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Wild Mite Majors Win NH Presidents Day Tourney!

By Jeremy Forest, 02/27/18, 8:15AM EST

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Squirt Minors take 2nd

Congratulations to our Granite State Wild Mite Majors and Squirt Minors who both had big weekends in the annual NH President’s Day tournament!  The Mite Majors went undefeated during the tournament, picking up their second consecutive tournament title after winning the JJ Rosato Tournament earlier in January, while the Squirt Minors also went undefeated during bracket play before dropping their final game and placing as the runner up in their division.  

The NH Presidents’ Day Tournament is the largest youth tournament hockey tournament held in NH and one of the largest in all New England, featuring teams from 12 states as well as top teams from Canada.

GSW Mite Majors (U8)

The Mite Majors’ championship run started with a victory against a highly-ranked South Shore (MA) Kings team in a tightly played game where the two teams traded a goals before the Wild netted the game winner late in the 3rd to take a 2-1 opening game victory.

Game 2 was a tale of two halves for the Wild Mites, who jumped out to a 5-0 lead against familiar foe the New England Stars before allowing 5 straight Stars goals that resulted in a 5-5 tie.

Games 3 and 4 saw two more big wins for the Wild, who came out scoring against a tough Mancheser Royals team and rode 3 early goals to a 3-2 victory and followed up the effort with a convincing 6-3 thumping of the Seacoast Spartans to reach the championship game.

The Wild entered the final game as the only undefeated team (3-0-1) where they matched up against a very Middlesex Islanders team.  The Islanders struck early in the first to take the lead, but the Wild founght back and knotterd the game at 1-1 before the end of the opening period.  The teams played back and forth hockey for most of the next 2 periods before the Wild finally pulled ahead with a goal late in the 3rd to take a 2-1 lead.  The Islanders pulled their goalie for one last push, but the Wild jumped on a loose puck around center ice and buried an empty netter for the 3-1 championship win!

GSW Squirt Minors (U9)

The Granite State Wild 2008 rolled into the Presidents Day Tournament coming off a big regular season win over the U10 Central Mass Outlaws (Marlborough, MA) who came into the game having only 1 loss on the season.  The team started off the tournament with a strong effort, netting 6 goals and allowing just one against regional rival the North Shore Shamrocks.

Early Saturday morning the Squirts Minors looked to pick up a second win against the Springfield Rifles Elite 2008 team (Springfield, MA.). In tightly played, back-and-forth game the Wild jumped out with a goal in the first period, before trading the next 3 with the Rifles, who scored with 7:32 left in the 3rd period to tie the score a 2-2.  The Wild capitalized on a Shamrocks penalty with 32 seconds remaining in the period, punching home a goal with 19 seconds left in the game to top the Rifles 3-2.

The Wild split Sunday’s doubleheader, beating a strong Middlesex Islanders team 2-1 in the first game and jumping out to a 2-0 lead in the second game against the Connecticut Junior Rangers 2008 Elites (Stamford, CT.) before dropping the contest 3-2.

The Wild played their final game against the PAL Islanders (Hauppauge, NY) in the crossover finals, battling hard but coming up on the losing end of the contest.