The Kewadin Casino Tournament in Sault Saint Marie, Michigan, is always a greatly anticipated event. The stories get better every year, and thankfully, no lasting injuries or jail time have been involved. For the juicy details of this year and past tournaments, you must ask late into the night in Skaters Bar. There won’t be any doxing here.

Flint was well represented in the Soo again this tournament with at least six teams from our barn. Lansing came in second with about four teams. Toledo and, of course, Ontario were represented in the sixteen-team tournament. I’m not certain of the hierarchy of the divisions, except to say that we were in the lowest division for Gears Beer Hockey, with all of our players over 50 and most over 60, except for Edwin in goal, who is 42.

In the Black Jack Division, Scooters brought a strong team up that would dominate any of the Flint teams, but they couldn’t score enough on the Lansing teams in their division. They had five goals with eight against. Dalton was in net. Our favorite ref, Darryl, was on D and scored a couple. Budtenders TK was buzzing around. They had one win against the Rebels whose only win was against the Champs – Cavemen. Tight division.

Six teams in the Stud Division, with three in each sub-division of Aces and Diamonds. Kewadin Wings won in OT for the Championship of the STUDS.

The young guys from Flint filled up the Roulette Division – mostly. Some played on two teams! Talk about tired puppies!

Marc Morrison had a bunch of players drop just days away from the tournament for legit reasons, just bad luck. So he filled his team, Great Lakes, with some young bucks who helped them make it to the championship game on Sunday. They lost to Okwaho 3-2 in the championship game. I watched Okwaho play on Saturday and Jake Aarond was buzzing around out there. The team was 30ish. Mike Davis’s team, Antcliff won the most fun in the bar! Their lineup was all 50+ players. Age does matter.

The Gears.Beer Hockey team swept the Royal Flush Division. They squeaked out a win against the Flint Oldtimers led by Mike Petty. They had Dicosola’s kid and Dousette’s kid playing to give them more speed and firepower. Edwin played great in net, and we won in a shootout Saturday morning. With a win under our belt Friday night and a win Saturday morning, lunch was relaxed. Saturday afternoon, we played the Lucky Puckers, who had not won ye,t and Edwin shut them out for a 5-0 victory. Flint Oldtimers played Purple Cobras Saturday afternoon to determine who we played on Sunday. I was torn on who to root for. We felt more confident against Purple Cobra, which was an 18+ C Flint team, but it would be fun to play against Oldtimers. Unfortunately, the Oldtimers played to a tie late in the game and then lost 1-2 to Purple Cobra. At 9 am Sunday, we beat Purple Cobra 5-1. Edwin had a total of three goals against for the tournament! Great job Edwin!

Here is our roster. I pulled two new players in who helped make the difference: Scott Clementz and Collin Lilly. They made a line with Larry Ollearos of All Black Hockey Sticks for the first two games, but with Joe Garcia under the weather for the last two games, we spread them out in the lineup, and it made us even stronger every shift on the ice. Big thanks to all who joined the fun in the Soo!

Roster:
Edwin Dean – Goalie

Collin Lilly (former Budtender)
Scott Clementz
Larry Ollearis (All Black Hockey Sticks)
Gerald Edwards (Budtender mngr)
Tom Murray
Dave Crabill  (Budtender)
Joe Garcia
Sean Fountain
Vincent Molosky
Scott Polisky
Michael Benoit
JB Butterfield
Chris Burkland