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Tailing the Komets

24 hours of hockey coming up at Canlan

 Sponsored by Fort Wayne Youth Hockey partnered with Lutheran Health Sports Center, Canlan Ice Arena

April 29, 6 p.m. to April 30, 6 p.m.

Mayor Tom Henry will drop the puck at 6:00pm on the 29th FW Fire vs. FW Police game

FW Derby Girls vs. Pitbull Posse (Hockey Moms) game

FW Komet Legends game

FW Referees vs. FW Travel Coaches game

Curling and Figure skating demonstrations

Live entertainment by "Borrowed Time" at 9:00 pm on the 29

 

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2 sheets of ice to include "24 hour game" from Mite to Adult leagues

24 hour unlimited BounceMania, Open Skate and games for all ages for $10

Colin Lister Memorial Hockey Grant to be established from this event

$2.00 or 2 canned goods admittance fee with 100% of proceeds to Community Harvest Food Bank

Silent Auction items with portion of proceeds to Camp Watcha-Wanna-Do

Posted in: Komets

Comments

InTheBlue
Thu, 04/14/2011 - 4:00am

High School Hockey is one of (if not the) largest consumers of ice at Canlan, and there was no place to showcase the HS players in this 24 hour extravaganza? Disappointing.

JR1
Thu, 04/14/2011 - 4:26am

Remember, it is high school your talking about and most of those kids have probably moved on to baseball, soccer, track, etc... and they may not be able to put enough kids together to showcase the local high school talent....

kometswin
Thu, 04/14/2011 - 4:26am

Intheblue, this is a fund raiser which is being put on by Fort Wayne Youth Hockey which is a different association than High School. However, all your high school hockey players begin in Fort Wayne Youth Hockey. However, more and more of your good players are going to AAA hockey to showcase for Juniors as Fort Wayne High School High is considered a rec league and not really an avenue to get to Juniors or college hockey.

InTheBlue
Thu, 04/14/2011 - 6:23am

I don't know, you've got Fire vs Police, curling, figure skating and derby girls so there is certainly some variety in this mix. It is sad that FWYH and High School don't work more cooperatively.

BTW, nice story in the paper last week about Cody Hess, a 19 year old from Decatur, who helped lead his Helena Bighorns to his junior league championship. Didn't he play with North Side before moving on to Juniors? And I think at least five (maybe more) of this years AAA midget team play High School too. The two organizations need to work together for everyone's benefit.

As for High School is a rec league.... League games on Wednesday, practice on two nights a week, and games against out-of-town rivals on weekends is normal. Games are played throughout Indiana, and at times, in neighboring states. Some of these teams have schedules with upwards of 40 games in a season. State finals this year were in Indianapolis. Whatever USA hockey's classification, it takes more than casual effort to play in the high school league.

To dismiss High School as a rec league is also to dismiss some very talented players who can't quite devote a full season to travel. Any player coming from a fall sport in a school expecting a post-season is going to have trouble committing to to a AAA team. The same is true for players in spring sports, who need to be working out for baseball before midgets is all done.

There are also student athletes who participate in the life of their schools beyond sports. Athletes who bring a lot to the game, but are balanced between class, athletics and extracurriculars, and seek more from High School than just playing hockey. To dismiss these young men and women as simply players in a rec league is sad.

JR1, as for getting kids together, true for some but I am sure, if asked, a game could have been brought together. Maybe High School coaches against travel coaches would have been fun.

All I'm saying is that for an event with so many different activities from Bounce Mania to Derby girls to Curling, it would have been nice if HS had participated.

Wingsfan
Thu, 04/14/2011 - 7:31am

I'm on the planning committee for this event. High School Hockey was invited to participate and they chose not to.

kometswin
Thu, 04/14/2011 - 9:09am

Intheblue, plain and simple it's a fund raiser for Fort Wayne Youth Hockey. There's no slight to HS hockey. I believe you need to get some outside opinion on HS hockey from someone outside Fort Wayne. The junior scouts don't come here to watch young players, sorry it doesn't happen. It is considered a rec league outside of Fort Wayne and if a player is serious he needs to be on Ron Leef's team. There will be a U18 AAA team next year so for the serious player HS hockey will basically be eliminated. I don't know if you don't know this or if you forgot to mention that those HS players who were participating in AAA hockey were not allowed to play in any state competition since they didn't play crossover games.
Don't make more out of this then it is Blue. It's a fund raiser and many organizations were asked to fill the time. There was a news release sent out yesterday and there's your story. OKAY?

InTheBlue
Thu, 04/14/2011 - 10:56am

The comment from Wingsfan is interesting, and I am truly sorry to learn that the High School league didn't reach back when FWYH reached out. Not good.

Kometswin, I'm OKAY, but you sort of make the point for me. Most (but not all) the AAA players were not allowed to play in the state competition because of the failure to qualify enough cross-over games. With a little cooperation between the two organizations, the players doing both could have qualified and played in the state finals for varsity hockey, and still been available for the final tournament in midgets.

Your comment that a serious player needs to be on Ron Leef's team is fascinating. You seem to think that a 'serious' player necessarily must have the goal of playing hockey in college or high juniors. (There were plenty of high school league alumni playing low juniors last year so I am guessing that's not what you meant.)

Very few student-athletes in any sport, including hockey, go on to play at the collegiate level. It will be interesting to track the group of players coming out of the U16/U18 midget teams over the next few years, and see how many actually play college, pro or high-level junior. If it is only two or three I will have to wonder if the emphasis on AAA travel at the expense of the high school experience (and the competitive vitality of the high school league) actually benefits the kids in Fort Wayne.

I'm not suggesting we should do away with travel hockey, both travel and HS serve a useful purpose and are aimed at the same group of high school kids. I'm just saying that everyone should cooperate.

Wingsfan
Thu, 04/14/2011 - 4:00pm

Hopefully High School hockey will be able to participate in the future. I know several of the high school teams tried to make it work but commitments to other sports made it hard for them to commit this year.

And thanks Blake for posting the information!

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