Thumb Schools Form Hockey 'Legion'
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
December 12, 2018
Larry Camp is happy to be focusing on hockey.
The coach of the first-year Eastern Thumb Area Legion hockey program – also known simply as Ubly – had been working since February, navigating the politics of school boards and paperwork to create an opportunity for athletes in the Thumb to play high school hockey.
“Come about October, all I kept telling my other assistant coaches was, ‘I just can’t wait to get on the ice,’” Camp said. “Everybody was like, ‘How’s your team? What’s it going to be like?’ I kept saying that I won’t know until our first game. When that first game came, it was a huge relief.”
Student-athletes from seven schools which make a 151-mile circle in Huron and Sanilac counties have come together to form the team, which is competing without a conference but in Division 2 for the MHSAA Tournament.
Sandusky, Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port Laker, Bad Axe, Deckerville, Croswell-Lexington and Marlette join Ubly as schools providing players for the team. The Legion plays its home games out of Colleen J. Howe Arena in Sandusky and also holds practices at the Huron County Expo Center in Bad Axe to try and cut down on the constant travel some of its players would have to endure.
“I grabbed a map and looked at where we thought we could pull kids from – where would be the seven best school districts that we could fit,” Camp said. “What we looked at was where the two ice arenas are, and we tried to make a straight line up and down. When word got out, we had five or six other schools call us that wanted to get (involved). They really wanted to join, but we already had our seven.”
Twenty-seven players came to the first tryout, and Camp said he’s carrying a roster of 23. The numbers surprised him, but the desire to play high school hockey was high for kids who had spent time in the Huron and Sanilac county hockey associations.
“I was going to stop playing hockey this year because of the drive (to Bay City) – it was an hour and a half to practice,” Legion captain and Sandusky senior Jarod Coon said. “Now, it’s where I go to school. I love hockey, so it’s real nice to keep going.”
Coon, who plays center, has been playing hockey for more than a decade, joining teams in Port Huron, Mount Clemens and Bay City after starting his career in Sanilac County. His story isn’t uncommon on this team.
Marlette senior goaltender Chad Bower, also a captain, had been playing hockey since he was 5 years old and doing so without ever having the prospect of playing for his high school.
“I played travel my seventh and eighth grade year, then the next year my team dismantled,” he said. “Some of the boys went to (Saginaw) Heritage, Davison, stuff like that. That next year, I had to come back and play football. I was actually really excited (to play high school hockey), but then at the same time kind of mad, because it was already my senior year.”
Collecting excited and experienced hockey players wasn’t an issue for Camp. But even after petitioning school boards, attending meetings and getting the approval from the MHSAA in July, he still had to create a schedule for his team – which can be difficult for an independent and a newcomer. Through some more hard work, he was able to get to a full 26 games.
“I didn’t know any athletic directors, didn’t know their contact information,” he said. “I went to the MHSAA website and looked up names and numbers. The coach from Port Huron Northern (Daryel McCarrel) helped me a lot. The guys from the Imlay City team, the Alliance, those guys gave me a lot of contact info. I must have sent 150 emails, and I could barely get my number of games.”
The schedule mostly features teams from the region, such as Lapeer, Bay City and Port Huron. But there was a trip to Dearborn already, and Mount Pleasant will make its way to Sandusky later in the season. The Legion also played a pair of games against Tawas, the state’s other new hockey program this season. Tawas won the first meeting, 3-2, and the teams played to a scoreless tie in their second meeting.
“That was pretty cool with it being our first season and their first season,” Bower said. “We did like a first-year gift exchange, stuff like that. It was really cool to be a part of that.”
The Legion has started 2-3-1, and players are working not only to get used to coach Camp’s systems and the pace of the high school game, but also to each other.
“We just try to be friendly to each other, pretty much,” Coon said. “We haven’t done too much outside of practice, but we’re looking at going to the playoffs with the college teams at Little Caesars (Arena), just for some team bonding. I kind of thought it would be (weird playing with kids from rival schools), but it’s not really. Some of the people, I either don’t know them from other sports, or they’re just really good guys, and I like them anyways.”
When it comes to setting goals for the season, players are keeping things realistic. Bower said that while a deep run in the Division 2 playoffs would be great, he’s first focusing on the team finishing above .500.
Of course, as the first year of the program, it’s also about much more than this year.
“I’m interested to see what it turns into if it keeps going, which I really hope it will,” Coon said. “To see what it turns into in 15 years, then I can come back and say, ‘I was the first captain on that team.’ Right now, we’re looking to set up a good name for ourselves, so a lot of kids that didn’t try out this year or maybe didn’t know about the team will know about it and are excited to try out for next year. I guess we’re just trying to get a good reputation. And win some games.”
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) Legion goalie Chad Bower, left, meets with this counterpart from Tawas during their first of two games against each other this season. (Middle) An Eastern Thumb Area player launches a shot against Port Huron. (Photos courtesy of the Eastern Thumb Area hockey program.)
Cranbrook Kingswood Caps Comeback
March 14, 2015
By Bill Khan
Special to Second Half
PLYMOUTH — No one is immune from the disappointments of playoff hockey, not even those who play for a perennial powerhouse like Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood.
Three years ago, Cooper Stahl and Austin Alger were freshmen on a Cranes team that outshot Marysville 55-19, only to lose a 2-1 overtime shocker in the Regional Finals.
Last season, they were juniors on a Cranbrook Kingswood squad that fell 3-2 in the MHSAA Division 3 Quarterfinals to an upstart Farmington squad, which was outshot 62-15, but used that upset as a springboard to an unlikely championship.
The common theme for the 2013 and 2015 Cranbrook Kingswood teams is how they responded to adversity, bouncing back from rare early exits in the postseason to add to the school's record total of MHSAA championships.
The count is now at 17 after the Cranes' dominating performance in a 4-0 victory over Houghton in the Division 3 Final on Saturday at Compuware Arena. Trenton ranks No. 2 on the list with 14 championships.
"They're the top team in Division 3, and have been," Houghton coach Corey Markham said. "They're the measuring stick. ... They're as good as anyone in the state. They're not just a good Division 3 team, they're as good as anyone in the state, and they've proven that."
Cranbrook Kingswood has a 17-2 record in MHSAA Finals, winning in its last nine appearances, but — despite impressions to the contrary — the Cranes don't always make it to the final day of the tournament.
"It really helps motivate us," Stahl said of the two playoff losses during his four-year career. "We've seen both spectrums, the highs and lows. Throughout my four years here, every day in practice and off ice, everything we do, we had both of those feelings in our mind. We wanted the good one we experienced today."
Like his brother Alex two years earlier, forward Austin Alger spent his senior year working to go out on top after a crushing end to his junior year.
"After getting knocked out against Farmington last year, the guys were on a mission this year," Alger said. "It was easy with the seniors. There were 13 leaders on the team."
The Cranes outshot Houghton 50-13, but they know that shots alone don't win hockey games when the opposing goalie morphs into a brick wall.
Cranbrook Kingswood (25-2-4) didn't allow Houghton senior Marcus Gloss to establish control of the game, peppering him early and coming away with a 3-0 lead after one period.
Mason Schultz buried a backhanded rebound just 42 seconds into the game to open the scoring. By the middle of the first period, the Cranes had a three-goal cushion, with Cole Adaskaveg knocking home a rebound at 6:38 and Blake Rogow scoring from the blue line at 8:09.
"Getting one early just really calms the nerves for someone who hasn't played at Compuware before, like a freshman who doesn't have that much playoff experience," Stahl said. "It helps settle everyone down to get one goal early and play the rest of the game the way we usually do."
It was a shocking start for Houghton, which allowed only four goals in its five postseason games, and never more than one.
"They jumped on us quick," Gloss said. "I'm not quite sure I was as ready as I should have been. I didn't expect such a quick start. It's tough when they're on you so fast."
Houghton's big chance to get back into the game came at 15:12 of the first period when C.J. Regula of the Cranes received a five-minute major for boarding. The game was a stalemate during that extended power play, with both teams getting one shot on goal.
The Gremlins (24-5-2) wouldn't get another power play until the game was virtually out of reach at 4-0 midway through the third period.
"That was demoralizing, it really was," Markham said. "You think being down three that this is our chance, you get one, maybe two in those five minutes. When we didn't score in those five minutes, it was a little blow. We never just quite got that spark. We didn't have that spark to give us a little pep, a little jump in our step."
After allowing three goals on the first 12 shots, Gloss stopped the next 25 he faced to give Houghton a glimmer of hope for a comeback.
The Gremlins' best scoring chance of the game came early in the third period, when Reid Pietila pounced on a loose puck on a rush and nearly slipped it through the pads of goalie Spencer Applebaum, who looked behind him to see if the puck was in the net.
It was the toughest save in a 13-save shutout for Applebaum, who was also the goaltender when Cranbrook Kingswood beat Sault Ste. Marie to win the 2013 title.
"It was a two-on-two," Applebaum said. "The first guy kind of threw it toward the net. It got deflected in front. The second guy, I saw him out of the corner of my eye. I slid over and he shot it five-hole. I didn't know if I had it, but it was stuck under my pad, probably less than a foot away from the goal line, so I barely got there."
"I tried to slide it under him, but he made a good save," Pietila said. "I try not to be too hard on myself, but it's kind of hard in this situation."
Not long after Applebaum's save, the Cranes essentially put the game away on a power-play goal by Regula with 13:05 left in the game.
"We got a couple of good bounces in today's game," Cranes coach Andy Weidenbach said. "The goalie gave up a couple rebounds and the bounces ended up on our stick. Sometimes they go your way, sometimes they don't. Today the bounces seemed to go our way, and we were able to capitalize on at least three rebounds."
Houghton is 1-4 in MHSAA Finals, its victory coming in 1982 against Flint Powers Catholic. The Cranes are 3-0 in the postseason against the Gremlins, winning 6-5 in the 1979 Class B Final and 3-2 in double overtime in the 1997 Class B Semifinals.
PHOTOS: (Top) Cranbrook Kingswood players celebrate during Saturday's Division 3 Final win. (Middle) The Cranes' Sean O'Leary works to move the puck ahead. (Photos by Andrew Knapik/Southgate.)