by Todd Abeln
Thisweek Newspapers

Is this the year Rosemount boys' hockey makes the move to the top of the conference?

Head coach Scott Macho and the Irish supporters hope so.

This group of players has been successful every step of the way up the ladder, including a state championships as Bantams.

That was two years ago, now many of them are juniors and they expect to compete for the top spot in the conference.

With that said, Macho does have a warning for the fans.

"They've had success in youth programs, but high school hockey is a completely different story," Macho said.

For one, this isn't the same team that won the Bantam state title.

A couple of players have left Rosemount for a private school and all players develop at different rates.

That said, Rosemount should be good this year.

"We have a good group of kids," Macho said. "We have a lot of speed up front and we will try to use our speed as much as we can."

Rosemount only returns two seniors in forward Mike Vath and defenseman Anthony Anderson and that youth does concern Macho.

"It will be interesting, we return a lot but they are young and they make young mistakes," Macho said.

The team does return a talented group of forwards led by junior J.T. Brown, Nate Percy, and Dustin Dale. Other forwards are Nick Budweg, Mitch Markiewicz, Dylan Porter, Cole Hawkins, Brady Lowe, Conner Johnson, and Greg Belshaw.

Defensively, Luke McManus and Jordan Carlson return along with Ben Cloud, Cole Bangerter and Nate Winter.

In goal, Macho said the team has three solid goaltenders in Anthony Maroney, Mike Morgan and Cody Welsh.

"We had some tough decisions at goaltending," Macho said.

Many people expect the Irish to be their at the end and so does Macho.

"I think we could be in the mix at the end," he said.
Apple Valley

Its a new era for Apple Valley boys' hockey.

In the past three years, they have had two big defensemen who lead the team in scoring and did a great job of keeping the puck out of their own net.

Those two, David Fischer and Kyle Medvec, are gone and the Eagles are looking for their replacements.

Nobody can really replace them, but young players are stepping on the ice and trying to work hard to keep Apple Valley at the top of the conference.

"Losing Fisch and Medvec is a big gap to fill," said Head Coach Jerry Hayes, "but we feel very comfortable with the defensemen that have worked very hard to be in this position.

"Like most top programs, you are always replacing blue chip guys and you just hope that the guys waiting in the wings are paying attention and learning from them so when it comes to their turn, they are ready," Hayes said.

If their first game is any indication, their defense and goaltending will be fine. Where they might struggle is at finding offense.

In their first game against Lakeville South, the Eagles won 1-0.

The young defense lead by Vince Wigdahl, Cam Stelljes and Tommy Velin, along with senior goalie Greg Lentz, pitched the shutout.

Hayes said that Lentz will rotate with senior Justin Potter and that he expects both of them to play at a high level.

Other defensemen that will try to fill the void are sophomore Josh Hulbert, junior Mike Chapman and freshman Adam Robson.

Offensively, the Eagles may struggle, even though they return six of their top nine forwards.

The problem is that the Eagles forwards didn't generate much offense last year; most of it came from the blue line in Fischer and Medvec.

The top returning scoring this year is Kyle Politz.

"Kyle is going to have to play an even greater role this year," Hayes said. "He is an Elite League player who has great wheels. Guys like Trent Zimmer, Nick Fillhouer and Even Ptachick will have to become more offensive-minded and hardnosed around the net if we are going to be successful."

Other forwards on the Eagles squad is Andrew Stitt, Tyler Ekenberg, Chris Weber, Tyler Carlston, Mike Flippo, Alex McNamara, Jordan Buck and Kevin Hein.

With 11 seniors on the squad, that experience will help the Eagles compete with Eden Prairie and Jefferson for the top spot in the conference.
Burnsville

The Burnsville Blaze boys' hockey team was just looking from some continuity at the end of last year.

The program was in transition as the team played under interim co-head coaches because head coach John Barger was suspended by the school district and eventually resigned his position.

Despite the turmoil, the Blaze played great and surprised everybody with a strong finish in the Lake Conference. But the season ended early when they lost in the quarterfinals of the section playoffs.

After the season, the Blaze hired Janne Kivihalme to take over the program.

Kivihalme isn't new to the Burnsville program. He was a coach in Burnsville's youth hockey program and was an assistant coach at Minnetonka for five years.

He takes over a program that has a lot of players returning, but did lose most of their scoring.

Nick Oslund has graduated. He gave the Blaze 54 points last year and the team will have to find a way to replace those points, along with 64 other points that the Blaze graduated.

But Kivihalme isn't worried about that right now. He just is trying to is philosophy on this team.

"My coaching philosophy is to teach the athlete about the importance of effort, preparation, attendance, discipline and attitude with respect to the game," Kivihalme said. "I believe in individual skill development, team skill development and a team first attitude."

Right now, Kivihalme said he is experimenting with line combinations and defensive pairings looking for the best fit.

Scoring goals may be a problem for the Blaze early on, but it should pick up as the year goes on.

Players that will need to score for the Blaze to be successful are seniors Alex Johnson, Jake Blair, junior Jake Henderickson and Tyler Barnes.

The team will probably get a lot of scoring from their defense from Chris Franks, Matt Mosell and Chad McDuff.

Others that will look to score are Scott Ames, Mike Comstock, Lane Gustavson. Zach King, Andy Pearson and Zack May and Adam Perisic.

Other defensemen are Tony Anderson, Ben Branson.

In goal will be junior Ryan Benedict and senior Randy Johnson.
Eagan

The Eagan Wildcats had a breakthrough season last year by winning their section and playing in the state tournament.

The question now is can they maintain that lofty position and even improve on it?

It will be tough with the Wildcats graduating their top forward, their top defenseman and No. 1 goalie, but they do have talent returning and hope that young players can step in and fill the void.

Head coach Mike Taylor returns forwards TIm Lipinski and Pat Dockendorf. Both were very effective as juniors and should only be better as seniors. Taylor also said David Allen and Whitney Olson are returning and that they should be able to step up and provide some scoring punch for the Wildcats.

Defensively, Mason Swenson and Billy Hanlon will carry the load with Trent Anderson handling the goaltending duties.

"Our program will take it one at a time and try to make steady improvement the entire season," Taylor said.
Eastview

Their are a lot of juniors on the Eastview boys' hockey team and most of those juniors played a lot for head coach Mike Gibbons as sophomores.

That year of experience and the talent returning has Eastview thinking big things this year.

The expectations may not be that far off as they opened the season with a 3-1 victory over conference favorite Eden Prairie.

The Lightning return five defensemen, so they should be solid in their own end; but they did lose 81 points to graduation and Gibbons thinks with a year of experience that his offense will come along.

The top players returning for the Lightning is defensemen Corey Fienhage and Rob Malone.

Both have big futures as Gibbons says Fienhage will be drafted by the NHL and Malone will play Division I hockey after they graduate.

Malone and Mike Friedman are the team's top returning scoring both with 21 points.

Other forwards returning are Garrick Perry, James Vig, and Jared Larson.

Joining Fienhage on the blue line will by Josh Retka and Nick Gerkin.

The goaltending position is untested and could be rotated by a few players.

Todd Abeln is at sports.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.

Comment from dfkdjf, 12/15/06

I believe Scott Macho made a huge mistake. He cut a lot of seniors. His best chance for state would of been this year. This will really hurt the irish. I heard he cut a few very talented seniors this year. Macho keeps saying he's hoping for a winning season but with a move like this I wouldnt hope for it.