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2004's Take Belle Tire - Victory Honda Mid-Winter Classic Title

By WLC Staff, 02/01/18, 10:15AM EST

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2004 Team takes home title at the Belle Tire-Victory Honda Mid-Winter AAA Classic Tournament

The 2004 Bantam Minor Team traveled to Detroit January 25-28 for the Belle Tire-Victory Honda Mid-Winter AAA Classic and came home, after 6 tough games, with the tournament championship.   Good goaltending and strong team defense from both the forwards and the defense were the keys to their success. 

The team started out with a 7-0 win over the Iowa Wild, in what turned out to be the most one-sided game of the tournament.  The team took a 2-0 lead less than 5 minutes in and never looked back.

After the game, with the encouragement of Coaches Messier and Yoon, the team went to Ann Arbor and took a tour of Michigan Stadium, the largest stadium in the Uniteed States.  They were able to tour the press box, broadcast booths, luxury suites, the Michigan locker room (at right), and go down onto the field.  The team then took the opportunity to visit Yost Arena, where the Michigan hockey team plays, and check out the ice and the bench areas.

The team’s second game was against a physical Pittsburgh Vengeance team.  WLC took an early 1-0 lead, but couldn’t add to it, and the Vengeance tied the game up with 19 minutes to play.  But after a tie-breaking goal with 13 minutes left, the team clamped down defensively and won the game 2-1.

The final preliminary round game was Saturday morning against Victory Honda.  The teams traded goals and finished in a 2-2 tie.  This left the team in first place in its group and seeded second for the playoff rounds.

The quarterfinal game against the Colorado Evolution was a tight defensive affair.  It was scoreless for the first 28 minutes of the game, until WLC took a 1-0 lead on a breakaway off an excellent pass.  The team then buckled down and played hard to close out an exciting 1-0 victory.  Coach Messier was asked whether he was nervous as the clocked ticked towards the end:  “Any tight game keeps you on your toes.  But Colorado didn’t get too many chances.  I thought we played a pretty solid defensive game.”

On Sunday morning, the team played the St. Louis Prospects.  After taking a 3-1 lead, the Little Caps saw St. Louis come back and tie the game at 3.  But they dug in, and scored 3 unanswered goals over a 6-minute span to come away with a 6-3 victory and a berth in the finals.

The championship game was against one of the host teams – Belle Tire – who had beaten a tough NJ Rockets team in the other semi-final.   The Little Caps got off to a slow start, giving up goals at the 8- and 20 minute marks, and spending most of the game in their own end.  After giving up the second goal, however, the team seemed to turn over a new leaf, and spent the next few minutes of the period buzzing around the Belle Tire net.  But they couldn’t break through. 

During the break, the coaches told the team to keep playing hard and to believe in themselves.  They came out hard in the second half, breaking through for their first goal with 15 minutes to play, and tying it up 5 minutes later.  They took the lead 3-2 with 6 minutes to go, and clinched the championship with a 180-foot empty net goal with 6 seconds left.  When asked how the team turned around a difficult first half, Coach Messier said: “We were a little nervous the first half.  But the team settled down, got pucks to the net, and went to the hard areas and were rewarded.”