Mt Lebanon struck first at 10:41 as Tony Valerino beat the CC defense to the puck and chipped it past Russ Hefner for a 1-0 lead. Just 24 seconds later, Eric Sloan took a Chad Uddstrom feed and ripped it past Hefner on a one-timer at 10:17 making it 2-0. The first period was all Blue Devils and Sloan showed tremendous speed beating the Viking defense and Hefner on the forehand for a shocking 3-0 advantage with 4:17 left in the opening period. On to the second and Chad Uddstrom got into the act with a wicked wrist shot streaking down the off wing past Hefner at exactly the 12:00 mark and now 4-0. Tony Valerino sent Hefner to the bench at 10:21, picking the Central points pocket and scoring on a nifty move for a shorthanded goal and a 5-0 lead for Mt Lebanon. Central received new life as Joe Coulter redirected a shot past Matt Vaughn to get the Vikings on the board at 9:16. Billy Connelly scored a great goal at 6:07 to get CC within striking distance at 5-2 taking a Coulter shot and deking Vaughn on the backhand. Central Catholic started looking like they were solving the Blue Devils defense and had all the momentum. At 2:34 of the 2nd the Blue Devils got a huge break when it was discovered the net which Central was shooting on was unfit for play and the teams were sent off for an ice cut….this effectively broke Central’s momentum. Mt Lebanon recovered during the ice cut and adjusted, while Central…well they went into a funk again and started playing individual hockey. The Blue Devils showed why they are the # 1 ranked team in Class AAA by putting an exclamation point on this one. One of Western Pa’s best forwards Eric Sloan took a pass from Chad Uddstrom and completed the hat trick at 6:56 to make it a convincing 6-2 Lebo lead and Uddstrom buried a wrist shot up under the cross bar at 5:16 for a big 7-2 victory for Mt Lebanon, clinching the West Class AAA crown. My question is where was the trophy presentation ? For the Blue Devils they would like to save it .....for the league it must have been at Bethel Park !