Holland Advanced Hockey Tournament

Nathan's team played in an early season tournament last weekend in Holland at the Great Lakes Advanced Tournaments. Having only played 2 regular season games before the tournament (both of them losses), we weren't sure what to expect. The first game was Friday night against Kentwood and we lost 3-2 and we were lucky it was that close. Our goalie stopped 5 breakaways to keep us in it until the end. Nathan scored one of our two goals. Saturday morning was an 8-3 win over Lapeer. Nathan and one other player on his team each had hat tricks (three goals). Saturday night was a game against Battle Creek who beat the Hawks in their first game of the season 2-0 but Nathan had to miss that game due to a football game. It was a good game and we were up 4-1 but let them back into it in the final minutes and ended up winning 4-3. Nathan scored another goal in that game on a wraparound. Sunday morning was the final round-robin game of the tournament and the boys needed a tie or win in order to reach the championship game. Unfortunately, Heidi and I had to miss the game because we were flying out to Las Vegas for a work conference I had to attend. When we reached Chicago, Nathan called to let us know he had just scored the game-tying goal with less than 30 seconds on the clock to help his team reach the finals against Kentwood!!! Heidi and I were very excited for him and the other boys but very upset that we weren't there to see it. Then, we had to way until we got off the plane in Vegas before we would learn how the championship game ended up. When we talked to Nathan he was still very upset. They had ended regulation of the championship game in a 1-1 tie (Nathan had the goal for his team). The team was short-handed going into overtime and Kentwood ended up scoring to win the tournament. Our Hawks team was the tournament runner-up. Click here for the results sheet. Each boy got his name announced and received a runner-up medal. Additionally, theh team received a runner-up banner which will be decorated with all the player names and hung up at our home rink in Walker. The team manager sent out stats from the tournament and in 5 games, Nathan scored 7 goals and 4 assists. So Nate's stats for the season are 9 goals and 4 assists in 6 games. Not a bad start! I really think playing football this year has made Nate quite a bit stronger and it's showing when he's on skates. He's one of the older kids on his team this year and is learning to be a leader. The games are pretty fun to watch so if you want to catch one, take a look at his schedule here. Click the picture below to enlarge.

Nathan is third from the right in the middle row...