The 2001 birth year hockey players for Belle Tire are a special group.

For the fifth-straight year, the boys captured the Michigan state championship, this time at Tier I 14U. That core group has been coached along the way by Joe Smaza.

“If I had to define our team, we’ve got a pretty good mix of a lot of tangibles that lead to having success,” Smaza said.

Smaza has coached some good Belle Tire teams over the years. The ’96 birth year group had four first-round NHL draft picks, including Detroit Red Wings center Dylan Larkin and University of Michigan winger Kyle Connor, who is a Hobey Baker Award finalist. In all, 10 players were drafted from that team that won the 14U national title.

This year’s Belle Tire 14U squad will get its shot at a national championship after winning the state tournament in Taylor, Michigan, on March 13.

The No. 6 rated team at 14U by myhockeyrankings.com downed No. 8-ranked Compuware in the state opener 5-1. Belle Tire followed that up by beating HoneyBaked 6-0 and the Oakland Jr. Grizzles 6-1.

In the semifinals, Belle Tire downed Fox Motors 1-0 before a showdown for the title with Little Caesars. During the regular season, the two teams squared off three times and the matchup was 1-1-1.

“We had some good games with them all year, three games that were pretty tight, so there was a lot of emotion,” Smaza said. “[Little] Caesars was going to get into nationals no matter what. As it turns out, we probably would have got into nationals just based on our ranking as well. For us, we felt it a must-win game.”

Belle Tire (40-10-9) led 2-0 before Little Caesars tied it with five minutes remaining in the third period. That’s when Davis Pennington stepped up. He scored a pair of goals, finishing out a hat trick. Pennington found out after the tournament that he played with tonsillitis.

Belle Tire surrendered a shorthanded goal late, but hung for a 4-3 victory to advance to they Toyota-USA Hockey National Championships — again.

“This is the prize we had our eye on the whole year,” Smaza said. “We played all the teams in the top 10 in the country with the exception of Shattuck [-St. Mary’s School]. We’re confident, and we’ve beaten Caesars, we’ve beaten the [Chicago] Mission, all those guys. We know that we can compete with anybody in the country. We’re just going to go and work as hard as we can work and try to represent the state of Michigan as best we can at nationals.”

Victory Honda Tier I 18U Returns to Nationals

After a one-year hiatus, the Victory Honda Tier I 18U team is back at nationals. In 2014, the 18s finished runner-up, falling to Shattuck-St. Mary’s 3-2 in the title game.

Coach Brian Burke is happy to get his guys back on the national stage.

“It’s a special opportunity to play against the best teams in the country,” Burke said. “We’re excited for the opportunity to go San Jose and make a run at things.”

About a half dozen of this year’s players have nationals experience, which has been instrumental in the success of the 2015-16 team.

“I think they’re kind of rubbing off on the other folks,” Burke said.

Victory Honda beat the Soo Indians 5-1 in its state playoffs opener. Victory Honda then lost 3-2 to Oakland Jr. Grizzles, before downing Little Caesars 5-2.

Victory Honda (57-14) defeated Belle Tire 4-3 in the semis to set up a best-of-three series against Oakland. Victory Honda won the first game 2-1 in overtime as Justin Michaelian scored the game winner about six minutes into the extra session. In Game 2 of the championship series, the Grizzles went up 1-0.

“Oakland came out flying because they knew it was an elimination game,” Burke said. “I thought our guys were resilient. They dealt with the first five-, six-, seven-minute wave and just kept playing and sticking to it.”

Victory Honda scored the final four goals of the game to earn a 4-1 victory and the state title.

Burke has a lot of respect for the Oakland Jr. Grizzles, which his team went 4-4 against this season. Victory Honda outscored the Grizzles 23-21 in its eight matchups. Burke’s players were hoping for a rematch in the championship game.

“I think they are without a doubt a very well organized team and compete extremely hard,” Burke said. “We fully expected to see them.”

A Bull’s-eye for Victory Honda Tier I 16U

With pressure to live up to its reputation, the Victory Honda Tier I 16U squad has taken everything in stride and embraced the bull’s-eye.

“They’ve realized how hard every game is, because everybody would get up to play us,” Victory Honda coach Derek Szajner said. “I think it helped us to win the states.”

Victory Honda (49-14-2) took home the state title and punched its ticket to nationals. The team downed Meijer AAA Hockey 8-1 in the opener of the state tournament and beat Belle Tire 3-2. In the third game, Victory Honda knew it was going to advance to the semifinals, but lost 3-1 to Fox Motors.

Victory Honda rebounded with a 6-2 win over the Oakland Jr. Grizzles to move into the best-of-three championship series against seventh-ranked Little Caesars. Victory Honda lost 2-0 in the first game, but came back for 4-3 and 1-0 victories to win the title.

“We’ve been pretty confident all year that nobody’s beat us two games in a row,” Szajner said. “I think they knew they just had to stay the course.”

In the final game, Little Caesars had a 5-on-3 power play, but Victory Honda killed it off. With about eight minutes left in the third period, Chase Danol netted the game winner.

“Our guys just kept it simple, played very defensive, our D stepped up and didn’t give up any odd-man rushes,” Szajner said. “We were able to capitalize on a turnover in their zone to score a goal.”

The Victory Honda players only have one thing in mind entering nationals: taking home a trophy.

“They want to play for it all,” Szajner said. “They’re not going to settle for anything but being in that championship game.”

St. Claire Shores Tier II 18U Wants Another Title

After winning the Tier II 16U national championship last season, about half the guys from the St. Claire Shores Saints moved up to 18U. Now, they want to win another title at the next level.

“Like every team, we’re going to be competitive and give our best to try to win it,” St. Claire Shores coach Matt Romaniski said. “It’s been our goal all year to repeat as national champs from 16 to 18. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs this year – a lot of guys injured, guys were sick and we were short-manned a lot in a lot of big tournaments. We came on at the right time of year and got healthy and everybody’s playing well.”

St. Claire Shores (40-13-3) took the first step in playing for a national title by winning the state tournament.

The Saints won all three of its round robin games, downing Kensington Valley 2-0, Troy Sting 2-0 and Flint Jr. Firebirds 1-0. In the semifinals, St. Claire Shores faced a familiar foe in the Allen Park Huskies. Allen Park downed the Saints twice to win the National Junior Prospects League championship. In a rematch, St. Claire Shores pulled out a 3-2 victory.

“That was a big momentum game for us and gave us a lot of confidence going into the Copper Country game,” Romaniski said.

St. Claire Shores took on Team Copper Country, ranked No. 4 in the nation, and earned a 3-0 victory.

Saints goalie Rob Kowalczyk played in four games in the tournament and registered three shutouts. He surrendered just two goals.

“Rob’s been a special goalie for us for three year now and he’ll probably get a chance to go on and play juniors next year,” Romaniski said. “He’s kind of our leader, our backbone. When he’s playing well everybody kind of feeds off of him.”

Guys Want Repeat for Oakland Jr. Grizzles Tier II 16U

The Oakland Jr. Grizzles made it a goal from Day 1 to get a return trip to nationals.

Last year at the Tier II 14U level, the Grizzles players took home the national title. This year at 16U, they will be back in the big dance.

“We thought we had a chance to do that,” Grizzles 16U coach Jason Selleke said. “We were pretty good on paper. That being said, we knew we had to earn it and earned it. It means that these kids get to go and play the best competition around the country, and that’s what they wanted to experience.”

Having players on the squad with national championship experience only helps out the Grizzles.

“I think it brings a sense of calmness over everybody that we have guys that have been there before,” Selleke said. “I would say six or seven have been there before. Those guys want to show the other guys what it was all about and how cool it was, how well you’re treated.”

The Grizzles have been on a roll late in the season, going 23-3-1 in their last 27 games. They captured the state title by going 5-0 in the tournament.

The Grizzles (54-8-6) beat the Flint Jr. Firebirds 8-1, Jimmy Johns Royals 11-1 and Michigan Elite Brigade 4-3 in a shootout.

“From there, we played some of our best hockey of the year in the semis and finals,” Selleke said.

Oakland downed the Muskegon Chiefs 4-0 in the semifinals and dispatched of the Metro Jr. Jets (White) 8-2 for the championship.

The Grizzles have been riding their defense all season, allowing just 87 goals in 68 games (1.28 goals against per game). The team has registered 21 shutouts.

“For me, it was a total team effort,” Selleke said.

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.