March 2, 2023 at 8:45 a.m.
Hodag Squirts ready to host WAHA state tournament
Rhinelander No. 1 seed as play begins tomorrow
Hodag Squirts ready to host WAHA state tournament
This year is a little bit different, however, as the RIA has a team vying to be one of the best.
Eight teams will converge on the Hodag city and the Rhinelander Ice Arena beginning tomorrow for the Wisconsin Amateur Hockey Association for the Class 3A state Squirt (U10) tournament. Rhinelander has a team in the field as the host and will welcome six teams who won their regional playdowns last month, plus one wild card team for the two-day tournament.
Though the RIA has been a preferred choice of WAHA to host a state tournament the past several years - rink manager Brett Aylesworth said this is the seventh straight year the RIA has hosted a state tournament - this marks the first time since 2020 that the program has had a team compete on its home ice. The Rhinelander/Tomahawk bantam (U14) team took third in that state tournament.
"It's exciting for us. We host these tournaments fairly often, almost every year lately, but sometimes we end up without a team in it," Aylesworth said. "It's great this year to be able to have our Squirt A team participate in the tournament as our host team."
The team has a familiar head coach too. Randy Ostrom, who was on the bench for that Bantam team three years ago and has become a key figure in the Hodag youth hockey program by starting up the Northern Wisconsin Knights junior program that supplements player development at the RIA in the spring months.
"Our development this year has been awesome with this group of kids. It's been a lot of fun to watch these kids grow," he said. "We've done a lot of moving these kids around to get them to develop at all levels and at all positions in this program. To see some of these kids be able to take a drop at center and then take their next shift at D, and play both just as good as the other, that's a really cool feather in these kids' cap as far as their development potential goes."
Ostrom said there are definite nuances between coaching the game at the Squirt level, as opposed to the Bantam level in terms of player development.
"The game at the U14 level is so different, when you start talking about using the body and the physical nature of the game at that level, you can play a different kind of hockey depending on what you have for size and speed and ability at that level," he said. "You look at the U10/Squirt level, it's all about putting a team dynamic together on the ice with the right skill and putting kids in the position to be successful."
The Hodags open the tournament at 11 a.m. tomorrow against Ashland at the RIA. That's a team Rhinelander knows well after traveling to Ashland and winning their Squirt tournament last weekend.
Ostrom said that tournament - which awarded points based on a team's performance each period rather than each game - was beneficial heading into this weekend.
"We were able to coach the game one period at a time, based on how it was scored," he said. "We could literally shake the Etch-A-Sketch every eight minutes and say, 'OK that's behind you, now you've got to go do what's in front of you.'
"To come out and win 15 periods of hockey out of 18 - and three we lost were not in the same game - that was really big. That was a great mental development opportunity for our kids."
The Rhinelander-Ashland game is one of eight contests to be played Saturday. The quarterfinal games take place in the morning. The semifinal, and consolation semifinal games will take place in the afternoon. The four placement games will be held on Sunday, culminating with the championship game at 1:30 p.m.
WAHA seeded its A-level state tournaments for the first time this year, and the Hodags come in as the top seed in the Squirt 3A draw.
"They're definitely stronger than most people expected. They're a good team," Aylesworth said. "It's pretty rare that the host would be on the top half of the bracket even."
Ostrom said, while he takes the seeding with a grain of salt, it's nice to be considered the favorite heading into the event.
"The seeding, as unique as it is this year, what an awesome opportunity to put the bid in for this tournament, have it in Rhinelander and then not have to go in as the 'host team' and get randomly seeded," he said. "To get the bid and get the 1-seed because you played for it, that's huge. That's bigger than when we had the tournament here for the U14 team, I think."
Somerset is the No. 2 seed, followed by Marshfield, Waupun, Black River Falls, Oshkosh, Reedsburg/Wisconsin Dells and Ashland.
The tournament will bring to a close what has been a whirlwind winter hockey season for the RIA. Though its Squirt A team is the only to have advanced to the state level, the rink has been busy pretty much every weekend since the start of November. In fact, this will be the fourth straight weekend the RIA has hosted a tournament -preceded by its own Mite (U8), Squirt and Peewee (U12) invites.
Aylesworth said all of the associations were full with a waiting list to get in and that the RIA plans to add another tournament to its calendar for the 2023-24 season.
"Our regular tournaments are a little bigger than this one, but the one thing I would say is this one brings more spectators with," Aylesworth said, noting their is no admission charge to watch this weekend's games. "Grandparents are coming, aunts and uncles are coming. Our regular tournaments are crowded. We've got 12-14 teams here and a lot of people, but I bet there will be just as many people mulling around this weekend with only eight teams, because they're all bringing friends and family."
All of those visitors are eating in area restaurants and staying in local hotels, too.
"The tourism impact of winter sports - hockey, the (Hodag) Dome now - it's changed the face of Rhinelander winters for a lot of these small businesses," Aylesworth said.
In addition to hosting the state tournament, there is the chance to watch some of the future stars of area hockey on the ice. Sam Schneider and Joey Belanger were standouts on the 2020 Bantam state team and All-Great Northern Conference recipients this year for the Hodag boys' hockey team.
The players on this year's Squirt A team include Nick Schneider, Sam Schneider's younger brother. He's joined by Mason Paulson, Sawyer Peters, Gage Chavez, Hugh Anunson, Easton Ostrom, Max Cahee, Jacob Baumann, Lucia Pavlik, Isabel Welch and Collin Jorata.
"The whole experience of state, for these kids to make it this far at this age, is really going to set a tone for their development in the future," Randy Ostrom said. "They should be fun to watch for a lot of years. They should be a really good group to watch."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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