Performance: Calumet's Rory Anderson
January 13, 2017
Rory Anderson
Calumet senior – Hockey
Calumet may be Michigan’s northernmost high school, but its hockey program is known well from Lake Superior to the Ohio and Indiana borders – and earned plenty of respect again by downing Division 2 No. 5 Novi 5-1 last Friday and Division 1’s formerly top-ranked Brighton 4-1 on Saturday. Copper Kings captain Anderson led the way with a goal in both games plus a combined three assists and some valuable checking to earn the Michigan National Guard “Performance of the Week.”
Anderson is a returning all-stater and his team’s leading scorer for the second straight season, this winter with nine goals and 13 assists and a +5 rating (his team has scored five more goals than it’s given up with him on the ice) over 12 games. He had 49 points as a junior and 27 as a sophomore and for his career has 40 goals and 58 assists over 63 games. Neither Brighton nor Novi’s top lines scored during his time on the ice over the weekend, and as a result of those wins the Copper Kings moved up from No. 10 in Division 3 to No. 7 and improved to 6-5-1 after starting this season 0-4.
A three-sport athlete, Anderson will play shortstop, catcher and do some pitching this spring for the baseball team, and also made the media-selected all-Upper Peninsula Dream Team in football this fall helping Calumet set a school record for wins in finishing 10-2. He ran for 741 yards and 16 touchdowns and also averaged 34.3 yards per kick return with two more scores. He’s undecided what he’ll do after high school but would be interested in continuing his athletic career; first though, Anderson is focused on carrying the hockey team deep into the postseason after his Copper Kings fell in the postseason's first round last winter to Houghton and then watched neighbor Hancock emerge from their Regional to win its first MHSAA championship since 1999.
Coach Dan Giachino said: “Rory is important to our team for many reasons. Not only has he been our leading scorer for the past two seasons, but he has been one of our best defensive forwards. Rory's line is consistently matched up against the opposing team's top line, and he continually does an excellent job keeping the opposing top line off the scoresheet. Rory's work ethic is always apparent at practice, and he has learned over the past two years that he has the ability to push his linemates with his hard work. … Off the ice, Rory is 3.0 student and has a great presence in the locker room. As a junior, he was named assistant captain, and this year, he was a natural fit to be our captain. Our coaching staff is always pushing kids to be 'quietly confident' in their abilities, and Rory has been a player that brings that to the locker room each day.”
Performance Point: “It was all around a good weekend,” Anderson said. “Everyone was playing hard … it wasn’t just me doing everything, but my players around me, my teammates helping me out and me helping them out. (The highlight) I think was making the play for the go-ahead goal against Brighton, to make us go ahead 2-1, passing it over to Scotty Loukus. I got the puck in the defensive zone, and I thought to myself that I needed to get it out. I chipped it to Scotty, he gave it back to me, and I saw the open ice. I was patiently waiting on the side boards, and then I gave it back to him.”
Handing off success: “There’s quite a few guys who also played football, and after the season we had there on the football team we carried a lot of momentum going into hockey season. It's just the things we do in football, the leadership and everything, that carries over and that’s what we want. To be honest, some of us players didn’t really (expect the football success) at the beginning of the season, but once we started going, we got a good idea we could go far, and that’s what we did. I think we could have a really good (hockey) run, for my last year. We have a good team.”
Captain Anderson: “It’s a big role to fill. With all the guys there, all the seniors there, and a new (captain) that’s picked, it’s tough. But it’s fun too. I keep all the guys together, just being vocal on the benches and in the locker room and during practice. (It’s) just talking, helping the kids who it might be their first year there.”
Bigger, faster, smarter: “During the offseason, I put in a lot of work lifting, and I think I’ve gotten a lot faster and smarter. Just watching other people, watching what they do at higher levels, and carrying that to my level, I think it’s made me smarter – what to do without the puck, moving around to get open so other people can get me the puck, and then when I have the puck where to skate and what to do with it. I really like watching (the Washington Capitals’) T.J. Oshie. The things he does, he’s a big hitter, he can play the body and he also does a lot of stuff with the puck.”
If Hancock can do it: “After watching them go on their state run, we just kinda figured if they can do it, we can do it. Watching them go to the Finals, it’s a local team and you’re always paying attention to what other teams around the area are doing. I know just about every single one of them, and I think most people wanted to see them go far.
- Geoff Kimmerly, Second Half editor
Every week during the 2016-17 school year, Second Half and the Michigan National Guard will recognize a “Performance of the Week" from among the MHSAA's 750 member high schools.
The Michigan Army National Guard provides trained and ready forces in support of the National Military Strategy, and responds as needed to state, local, and regional emergencies to ensure peace, order, and public safety. The Guard adds value to our communities through continuous interaction. National Guard soldiers are part of the local community. Guardsmen typically train one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer. This training maintains readiness when needed, be it either to defend our nation's freedom or protect lives and property of Michigan citizens during a local natural disaster.
Previous 2016-17 honorees:
Dec. 15: Demetri Martin, Big Rapids basketball – Read
Dec. 1: Rodney Hall, Detroit Cass Tech football – Read
Nov. 24: Ally Cummings, Novi volleyball – Read
Nov. 17: Chloe Idoni, Fenton volleyball – Read
Nov. 10: Adelyn Ackley, Hart cross country – Read
Nov. 3: Casey Kirkbride, Mattawan soccer – Read
Oct. 27: Colton Yesney, Negaunee cross country – Read
Oct. 20: Varun Shanker, Midland Dow tennis – Read
Oct. 13: Anne Forsyth, Ann Arbor Pioneer cross country – Read
Oct. 6: Shuaib Aljabaly, Coldwater cross country – Read
Sept. 29: Taylor Seaman, Brighton swimming & diving – Read
Sept. 22: Maggie Farrell, Battle Creek Lakeview cross country – Read
Sept. 15: Franki Strefling, Buchanan volleyball – Read
Sept. 8: Noah Jacobs, Corunna cross country – Read
PHOTOS: (Top) Calumet's Rory Anderson prepares to receive the puck during a game last season. (Middle) Anderson looks for an opening after taking a hand-off during football season this fall. (Photos courtesy of the Calumet athletic department.)
Balanced, Talented Chargers All Playing Roles in Pursuit of Ultimate Goal
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
February 23, 2022
Nolan Salayko is confident heading into the MHSAA ice hockey postseason because he’s confident in his Flint Powers Catholic teammates.
All of them.
“I think with this team, we just have so much depth with all of our lines,” the senior defenseman said. “In years past, we had maybe a superstar, and then it would drop off a little bit. This year, everybody plays their role perfectly and it’s helping us win.”
Salayko and the Chargers have done plenty of winning, going 20-4-1 this regular season. They enter Regionals ranked No. 1 in Division 3 and No. 2 in the Michigan High School Hockey Coaches Association Super 10.
They’ve done it with an incredibly balanced attack, as five players have scored 10 or more goals, and eight have more than 20 points.
“Ever since the summer, Coach has said how we’re going to be built on depth this year, and we can all see it,” Powers senior forward Luke Cramer said. “We don’t look to just one guy if it’s the end of a game and we’re down a goal. We really rely on each other. Everyone can make a great play, and we all know it.”
By relying on everyone, the Chargers are hoping to take the next championship step after coming up just short over the years. Despite having won 34 Regional titles, qualifying for 21 Final Fours and seven Finals, Powers has never won a Finals championship.
“That’s a big one with the program,” Powers coach Travis Perry said. “We’ve had a lot of success over the years, and there were three guys before me, and those guys all had a lot of success, as well. But we still haven’t won that last game. Hopefully, one of these years it’s going to happen and we get that bounce to go our way.”
Perry added that he didn’t like talking about the program’s lack of a title, but he admitted to feeling a sense of urgency with this year’s team, as it features most of the 2020-21 roster, which advanced to the Division 3 Semifinals.
“From my end, you never know when you’ll have a team this good again,” he said.
The players are very aware of the program’s history, but they also would rather not talk about it.
“Each year is a different year,” Cramer said. “You hear about it from time to time from outsiders. But inside our team, we don’t think about it too much.”
In order to try to end it, though, Perry continued to schedule up this season, adding some of the state’s top teams to the Chargers’ slate.
They’ve played the No. 1 teams in both Division 1 and 2, losing 2-0 against Detroit Catholic Central and defeating Hartland 2-1. In total, they’ve played 10 ranked teams, going 7-2-1 in those games.
“We knew we had a good team coming back, so we wanted to put those guys in over their heads,” Perry said. “We tried to make the schedule as hard as we could. That was one of the things we said as a coaching staff this year, we thought that we could go into the playoffs at 15-10, and if we did, we’d be battle tested.”
The schedule didn’t just test the Chargers, it gave them a new level of confidence.
“Playing those teams again this year, we have the confidence in knowing that we can play with them,” Cramer said.
And that confidence runs through the roster, as they’ve all contributed to building it. All 18 skaters have scored at least one goal this season, led by Mason Czarnecki with 17.
Czarnecki is also tied for the team lead in assists with 21. Jacques Lavrack (14 goals, 19 assists), Cooper Gerhardt (11 goals, 21 assists), Trey Carlock (seven goals, 19 assists), Weston Reinig (seven goals, 18 assists), Brenden Tarpening (11 goals, 14 assists), Nolan Berner (10 goals, 14 assists) and Kyle Barbour (eight goals, 15 assists) are all averaging nearly a point a game or more.
Behind a strong Powers defense, goaltender Nick Kurtiak is having a solid season as well with a 1.49 goals-against average and .918 save percentage.
It all adds up to a confident group heading into Thursday night’s postseason opener against Big Rapids. But it’s also one that’s very aware anything can happen in a single-elimination tournament.
“You just take it, honestly, one game at a time and one practice at a time,” Salayko said. “We just keep trying to get better and better every game.”
If they allow themselves to dream a bit, however, and think of winning that final game and bringing a first hockey title to an already prestigious program, the tenor changes – if only for a moment.
“That would be, honestly, great,” Cramer said. “Not only for our school, but for our team and this program and what we’ve tried to build all these years. It would be a great way to leave our mark here.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Mason Czarnecki (25) and his teammates skate toward their bench during Saturday’s game against Livonia Stevenson. (Middle) Chargers Jacques Lavrack (3) and Kyle Barbour (16) are among those working to push the puck into Stevenson’s goal during the 4-2 win. (Below) Powers players huddle up. (Photos courtesy of the Flint Powers Catholic hockey program.)