Ocean City, MD - Special Hockey Beach Bash - Summary - 1/19/24 to 1/21/24
According to an old adage, theres's crazy and then there is hockey parent crazy. Let's see if the Dare Devils fit the bill:
* Play hooky from work and school to play a Friday afternoon game (check!)
* Drive through the biggest snow storm the I-95 Corridor has seen in the past 2 years (check!)
* Do all of this to play 3v3 hockey in a beachfront hotel lobby in January (check!)
I think it's safe to say that the 7 Dare Devils families traveling to Maryland for this tournament are a bit insane. Thank you to James Cooney, Patrick Hung, Connor Hung, Aiden Hung, Ayden Duran, Liam Smith, Theodore Howard, Shea Passikoff and Owen Silverstein for representing the Dare Devils at this awesome tournament.
Back in West Orange, Coach Myles, Coach Billy and Andy ran the show and worked the non-traveling Dare Devils through an intense practice at Codey. Ryan made a new Captains Corner post where he provides an NJDD spotlight on star goalie, Matty Brighton! Click here to jump to the latest musing provided by El Capitan.
Summaries of the Ocean City games are below:
Friday, 1/19/24, 3:25pm vs. The Baltimore Caps Blue
Wearing the away white jerseys, the Dare Devils came out flying in their opening game of the tournament. Patrick Hung put away two goals during the opening shift to give the Dare Devils a quick lead. In fact, Patrick scored the first five goals of the game for the Dare Devils. This was a back and forth affair with both teams trading the lead throughout the game. Shea Passikoff buried a goal off a Liam Smith assist to put the Dare Devils up 6-5 midway through the 2nd half. However, the Baltimore Caps Blue scored 4 unanswered goals and won the game by the score of 9-6. Besides the players that got on the score sheet, solid contributions were put in by James Cooney, Connor Hung, Ayden Duran and Theodore Howard. A special thank you goes out to our guest goalie, Kieran, of the Baltimore Caps who made several brilliant saves during the game.
The Dare Devils salvaged one point out of this game by having the lead after the 1st half.
Saturday, 1/20/24, 11:55am vs. The Nova Cool Cats 2
After staying up late eating pizza, dancing, listening to death metal (mixed in with some Coolio and Miley Cyrus), and spending their parents savings at the arcade, the Dare Devils were fortunate that the schedule allowed them to sleep in as their first game of the day started just before noon. For this game, our heroes wore their black on black "Jersey" jerseys and again came out of the gate flying against our rival from DC. In a repeat of Friday's game, Patrick Hung scored two goals on the opening shift with assists going to Liam Smith and Owen Silverstein. The Dare Devils never looked back and maintained the lead throughout the game. The Dare Devils scoresheet was paced by Patrick Hung with 4 goals, Shea Passikoff with 3 goals and 1 assist, Owen Silverstein with 3 goals, 1 assist and 1 shot that almost took out a fan sitting behind the net, Ayden Duran with 2 goals (both celebrated with his patented look into the stands at his parents), Connor Hung with 1 goal and Liam Smith with 1 assist. James Cooney and Connor Hung were the defensive MVPs with a multitude of alert plays in front of our guest goalie, Ethan, from the Washington Ice Dogs. Theodore Howard had several great scoring chances and was very active on the puck during the game. Our goalie Ethan made several high danger saves and was crucial in allowing the Dare Devils to secure 4 points with this win (1 point for winning the 1st half, 1 point for winning the 2nd game and 2 points for winning the game).
Saturday, 1/20/24, 2:10pm vs. The Baltimore Saints Blue
The Dare Devils barely had enough time to grab lunch prior to their 2nd game of the day on Saturday against the Baltimore Saints Blue. The Dare Devils, wearing white, did not allow the back to back games impact their momentum in this tournament. Shea Passikoff opened the scoring with a wrist shot from the hash marks and the Dare Devils maintained the lead from there. The highlight of the game was a tic-tac-toe play started by Owen Silverstein passing to Liam Smith in the corner who thread the needle through the Saints defense to Patrick Hung who buried the point blank shot. Patrick Hung led the way with 7 goals and 1 assist, Shea Passikoff had 3 goals, Owen Silverstein had one goal and one assist, Liam Smith had an assist and Theodore Howard had an assist. Coach Terence changed up the lines and put our two defensive specialists, James Cooney and Connor Hung, on the same line and he consistently matched them up against the Saints top line. Owen Silverstein had a solid defensive effort for the other line. Ayden Duran was in the center of the action and made several key plays in the neutral zone. Our guest goalie, Ethan from the Ice Dogs, once again played a solid game (this time opting to play without his goalie stick). The Dare Devils secured 4 points in this win and are now waiting to see who they play on Championship Sunday.
Sunday, 1/21/24, 8:45am vs. The Baltimore Caps Red for the Baltimore Championship
After earning 9 out of a possible 12 points during the round robin portion of the tournament, the Dare Devils learned their fate on Saturday evening and they were justly awarded a spot in the Baltimore Championship Game to take on the Baltimore Caps Red. The Dare Devils were ready as Owen Silverstein put away two goals during the opening shift. The Dare Devils never took their foot off the gas and took home the championship, despite a valiant comeback by the Caps Red. All of the Dare Devils made the scoresheet. Owen Silverstein led the way with 5 goals, Shea Passikoff had 3 goals, Liam Smith had one goal and 2 assists, guest goalie Ethan had 1 goal and 2 assists, Theodore Howard had two goals and an assist, team tournament MVP Patrick Hung scored 2 goals, Ayden Duran had 1 goal, Connor Hung had 1 goal, and James Cooney's puck flipping practice paid off has he buried one past the goalie on a knuckle puck shot. All of the Dare Devils showed great sportsmanship and did an excellent job representing the team during this awesome event. A special thank you goes out to our guest goalies, Ethan and Kieran. Congrats on the championship!