![Flint Powers Catholic celebrates its first Finals championship Saturday at USA Hockey Arena.](/sites/default/files/2023-03/230311_D3_2H.jpg)
Near-Miss Memories Can Fade as Flint Powers Catholic Claims 1st Hockey Title
March 11, 2023
PLYMOUTH — How far back do Flint Powers Catholic seniors Mason Czarnecki and Cooper Gerhardt go in their hockey careers together?
About as far back as you can go in the sport.
“We’ve played since day one,” Czarnecki said. “I think we were pushing the chair around together.”
From humble beginnings playing house league with the Flint Icelanders at Flint Iceland Arenas to their days winning travel hockey state championships with the Flint Junior Firebirds, Czarnecki and Gerhardt developed a connection that few teammates possess.
That bond came in really handy in the final seconds of the MHSAA Division 3 championship game Saturday at USA Hockey Arena.
Following a faceoff in the Powers zone, Gerhardt got the puck and spotted Czarnecki taking off through the neutral zone. Gerhardt sent him a perfect outlet pass, springing Czarnecki on a breakaway … and into history.
Czarnecki scored on that breakaway with only 4.6 seconds left on the clock, giving the Chargers their first championship in their eighth Finals appearance with a 3-2 victory over East Grand Rapids.
It was the latest game-winning goal in regulation time in Finals history, eclipsing Alex Hamady’s goal with 6.7 seconds left for Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice to beat Byron Center in a Division 2 Final two years ago.
“The ref dropped the puck and the puck was just sitting there,” Gerhardt said. “I looked up and (Czarnecki) was just flying down the ice. There’s a gap between the two ‘D.’ I just threw it and hoped for the best.
“The rest is history.”
And the ultimate memory to strengthen the bond between two great friends.
“For him to give me that pass on the big stage and to make it happen with four seconds left, I’m in awe right now,” said Czarnecki, who scored 30 goals this season and 64 during his three-year career. “This is crazy. I’ll remember this for the rest of our lives.”
It was not only the first championship for Powers, but the first for a Genesee County school after five had lost in the Finals.
Travis Perry coached Powers teams that reached the Finals before, losing 1-0 in overtime to Calumet in 2008 and 3-1 to Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood in 2010. He had a 27-1 team lose in the Semifinals in 2017.
He wondered if this day would ever arrive.
“It’s been 17 years that I’ve had a lot of great players,” said Perry, who played for Powers. “It’s been 50 years of just struggles, be it bad bounces, we’ve had bad games down here. It’s 50 years of frustration that came off, so it’s great to see.”
It’s never been easy when Powers has reached the Finals, going all the way back to a 6-2 loss to Houghton in 1982 in the hometown at IMA Sports Arena.
So, even though the Chargers took control with an early 2-0 lead against East Grand Rapids, the historic championship was going to put Powers and its fans through the emotional wringer.
Czarnecki and Brody Neelands scored to give Powers a 2-0 lead in the first 14 minutes, 6 seconds, but East Grand Rapids goalie Austin Stankowski then shut out the Chargers until the final seconds.
Tyler Sikkenga, whose goal in the final seconds forced overtime in a 2-1 upset of No. 1-ranked Houghton in the Semifinals, scored at 2:29 of the second period and 9:00 of the third to tie the game.
Then, for once, the most important bounce went Powers’ way.
“These guys have played together their whole lives,” Perry said. “That’s part of it, too. Mason takes off and knows Coop’s gonna get him the puck. We score, half the team is crying; we’re out of sorts. We still have five seconds left. I’m trying to get everybody under control. I think I was a little out of sorts. Obviously, we were able to close it out. It’s hard to put into words what it feels like right now.”
The victory came one year after a 3-2 loss to eventual Division 3 champion Midland Dow in a Regional championship game, one of the few years in which Powers didn’t win a Regional. The Chargers have won 35 Regionals, second in MHSAA history only to the 38 won by 14-time Finals champion Trenton.
“I actually printed out a picture of the scoreboard,” Powers senior Greg Feamster said. “Every morning, I’d wake up and look at that picture and think about how it felt. So, every day just working out, working with the team practices, I think of that moment. The seniors know what it felt like. It really pushed us and allowed us to get over that hump.”
East Grand Rapids was also on a quest to make history, having lost 3-2 to Dearborn Divine Child in its only Finals trip in 2002.
This wasn’t a Pioneers team that looked like a candidate to play on the final day of the season, having gone 10-11-2 during the regular season. But East Grand Rapids beat No. 6 Grand Rapids Catholic Central in the Regional Final, No. 7 Bay Reps in the Quarterfinals and then pulled off the ultimate upset over No. 1 Houghton in the Semifinals to reach the championship game.
An unranked team that wasn’t on anyone’s radar to win Division 3 was within one shot of doing so.
“That’s something we’ll hang our hat on a little bit later,” East Grand Rapids coach Christopher Newton said. “Obviously, this one stings. But we proved this weekend we can play with some of the best teams in the state. I’m proud of our kids. They left everything out there. They have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Nicholas Kurtiak turned aside 23 of 25 shots for Powers, while Stankowski stopped 24 of 27.
PHOTOS (Top) Flint Powers Catholic celebrates its first Finals championship Saturday at USA Hockey Arena. (Middle) The Chargers’ Mason Czarnecki (25) sends home the winning goal.
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Roque Shines as Sault Ste Marie Surges
January 14, 2016
By Dennis Grall
Special for Second Half
SAULT STE. MARIE – Abby Roque has taken a somewhat unusual route to reach another high level of hockey.
The Sault Ste. Marie High School senior, an accomplished international player on the women's side, is the only female playing on her school's boys hockey team, as she’s been each of her four seasons with the Blue Devils. She is the only girl to have ever played for the Sault, which is home to one of the top boys programs in the state.
The Blue Devils, two-time MHSAA champions who finished second in the Division 3 playoffs in 2013 and 2014 and reached the Quarterfinals last year, are 10-4-1 this winter.
Roque, a forward who also plays on the team's top power play unit, has five goals and 14 assists. She has received a scholarship to play for the University of Wisconsin, which has one of the nation's premier women's hockey programs. The Badgers, coached by former Olympian and NHL star Mark Johnson, are currently ranked second in the country.
"It has really helped me see how college hockey will be," Roque said before a recent practice as the Blue Devils prepared for the Sault Lions Showcase this weekend and games against Dearborn Divine Child and Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice. Sault Ste. Marie is ranked No. 9 in Division 3 this week.
"It's been a good four years. It has helped me improve every single year," she added. "I've never been the best player on the team, but that has made me work hard to try to be the best player on the team.”
Last season, Roque was one of 15 girls who played on boys high school hockey teams in Michigan and earned Division 3 all-state second team honors.
She also played on the U.S. Women's Under-18 International Ice Hockey Federation world championship team that won gold in 2015.
"The speed of the guys high school game has helped me prepare for women's college hockey," she said.
While not as fast on the high school ice, Roque knows how to compensate against the boys. Asked for her primary strength, she said, "my smarts on the ice. The guys are very fast, they are very powerful. I have to make the right pass. My stick handling skills are good."
Those skills also give her a decided edge when she does play against other females, such as the IIHF world tourney, where she led the world juniors in face-offs. Even though checking is not allowed in the girls game, her experience in the more physical brand of boys hockey has helped provide a major advantage.
"I do enjoy the checking. The physical part of hockey is great," she said with a chuckle. "Girls hold the puck longer. Guys come at you (faster and harder) and you have to move the puck faster."
Getting knocked around in the corner in boys games is no problem. "I'm not intimidated by anyone on the ice," she said. "I've gotten stronger playing with the guys. I'm clearly not as strong, but I hold my own. It is all really just hockey to me at this point."
Her Sault coach, John Ferroni, said many opposing players and fans are not even aware there is a female on the ice. "She has definitely learned how to manage herself in the boys game," he said. "She is very competitive, sometimes even too competitive."
Indeed, she says, "I try to be the intimidating one on the ice."
That is not surprising since she has grown up with hockey a major part of her life. She began playing at age 4 and her father, Jim, is a former hockey coach at Lake Superior State University. Her uncle, Tom Bissett, is hockey coach at Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern.
"If kids inherit things from their parents, she has inherited her dad's hockey IQ. She picked up the sport and has had a lot of hockey conversations with her father, and she comes from a hockey family," Ferroni said, noting her mother also has a strong athletic background.
Roque, who also has played golf and soccer and boasts 4.0 grade-point average taking advanced placement classes, said playing boys hockey was not a hard decision. She played in the strong Sault boys youth program from day one and realized the boys were the direction to take after playing girls hockey in the fall as an eighth grader.
"She always played with good hockey players, and they always accepted her as a girl," said Ferroni, in his fifth year as Sault coach. He said Roque "understands the game real well and made the commitment a long time ago. She is very dedicated to the sport."
Ferroni said Roque "has decent speed and decent quickness at the boys level. She is a strong skater and is very hard to knock off the puck. She is very elusive and always seems aware of what is going on around her."
That ability to see the game makes her "a playmaker without question" according to Ferroni. "She passes the puck extremely well; she has good, strong passing skills."
Ferroni admits he "had to look at a lot of things before taking her" on the team. After that process concluded, he said, "I knew she would be fine, but no way did I think she would rise to the level she has risen to. I didn't see that (second team all-state) coming."
After checking out girls programs, Roque and Ferroni realized the Sault High School boys team would be the best path to follow. Ferroni said playing against other girls was not fast enough, and the puck movement among the boys was much better.
"We afforded her and gave her a great opportunity," Ferroni said. "She walked into a good, strong program as a freshman and was not just being a player, but was a real solid player. She definitely has raised the bar around here for girls.
"She has helped us as much as we have helped her."
Roque said Wisconsin "was the right fit for me. I loved everything about it, about Madison. Everything is about hockey. I just couldn't go anywhere else."
Roque also received scholarship offers from women's programs at North Dakota, Boston College and Boston University, among other schools.
This school year's participation figures will not be compiled until the spring, but about 250 girls total played on MHSAA boys teams in 2014-15.
Denny Grall retired in 2012 after 39 years at the Escanaba Daily Press and four at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, plus 15 months for WLST radio in Escanaba; he served as the Daily Press sports editor from 1970-80 and again from 1984-2012. Grall was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves as its executive secretary. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Upper Peninsula.
PHOTOS: (Top) Sault Ste. Marie's Abby Roque positions herself near the net during one of her team's games. (Middle) Roque is the first girl to play on the Sault's boys hockey team. (Below) Roque, here on her U.S. Under-18 team, brings international experience to the high school season. (Photos courtesy of the Sault Ste. Marie athletic department.)