skip navigation

Stillwell, Team Wisconsin Win Epic Four-Overtime Final

By Greg Bates - Special to USAHockey.com, 04/07/14, 9:00AM MDT

Share

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- It was a game that seemed like it could go on forever.

So it was only a fitting a local product ended the longest and last contest of the 2014 Toyota-USA Hockey Tier I Youth National Championships.

Green Bay native Tony Stillwell scored with just 3:36 remaining in the fourth overtime of the 16-and-Under national championship game to give the hosts from Team Wisconsin a 2-1 victory over the Colorado Thunderbirds on Sunday at the Cornerstone Ice Center.

“Just the best game of my life,” said Stillwell, who is a junior at Green Bay Notre Dame Academy, which plays its home games at Cornerstone.

The goalies on both teams played out of their minds, but Stillwell was able to solve Thunderbirds goaltender Kristofer Carlson.

Holding the puck in Wisconsin’s zone, Stillwell skated from the point and worked his magic.

“I took it outside around a guy, back to the inside and just ripped it on net,” said Stillwell, who has verbally committed to play hockey at the University of Wisconsin. “I saw it in the back of the net and I just went down towards [our] goalie and everyone was on top of me. It was just a crazy feeling.”

The shot weaved through traffic in front of the net and came in clean on Carlson — who had 29 saves — beating him on the short side.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” Wisconsin goalie Henry Cutting said. “I saw Stillwell coming down the ice on his knees and I was like, ‘Wow. This is amazing.’”

Stillwell’s shot was certainly the most memorable moment of the day. However, it was Cutting’s stellar prowess between the pipes that kept Team Wisconsin — which won its first 16U national title — playing into the fourth overtime.

“I really think he won the game for us, at least two or three times diving across the net and saving pucks, odd-man rushes,” Stillwell said about Cutting. “He was just a brick wall.”

Cutting stopped 33 of 34 shots he faced, but nothing was bigger than his play in the third overtime. With 2:32 left, there was a scrum just to the right of Cutting and Thunderbirds forward Zachary Taylor was camped on the doorstep all alone. The puck squirted over to Taylor, who tried to elevate it, but Cutting made a beautiful glove save.

“I saw a lot of net, let’s put it that way,” Wisconsin coach Luke Strand said. “Cuts is a very competitive young man that finds a way.”

Just two minutes later, Cutting also stoned Zachary Goberis in front to send the game into the fourth overtime.

After already playing 81 minutes heading into the fourth extra session, it was starting to become tough for the players to keep their focus and composure.

“The national title, the adrenaline, that all just kept me in the game,” Cutting said. “I was just in a zone, and I knew I wasn’t going to get scored on.”

Even though his players were exhausted, coach Strand wasn’t worried about his guys wearing down physically.

“For us, the tired time became a mental problem,” Strand said. “We turned over a lot of pucks for a while there. I thought we kept our legs, but we lost our minds. They found a way to regroup.”

The game was scoreless until the second period when Wisconsin’s Kevin Conley scored on a pass from Stillwell at the 10:42 mark. Colorado quickly tied it three minutes later on a goal by Maxwell Gerlach.

Wisconsin and Colorado didn’t face each other during the regular season, but they played on the opening day of the national tournament during pool play with Wisconsin earning a 3-2 victory. It wasn’t quite the epic battle like the championship game.

“It was two teams fighting it out to the end,” Thunderbirds coach Angelo Ricci said. “In a game like this there’s no loser, but there is. You hate to come up on the short side.”

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.


Popular Articles & Features

USA Hockey Announces Updates to 2023-24 Tryout Parameters

By USA Hockey 02/01/2023, 12:55pm MST

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- A little wakeup call was all the Chesterfield Falcons needed.
 
The Missouri team gave up a quick goal to the Charlotte Jr. Checkers in the AA title game of the USA Hockey Tier II 16-and-Under National Championships, but rebounded in a big way with five straight goals. 
 
The Falcons then held off a scrappy Checkers squad the rest of the way to earn a 7-3 victory in Sunday’s championship at the Cornerstone Community Center.
 
“I think we were a little nervous coming in,” said Chesterfield wing Nick Haydon, who scored two goals in the title game. “They scored that goal and you can’t get down. We went out there with a good, strong shift and put a couple in the net and rolled from there.”
 
According to Chesterfield coach Nick Lamia, his players step up their game when the pressure’s on.
 
“That’s just kind of been the character of our team,” Lamia said. “We like challenges, and they went up 1-0 and I think the boys just kind of mentally regrouped and we just started playing harder and better.”
 
After playing six games in five days, the Checkers players simply ran out of gas in the championship game.

“We’ve got a real short lineup and our big guns, they just tired out,” Charlotte coach Bob Halkidis said. “We had that foot on the gas pedal pretty much the whole tournament.”
 
Coming into Sunday, the Falcons won all five of their tournament games by one goal apiece. But Sunday, the Falcons went on a scoring binge and team’s offense was clicking on all cylinders for the first time in the tournament, Lamia said. The Falcons out-shot the Checkers 43-13 and registered three power-play goals and one shorthanded goal.
 
Charlotte lit the lamp first at the 7:50 mark of the first period as Scott Jacoppo poked in a rebound. After that, it was all Falcons. Chesterfield scored five unanswered goals in a span of 18 minutes, 40 seconds. Haydon scored twice and Ken Behlmann, Ethan Gremminger and Michael Parisot all got one goal each.
 
The Falcons were up 4-1 with 3:28 remaining in the second period when the Checkers drew a Falcons penalty. Halkidis decided to pull his goalie for an extra skater and attack the Falcons with a 6-on-4 advantage.
 
“We’ve been doing that all year and we’ve had pretty good success doing that,” Halkidis said. “We really had nothing to lose down 4-1. If you don’t score a goal and get back in the game, it’s going to be tough. We were on our heels most of the game, so I was just looking to get a goal.”
 
According to Halkidis, he yanked his goalie about 20 times in regulation time during the season and tallied 11 goals. The odds were in the Checkers’ favor to notch a goal Sunday in that situation. The move backfired, however, as the Falcons scored in the empty net and took a commanding four-goal lead.
 
Both teams notched two third-period goals, but the outcome wasn’t in question after the second intermission.
 
Lamia said the difference in the game was his team’s desire all season to be the best. His players knew exactly what they needed to do each practice to get better to reach their ultimate goal.
 
“I think we wanted it more and we came out there and we were focused,” Haydon said. “Our preparation, we’ve got a routine, and we stick to everything.”
 
On the Checkers’ side, Halkidis was proud his team advanced as far as it did. The players are “overachievers” in Halkidis’ mind.
 
“To come this far and end up second in the country, it’s an amazing accomplishment for a small-market team like us,” Halkidis said.
 
Haydon approached the championship game with the opposite outlook.
 
“We came into the game knowing it’s not worth it if you come in here and lose — no one’s going to remember you,” Haydon said. “We had to have that mentality of: ‘We’re going to win,’ and we had to have that mindset that we are winners and we’re going to be the champions.”

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.

USAHockey.com takes a look back at a goaltending friendship story from the 2023 Chipotle-USA Hockey National Championships