2024 USA Hockey Special Hockey Classic: Blaine, MN, 11/15/24 - 11/17/24
The rival Long Island Blues were gracious enough to invite the NJ Dare Devils to join forces with them in this year's Special Hockey National Tournament in Blaine, Minnesota. James Cooney and Shea Passikoff decided to take the Blues up on their offer and travelled out to Minneapolis for the weekend. However, some last minute schedule changes and a ground stop at Newark airport caused the NJ boys to miss the first game of the tournament as the Blues took on our good friends, the Brick Stars. While they may have missed the game, the Dare Devil representatives took over the Captain's Club at Newark airport and may or may not have interrupted a few business meetings. Back in Minnesota, the Blues managed without James and Shea and were still able to best the Stars in the Friday evening game behind stellar goaltending from our sometimes goalie, Taylor Esposito. The Dare Devil boys made it in time to play two games on Saturday and one game on Sunday with the talented Blues team. The Blues are a well oiled machine and it was a great learning experience for Shea and James to see how well the Blues moved the puck around throughout the games. There were D to D passes, strong breakouts and offensive zone structure that Shea and James will hopefully share when they get home and join back up with the Dare Devils. The excellent teamwork allowed the Blues to go undefeated in the tournament as they beat a team from Chicago on Saturday morning, a team from Minnesota on Saturday evening and another team from Minnesota on Sunday morning. The Dare Devils contributed to the wins with strong play and 2 goals/2 assists from Shea Passikoff and 1 assist/hardworking defense from James Cooney. Taylor Esposito continued his unbelievable goaltending by recording 4 victories and even contributing 1 assist in the final game of the tourney.
A special thank you goes out to the Blues for allowing our boys to play with them this weekend. Coach Skip, Coach Rob, Coach Jim, the players and families all welcomed us and made us feel like we were part of the team. It was nice to see the Blues being so unselfish and playing a team first game in all of the contests. Coach Skip even offered to apprentice Coach Myles so we can translate some of the Blues structure to the Dare Devils. Blues players Vincent Markowski and Jack Tricarico really went out of their way to help James and Shea with positioning and get them up to speed with the Blues on-ice structure. Thank you Blues - we loved playing with you this weekend!
Back in NJ, the coaching staff battled the brush fires on Route 280 and made it to practice to lead the team through a session on Saturday night. Coaches Myles, T, Steve Toledo and Eric led the players through the typical drills and made sure the players are staying in great shape. As a reminder, there is no practice next Saturday, November 23rd. We have group night at the Prudential Center on Monday, November 25th. Tickets will be distributed via text message or email at some point this week.