Highlights From Day 1 Of The Tourney 17

Obviously the All Hockey Hair Team is the biggest draw to the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament. And we’ll get to the best salads of the day a little later. But there’s also so damn hockey being played from yesterday to Saturday and you probably won’t see a better high school tournament in the country in any sport. Just a bunch of kids saucing around in front of a packed barn at the Xcel Energy Center. For most people, you could only dream of having an athletic moment like this. But the boys in Minny? This is just Tourney life for them. So let’s go through a few highlights first before we get to the lettuce because the boys didn’t just get here based on hair alone.

2 divisions (A and AA), 16 teams, 4 days, with all the pride in the world on the line. Yesterday we had the A division quarterfinals and here’s how we’re shaping up for the semis.

#1 Hermantown moves on to play #5 St. Cloud Cathedral and #6 Northfield will take on #7 Monticello/Annandale/Maple Lake (MAML). Huuuuuuuge day for upsets yesterday as the 2,3 and 4 seeds all went down. Sometimes the bright lights and big stage of the Xcel Energy Center is just too much for teams to handle. Sometimes teams are just happy and content enough with making it to the tournament that they forget whey they’re even there in the first place. To win a state championship Ferda.

The Play of the Day comes from #5 Cathedral putting on a passing clinic to get the eventual game winning goal against East Grand Forks.

Behind the back. Little forehand-backhand action right on the tape and it’s in the back of the net. You want to know how you become a legend? By doing shit exactly like this right here. Obviously a big time play like that deserves a big time celly like this.

Nothing better than getting the student section involved. The ultimate Ferda move. School pride, baby. There’s nothing quite like it. You know the boys are going to have to come out in full force tomorrow in the semis against Hermantown.

Next up we have Luverne’s Tyler Reisdorfer going #DangleDays to send the 8 seed to overtime against #1 Hermantown.

Eventually Hermantown was able to score the game winner in overtime and they were the only team to not get upset yesterday. But how about this Reisdorfer kid, eh? 2 goals in a 3-2 overtime loss at Xcel Energy. Not a terrible way to close out the season. Here’s that game winner, by the way.

It don’t mean a thing if you don’t get that ring.

Now let’s check in with some of the best mops we’ve seen of the day. 8 teams down put on their finest display of Flow-etry, 8 more teams left to show what they’ve got later today. So far the leaders in the club house are right here.

We already highlighted Mahtomedi junior Dallas Duckson yesterday but here’s an encore performance in case you missed it.

It’s tough to go on to be the All Hair Team MVP if you get upset by the 6 seed in the quarters but if anybody can do it, it’s Dallas Duckson. On the other side of the coin, however, I think I know where Mahtomedi went wrong with their gameplan. And it was allowing their captain to style his hair like this.

“Less is more”.

Now if we want to talk about a guy who has a legendary Beer League future ahead of him, Luverne’s Nick Harder is your guy.

Kid was born to be a Beer League Hero. Just from the looks of him, he has the chance to become the Wayne Gretzky of Beer League. Kid looks like he can take down a full 30 rack of Buds himself before going off for 6 and 1 every night.

Now I think I’ve made it abundantly clear over the years that I’m not a huge fan of goalies. Mostly I hate them because they’ve stopped about 96% of the shots that I’ve ever taken in my life. But even as one of the most devout goalie haters in America, I have to give credit where credit is due.

And Hermantown keeper Austin Hess deserves all the credit in the world for this flow/stash combo. It’s incredibly creepy yet beautiful all at the same time. It’s a tough look to pull off but thankfully for all the parents with small children in attendance, he’s wearing a mask for most of the game.

And finally…