News About the NJ Jr. Titans Hockey Club

Clubs sometimes schedule a number of their teams to visit a rink on the same day.  This weekend the youth hockey at Wall features several games with the North Jersey Avalanche.  The Avs, who play out of the four rinks at “The IceHouse” in Hackensack are one of the best clubs in the area and usually occupy the top part of the league standings.  Like the Titans, they field over 20 teams.  Last year they had two teams that won 50 games, a 40 game winner and two 30 game winners at the T1 level alone.  13 of their teams went to their league playoffs last year.  Dan May, their Hockey Director is also the Bergen Catholic HS coach, 2 time state champions.  With all of those achievements they still will have their hands full when they come to town on Saturday.  

T1 PW majors will play them @1:45 pm, the T1 Bantam Minor game is @3:00 pm and the T2 PW A (red) game is at 6:00 pm.  Come out and root for the Titans, and see some great hockey.

This weekend saw a tough game for coach Spinale’s PeeWee B team in Montclair, and the result was not much to write about.  Sometimes there is more than the score to focus on in a game.  There was an act of teamwork that should be recognized.  The Titans were going with one gooalie as their other one had another obligation.  The goalie that did show up, got sick right there at the rink.   Pat McKerry, their captain volunteered to relieve his teammate in goal, putting on the pads cold, not having ever taken a shot in a travel game, and according to Coach Sal, he did an outstanding job in that role.  Bang your stick for Pat who stepped up big for his team.  Way to go Pat!

Midwestyouthhockey.com does a great job ranking youth teams from all over the country.  Its focus is on over 3000 T1 and T2 AA level teams.  It has a ‘Hockey Nerd’ open mathematical formula for deriving ratings between clubs using strength of schedule, records, and goal differential to come up with a “relative strength” rating for each team .  The score it creates helps a ranked team estimate how competitve another opponent will be. Thus, a better team could lose most of their games but rank higher than a .500 team with a softer schedule.  For example, the AAATitan 95 PW Major team is rated 27th in the nation. Part of that rating is because they beat #16, the Pitt.Junior Penguins, and their loss to West Seneca actually helped boost their ratings as WS was #5 in the nation at the time of their game.  The ratings will jump around early in the season with each weekend’s results, posted on Wednesdays.

Stay tuned, several of our Titan teams have a chance to make a national statement. The rankings higher levels often include Atlantic Youth League opponents like the Rockets, Avalanche, LI, and Mid Fairfield Ct. and each win against these top tier programs will improve the rankings.

Coach Haviland’s Tier 1 Pee Wee Major (95s) traveled to Connecticut this weekend.  They played 2 games on Saturday, the first against the Wonderland Wizards. This was the home rink of NHL star Chris Drury.  Read more about Chris: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/sports/hockey/02drury.html

 The game saw the Titans out shoot the Wizards in the first period 17-1, but only lead 2-0 when the period ended.  The score remained the same after two periods.  The Titans had great puck control and time of possession along with some HARD hits delivered by Hoagie ,Cliffy and Tomacheck.  In the third we finally broke through and scored 6 times to end the game at 8-1 George Blinick played well on the 12 shots he faced.We then hustled on down the road 30 minutes to play the first place tier-one team in CT., Mid-Fairfield who is ranked 23rd in the country. 

We only had two hours between games and 30 minutes was spent in the car.  The Blues jumped out to early 2-0 lead only to see the boys battle back and tie it with 2 third period goals.  Randy Gorda was outstanding in goal for us.  If there were 3 more minutes, we would have won the game against this very good squad.

On Sunday we went to Long Island to play Suffolk.   It was fun game, as Suffolk is not as strong as some of our other competitors.  We won 12-1 after we called the boys off.  Great weekend going 2-0-1.  This team is starting to find its groove.

The Titan Bantam A Black team worked hard and came away with 2 wins this past weekend.  Since beating the Ice Vault Bandits to clinch the championship game in the Labor Day Tournament, the boys were anxious to play this team again.  In a very physical game at WSA, the Titans were the first to get on the board with a goal from Conrad Quinn, on an assist from Sean Mulkeen at 7:01.  A nice slapshot at 4:56 from the point for Devin Corso put the Titans ahead 2-0.  With Cody Reilly in net looking sharp once again, Steven Sabatini, who was back in the lineup returning from an injury, proved he was missed on penalty kills.  

The 2nd period opened up with back to back penalties for both teams and with a 4 on 4, Charlie Morton reached the net from an end to end rush and scored the 3rd goal of the game.  Morton then came up with his 4th goal in 2 games at 6:20 to put the Titans ahead 4-0. The assist went to Will Conte.  The 3rd period had the Ice Vault Bandits coming out strong with much hitting and shots on net that seemed to get the attention of the Titans.  By 3:59, the Bandits had scored 3 goals.  The game ended at 4-3 with Reilly seeing 23 shots and the Titans with 26 shots on goal themselves. 

They next traveled to Exton, PA on Sunday afternoon in a match up with the Kings.  Coach Gibby, looking dapper in his blue sweater, chose to leave one of his many hats at home this time.  At 15:45 of the start of the game, Dan Maguire scored on an assist from Will Conte put the Titans ahead 1-0.  With Thomas Wiedmann in net, the Titans defense kept the Kings shots on net to 8 in the first.  Jonathan Weinstein and Timmy Behan did a great job in stepping up and playing where they were needed on defense.
  

The 2nd period started off at 14:32 with a power play goal by Charlie Morton on an assist by Will Conte and soon after, Pat Bruno wanted in on the act and scored on an assist from Jonathan Weinstein to put the Titans ahead 3-0.  Wiedmann wasn’t rattled by the Kings and made awesome saves to keep them scoreless for most of the 2nd.  On a nice setup by Charlie Mills and Brian Walsh, Billy Regan scored at 9:59.  The relentless Kings worked hard and scored back to back goals to put them back in the game and the score at 4-2.  Pat Bruno, with assists from Mills and Behan, and Dan Maguire, with an assist from Weinstein, then cushioned the lead with a goal each to put the Titans ahead 6-2. 

The Kings came out strong in the 3rd and scored 2 more goals.  After a minor ”slipup” in front of the bench, Pat Bruno answered back to the Titan crowd with his 3rd goal of the night, a nice “hattrick by Patrick”, to put the Titans at 7-4 and Will Conte with 2 assists in the game already, put the last goal of the game in to end it at a final score of 8-4.   Dan Maguire with 2 goals already in the game, assisted on that goal as well.  The Titans out shot the Kings 41-28.   Nice work this weekend boys! 

The Titan Squirt Bs are growing as a team. Many of the kids are playing their first travel hockey, and so the scoreboard is not always the best way to measure progress.

This weekend saw some great individual development on Coach Kelly’s squad. Laura Hoffman reports that Chris Lamb played extraordinarily well throughout the weekend - strong in both offensive and defensive zones as well as good team play. Zack Turcotte (great hockey name) scored his first goal as a Jr. Titan. Way to go Zack!!

The entire Squirt B Team showed tremendous character after getting beat on Sat 7 - 1 to come back to play Montgomery (one of the top T2 programs in Maryland) to a very competitive 3 - 1 game!

It was a pleasure a few weekends back to watch the celebration as this team bested Toms River at home, with strong efforts by Squirt Veterans Wesley White and Cole Wagner.

Keep playing and practicing hard Squirts, there’s a lot more great hockey to come!

Anthony Stolarz stopped 21 of 22 Clipper shots while Tom Caccia scored 2 and assisted on another by Chris Deatrick to lead the Titans to a 3-1 win over the Conn Clippers Saturday.  The win puts the Titans at 5-3 and in second place in the league, according to the AYHL web site. 

The Clippers had the only first period goal, but were shut down by Stolarz as Deartick tied the score in the second off a pass from Caccia. Caccia then scored the eventual game winner in short handed situation @ 9:00 of the third.  Caccia and the Titans added an empty netter to seal the win.

Coach DePlama’s first place squad plays at home on Saturday 6:00 pm vs. the Washington Little Capitals. Lou Balzano will try and add to his team leading, and 4th in the league 13 points. Donny Kane leads the league in defensive scoring. The Titans are capturing the league’s attention: From the Metropolitan Junior League Website:

“Meanwhile, the Jr. Titans continued their unbeaten ways, defeating the NJ Rockets, 4-2 and the VF Minutemen 6-0. Balanced scoring and fine goaltending by Patrick Murray have been key”. Patrick has over 91% save percentage.

Looking for great live hockey? Come see the best in the area at Wall this weekend!

18 year old Mike Swick of Wayside, NJ and Jr. Titan Alumni was the second star of the game for his OHL Sudsbury (Ontario)Wolves.  Mike, the #2 goalie was starting after his team had gotten off to an 0-4 start.  He was the second star of the game in a 3-2 squeaker over the London Knights at the John Labatt Centre in London on Friday night.

“Swick was great in goal for the Wolves, making 39 saves against the potent Knights offence.”  Bruce Heidman reporting in London

Great Job Mike.  Have other Titan Alumnni news, pass it on, we will post it!

Some of our Titans play tag

Looking for a way to let the kids burn off energy, and have fun?  Or maybe your non-hockey playing siblings are bored waiting for brother at practice?  Parties, teen nights, serious and fun players alike enjoy our lazer tag facility.  Make it part of your next Birthday celebration.  Ask for details at the front desk.